Effects of Phonics on the Reading and Writing of Children with Difficulties in Understanding the Alphabetic PrincipleAbstract
This study investigated the effects of phonics instruction on the written language skills of 48 children (M age = 7.45 y) from 1st to 3rd grade who struggled with understanding the alphabetic principle. The assessment was based on measures of reading, writing, letter knowledge, and phonological awareness. Using a quasi-experimental design paired with a control group, the data were analyzed using Generalized Estimating Equations and the Mann-Whitney test. Results showed significant effects for the group that participated in the 22 phonics sessions, improving understanding of the alphabetic principle, development of phonological awareness, and reading and writing skills. The findings of this study support evidence that phonics significantly enhances reading and writing performance in students struggling to understand the alphabetic principle and phonological awareness.
Keywords:
phonics instruction; literacy; alphabetic principle; reading; writing; phonological awareness
Resumo
Este estudo investigou os efeitos da instrução fônica sobre a linguagem escrita de 48 crianças (M idade = 7,45a) do 1º ao 3º ano, com dificuldades na compreensão do princípio alfabético, com base em medidas de leitura, escrita, letras e consciência fonológica. Com delineamento quase-experimental e grupo de comparação, os dados foram analisados com Generalized Estimating Equation e Mann-Whitney. Resultados mostraram efeitos significativos para o grupo que participou das 22 sessões de fônica, favoreceu a compreensão do princípio alfabético, desenvolvimento da consciência fonológica, e habilidades de leitura e escrita. Achados do presente estudo apoiam as evidências de que a fônica promove efeitos significativos no desempenho em leitura e escrita de alunos com dificuldades na compreensão do princípio alfabético e na consciência fonológica.
Palavras-chave:
instrução fônica; alfabetização; princípio alfabético; leitura; escrita; consciência fonológica
The aim of the present research was to examine the effects of phonics instruction on the reading and writing performance of children in the 1st to 3rd grades of elementary school who experience difficulties in understanding the alphabetic principle. The term ‘phonics’ refers to the knowledge of relationships between the graphemes of the alphabetic writing system and the phonemes of spoken language, enabling the graphic representation of oral language (Chall, 2009). Phonics instruction is an explicit instructional approach that emphasizes teaching grapheme-phoneme correspondences, which supports the understanding of the alphabetic principle, i.e., the recognition that the sounds of speech, or phonemes, are represented by graphemes (Chambrè, Ehri & Ness, 2020; Snowling & Hulme, 2013).
Based on research that intensified in the 2000s, it is strongly recommended to integrate phonics into a comprehensive written language program, allowing children to apply phonics knowledge in reading and writing (National Reading Panel, 2000). The primary aim of phonics is to enable children to recognize words quickly and accurately by understanding letter-sound relationships, thereby facilitating fluent and comprehensive reading and accurate writing (Castles, Rastle & Nation, 2018; Ehri, 2022; Savage, 2015). Phonics requires the development of phonological awareness skills, enabling children to recognize and manipulate the sounds of spoken language, such as rhymes, alliterations, syllables, and phonemes (Ehri, 2020). Phonemic awareness, a component of this construct, is considered an abstract and more complex sound unit, as it involves the ability to perceive and manipulate the smallest units of speech sounds: phonemes that constitute words (Castles, Rastle & Nation, 2018).
The importance of phonics instruction for the acquisition of written language has been reinforced through research using neuroimaging techniques, which have provided new insights into the plasticity and neuronal recycling of the human brain in written language learning contexts (Dehaene, 2012; 2022). Evidence from studies conducted in different languages supports the case for literacy programs incorporating phonics, as it advances children’s reading and writing skills (Castles, Rastle & Nation, 2018; Dehaene, 2022). For those learning to read, knowledge and use of a relatively small set of grapheme-phoneme relationships within the alphabetic writing system enable the possibility of decoding many words (Castles, Rastle & Nation, 2018). Decoding involves developing essential skills such as perceiving and identifying individual sounds and their grapheme-phoneme correspondences, segmenting and blending them, and sustaining these sounds in memory to pronounce written words. It is broadly acknowledged that phonemic awareness skills are tied to the development of both decoding and encoding abilities (Ehri, Nunes, Stahl & Willows, 2001; Gonzalez-Frey & Ehri, 2020; National Reading Panel, 2000), both of which are essential for learning to read in alphabetic writing systems.
Phonics-based interventions can play an important role in reducing and preventing further literacy difficulties (Levlin & Mentzer, 2020) and benefit a wide range of student profiles (Ehri, Nunes, Stahl & Willows, 2001; Michalick-Triginelli & Cardoso-Martins, 2015), including those with a lower development of predictive skills established during preschool years, such as letter-sound knowledge, vocabulary development, phonological awareness, and phonemic awareness (Ehri, 2020; Ehri, Nunes & Willows, 2001; National Reading Panel, 2000). Moreover, these interventions can prevent the negative consequences of early and persistent difficulties in learning written language (Gonzalez-Frey & Ehri, 2020; Kilpatrick & O’Brien, 2019; Levlin & Mentzer, 2020; McArthur et al., 2018).
A meta-analysis conducted by the National Reading Panel (2000) played a fundamental role in promoting phonics instruction as an integral component of literacy programs in American schools. This study, conducted by a panel of literacy experts, reviewed a wide range of research on methods for teaching reading and writing. One of the most striking conclusions of the report was the importance of this instructional approach for children's literacy development. Phonics is regularly associated in the field's literature with the terms explicit and systematic (Savage, 2015). This means that teachers need to establish an intentional, direct sequence of instruction that progresses from simpler grapheme-phoneme correspondences to more complex patterns. Such progression enables students to build a solid foundation of phonics skills that can be applied to reading and writing (Ghoneim & Abdelsalam Elghotmy, 2015; Savage, 2015).
McArthur et al. (2018) investigated the effects of phonics instruction on the reading and writing skills of low-performing readers, based on 14 studies involving 923 participants, including children and teenagers from low- and middle-income status families who were native English speakers. They concluded that phonics was effective in improving the skills of struggling readers (McArthur et al., 2018). Another meta-analysis, conducted by Nilvius, Carlsson, Fälth, and Nordström (2021), demonstrated that interventions delivered in small groups achieved better results compared to students who attended regular classroom instruction. Additional recommendations for effective interventions concern the teaching rate of phonemes, with a faster pace involving the introduction of two to four correspondences per week, accompanied by review cycles (Vadasy & Sanders, 2021). Other key characteristics include the number and duration of sessions, variations in tutor profiles, constructs embedded in phonics programs, types of materials used, the size of intervention groups, models of response to intervention, and the integration of phonics with the use of phonetic imagery (Castles, Rastle & Nation, 2018; Ehri, 2020; Kilpatrick & O’Brien, 2019; Ghoneim & Abdelsalam Elghotmy, 2015; Moats, 2019; Vadasy & Sanders, 2021).
There is evidence supporting the efficacy of phonics in early literacy instruction and in addressing reading and writing deficits (Ehri, Nunes, Stahl & Willows, 2001; Kilpatrick & O’Brien, 2019; National Reading Panel, 2000). However, further research is needed in Brazilian Portuguese (Sargiani, 2022), specifically through interventions conducted in school settings with the goal of contributing to the application of phonics instruction strategies in classrooms, both for aiding low reading performance and for early preventive interventions.
The present study aimed to investigate the effects of phonics instruction on the reading and writing performance of children with difficulties understanding the alphabetic principle, enrolled in the 1st to 3rd grades of elementary school. The study sought to address questions regarding the effects of phonics instruction interventions and their contribution to the prevention and remediation of learning difficulties in reading and writing for children struggling with the alphabetic principle. The hypothesis proposed that phonics instruction would improve children's understanding of the alphabetic principle and foster the development of phonological and phonemic awareness alongside reading and writing skills. Furthermore, it was anticipated that the intervention’s effects would help prevent and aid the learning difficulties of students on the receiving end of interventions.
The following specific targets were established: a) Compare the reading and writing performance of the group of students who participated in the interventions with those who attended regular classes; b) Measure the effect of phonics instruction interventions, reflecting the magnitude of performance differences between the intervention and control groups.
Method
Participants
To select participants, a pretest conducted at the beginning of the 2022 academic year was applied, assessing 75 students from three different classes in the 1st grade (n = 23), 2nd grade (n = 27), and 3rd grade (n = 25). Inclusion criteria for the sample considered below-average performance in reading and writing of words and pseudowords. After selection, participants were randomly assigned to an intervention group (hereinafter, IG) and a control group (hereinafter, CG). After group distribution, comparative analyses of collected data were based on the IG (n = 24) and CG (n = 24).
Participants in this study were: 48 children (54.2% boys) aged 6 to 9 years (age in years: M = 7.45; SD = 1.01; age in months: M = 89.38; SD = 12.13), all Brazilian Portuguese speakers. No significant differences were observed in sex distribution (c 2 (1, N = 48) = 0.336; p = 0.562) or mean age (U = 265, p = 0.652) between the IG and CG. The research was conducted at a public school in São Paulo, classified by the Brazilian Socioeconomic Level Indicator (INSE) as medium to medium-low (Brazil, 2019).
Instruments
Letter Knowledge Task - LKT (Puliezi, 2010). The LKT assessed children’s knowledge of letters. It was applied through a collective dictation of randomly ordered letters to prevent writing from mechanical alphabetic recitation. Scoring criteria: 1 point for correct responses, 0 for incorrect. Maximum score 26 points.
Word and Pseudoword Dictation Test, reduced version - WPDT (Seabra & Capovilla, 2013). The test evaluated the writing accuracy of isolated words and pseudowords via collective dictation. It comprises 36 items (24 words and 12 pseudowords). The scoring followed Nobile, Barrera, and Rebustini (2021) based on Ehri's (2014) phases of literacy development: pre-alphabetic (0 points), partial alphabetic (1 point), complete alphabetic (2 points), and consolidated alphabetic (3 points). Maximum score 108 points.
Sentence Writing Task - SWT (Guimarães, 2011). Assessed sentence writing accuracy, focusing on lexical segmentation, spacing, and recognition of different words with identical phonetic sequences. The SWT consisted of 10 sentences (74 words total). Errors were characterized in the writing of sentences by the unconventional segmentation of words, either by a lack of separation or improper joining. Scoring criteria followed 1 point per correct response. The maximum score is 74 points.
Word and Pseudoword Reading Task - WPRT (adapted from Sargiani, 2013). This task measured the reading accuracy of isolated words and pseudowords. It comprises 36 items: 30 words and 6 pseudowords. Training with six words and two pseudowords was carried out before task application, after which the task was started, and no further instructions were given. After 10 consecutive errors or the student's refusal to partake in the task, the application was interrupted. The correction criteria were based on correct answers, according to Nobile, Barrera, and Rebustini (2021), who consider the stages of reading and writing development (Ehri, 2014), namely pre-alphabetic writing (zero); partially alphabetic (1 point); complete alphabetic (2 points); consolidated alphabetic (3 points). Maximum score 108 points.
Sentence Reading Task - SRT (adapted from Vilhena, Sucena, Castro & Pinheiro, 2016). This task assessed the children's sentence reading skills. Students were asked to read aloud five sentences from the Reading Test: Sentence Comprehension (RTSC) tool, totaling 49 words. The application was carried out individually. The correction criteria were zero for errors and one for correct answers for each word composing the sentences. After 10 consecutive errors in word reading or the student's refusal to continue, the task was interrupted. The maximum score is 49 points.
Text Reading Task - TRT (Rego, 2012). Assessed text-reading accuracy using the text O passeio do menino, composed of 38 words. After 10 consecutive errors or the student's refusal to continue, the task was interrupted. Maximum score 38 points.
Phonological Awareness Test via oral production - PAT (Seabra & Capovilla, 2012). The tool measured children's phonological awareness skills through oral production. It is a psychometric test, standardized for students aged 3-14, public school students, and is reliable and internally consistent with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.91. It is composed of 10 subtests, six of which check phonological awareness levels (PAT_P.A.) based on the abilities to perceive rhymes, alliteration, and manipulate syllabic units; and four others that assess the abilities to identify and manipulate phonemes (PAT_C. Phonemic). The application and correction criteria were based on the PAT, with 0 for an error and 1 point for a correct answer, with a maximum score of 40 points.
Ethical Considerations. This research project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP) under the Certificate of Submission for Ethical Appraisal CAAE 56648022.5.0000.5482 and advisory opinion no. 5.323.396. The principal of the school in which the research was conducted, as well as the parents and guardians of the students, signed the Free and Informed Consent Form. The form was requested verbally from the students participating in the research, who were informed that they could withdraw at any time.
Procedure. Data was collected from February 18 to July 4, 2022. All participants completed pre- and posttests; however, only IG students received phonics instruction, while CG students attended regular classes. Writing tasks were applied collectively, while reading and phonological awareness tasks were applied individually. Posttests began one day after the interventions were completed, and the data were analyzed using statistical tests based on the aim of this study. The following were independent variables of the study: phonics instruction and intervention, phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and letter knowledge. The dependent variables were reading and writing measures.
Phonics-Based Intervention Program. The intervention was designed using evidence-based materials. These included the Onomatopoeia Method (Puliezi, 2022) and the textbook ‘Let's All Learn to Read’ (Herrera, Salcedo, Sargiani & Navas, 2021). The phonics program consisted of 22 45-minute sessions, twice a week, under a controlled schedule. Each session was organized with the following components: 1) phonological awareness (identification and production of rhymes, alliterations, syllable segmentation and synthesis) and phonemic awareness (initial, medial and final identification, segmentation, manipulation and synthesis of phonemes; 2) teaching graphophonemic correspondences using the alphabet of onomatopoeias resource (Puliezi, 2018), associated with phono articulatory movements; 3) phonics instruction: production, discrimination and classification of phonemes and their graphic correspondences, application of alphabetic knowledge in segmentation, phonemic synthesis and orthographic mapping to decode and encode words; 4) decoding and encoding training of phonetically controlled words and phrases relating to the families of phonemes taught.
Data Analysis. Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests indicated non-normal data distribution (p < 0.05). Statistical significance was set at p ≤ 0.05, using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) version 26. As for the investigation on the effects of the phonics instruction intervention, analyses were carried out comparing the groups in the pre- and posttest, as well as the interaction between these variables, based on the Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) proposed by Liang and Zeger (1986). When statistically significant main and interaction effects were identified, Post-Hoc Least Significant Difference (LSD) was adopted. The Mann-Whitney U-test was used to measure the magnitude of Cohen's (1988) effect sizes (r) and to compare them with previous studies. The interpretation rule was based on Cohen (1988), and the formula was based on Rosenthal (1991).
Results
Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the sample's performance in all measured variables in the pre- and posttest, separated by CG (n = 24) and IG (n = 24) groups. Table 2 indicates the GEE analyses, which made it possible to assess the effects of phonics instruction intervention by comparing the two groups in the pre- and posttest and the interaction between group and time variables. The Post-Hoc Least Significant Difference (LSD) test was used for pairwise comparisons to identify statistical differences in performance between and among groups. Table 3 summarizes the effect sizes (r) calculated from the Mann-Whitney tests.
The GEE analyses in pretest performances (see Table 2) revealed no significant differences in sentence writing and phonological awareness skill levels between the IG vs CG groups; they did, however, reveal statistical differences for writing and reading words and pseudo-words, reading sentences, and text. When effect sizes for these initial differences were calculated, they were considered negligible and small, except for letter knowledge, which was found to have a moderate effect, based on Cohen's rule of interpretation (1988). Nevertheless, these differences at the starting point were controlled with GEE analyses and with additional effect size calculations using the Mann-Whitney U-test (see Table 3) based on the deltas (Δ) of the results, i.e., the difference between posttest and pretest, considering the growth of both groups and their differences to estimate the magnitude of the effect size.
In the analysis of word and pseudoword writing (WPDT), a group*time interaction effect was detected (p < 0.001), indicating that the students in the intervention group performed better than the control group. Posttest scores were higher than pretest scores for both the CG (p < 0.001) and IG (p < 0.001), but the average IG score was statistically superior to the CG (p < 0.001, r = 0.67; Δ r = 0.85, large effect). These results show that students who participated in the phonics intervention program performed better at writing words and pseudowords than the control group.
No significant differences were detected in sentence writing (SWT) between GI and CG in the pretest (p = 0.205). Posttest scores were higher than pretest scores for both CG (p < 0.001) and IG (p < 0.001). There was a group*time interaction effect (p < 0.001), showing superior performance by the IG compared to the CG (p < 0.001, r = 0.75; Δ r = 0.80, large effect). The data showed that the students in the intervention group performed better in sentence writing than those who did not receive this type of instruction.
Analyzing the performance in reading words and pseudowords (WPRT), the scores in the posttest were higher than in the pretest for both CG (p < 0.001) and IG (p < 0.001). Nonetheless, in the posttest, results were significant for the group*time interaction analysis (p < 0.001) with a large effect size for IG in relation to CG (p < 0.001, r = 0.66; Δ r = 0.84, large effect). In sentence reading, the data revealed a group*time interaction effect (p < 0.001) for sentence reading, in which the IG scored higher than the CG (p = 0.004) with a large effect size (p < 0.001; r = 0.65; Δ r = 0.83; large effect). Similarly, a group*time interaction effect (p < 0.001) was revealed in text reading, with a large effect size for IG over CG (p < 0.001; r = 0.63; Δ r = 0.82). Based on these results for reading words, pseudowords, sentences, and text, it is possible to infer that students in the phonics-based intervention group outperformed those in the control group who did not receive phonics instruction.
As for performance in letter knowledge, the analyses detected a group*time interaction effect (p < 0.001), which means that IG students performed better than CG, with a large effect size (p = < 0.001; Δ r = 0.72; large effect). The analysis of the development of phonological awareness (PAT_Total) also revealed a group*time interaction, identifying a significant difference between groups (p < 0.01), with a large effect size (p < 0.001; r = 0.55; Δ r = 0.73). As with the analyses based on the PAT_P.A. subtests (rhyme, alliteration, and syllables) and PAT_C. phonemic, there were also significant differences with a large effect size (see Table 3). The results in PAT_Total showed that IG students had greater development in phonological awareness.
Discussion
This study aimed to investigate the effects of phonics instruction on the reading and writing performance of children with difficulties in understanding the alphabetic principle, who attended classes from the 1st to the 3rd grade of elementary school. The results of the analysis of the effects of the intervention on the reading and writing performance of the IG students supported the hypothesis that the phonics instruction program favored the understanding of the alphabetic principle, the development of phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, reading and writing of children with difficulties in understanding the alphabetic principle and that the effects of the intervention contributed to preventing and aiding difficulties in learning written language. When comparing groups IG and CG, phonics promoted significant effects with large effect sizes in reading and writing. In addition, they showed that the phonics instruction intervention was effective in improving IG students' phonological and phonemic awareness skills, which are predictors of written language learning. Although CG students made progress between the pre- and posttests with regular schooling, they did not make as much progress as the students who received phonics instruction, and the results showed that there were difficulties in both the predictors and the reading and writing skills verified in the pretest, which persisted in the posttest. These results are consistent with the literature that phonics instruction, phonological awareness, and phonemic awareness are essential for learning and good performance in reading and writing (Clayton, West, Sears, Hulme & Lervåg, 2019; Levlin & Mentzer, 2020; McArthur et al., 2018).
It was also found that the pace of learning progression in the IG was faster than in the CG, promoting the learning of skills included in the phonics instruction program, which favor students' reading and writing performance, such as meta-phonological skills, phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, letter-sound awareness, and decoding and encoding. On the other hand, the slower pace of learning progress in the CG was reflected in their performance in the measured reading and writing tasks. The phonics instruction intervention enabled IG students to understand the alphabetic principle and to be able to apply this alphabetic knowledge to reading words, pseudo-words, sentences, text, and to writing words, pseudo-words, and sentences.
In writing words and pseudowords, it was evident that IG students performed better than CG students, with a statistically significant difference between the groups in the pre- and posttest, suggesting that the type of instruction contributed to the ability to write words and pseudowords. There was also a significant difference between the groups in terms of word and pseudoword reading performance, with an advantage for the students who took part in the phonics instruction interventions, even though students in both groups evolved with the regular schooling program.
The group*time interaction analyses showed a significant performance by the IG over the CG between the pre- and posttests for all other skills measured. The group of students who took part in the phonics instruction interventions developed phonological and phonemic awareness skills, which was expected given that they were covered in the phonics intervention sessions. It was verified that the CG, which did not take part in the phonics interventions, did not progress in phonemic awareness skills. This fact corroborates the literature on the need for explicit instruction in phonemic awareness (McCandliss, Beck, Sandak & Perfetti, 2003), as the phoneme is an abstract and less perceptible unit in the speech stream. As well as evidence from previous studies (Boyer & Ehri, 2011; Castiglioni-Spalten & Ehri, 2003; Nilvius, Carlsson, Fälth & Nordström, 2021), which found that phonics instruction and phonemic awareness help students to advance in alphabetic knowledge.
Based on the present evidence, it is recommended that phonological awareness and especially phonemic awareness activities be included in phonics instruction programs, as the initial development of reading depends on these phonological skills, thus deficits in this area are causally related to difficulties in learning to read and write, and can be indicators for identifying difficulties in written literacy (Clayton, West, Sears, Hulme & Lervåg, 2020; Michalick-Triginelli & Cardoso-Martins, 2015).
Students who received phonics instruction showed statistically significant, faster recovery and progress in learning to read and write than those who received other types of teaching. Comparisons between the IG and CG showed that the progress observed in the performance of the students in the intervention group was the result of their participation in the phonics sessions. The results collectively support the hypothesis that the students' participation in the phonics instruction sessions was effective for comprehending the alphabetic principle, as well as for applying alphabetic knowledge to the reading and writing of words, pseudowords, sentences, and text.
Studies investigating the effects of phonics instruction interventions, with intervention and control groups, conducted in a school environment, should be highlighted for their complexity in execution, involving changes to the school routine and a great deal of commitment from the researcher, teachers, and students alike. In turn, they can favor the generalization of the results, as they control the effect of the environment and are more similar to a typical school learning situation. The evidence obtained in this research is consistent, considering that it was a quasi-experimental study, with a control group as the essential element of comparison, in a natural school environment.
The results suggest that the phonics instruction program has shown great effects with children who face difficulties in understanding the alphabetic principle, a fundamental skill for progress in learning written language. Thus, the findings of this study may favor the training of literacy teachers to teach based on the explicit phonics instruction approach implemented in a regular classroom context or with small groups. Regarding the limits of this research, the size of the sample stands out, so further studies are recommended to expand the sample of participants. Furthermore, for operational reasons, it was not possible to carry out a second posttest to assess the stability of the intervention's effects.
The findings of the present study support evidence that phonics instruction has significant effects on initial literacy and on students with literacy difficulties and low levels of phonological awareness. The findings of this investigation contribute to the expansion of evidence in the scientific literature on the effects of explicit phonics instruction on the reading and writing performance of Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children who have difficulties understanding the alphabetic principle and those struggling to learn to read and write in early literacy.
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Research data is available on request from the corresponding author.
