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Version 1.3 – Updated November 2024

Phonics instruction

Overview

  • Influence: Phonics instruction
  • Domain: Curricula
  • Sub-Domain: Reading, writing and the arts
  • Potential to Accelerate Student Achievement: Potential to considerably accelerate
  • Influence Definition: A form of instruction that stresses the acquisition of letter-sound correspondences in reading and spelling. It involves teaching children the sounds made by individual letters or letter groups (for example, the letter "c" makes a k sound), and teaching children how to merge separate sounds together to make it one word (for example, blending the sounds k, a, t makes CAT).

Evidence

  • Number of meta-analyses: 10
  • Number of studies: 424
  • Number of students: 73,243
  • Number of effects: 662
  • Weighted mean effect size: 0.97
  • Robustness index: 4

Meta-Analyses

Meta-Analyses
Journal Title Author First Author's Country Article Name Year Published Variable Number of Studies Number of Students Number of Effects Effect Size
Review of Educational Research Ehri, Nunes, Stahl, & Willows USA Systematic phonics instruction helps students learn to read: Evidence from the National Reading Panel's meta-analysis. 2001 Systematic phonics instruction 34 0 66 0.41
Education Policy Analysis Archives Camilli, Vargas, & Yurecko USA "Teaching children to read': The fragile link between science and federal education policy 2003 Phonics instruction 40 0 40 0.24
Report Torgerson, Brooks, Hall & Britain UK A systematic review of the research literature on the use of phonics in the teaching of reading and spelling 2006 Phonics instruction 19 0 20 0.27
Education and Urban Society Jeynes USA A meta-analysis of the relationship between phonics instruction and minority elementary school student academic achievement 2007 Phonics for minority students 22 5,000 22 0.30
Reading Research Quarterly Piasta & Wagner USA Developing early literacy skills: a meta-analysis of alphabet Learning and Instruction 2010 Alphabet learning on outcomes 63 8,468 82 0.43
Review of Educational Research Weiser & Mathes USA Using encoding instruction to improve the reading and spelling performances of elementary students at risk for literacy difficulties: A best-evidence synthesis 2011 Encoding instruction 11 0 11 0.78
Dissertation Gassler USA A meta-analysis of classroom studies that have compared code-emphasis to non-code-emphasis first grade reading methods. 1992 Word vs. non-word interventions 52 0 63 0.35
British Journal of Educational Psychology Adesope, Lavin, Thompson, & Ungerleider USA Pedagogical strategies for teaching literacy to ESL immigrant students: A meta-analysis. 2011 Systematic phonics instruction with ESL students 14 1,647 14 0.40
Review of Educational Research Tong, Yu, &Deacon Hong Kong A Meta-Analysis of the Relation Between Syntactic Skills and Reading Comprehension: A Cross-Linguistic and Developmental Investigation.  2024 Syntactic skills 59 15,212 234 1.28
Review of Educational Research Garcia & Cain Spain Decoding and reading comprehension: A meta-analysis to identify which reader and assessment characteristics influence the strength of the relationship in English.  2024 Decoding 110 42,916 110 2.20
TOTAL/AVERAGE 424 73,243 662 0.67
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