In the 2008 Steubing et al study, they. also conducted a multi-level regression of the studies identified by the NRP and Camli et al, to further test how different levels of phonics and language instruction impacted the resulting effect size. They also coded for one on one instruction vs classroom instruction, as well as for the number of language activities that accompanied the other instruction. Steubing et al found that the highest effect sizes were found when the treatment group received 1-1 instruction, systematic phonics, and multiple forms of language instruction, and the control group received unsystematic language instruction (d=1.33). Comparatively, they found the lowest effect sizes when the treatment group received unsystematic phonics instruction, in a classroom setting, with limited other language activities, and the control group received systematic language instruction (d=-.12). 

While there are scholars who would like to reject the claim that systematic phonics instruction is superior to incidental phonics instruction, I interpret the NRP, Steubing, and Camili meta-analyses to demonstrate that there is strong evidence for the use of systematic vs incidental phonics instruction. Systematic phonics instruction is often interpreted to mean having a scope and sequence, as stated in the NRP meta-analysis. However, I wonder if the benefits are from the sequence or if they are from making sure all letter-sound correspondences (GPCs) are covered. Personally, I would hypothesize that it is the latter. That is not to say that having a logical sequence cannot be helpful to student learning; however, I wonder if the biggest value to that sequence is just ensuring nothing is missed. I think this is especially relevant to some of the constructivist programs that do not include a phonics scope and sequence or more incidental phonics instruction. These programs were inspired by the whole language movement and I think many would be concerned that these programs might end up neglecting some GPCs. 

While the previously discussed papers help to show the need for a systematic approach, they do not provide any evidence for a particular scope and sequence, or rate. As Timothy Shanahan, as previously pointed out, we have minimal research on establishing any particular scope and sequence to be best practice. One popular sequence for teachers has been to teach one GPC per week. This works out nicely for teachers, as there are 44 commonly recognized sounds and most school years are roughly 44 weeks long. Personally, I really dislike this approach, as it seems incredibly slow. Other programs like the Jolly Phonics program teach 1 GPC per lesson, and others still take a middle approach teaching 2-3 GPCs per week. 

In my own personal practice, I prefer a much faster scope and sequence that involves teaching multiple GPCs per lesson. I typically introduce 6 GPCs per lesson and then have students practice these GPCs, across multiple lessons until they reach mastery. I like teaching phonics this way, because I think teaching multiple GPCs in a lesson is a more engaging methodology and because I hope that it can accelerate the process. In general, I think a fast scope and sequence is preferable because it should in theory allow the decoding of more words more quickly. That said, this is my personal opinion and not based on any experimental research. To the best of my knowledge, there is no meta-analysis of this topic or systematic review that points to a particular rate of instruction. However, this week a friend of mine sent me a fascinating 2020 paper by Patricia Vadasy and Elizabeth Sanders that included 2 very high-quality RCT studies on the rate of instruction for teaching phonics and for whether it is best to teach one or multiple GPCs at a time. 

Study 1 Description: 

In the first study, 65 students were randomly assigned to one of two equivalent treatment conditions comparing a fast vs slow scope and sequence. In the fast group, students were taught 15 sound letter combinations, over 5 weeks. In the slow group, students were taught 10 sound letter combinations, over 5 weeks. 11 Tutors delivered the program, one on one, while fidelity was strictly observed. Each lesson was scripted and the teaching procedure was the same in both groups, for everything, except the scope and sequence. This is an extremely high-quality study, because not only is it an RCT, but the authors were very careful to control all factors, but one, so as to measure for a fixed effect.

That said, I do think this study has a few limitations. Firstly, the study did not state what assessment was used for post-test results. This leads me to believe the assessment was researcher designed. This is problematic because researcher-designed assessments usually inflate results. My second concern is that the treatment group received instruction on more grapheme phoneme correlations (GPCs or letter sound relationships) than the control group. This isn’t necessarily a problem, as they stated their research question was to test if teaching students GPCs faster caused lowered retention, but it makes me wonder if the difference in results is because of the pace, or the number of GPCs taught. Thirdly, this study sample size was not particularly large. Lastly, the difference between 10 and 15 GPCs does not seem particularly large to me, so I wonder if the difference is in practice too small to measure the application results for. 

The original authors concluded that these results were strong evidence for a faster scope and sequence. We used a Hedge’s g effect size calculation to compare the post-test results of the treatment group and the control group. Each author independently calculated the below effect sizes, to ensure reliability.