A new has found evidence of big gains in students鈥� reading ability from using one specific phonics program鈥攁nd suggests that consistent implementation is key to getting the strongest results.
The foundational-skills curriculum, UFLI Foundations, was created by researchers at the University of Florida Literacy Institute. When kindergarten and 1st grade teachers in one Florida district used the program for a year, their students grew at a much faster rate than similar students in other classrooms in the district that continued business-as-usual reading instruction.
Teachers who followed the program more closely saw better results than those who didn鈥檛 teach lessons in the recommended sequence, or with all of the listed steps.
The results are 鈥渄ramatic,鈥� said Devin Kearns, a professor in early literacy at North Carolina State University, who was not involved with the study. Gains from UFLI are equivalent to 8 months of additional instruction for kindergarteners, and almost a year-and-a-half of extra instruction for 1st graders, he said.
鈥淚n reading studies these days, these kinds of findings are rare,鈥� Kearns said.
Decades of research have shown that phonics instruction鈥攖eaching children how letters represent sounds, and how to blend those sounds together to make words鈥攊s the most effective way to get beginning readers to start decoding words. But on average, . Some programs work better than others. And that鈥檚 led to confusion about how much phonics to teach, and for how long.
As the 鈥渟cience of reading鈥� movement has spread, at least 40 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation or enacted policies requiring that schools use evidence-based approaches to teaching students how to read. This almost always includes a mandate for systematic, explicit phonics instruction. Some states have issued lists of approved programs. In this landscape, identifying what works鈥攁nd why鈥攈as taken on a new urgency.
UFLI Foundations has many similarities to other programs that aim to teach the building blocks of reading, said Holly Lane, the director of the University of Florida Literacy Institute, and the lead author on the study. Lane is one of the developers of the curriculum.
The program explicitly teaches letter sounds, how they correspond to print, and how to blend letters together into words. But Lane thinks the opportunity for a lot of practice鈥攁pplying these skills in different contexts, again and again鈥攕ets UFLI apart.
鈥淲hen we鈥檙e introducing the new concept, we鈥檙e still practicing that last one,鈥� Lane said. 鈥淎nd that goes on for weeks and weeks.鈥�
How the UFLI program works
Lane and her colleagues tested the program with more than 2,700 students in Florida schools during the 2021-22 school year.
69传媒 in the control classrooms received the district鈥檚 regular reading instruction, in which teachers used a core instructional program designed to address all areas of reading. In the treatment classrooms, teachers still used this core program, but used UFLI Foundations for foundational-skills lessons. The UFLI program was taught for 30 minutes daily.
Each lesson is built around activities designed to cement students鈥� letter-sound knowledge and apply that knowledge to reading. For example, students are presented with letters and asked to identify the sounds those letters make, they listen to letter sounds and write the letters those sounds represent, and then they read individual words and passages that use those letter-sound correspondences.
Phonics patterns are introduced in a systematic sequence, and students get opportunities to practice the patterns they鈥檝e learned previously as new ones are introduced.
Using statistical models, the researchers compared kids who received UFLI to kids who didn鈥檛, but shared similar demographic characteristics. The kindergartners and 1st graders who completed the UFLI lessons scored higher on DIBELS, an assessment of word-reading ability and oral-reading fluency.
Teachers using the program were also observed, to evaluate how closely they followed its scope and sequence. In classrooms where teachers adhered tightly to the plan鈥攃ompleting each step of each lesson, using the recommended materials, and doing lessons each day鈥攕tudents made more progress.
鈥淪ome teachers just out and out refused to do it, or would do it sporadically or inconsistently,鈥� said Lane. 鈥淎nd others were right off the bat bought in and implemented it as designed, and that made a difference.鈥�
Can a structured program simplify teaching?
Implementation has been a consistent challenge for school districts as they shift to new methods of reading instruction.
Teachers have voiced concerns that they aren鈥檛 getting enough guidance about how to put new approaches into practice, or that they don鈥檛 have the instructional materials鈥攆or instance, decodable books鈥攖hey need to do so.
UFLI is designed in a way that lowers some of those barriers, said Kearns. It has a clear scope and sequence and comes with activities, assessments, and online tools that are aligned to the curriculum.
But it鈥檚 not the only curriculum that could lead to student success, he added. One big takeaway from this study is more general, he said鈥攖hat it鈥檚 important for teachers to have a research-tested model to work from.
鈥淕et a program鈥� with some evidence behind it, he said. Relying on teachers to create hands-on manipulatives or design all their own activities isn鈥檛 sustainable, he said.
鈥淚t鈥檚 so hard these days to do anything well, all the demands on people鈥檚 time, that adding to their burden by saying to them, 鈥楳ake a bunch of stuff,鈥� is just totally overwhelming,鈥� said Kearns.
Having materials to work from gives teachers some breathing room, he said. 鈥淚nstead of figuring out what you鈥檙e going to teach, you have time to figure out how you鈥檙e going to teach it.鈥�
