A study has confirmed the premise of the Bush administration's "Reading First" initiative that systematic phonics instruction is essential in teaching young children of all backgrounds to read successfully.
The study, just published by researchers of the National Institute for Early Education Research and Rutgers University in New Jersey, re-examined findings of the National Reading Panel (NRP) in 2000.
The study gives even greater weight than the NRP to the importance of intensive phonics, which is systematic instruction of letter-sound relations in English and how to use them to read texts with controlled vocabulary.
"In our analyses, we found that programs using systematic phonics instruction outperformed programs using less-systematic phonics," the study concluded, adding that the difference with systematic phonics "is statistically significant."
The study, titled "Teaching Children To Read: The Fragile Link Between Science and Federal Education Policy," also confirmed the NRP's finding that children's reading ability improves after they have acquired basic "phonemic awareness and letter knowledge" by second grade, when phonics instruction is combined with language activities and tutoring.
"Systematic phonics instruction when combined with language activities and individual tutoring may triple the effect of phonics alone," concluded the study team led by Gregory Camilli of Rutgers' graduate school of education in Brunswick, N.J.
The report said the NRP did not focus enough on language activities and tutoring as part of a comprehensive literacy program in elementary schools.
"As federal policies are formulated around early literacy curricula and instruction, these findings indicate that phonics, as one aspect of the complex reading process, should not be over-emphasized," the report said.
Reid Lyon of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, who is President Bush's chief reading adviser, called the study "very strong."
