Dr Kerry Hempenstall, Senior Industry Fellow, School of Education, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.
All my blogs can be viewed on-line or downloaded as a Word file or PDF at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/olxpifutwcgvg8j/AABU8YNr4ZxiXPXzvHrrirR8a?dl=0
New Addition – April 2025
We have moved significantly in the adopting of phonological issues within Australian literacy in recent times. There is ample evidence how important these issues are in the awareness of literacy attainment problems in Australia.
What are the issues within the 100 Lessons program
AI Overview
“Yes, the "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" program can positively impact a child's phonological processing skills. Specifically, the program, which typically involves 100 lessons over 20 weeks, aims to improve a child's reading level and phonological awareness, with the expectation that they will continue to progress at a similar pace to their classmates.
Elaboration:
- Phonological Awareness:
The program's focus on phonics, which involves teaching letter-sound relationships, can help children develop phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds of language, which is a crucial skill for reading and spelling.
- Improved Reading Skills:
By improving phonological processing, the program can facilitate reading development, as it helps children break down words into individual sounds and then blend those sounds back together to form new words.
- Potential for Long-Term Impact:
While the program's primary goal is to improve reading level within the 100 lessons, it also aims to establish foundational skills that can support continued reading progress.
- Individual Variation:
It's important to note that the effectiveness of any intervention program, including the 100 lessons program, can vary depending on individual child characteristics and learning styles.
- Complementary to Other Interventions:
The 100 lessons program can be used in conjunction with other interventions, such as phonological awareness training, to further enhance reading skills
How To Teach Phonological Awareness (2024)
“To teach phonological awareness, begin by demonstrating the relationship between parts to wholes. Start at sentence level; segment short sentences into individual words in order to show how the sentence is made up of words. This can be done by using chips to represent the different words in the sentence. Once this relationship is understood at the sentence level, you can then move on to word level. Begin by segmenting multi-syllabic words into two syllables, eventually moving to segmenting words into individual sounds. This will increase phonemic awareness. This can be achieved by asking the students to produce that sound, both in isolation as well as in a variety of words and syllables. It is best to begin with easy words and gradually progress to more challenging words.
Seven Phonological Awareness Example Exercises:
- Rhyming (e.g., tell me all the words that rhyme with mop)
- Identifying initial sounds in words (e.g., does mop begin with the /m/?)
- Word to word matching (e.g., do pen and pipe begin with the same letter?)
- Phoneme deletion (e.g., what word would be left if the /k/ sound were taken away from cat?)
- Phoneme counting (e.g., how many sounds do you hear in the word “cake”?)
- Blending (e.g., what word would we have if we blended these sounds together: /m/ /o/ /p/.)
- Phoneme segmentation (e.g., what sounds do you hear in the word cat?)
Children should be demonstrating these skills by the end of their first year in grade school. By practicing these skills, you will be providing your child with greater success, therefore, increased confidence. Try one of these exercises today and watch your child blossom!”
North Shore Paediatric Therapy (2024)
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Key aspects of phonological processing (2024)
“Phonological processing refers to the way the sounds of language (phonemes) are used to understand and produce spoken and written language. It involves various skills like recognizing and manipulating sounds, using phonemes to build words, and retrieving words based on their sounds. This is a key skill for literacy development, enabling individuals to decode words and connect sounds to written letters.
Key aspects of phonological processing:
- Phonological awareness: The ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds of language, including rhyming, sound blending, and sound segmentation.
- Phonological working memory: The ability to hold sounds in mind while processing them, crucial for reading and spelling.
- Phonological retrieval: The ability to access and recall words from memory based on their sounds.
Importance of phonological processing:
- Reading and spelling:
Strong phonological skills are essential for decoding words, which is the foundation of reading comprehension and spelling.
- Language development:
Phonological processing is crucial for developing a strong vocabulary and understanding the structure of language.
- Learning new languages:
Understanding and manipulating sounds helps in learning new languages and acquiring their phonological systems.
Examples of phonological skills:
- Rhyming: Identifying words that sound alike (e.g., cat, hat, sat).
- Blending sounds: Combining individual sounds to form a word (e.g., /c/ /a/ /t/ = cat).
- Segmenting sounds: Breaking down a word into its individual sounds (e.g., cat = /c/ /a/ /t/).
- Manipulating sounds: Changing sounds in a word to create new words (e.g., "cat" to "sat").
