Walk into any kindergarten classroom this fall, and there鈥檚 a good chance students will be chanting letter sounds, pulling apart the individual sounds in short words like 鈥渃at鈥� or 鈥渂ug,鈥� and blending them back together again.
These activities are designed to develop young children鈥檚 phonemic awareness鈥攖he ability to identify and manipulate the sounds in words, a skill research shows is a foundational component of learning to read.
As the 鈥渟cience of reading鈥� movement has spread, and schools have worked to align their early literacy instruction with evidence-based practices, many have added phonemic awareness programs to their reading blocks.
But now a new study of 13 elementary schools in one district finds that one of the most , from the publisher Heggerty, didn鈥檛 improve 1st graders鈥� word-reading abilities, or their reading fluency.
The findings might seem confusing at first glance. Decades of studies show that phonemic awareness is an essential component of early reading instruction, said Michael Coyne, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut, and the lead author on the paper.
So why would a program designed to teach this essential building block not produce better readers?
The study can鈥檛 provide a definitive answer. But the findings could provide clues about teaching methods that are more effective, as well as how phonemic awareness is integrated in teachers鈥� broader reading instruction, Coyne said.
In all, the research underscores how no one individual element of reading instruction can transform students鈥� performance on its own. Pieces of a systematic approach to teaching students how to read need to work together, and schools鈥� approaches should include 鈥渁ll the components that we know are important for kids to develop their word-reading skills,鈥� said Coyne.
Oral-only sounds practice may not be as effective as integrating letters
As more schools have introduced phonemic awareness instruction, two big questions have emerged about the most effective way to conduct it.
One has to do with how letters are鈥攐r are not鈥攊ntegrated. Often, teachers practice phonemic awareness with their students orally. They might, for example, ask children to pronounce each of the three individual sounds in the word 鈥渕ud.鈥�
But a growing body of research suggests that connecting these sounds to written letters is more effective than reciting the sounds in isolation. Teachers would still ask students to pronounce each of the sounds in mud, for instance, but then connect those sounds to the letters m, u, and d鈥攅xplicitly showing students how they can apply their phonemic awareness to read and spell.
It鈥檚 a small distinction, but one that could have big implications for how teachers use their time in the classroom.
鈥淜ids learn what we teach them,鈥� said Coyne. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not surprising to me that if you鈥檙e teaching phonemic awareness sound-only, without emphasis on those other areas, you wouldn鈥檛 see improvement in those other areas.鈥�
The other question about phonemic awareness instruction centers around what skills to practice. Traditionally, activities include pulling apart words, known as segmenting, or blending sounds together to make words. Research shows practicing these tasks can support reading development, Coyne said.
But some programs, including Heggerty, also include what鈥檚 referred to as 鈥渁dvanced phonemic awareness鈥� tasks, such as phoneme deletion and substitution鈥攁sking students to say the word 鈥渃himp,鈥� without the 鈥渕鈥� sound, for example.
Some researchers have cited evidence that training students in these specific, 鈥渁dvanced鈥� skills , and have argued that, as such, it isn鈥檛 the best use of limited classroom time.
To examine these questions, Coyne and his colleagues鈥� study tested Heggerty, one of the most widely used phonemic awareness programs on the market.
In a 2022 EdWeek Research Center survey, a quarter of pre-K-2 and special education teachers said that Heggerty was in use in their classrooms or districts.
In Coyne鈥檚 study, the schools were randomly assigned to each use Heggerty or continue with business-as-usual instruction. In total, 782 1st graders participated in the study: 468 students in the treatment group, which received Heggerty, and 314 students in the control group, which did not. Teachers used a 2014 version of Heggerty, which included only oral phonemic awareness routines. (Later versions of the program, published in 2018 and 2022, have incorporated connections to printed letters, said Heather Wiederstein, Heggerty鈥檚 chief product officer.)
On average, teachers in the study used Heggerty for 12 minutes each day.
In the study, Heggerty improved students鈥� phonemic awareness skills, with a statistically significant effect size of .65, which the researchers describe as a moderate to large effect. But students who received Heggerty didn鈥檛 do significantly better than those who didn鈥檛 on measures of word-reading and oral reading fluency. This was the case for both higher- and lower-performing readers.
鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 like most of the kids didn鈥檛 need it and some really benefited,鈥� Coyne said.
Why the broader instructional context matters
The broader instructional context of the district in the study could be relevant to these results, said Coyne. Schools there didn鈥檛 follow any one districtwide approach to teaching phonics, the researchers wrote, which could have limited students鈥� ability to transfer their phonemic knowledge to reading and writing.
鈥淚n some cases, schools and districts are saying, 鈥榃e鈥檙e feeling like maybe our phonics instruction or our foundational skills instruction is not strong enough, and the way that we can boost the effect of that is by adding on a phonemic awareness component,鈥欌�� said Coyne. 鈥淏ut if you don鈥檛 have a strong, systematic phonics program in place, at least in this study, it wasn鈥檛 enough for schools to add [phonemic awareness] in.鈥�
Wiederstein, with Heggerty, echoed the point.
鈥淧honemic awareness alone is not sufficient,鈥� she said. Heggerty 鈥渨as never intended to be used without a phonics-based program.鈥�
Heggerty has evolved and the current version of the core phonemic awareness program instructs teachers to make connections to print and gives them explicit direction for how to do so, Wiederstein said.
It鈥檚 hard to know exactly how many schools are using the 2014, oral-only version of Heggerty tested in the study, but more school and district partners are using the 2022 edition now than were ever using the 2014 materials, she continued.
Even if schools still have the 2014 version, they don鈥檛 need to abandon it altogether, said Coyne.
Educators could pull pieces from Heggerty to align to the sequence of phonics skills taught in their other foundational skills programs, or add some spelling or reading practice into Heggerty activities. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a little bit of a heavier lift for teachers,鈥� Coyne said, but doable.
Oral phonemic awareness is one part of a systematic approach to teaching reading, he added. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e counting on that as the whole thing, it鈥檚 probably not the best way to do it.鈥�
