685183

research-article2017
CDQXXX10.1177/1525740116685183Communication Disorders QuarterlyHenbest and Apel

Special Topic
Communication Disorders Quarterly

Effective Word Reading Instruction:

2017, Vol. 39(1) 303­–311
© Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1525740116685183
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Victoria S. Henbest, MS1 and Kenn Apel, PhD1

Abstract
This article is a report of recent evidence on methods for teaching young and struggling readers to read words. Specifically,
evidence comparing synthetic and analytic phonics instruction was reviewed as well as the benefit of instruction in encoding
and morphological awareness. The evidence reviewed suggests that instruction in synthetic and analytic phonics are both
effective methods for teaching word reading to young and struggling readers and the inclusion of encoding in early reading
instruction may provide added benefit. Furthermore, several investigations have found instruction in morphological
awareness to be beneficial for improving young students’ word reading. More research is needed to investigate the
effectiveness of incorporating encoding and morphological awareness instruction into early reading programs.

Keywords
word reading, instruction, phonics, decoding, encoding, morphological awareness

Research over the past several decades has been instru-
mental in informing educational practice on the develop-
ment of reading and the best ways to foster this ability in
young children (e.g., Bus & van IJzendoorn, 1999;
McGeown & Medford, 2014; Melby-Lervåg, Lyster, &
Hulme, 2012; National Reading Panel [NRP], 2000).
Although early reading instructional practices can differ
considerably in the schools based on varying philosophies
(e.g., Allington, 2013), the overwhelming research evi-
dence points to the use of a systematic phonics approach to
help young and struggling readers to develop their early
reading abilities (e.g., Bond & Dykstra, 1967; Chall, 1979;
NRP, 2000; Torgerson, Brooks, & Hall, 2006). The purpose
of this article is to review the current evidence on the effec-
tiveness of two specific phonics approaches, synthetic and
analytic phonics, which were developed to support the
word-level reading of young struggling readers (i.e., early
elementary grades), or those who are at risk for reading
failure. In addition, given the strong relation between read-
ing and spelling (Ehri, 2000), the effect of including train-
ing in encoding (i.e., spelling) in phonics-based instruction
also is explored. Finally, recent investigations have found
that morphological awareness, the ability to consciously
consider and manipulate morphemes, the smallest units of
meaning in language, is a powerful contributor to an indi-
vidual’s success with word reading (e.g., Apel & Henbest,
2016; Apel, Wilson-Fowler, Brimo, & Perrin, 2012;
Deacon & Kirby, 2004). Thus, the evidence on morpho-
logical awareness training’s effect on improving word
reading is discussed as a possible component of early read-
ing instruction.
Phonics-Based Instruction
One of the greatest realizations from literacy research is the
well-established finding that phonological awareness, the
ability to think about and manipulate the sounds of one’s
language, is one of the best predictors of literacy outcomes.
Specifically, young children with superior phonological
awareness skills are more likely to become successful word
readers than children with poor phonological awareness
skills (e.g., Bus & van IJzendoorn, 1999; MacDonald &
Cornwall, 1995; Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987). The connec-
tion between phonological awareness (e.g., blending or seg-
menting sounds) and the ability to read is that when learning
to read, children must consciously think about the sounds in
their language and how these sounds relate to letters (i.e.,
orthographic awareness). Thus, having the early ability to
manipulate sounds prepares children for success when
learning to think about sounds and letters together. More
specifically, when children verbally blend the sounds
together to decode an unknown word or segment sounds to
encode a word, they are using their phonological aware-
ness. Those who are readily able to match letters to sounds
(e.g., “T” says /t/) and apply this information when they
read new words are thought to have broken the alphabetic
1
University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA
Corresponding Author:
Victoria S. Henbest, Department of Communication Sciences and
Disorders, University of South Carolina, 1224 Sumter St., Suite 300,
Columbia, SC 29201, USA.
Email: vhenbest@email.sc.edu
304 Communication Disorders Quarterly 39(1)
code, or mastered the alphabetic principle, a skill that is
known to be highly predictive of later reading achievement
(e.g., Lonigan, Burgess, & Anthony, 2000; National Early
Literacy Panel [NELP], 2008).
In addition to evidence supporting the importance of
phonological awareness and alphabetic knowledge for
beginning readers, there is substantial evidence indicating
that children’s knowledge of how to apply these skills when
learning to read must be explicitly taught (e.g., NRP, 2000;
Torgerson et al., 2006). Instruction in the alphabetic princi-
ple and its application when reading unknown words is a
skills-based approach to reading instruction known as pho-
nics. Phonics is grounded in the view that word reading
skills must be explicitly taught to beginning and/or strug-
gling readers and is characterized by systematic and direct
instruction focused on the relation between subunits of
words (e.g., graphemes, onsets, and rimes) and their corre-
sponding sounds. Importantly, an accumulation of research
over the past 50 years has been overwhelmingly in support
of phonics-based approaches compared with other instruc-
tional methods (e.g., Bond & Dykstra, 1967; Chall, 1979;
NRP, 2000; Torgerson et al., 2006). Other methods that
have been compared with systematic phonics include
embedded or implicit phonics, in which letter–sound rela-
tions are taught in the context of meaningful text with little
to no time devoted to explicitly teaching the alphabetic
code, whole word, or “look and say” methods in which stu-
dents are taught to memorize whole words, and whole-lan-
guage approaches, in which children are provided with a
literacy-rich environment and expected to learn to read
independently without explicit instruction in word reading
(e.g., Cain, 2010; NRP, 2000). In 2000, the NRP completed
a meta-analysis examining the effects of systematic pho-
nics–based instruction compared with the abovementioned
other approaches on the word reading skills of young ele-
mentary-age students with varying abilities (e.g., struggling
readers, typical readers, children at risk for developing
reading difficulty), and results were largely in favor of sys-
tematic phonics for improving children’s reading of decod-
able, regularly spelled words, irregularly spelled words, and
reading comprehension.
Two Types of Systematic Phonics–
Based Instruction
The hallmark of systematic phonics is that instruction on
how to recognize and manipulate orthographic units of
words is explicit, structured, and developmentally
sequenced (NRP, 2000). However, not all systematic pho-
nics approaches are the same, and there are two overarching
types of phonics instruction that are the topic of much
debate and investigation in the field of literacy research.
These two approaches are often referred to as synthetic and
analytic phonics. The difference between the two approaches
is based on differing views regarding the size of the ortho-
graphic unit that should be taught to young and struggling
readers. Synthetic phonics focuses on the smallest units of
language, that is, the connection between individual letters
and sounds, whereas analytic phonics deals in larger ortho-
graphic units (e.g., Ehri & McCormick, 1998). With syn-
thetic phonics, children are taught to segment sounds
represented by each letter of a word and then blend the
sounds together (i.e., decoding). For example, in synthetic
phonics, a child is likely to be instructed to isolate the
sounds represented by each letter of a word (e.g., CAT to /k/
/ae/ /t/) and then combine them together to produce the
word (e.g., /kaet/). In analytic phonics, the child is likely to
be taught to manipulate the onset and rime (e.g., b-ack) of a
word rather than the individual letters and sounds. For
example, a child receiving analytic phonics instruction
would be taught initial sound–letter correspondences (e.g.,
B says /b/) and a corresponding rime (e.g., ACK says /aek/)
and then taught other initial grapheme–phoneme correspon-
dences that can be paired with the rime. In analytic phonics,
little or no attention is given to blending the individual
sounds in words.
Researchers in favor of synthetic phonics believe that
early in the process of learning to read, children use graph-
eme–phoneme correspondences to decode words, and this
process is what facilitates storage of these words in memory
and prepares individuals to take on new, unfamiliar words
(e.g., Ehri & McCormick, 1998; Ehri & Robbins, 1992). In
fact, research by Ehri and Robbins (1992) indicated that
children must have at least some knowledge of grapheme–
phoneme correspondences before they are able to read by
analogy, the goal of analytic phonics. A synthetic phonics
approach is further supported by research suggesting that
when left to their own devices, young readers often rely on
phonological decoding (i.e., blending of sounds) to read
unfamiliar words, regardless of which method of phonics
instruction they have received (e.g., Juel & Minden-Cupp,
2000; Walton, Walton, & Felton, 2001). However, support-
ers of analytic phonics suggest that children make use of
larger subunits of words early on in their process of learning
to read (e.g., Goswami & Bryant, 1990) and that this devel-
opment should be capitalized on in early reading instruc-
tion. This view is based on research that shows a connection
between children’s early understanding of rhymes and the
relation between the ability to manipulate rhymes and later
reading skills. Furthermore, it is based on research suggest-
ing that children’s ability to consciously think about rhymes
precedes their ability to manipulate individual sounds (e.g.,
Bryant, MacLean, Bradley, & Crossland, 1990).
The meta-analysis by the NRP (2000) sought to disen-
tangle the controversy over which type of phonics instruc-
tion is best by analyzing whether some types of
phonics-based approaches are better than others. Their anal-
ysis of 38 different studies revealed that the effect size for
Henbest and Apel 305
the synthetic phonics approaches reviewed was moderate (d
= 0.45), small to moderate for the analytic programs (d =
0.34), and small for other miscellaneous systematic phonics
programs (d = 0.27). Although the synthetic phonics
approaches collectively resulted in the largest of the three
effect sizes, the analysis did not detect a significant differ-
ence among the effect of synthetic phonics compared with
analytic phonics. The NRP concluded that, although sys-
tematic phonics programs are significantly more effective
than nonphonics-based programs, there is no evidence
favoring one type of phonics instruction over the other.
Current Studies Comparing the Effects
of Synthetic Versus Analytic Phonics
Although several investigations on the effectiveness of sys-
tematic phonics instruction have been conducted since
2000, the majority have been multiple baseline studies or
investigations involving a control group not receiving any
kind of systematic phonics, such as business as usual or
implicit phonics (e.g., Blachman et al., 2004; Denton,
Fletcher, Anthony, & Francis, 2006; Pullen et al., 2005;
Ryder, Tunmer, & Greaney, 2008; Vadasy, Sanders, &
Tudor, 2007). As expected, the results of these studies have
been largely in favor of systematic phonics for improving
the word reading of young struggling readers. However,
some studies have directly investigated the effect of syn-
thetic phonics compared with analytic phonics on the read-
ing outcomes of young readers (e.g., Christensen & Bowey,
2005; Comaskey, Savage, & Abrami, 2009; Di Stasio,
Savage, & Abrami, 2012; Finnegan, 2012; Johnston,
McGeown, & Watson, 2012; Johnston & Watson, 2004;
Savage, Abrami, Hipps, & Deault, 2009; Walton et al.,
2001). For example, immediately following the release of
the NRP (2000) report, Walton et al. (2001) compared the
two systematic phonics–based approaches and their effects
on the reading skills of first-grade students identified as
having poor prereading skills. Seventy-four first-grade stu-
dents were randomly assigned within their classrooms to
one of four groups: synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, no
intervention with low reading skills, or no intervention with
high reading skills. Students in the treatment groups
received either synthetic or analytic phonics instruction in
groups of two to four students, for two sessions per week
for a total of 11 weeks. Both treatment groups also included
instruction in rhyming, phoneme identity, and letter–sound
correspondences. Students in the synthetic phonics group,
however, were taught to “sound out” the letters in words
and then blend them together to pronounce the word,
whereas children in the analytic phonics group were taught
to segment words using onset-rime boundaries. Posttest
measures required that the children read four different sets
of words: (a) words that could not be read successfully by
decoding; (b) words that could be read by analogy or
decoding, but that contained different initial letters than
words targeted in the analytic phonics instruction; (c) non-
words; and (d) words that could be read only by decoding.
Results from Walton et al. (2001) indicated that overall,
children in the analytic phonics group read significantly
more words following treatment than children in the syn-
thetic phonics group, but those children in both treatment
groups read more words than the children with low preread-
ing skills who did not receive intervention. Also, further
analyses revealed that on three of the four reading mea-
sures, children in the synthetic phonics and analytic phonics
groups read an equal number of words, but that the analytic
phonics group read a larger number of words that could not
be read using decoding strategies, resulting in a medium
effect size (d = 0.58). In addition, students in the synthetic
phonics group did not read significantly more of these
words than the low reading students receiving no interven-
tion. Walton et al. noted that their results may be an indica-
tion that instruction in analytic phonics lead to increased
skills with decoding, but that experience with synthetic
phonics did not transfer to reading words by analogy. To
investigate the long-term effects of the two treatment condi-
tions, Walton et al. conducted a follow-up investigation 4
months after the completion of the intervention and found
that students in both treatment conditions maintained their
word reading abilities, and students in the analytic phonics
group, in general, continued to read more words than stu-
dents in the synthetic phonics group including words that
could not be read using decoding strategies, although the
effect size was smaller than at immediate posttest (d =
0.28). In addition, at follow-up, the analytic phonics group
read significantly more words than the synthetic phonics
groups for words that could be read using decoding or anal-
ogy strategies, yielding a moderate effect size (d = 0.45).
In contrast to the abovementioned finding, other studies
have found improvements in word reading scores to be in
favor of synthetic phonics instruction. For example,
Johnston and Watson (2004) compared the two interven-
tions’ effects on word reading scores for 5-year-old students
in their first year of school. Different from that of Walton
et al. (2001), this study was implemented during classroom
instruction, rather than small groups. Students were assigned
to either the analytic or synthetic phonics group and received
their respective interventions for 20 min per day for 16
weeks. Results indicated that children in the synthetic pho-
nics group outperformed those in the analytic phonics group
on multiple measures of word and emergent reading with a
large effect size for word reading age (d = 0.85) and percent
of nonwords read correctly (d = 1.34). In addition, the large
effect ( η2p = 0.11) for word reading skills of those in the
synthetic phonics program was maintained over time
(Johnston et al., 2012).
Christensen and Bowey (2005) also addressed which
type of phonics approach was more effective for improving
306 Communication Disorders Quarterly 39(1)
reading outcomes, but in 7-year-old children. They found
that at posttest, instruction in grapheme–phoneme corre-
spondences (i.e., synthetic phonics) was slightly more
favorable than the instruction in orthographic-rime (i.e.,
analytic). That is, at posttest, on most reading measures, the
performance of students in each of the treatment groups was
not significantly different, except that the synthetic phonics
group outperformed the analytic phonics group on accuracy
and speed of reading transfer words (i.e., unfamiliar words
not worked on during intervention) with large and medium
effect sizes (η2 = 0.23 and .11, respectively).
In contrast to the findings from the abovementioned stud-
ies, but in line with the results from the NRP (2000), some
researchers have found little to no difference among the two
treatment approaches (e.g., Comaskey et al., 2009; Savage
et al., 2009; Savage, Carless, & Stuart, 2003) on measures of
word and pseudoword reading. In a follow-up study by Di
Stasio et al. (2012) examining the performance of students in
the Comaskey et al. (2009) study a year after receiving com-
puter-based phonics interventions, there continued to be no
difference in word reading scores among the two approaches;
however, the students who received training in analytic pho-
nics demonstrated a large effect for growth in reading com-
prehension skills ( η2p = 0.15) beyond those of the students
who received the synthetic approach. Similarly, Kyle,
Kujala, Richardson, Lyytinen, and Goswami (2013) found
no discernable difference between the effects of computer-
based synthetics and analytics phonics programs on 6- and
7-year-olds’ word reading performance.
Overall, results of the investigations comparing syn-
thetic and analytic phonics do not provide a clear picture of
which of the two approaches is superior for helping young
readers learn to read unfamiliar words and indicate that they
are, for the most part, comparable. In addition, it is difficult
to make direct comparisons across the studies due to several
factors such as age of participants, method of instruction
(e.g., whole class vs. small group), differences in the mate-
rials/methods in which each phonics-based program was
taught, and differences in dosage of treatment. Furthermore,
results of two meta-analyses have concluded that the effects
of synthetic and analytic phonics are indistinguishable
(NRP, 2000; Torgerson et al., 2006).
Studies Investigating the Effect of
Combined Synthetic and Analytic
Phonics
In light of the NRP (2000) findings, some teams of research-
ers have investigated whether there is any added value in
combining the two systematic phonics–based approaches
(e.g., Lovett et al., 2000; Savage & Carless, 2005; Savage
et al., 2003). The results of these investigations, are again,
mixed. For example, Lovett et al. (2000) investigated the
effect of four different treatment approaches and a control
group intervention, on the reading outcomes of 85 children
with reading disabilities ranging from age 6 to 13 years.
Children were matched and randomly assigned to one of the
following five groups: (a) synthetic phonics only, (b) ana-
lytic phonics only, (c) synthetic phonics followed by ana-
lytic phonics, (d) analytic phonics followed by synthetic
phonics, or (e) classroom survival skills/math instruction.
Instruction occurred for 1 hr daily for a total of 70 hr.
Results indicated that, regardless of the order of lessons,
instruction that included both analytic and synthetic pho-
nics was superior (i.e., larger effect sizes) to the analytic or
synthetic phonics instruction alone in improving the word
reading skills of the children. In line with the results from
Lovett et al., a study of teacher observations by Juel and
Minden-Cupp (2000) suggested that students with poor
early reading skills may benefit more from instruction in
both decoding and onset-rime analogies. Furthermore, early
and intensive instruction in letter–phoneme relations and
the sounding out and blending of phonemes may best ben-
efit young struggling readers. In contrast, Savage et al.
(2003) found that there was no meaningful difference in
performance on measures of word and pseudoword reading
between 6-year-old children receiving the two intervention
types alone, or when combined.