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+phonological+processing&oq=what+is+phonological+processing&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyCQgAEEUYORiABDIHCAEQABiABDIHCAIQABiABDIHCAMQABiABDIICAQQABgWGB4yCAgFEAAYFhgeMggIBhAAGBYYHjIICAcQABgWGB4yCAgIEAAYFhgeMggICRAAGBYYHtIBCjM1ODA4ajBqMTWoAgiwAgHxBfgKckVNb-7b&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
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Phonological processing (2021)
Phonological processing refers to a cognitive skill critical to our language development. It is the brain's ability to manage and manipulate phonemes, and to attach meaning to sounds in both spoken and written language. Processing sounds allows a baby to learn that babbling /ma-ma/ attaches to mama/momma, becoming the word mommy; likewise, babbling /da-da/ attaches to dada, becoming the word daddy. Processing is both perceiving and attaching meaning. It is needed for listening, speaking, reading, and writing — the four modes of language that make up the majority of our communication.
(Gesturing, sign, facial expression, intonation, etc., are also forms of communication and must also be perceived and interpreted.)
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) defines phonological processing as "the use of the sounds of one's language (i.e., phonemes) to process spoken and written language. The broad category of phonological processing includes phonological awareness, phonological working memory, and phonological retrieval."
Phonemic awareness is the ability to track and manipulate sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. It is needed for the foundational literacy skill of attaching meaningful sounds to letters, expanding this entire process into the reading and writing domains. It is a subcategory of phonological awareness, combining all components as essential aspects of phonological processing.
Phonological processing includes the ability to:
- Track sounds and syllables within words, such as saying and hearing two syllables in the word "magnet," as well as recognizing the sounds within each syllable, such as /m-a-g/ and /n-ə-t/. (The vowel sound in the second syllable is a schwa in my midwestern US dialect.) Tracking sounds involves both blending soundstogether to read a word and segmenting sounds apart in order to write a word.
- Track sound and syllable changes between words, such as hearing which sound changes between the words "spend" and "spent," or which syllable/sound changes between inflict and inflect.
- Manipulate sounds to change words, such as perceiving and then changing the letter needed to convert the word "then" into the word "than."
Phonological processing is foundational for reading and writing and is an area of weakness for many students with dyslexia and/or dysgraphia. This skill helps learners develop sound-to-letter automaticity, needed to develop word form memories, needed to develop fluent reading and writing skills.
What is Phonological Processing vs. Phonemic Awareness
https://rootedinlanguage.com/blogs/rootedreport/what-is-phonological-processing-vs-phonemic-awareness?srsltid=AfmBOoqujmVene823jTr51InnDyVgz6Cox7WNyIWv1MPkZiIvTUnnZ8M
AI Overview
“Phonological processing encompasses the broader ability to manipulate and understand sounds at various levels, including syllables, onset-rime, and phonemes, while phonemic processing focuses specifically on the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. Essentially, phonemic awareness is a subskill within phonological awareness.”
Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate the sounds of language. When someone finds it hard to work with sounds and link them to letter symbols, this is often a phonological difficulty.
Phonemic Awareness
An important phonological skill is called phonemic awareness. It is the first step in learning to use phonics. When a child sounds out the letters of a word and blends them together, they are using phonemic awareness. A child without phonemic awareness will not be able to separate the sounds. They have to be taught how to hear and separate each phoneme. For a child to succeed with phonics then they need good phonemic awareness.
Nessy 2025
https://www.nessy.com/en-gb/dyslexia-explained/understanding-dyslexia/phonological-and-phonemic-awareness
: info@nessy.co.uk :
The "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" program, a Direct Instruction approach to teaching reading, has a long track record of success and is considered effective by many educators and parents. The program's effectiveness stems from its systematic and clear approach to teaching reading, focusing on phonics and other essential beginning reading skills. It aims to help children develop the ability to read fluently and independently, reaching a second-grade reading level within 100 lessons. Research supports the effectiveness of Direct Instruction, with numerous studies showing it to be superior to other methods lacking systematic phonics instruction.
Evidence for Effectiveness:
- Systematic and Clear Instruction:
The program uses a step-by-step approach, breaking down reading into manageable lessons.
- Direct Instruction Approach:
The National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) emphasizes direct instruction in phonics and other foundational reading skills.
- Positive Reviews:
Many parents have reported positive results, with children making significant progress in reading skills after using the program.
- Research Support:
Numerous studies have shown the effectiveness of Direct Instruction in helping children learn to read.
- Comprehensive Coverage:
The program covers essential reading skills, including phonics, decoding, fluency, and comprehension.
How the Program Works:
- Focus on Phonetics:
The program uses systematic phonics to teach children how to decode words.
- Repetition and Practice:
Lessons are designed to provide repeated practice and reinforcement of skills.
- Parent Involvement:
The program encourages parents to be actively involved in their child's learning.
- Clear and Concise Instructions:
The lessons are designed to be easy to follow, making it simple for parents to teach their children.
Limitations and Considerations:
- Not Suitable for All Children:
The program may not be suitable for all children, particularly those with significant learning disabilities or attention difficulties.
- Requires Parental Involvement:
The program requires parents to be actively involved in teaching their children.
- May Be Too Structured for Some:
The program's structured approach may not appeal to all parents or children.
In Conclusion:
"Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" is a well-regarded program with strong evidence of its effectiveness, particularly in helping children develop essential reading skills through a systematic and direct instruction approach. While it may not be suitable for every child or family, it offers a clear and comprehensive method for parents to teach their children to read
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Barefoot Tefl Teacher 2020
https://www.barefootteflteacher.com/p/book-review-teach-your-child-to-read
Book Review: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
Spoiler: it’s the best thing you can do for a child's education.
The book uses a method called ‘Direct Instruction’ (which I’ll call ‘DI’ from now on), developed by Siegfried ‘Zig’ Engelmann (a professor of Education at Oregon University).
DI relies on the teacher/parent to lead the lesson using a script.
In the book, the script is printed in red ink, and the appropriate student responses are in black, like this:
You do need to read the introduction, which talks you through how to go through the lessons. It’s pretty straightforward, but I found it useful for the first couple of lessons to read through ahead of time.
It sounds like a lot, but they’re written well:
Be prepared — the first few lessons can be challenging. My daughter complained of having a tummy-ache, a head-ache, of being hungry/thirsty/tired — anything to avoid the lesson! You must persevere — keep it light-hearted and fun, and break it into two sessions. Do anything you have to.
By lesson nine, something extraordinary happened. She started to realise that she could do it. She could remember and recognise the sounds. She took great delight in jumping ahead and saying it before I had a chance to read the script. She went from thinking she couldn’t to knowing she could, which changed everything.
From then on, lessons became easier. Some were fun to do, and some were just OK, depending on her mood.
She was reading her own bedtime story by lesson 60. Wow.
The Theory
When I first looked into the DI method, I was sceptical. I’ve taught young learners before, and I’ve taught them phonics. I’ve even written a phonics course! Still, these were all classroom-based and not 1-to-1, but I did my best to make them learner-centred and fun, with lots of cute materials and as much peer interaction as possible.
DI isn’t like that. It’s teacher-centred, not student-centred. It doesn’t take into account ‘modern’ teaching methods or Piagetian learning development theories and yet, it works. It works incredibly well.
John Hattie, known for his meta-studies on education, ‘Visible Learning for Teachers’ noted that Direct Instruction had an effect size of 0.59, which means it is among the most successful methods (note: this is for DI applied to other subject matters, not just phonics).
If you’re curious to get into more detail about the theoretical underpinnings, here’s a video of Zig himself explaining its philosophical background:
Top Tips on Using the Book
- Read and understand the instructions before you start.
- You’ll need the script less as your child learns what’s expected.
- Keep the story picture covered until they’ve done the exercises! Curiosity helps them stay motivated.
- Some lessons, they’ll just get ‘stuck’. That’s ok — repeat the lesson the next time.
- Some days will drive you nuts. Breathe, be calm, and find the humour in it.
- Keep it lighthearted. Don’t show frustration. Take a break and re-do the lesson.
- Lessons will take longer than 20 minutes, at least in the beginning.
- The stories can be odd, silly or funny. Over-react, pull faces, ‘get into’ the story-telling, so your child looks forward to it.
Final Thoughts
We talk about changing education — here’s a great way to start. Imagine if all parents used this book with their children, and those five-year-olds arrived on their first day of school with a seven-year-old reading level.
I’m genuinely surprised that this book isn’t far more popular than it is. It’s not as if it’s new — it was first published in 1983. Especially as reading is highly correlated with success in other academic subjects.
If you’re a parent of a 3–6-year-old, buy this book.
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (2022)
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is a complete, step-by-step program that shows parents simply and clearly how to teach their children to read. Twenty minutes a day is all you need, and within 100 teaching days, your child will be reading at a solid second-grade reading level. It's a sensible, easy-to-follow, and enjoyable way to help your child gain the essential skills of reading. One hundred lessons fully illustrated and color-coded for clarity give your child the basic and more advanced skills needed to become a good reader. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons will bring you and your child closer together while giving your child the reading skills needed now for a better chance at tomorrow.
The second 2022 edition (TYC 2.0) includes:
- NEW Practice Guide
- REVISED, UPDATED lesson exercises
o Blending
o Reading with Expression
o Seamless transition to traditional print
- EXPANDED what to do after completing 100 lessons
- NEW Supplemental Materials
For more detailed features of TYC 2.0, see: https://startreading.com/faq/
For Testimonials, Research, free training videos, and printable supplemental materials, see https://startreading.com
For a companion video series, see: https://www.rsi4edu.com/reading-video-series.html
View a TikTok clip of noted tattoo artist Kat Von D teaching her child with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons here.
Purchase Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, 2022 Edition, here.
View the publisher's information page here.
Categories
How to Mark Errors for RMSE Grades K and 1
https://www.nifdi.org/resources/free-downloads/programs/reading/teach-your-child-to-read/4061-how-to-mark-errors-rmse-tyc/file.html
Documents
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
pdfHow to Mark Errors RMSE TYC
spreadsheetNIFDI TYC Placement Test Summary Form
pdfTYC Oral Reading CO Criteria
spreadsheetTYC Oral Reading CO Summary 45-100 Download(28 KB)
pdfTYC Placement Test View(226 KB)
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Learning the building blocks of words - sounds, their spellings, and word parts
Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons
I’ve recently been trying to like the book Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons, co-authored by Direct Instruction guru Siegfried Engelmann.
I bought this book years ago, but I confess I’ve never used it.
It just always looked too strange and difficult, with its detailed scripts, funny-looking dots, arrows and diacritics and nothing that looks much like a beginner’s reader or a meaningful writing opportunity. Here’s what the text for learners to read looks like:
Each lesson in the book contains scripts that the parent is intended to say verbatim, and it tells you precisely what to do (touch this, point to that etc.) every step of the way.
In Lesson 4, we come to this:
The vowel is apparently meant to be pronounced as in the word “cat”, not as in the word “ha”. My problem: we don’t have “a” as in “cat” at the end of words in English. It’s a “checked” vowel and must be followed by a consonant. If the letter “a” is at the end of the word, the sound is usually “a” as in “Ma”, “Pa” and “tra la la”. So I’m just not going to teach learners to say “sa” with “a” as in “cat”, sorry. It’s linguistically incorrect.
Also, this book is from the US, where they say “r” after vowels. Here in Australia, we don’t, so I’m not going to teach those bits either.
However, I know that this and other Direct Instruction programs are the ones that have had the best literacy results when tested by large-scale scientific blowtorches, so I’ve always felt a bit guilty about not using them.
I have never been able to imagine getting my students to cooperate for long with these lessons, or wait around for me to check the script, if I hadn’t managed to memorise it before the session (it’s a long book, lesson 100 starts on page 389). I work with some pretty naughty and fed-up kids, and don’t have a lot of lesson-memorising time, and I’m sure you don’t either.
As well as Teach Your Child to Read In 100 Easy Lessons, I’ve been looking at the Corrective Reading Word Attack Basics program, also co-authored by Engelmann. I’ve come to the conclusion that I use much the same logic and strategies, but that I need something that looks more interesting and meaningful, and sticks mostly to normal-looking text.
As you can see from the photo above, the Word Attack Basics program also teaches some non-words, and while I think these are useful for testing purposes, I’m only interested in teaching real words. Most of my learners are already far enough behind on vocabulary, without wasting time learning words they won’t use.
However, I recently went to the Learning Difficulties Australia Annual General Meeting and listened to a talk by Dr Rhonda Farkota about Direct Instruction, which included part of an old video clip of Siegfriend Engelmann asking a bunch of disadvantaged six-year-olds maths questions. They knew an awful lot of maths for such little kids. I wish some of the much bigger kids I know were half as numerate.
Here’s what the video looks like, and if you have a spare 13 minutes, please watch it yourself on Youtube:
This video makes me laugh out loud in places. Engelmann behaves like a cross between a quiz show host and a call-and-response preacher.
The kids sit forward on their chairs, shouting out answers, counting on their fingers and whispering workings-out to themselves under their breaths, and occasionally leaping to their feet to correct his errors on the board.
They squeal, clap their hands and giggle. Don’t miss their answer to his question, “What happens when you think?”, at about minute 9. Priceless.
This is not the dry, repetitive sort of teaching I imagined while reading “Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons”, but if this is how Direct Instruction is delivered, then I think the delivery is part of the secret.
When I imagine Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons delivered at warp speed by a quiz show host-preacher-teacher, it doesn’t seem quite so dull and difficult after all.
So if you’re a parent who isn’t confident about teaching your child to read, and the key things you want are a detailed script to follow plus the knowledge that your program has been scientifically tested, plus you’re prepared to set a cracking pace, overlook things like “sa” and adopt an American accent whenever you see a word-final “r”, “Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons” might be for you.
Project Follow Through
Evaluation of the project occurred in 1977, nine years after the project began. The results were strong and clear. Students who received Direct Instruction had significantly higher academic achievement than students in any of the other programs. They also had higher self-esteem and self-confidence. No other program had results that approached the positive impact of Direct Instruction. Subsequent research found that the DI students continued to outperform their peers and were more likely to finish high school and pursue higher education.
https://www.nifdi.org/research/history-of-di-research/projectfollowthrough.html
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4 of 6
Request
"The use of a Direct Instruction reading program to tutor an adult with a moderate intellectual disability"
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Author(s): |
Hempenstall, K. |
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Year: |
2006 |
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Abstract: |
This study examined the effect of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons on the reading achievement of an adult with a moderate intellectual disability. The student had demonstrated the language skills of a kindergarten or first grade student. Two tutors delivered a total of four lessons every week for one year. Results indicate that after one year, the student knew the sounds of all 16 letters and 63 words presented in the lessons delivered. By the conclusion of the study she was reading short, decodable passages with appropriate comprehension, and had increased her known letter sounds and words. |
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Description of the Study: |
This study examined the effect of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons on the reading achievement of an adult with a moderate intellectual disability. The student had demonstrated the language skills of a kindergarten or first grade student. Two tutors delivered a total of four lessons every week for one year. |
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Article Type: |
Efficacy study |
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Journal/Source: |
Direct Instruction News, 6(2), 6-11 |
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Other Tags: |
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, reading, adult students, students with intellectual disabilities, students with learning disabilities |
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Affiliation: |
RMIT University |
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Design Type: |
Single subject design |
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Fidelity Data Reported: |
Yes |
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Location/Setting: |
Australia |
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Participants: |
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Results: |
Results indicate that after one year, the student knew the sounds of all 16 letters and 63 words presented in the lessons delivered. By the conclusion of the study she was reading short, decodable passages with appropriate comprehension, and had increased her known letter sounds and words. |
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Students Included: |
Adult, students with intellectual disabilities, students with learning disabilities |
http://diresearch.us/nifdip/index.jsp
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"Phonological processing and phonics: Towards an understanding of their relationship to each other and to reading development"
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Author(s): |
Hempenstall, K. |
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Year: |
2002 |
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Abstract: |
This study examined the effect of the Direct Instruction program Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons on the phonological processes of remedial elementary students. Twenty six students participated in this study and were assigned to either the treatment group or a wait-list comparison group. The Picture Naming Test, Woodcock Word Attack test, the WISC III Digit Span test, and the Test of Phonological Awareness were administered for pre- and posttest measures. Results indicated that in comparison to the wait-list students, students in the DI group made statistically significant and educationally large gains in the phonologically-related processes of word attack, phonemic awareness, phonological recoding in lexical access, working memory, and spelling. |
|
Description of the Study: |
This study examined the effect of the Direct Instruction program Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons on the phonological processes of remedial elementary students. Twenty six students participated in this study and were assigned to either the treatment group or a wait-list comparison group. The Picture Naming Test, Woodcock Word Attack test, the WISC III Digit Span test, and the Test of Phonological Awareness were administered for pre- and posttest measures. |
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Article Type: |
Efficacy study |
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Journal/Source: |
Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities, 7(1), 4-29 |
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Other Tags: |
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, word attack, phonemic awareness, phonological recoding, word attack, spelling, DISTAR, Reading Mastery |
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Affiliation: |
Not listed |
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Design Type: |
Pretest posttest control group design with matched comparisons |
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Fidelity Data Reported: |
Yes |
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Location/Setting: |
Melbourne, Australia, reading intervention center |
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Participants: |
Elementary students, remedial students, at-risk students |
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Results: |
Results indicated that in comparison to the wait-list students, students in the DI group made statistically significant and educationally large gains in the phonologically-related processes of word attack, phonemic awareness, phonological recoding in lexical access, working memory, and spelling. |
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Students Included: |
http://diresearch.us/nifdip/index.jsp
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The consideration of these increased 100 Lessons documents means there is a consequent valuable increase in students’ academic achievement.
Lets look at the early documents on this topic:
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This next segment is the original, broader document and includes earlier periods.
This study examines the effects of an explicit phonics-emphasis Direct Instruction beginning reading program on the phonological processes of students with teacher-identified serious reading problems attending a northern Melbourne reading intervention centre. The students (16 males and 10 females, mean age 8.8 years) were assigned to the treatment condition or to a wait-list comparison group. The 13 students in the intervention group received 100 lessons (in 2 groups) of the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons program from a teacher at the reading intervention centre.
When compared with a similar cohort of wait-list students, the students made statistically significant and educationally large gains in the phonologically-related processes of word attack, phonemic awareness, phonological recoding in lexical access, phonological recoding in working memory and spelling. The study contributes to the long-standing debate on how best to ensure that children learn to read; to the understanding of the relationship between phonological processes and reading; to an understanding of the effects of the current instructional approach to reading on at-risk children; and, how additional or alternative approaches more attuned to the findings of reading research may improve the effectiveness of the educational system.
Education has a history of regularly adopting new ideas, but it has done so without the wide-scale assessment and scientific research that is necessary to distinguish effective from ineffective reforms. This absence of a scientific perspective has precluded systematic improvement in the education system, and it has impeded growth in the teaching profession for a long time (Carnine, 1995; Hempenstall, 1996; Marshall, 1993; Stone, 1996).
Over the past dozen years, there has been a marked acceptance of employing an evidence basis for teaching practice. This has been particularly noticeable in the USA and England, though only recently, in Australia. It is a change that is evident in fields other than education, for example, the rise of Evidence-Based Medicine in patient care (Sackett, Rosenberg, Gray, Haynes, & Richardson, 1996), and Empirically Validated Treatment in psychotherapy (American Psychological Association, 1996).
This has been driven partly by governments wanting to ensure that the costs associated with education are well spent. However, governments too are beginning to adopt evidence-based practice in their own domains. Most notably:
Since taking office, the President has emphasized the need to use evidence and rigorous evaluation in budget, management, and policy decisions to make government work effectively. This need has only grown in the current fiscal environment. Where evidence is strong, we should act on it. Where evidence is suggestive, we should consider it. Where evidence is weak, we should build the knowledge to support better decisions in the future (Zient, 2012).
Another factor driving this move relates to the similarity in recommendations between numerous national and state reports. In the USA, for example, the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (Lyon, 1998), the National Reading Panel (National Reading Panel, 2000), the National Institute of the American Institutes for Research (1999), the National Research Council (Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998), the Texas Reading Initiative (1996), and the National Early Literacy Panel (National Early Literacy Panel, 2009) highlighted the considerable consensus existing about the crucial elements of reading development and instruction. The importance of phonemic awareness and systematic synthetic phonics instruction is clearly explicated in these reports that relied heavily on empirical evidence for their findings.
In England, the National Literacy Strategy (Department of Education and Employment, 1998) was released to all primary schools, requiring them to abandon the current Whole Language approach to reading. Components of the former system, such as teaching students to rely on context clues to aid word reading, were discredited in the Strategy, and explicit phonics instruction was mandated from the earliest stages of reading instruction. “There must be systematic, regular, and frequent teaching of phonological awareness, phonics and spelling.” p.11 (Department for Education and Employment, 1998). This apparently firm position made little impact on what occurred in classrooms, and England went through the process again. This time the Rose Report (2006) was more forthright about implementing evidence-based approaches to instruction, and despite much opposition a Primary National Strategy (2006) was introduced - with substantially more impact.
The development of criteria for acceptable research evidence is a common element in the re-weighting of empirical research in the professional fields mentioned above. In the case of reading, it has made easier the task of convincing the educational community how valuable in informing practice can be the findings of rigorous research. Having established these criteria, it becomes easier to determine which of the plethora of reading programs available do have adequate research support at any given time.
The examination of existing evidence employing stringent criteria by a range of groups has supported Direct Instruction as a valuable approach to reading instruction for both regular and struggling readers. The Direct Instruction model has a relatively long history in reading education, the first program having been published in 1969. However, there has been surprisingly little serious attention paid to it from both the education and wider educational research communities, despite its strong body of supportive empirical evidence. Reports of Operation Follow Through (Engelmann, Becker, Carnine, & Gersten, 1988; Grossen, 1996), and the studies reported in meta-analyses by the American Institute for Research (2006), Borman (2007), Hattie (2009), White (1988) and by Adams and Engelmann (1996) have not been accorded the attention that might have been expected. Other studies and reports have also been supportive of Direct Instruction: For example, the American Federation of Teachers series of documents Building From The Best, Learning From What Works names Direct Instruction programs among each of its recommendations across different facets of education: Seven Promising Reading and English Language Arts Programs, Three Promising High School Remedial Reading Programs, Five Promising Remedial Reading Intervention Program, and Six Promising Schoolwide Reform Programs.
A report from the American Institutes for Research (1999), An Educators' Guide to School-wide Reform, found that only three programs, Direct Instruction among them, had adequate evidence of effectiveness in reading instruction. Another report, Reading Programs that Work: A Review of Programs for Pre-Kindergarten to 4th Grade (Schacter, 1999), similarly includes Direct Instruction among six school-wide effective reading models. A comprehensive bibliography of Direct Instruction studies can be found at the Association for Direct Instruction website (ADI, 2013).
These reports have been influential in drawing attention to the large corpus of supportive research developed over the years indicative of the effectiveness of the Direct Instruction model across a wide range of educational settings. The model is being implemented with varying degrees of fidelity in increasing numbers of school settings. In the USA, this interest was furthered by the impact of the Reading Excellence Act (The 1999 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, 1998) and the Elimination of Reading Deficit Act (Committee on Education and the Workforce, 2000) with their emphasis on empirically supported programs as a requirement for federal funding. As a consequence, there was been a very rapid rise in interest within the educational community. As an indication, the number of educational web pages that now make reference to Direct Instruction has increased dramatically in the past 10 years, as the use of an Internet search engine will attest.
Considering the two aspects of reading research described above: that is, the theoretical and the empirical, it is evident that the Direct Instruction model has strengths in each area to support its use. In line with current research findings, the programs focus on critical areas such as phonemic awareness (the ability to decompose the spoken word into its constituent sounds, and the ability to blend sounds) and letter-sound relationships. The areas critical for struggling students are paid careful attention in the program design. These are adequate lesson frequency (daily) and sufficient daily and spaced practice to reduce the risk of forgetting, immediate correction of errors to guide the student towards mastery, and continuous assessment of progress to validate the effectiveness of the teaching. Refreshingly, the assessment emphasises the teaching process rather than the child as the major issue. Failure to learn is viewed as failure to teach effectively, and specific teaching procedures are developed to redress the problems should lack of progress be observed. The emphasis on teaching quality rather than learner quality makes redundant any explanations of failure based on intelligence, race, readiness, first language, or home background. It is an empowering approach because it acknowledges and reinforces the status and power of teachers to make a real difference to students.
Over the past 15 years in Victoria, Australia there was a parallel rise in the adoption of Direct Instruction programs without any state or federal government support. There are at least 360 schools in Victoria that have implemented Direct Instruction programs (McGraw Hill, personal communication, February 2000), and teacher interest-groups are forming. There have been numerous recent federal and state government statements about appropriate teaching models, and the former wholesale acceptance of the Whole Language model is sharply declining, except for the maintenance of its near-relation Reading Recovery as the first line of remediation. It is an expensive intervention, given that while it was expected to be used with about 20% of first grade students (Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, 1999), in fact the use has been for between 40% and 50% of first grade students (Auditor-General, 2009). Further, the Auditor-General criticised the education department for its lack of any evaluation of the success or otherwise of this expensive intervention.
It is interesting then, that despite the absence of an Australian federal mandate (as in the USA and Great Britain), there is an apparent gradual shift towards research-supported programs and approaches. How this circumstance may have arisen is open to conjecture, but some possible influences are described below.
In recent years, Australian federal and state governments have introduced large scale testing programs (such as the federal NAPLAN), and have participated in international comparison studies, such as 2011 PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) and 2009 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). Community interest in the generally disappointing and controversial findings has prompted schools to address this hitherto hidden problem. Twenty years ago the Report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training "The Literacy Challenge" (Australian Government House of Representatives Enquiry, 1993), estimated that up to 20% of children complete primary school with residual literacy problems. In the past few years it has become evident that the situation is now more severe (Australian Government Productivity Commission, 2011; Nous Group Consortium, 2011), despite huge sums being invested in education. Unfortunately, much has been spent in class size reduction, despite the lack of evidence that this is a major determinant of student outcome (Leigh & Ryan, 2008). The 2011 PIRLS results indicate that 24% of year four students did not meet the study’s “intermediate benchmark,” which is regarded as the minimal acceptable standard of literacy. The 2009 PISA results revealed that reading literacy of Australian 15-year-old students had fallen sharply over the past decade.
There has been wide reporting in the mass media, causing many questions to be asked about the quality of teaching children receive, and about the quality of training received by teachers. The federal government has responded with a national curriculum, a focus on evidence-based teaching practice, and the promise of a shaking up of teacher education and entry requirements.
Schools wish to be seen to be doing something positive, and the rise in consumerism among parents in Australia has hastened that process. Parents have the right to choose a school for their children, and schools do not wish to be outbid by those offering more assistance to students who struggle. The Direct Instruction model has some administrative features that make it an attractive option. Lessons fit readily into a school timetable, their completeness relieves schools from developing their own curricula, and the clearly defined skill objectives make reporting to parents a simple task. As the number of participating schools increases, it is becoming easier for a school contemplating the implementation of one or more programs to view those programs in operation at a school nearby.
Many of the schools employing Direct Instruction programs have opted for the remedial decoding program known as Corrective Reading: Decoding (Engelmann, Hanner, & Johnson, 1999) for mid-primary and older struggling readers, as it is around that time that the developmental lag explanation, often provided by schools to parents, begins to ring hollow. In addition, it is recognised that the earlier reading problems are addressed, the greater the likelihood of satisfactory and speedy resolution. In fact, Alexander, Entwisle, and Olsen (1997) claim that reading achievement occurs twice as fast in first as it does in third grade, whilst Hall and Moats (1999) reported a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development finding that it takes four times as much assistance to improve a child’s reading skills if help is delayed until Year Four than if it is begun in the Prep year.
Many of these older children have experienced the debilitating sequence of interacting skill deficits described by Stanovich (1986) as the Matthew Effect. For example, an early lack of phonemic awareness leads to a failure to master the alphabetic principle. This further entails slow, error-prone decoding, the overuse of contextual cues, and poor comprehension. This resultant laborious, unsatisfying reading style leads students to avoid text, with a consequential reduction in vocabulary growth, and a broadening of the skill deficit. The lack of practice means fewer words can be read by sight, thereby restricting automaticity. The continued expenditure of cognitive attention on decoding leaves few resources available for comprehension, and so the student’s difficulties are compounded. The longer this set of circumstances prevails, the further delayed the student becomes, the more pervasive becomes the problem, and the more difficult the rescue operation. Hence, the concern for intervening earlier in this escalating chain.
Such findings aroused interest in examining the effects of a Direct Instruction program specifically designed for beginning readers: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (Engelmann, Haddox, & Bruner, 1983). If the intervention is commenced earlier, when the obvious primary deficit involves under-developed phonemic awareness (Lyon, 1999), and this deficit is targeted, it is reasonable to anticipate a more efficacious process. If increased phonemic awareness and an early understanding of the alphabetic principle are the outcomes (thus precluding the by-products of early reading failure), the intervention at this stage should be more effective, efficient, and socially just.
Although the content of the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (Engelmann et al., 1983) was developed earlier than most of the research into phonemic awareness, it is now becoming more evident that the combination of letter-sound instruction with phonemic awareness training (as evidenced in the 100 Lessons program) is a potent one in stimulating early reading development (Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1991, 1993, 1995; Ehri, 1987; Hatcher, Hulme, & Ellis, 1994; Perfetti, Beck, Bell, & Hughes, 1987; Schneider, Roth, & Ennemoser, 2000; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1994).
However, a wide range of phonemic awareness tasks have been incorporated into phonemic awareness programs, and a vital question (especially for at-risk students) is what combination of tasks is optimally related to accelerated reading development? This is particularly important for those who are at-risk, as (academically engaged) time is of the essence.
Torgesen, Morgan, and Davis (1992) tested two types of phonemic awareness training approaches - blending only, and a combination of blending and segmenting - and compared them to a language experience control group. The small groups trained three times per week for 20 minutes for a total of 7-8 weeks. The blending only group improved only on blending, their segmentation skills remaining similar to that of the controls. Similarly, their ability to learn in a reading analogue task did not significantly exceed that of the control group, indicating a lack of generalisation of this skill to this reading task. In contrast, the combination of blending and segmenting led to significant improvements in both skills, and evidence of transfer to the reading task. The authors acknowledge that the introduction of letter-sound training may have even further enhanced the transfer to reading tasks had they incorporated such strategy.
Davidson and Jenkins (1994) in a similar study included a segmentation-only training group, and while they noted some transfer to a reading analogue task for that group, they too argued against teaching only one type of phonemic awareness strategy, as generalisation of awareness is likely to be compromised.
O’Connor, Slocum, and Jenkins (1995) reported a study in which the combination of letter-sounds, blending and segmenting instruction led to educationally significant gains for at-risk beginning readers. The program intervention lasted a total of five hours (15 minutes twice weekly for 10 weeks). A second experimental group had a much greater range of phonemic awareness activities (in addition to segmentation and blending) but showed no increase in reading development over the first experimental group. The authors argue that both experimental groups were able to generalise the phonemic awareness skills they were taught, that is, they attained phonological insight, and were able to relate it to the reading process. Importantly, their findings suggest that the combination of blending and segmenting is sufficient to create this condition.
Lovett et al. (1994) used a 35 lesson training program developed from Reading Mastery: Fast Cycle 1 & 2 (Engelmann, & Bruner, 1984), and Corrective Reading to teach word identification to dyslexic students for one hour four times per week. They compared results to a control group taught a study skills program, and achieved highly significant post-test gains for the experimental group - effect sizes (d) of 0.76, 1.11, and 0.90 on the three training measures. The transfer to real words was impressive, and "was based on the successful training of what is considered the core deficit of developmental dyslexia: phonological processing and nonword reading skill" (p. 818). Further, they argue, "this training success rests on embedding letter-sound training in an intensive phonological training program" (p. 819). In a further study, offering 70 hours of DI based phonological instruction Lovett et al. (2000) noted similarly large treatment effects, evident even in comprehension tasks.
Thus, there is evidence to support the use of a program that explicitly teaches letter-sound correspondence, and which simultaneously links this knowledge to two critical phonemic awareness skills, blending and segmenting. This should not surprise since segmenting and blending are the phonemic awareness processes most closely involved in reading, and letter-sound knowledge is both a prompt, and a necessary condition for this phonemic awareness knowledge to be useful in reading. The 100 Lessons program meets these dual requirements of theoretically and empirically validated practice. Additionally, it had been successfully used in the RMIT Psychology Clinic for many years. In that setting however, it was parents who were trained to present the program individually to their own child.
Another potential benefit of this program is to provide an additional option to schools that are currently expending a great deal of resources on the Reading Recovery program (Clay, 1979, 1985).
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