To date, there is no conclusive evidence regarding which
type of phonics instruction is most effective for improving
word reading skills, and whether there is a substantial advan-
tage of combining the programs; future research is necessary
to unravel the effects of the two major phonics-based
approaches. However, what is known is that systematic pho-
nics instruction, whether it be at the phoneme–grapheme
level or onset-rime, must be explicitly taught to young chil-
dren in the early stages of learning to read. Importantly, chil-
dren in phonics-based classrooms and/or who receive
supplemental phonics-based interventions perform better on
measures of word reading than their peers who do not receive
any type of systematic instruction. In addition to the contin-
ued investigation of the active ingredients in phonics-based
instruction, investigators and educators should direct their
attention to other aspects of early reading instruction such as
the incorporation of encoding in phonics-based programs.
Benefits of Including Encoding in
Phonics Instruction
Given that it is often included in phonics-based reading pro-
grams, it is important to examine the inclusion of encoding
practice as a component of early reading instruction. Explicit
instruction in encoding for beginning readers consists of
teaching individuals to segment letters and the sounds they
make and build words using letter manipulatives. The idea is
to allow children the opportunity to consciously work with
letters and their sounds to make new words (Weiser &
Mathes, 2011). Although instruction in encoding is often
Henbest and Apel 307
incorporated into phonics-based instruction, the effect of
this added component has received little direct investigation.
For example, Christensen and Bowey (2005), as well as
Johnston and Watson (2004), included encoding activities in
at least one of the phonics-based approaches investigated in
their studies (e.g., when provided with a picture, the child
“built” the word using magnetic tiles); however, the effect of
the inclusion of encoding was not directly compared with a
phonics-based intervention, which did not include encoding
as an instructional component. The potential effectiveness of
encoding practice in a phonics-based program is an impor-
tant consideration given the relation among reading and
spelling and the potential differences in outcomes that may
be attributed to whether instruction in spelling is included in
phonics-based treatments (Weiser & Mathes, 2011). It
should be noted that in the study by Christensen and Bowey,
encoding instruction was included only in the synthetic pho-
nics program, not the analytic one, and results suggested that
students in the synthetic phonics group performed signifi-
cantly better on a measure of reading accuracy and speed of
recognition of unfamiliar words.
The NRP (2000) did not investigate the encoding com-
ponent of phonics-based instruction. However, some infor-
mation is currently available regarding the effect of
including encoding in phonics-based instruction. Weiser
and Mathes (2011) conducted a best-evidence synthesis on
the impact of direct and explicit encoding instruction in
early reading interventions for children at risk for reading
failure. They identified and reviewed 11 experimental stud-
ies that incorporated instruction in encoding, and results
indicated that the inclusion of encoding in phonics-based
instruction, as compared with other early reading approaches
(e.g., whole language, implicit phonics) or no interventions
at all, was highly effective in improving word reading and
spelling outcomes for young struggling readers (d = 0.81).
The authors concluded that explicit practice in building
phoneme–grapheme correspondences likely benefited stu-
dents’ overall literacy outcomes (i.e., reading, phonological
awareness, reading comprehension, spelling) due to it
allowing them to develop more detailed orthographic repre-
sentations. Although this review provides some support for
the incorporation of encoding in phonics instruction, it did
not directly compare whether there was an increased benefit
to adding encoding instruction to decoding instruction. To
clarify, the studies reviewed by Weiser and Mathes did not
contain comparison groups that included one group of stu-
dents who received phonics-based instruction plus encod-
ing versus a phonics-based approach with no direct focus on
encoding. The finding that the systematic phonics–based
programs that included encoding were more effective than
other types of reading instruction is not a surprise consider-
ing the well-established finding that any type of systematic
phonics is better than nonexplicit phonics, for increasing
the word reading of young readers.
The year following the review, Weiser (2012) aimed to
determine whether there is a synergistic relation between
instruction in decoding and encoding. That is, the interest
was whether a combination of encoding and decoding
instruction was more effective in improving the literacy
skills of young readers above the contribution of decoding
and encoding separately. In her study, she coded the amount
of time teachers spent embedding encoding instruction with
decoding instruction in the classroom and in a supplemental
phonics-based intervention program for first-grade students
at risk for reading disabilities. Results indicated that the
amount of time students spent receiving encoding instruc-
tion simultaneously with decoding instruction, in both the
classroom and in a supplemental intervention, explained
about 76% of the variance in the students’ literacy
outcomes.
Although the review by Weiser and Mathes (2011) and
the experimental investigation of Weiser (2012) provided
support for including encoding in early phonics-based
instruction, considerably more research is needed to inves-
tigate the specific benefits of including encoding in early
reading programs and interventions. Future investigations
should compare synthetic phonics plus encoding versus
synthetic phonics without encoding, and the same for ana-
lytic phonics. Furthermore, the combination of the two pho-
nics approaches and the inclusion of encoding practice
should be investigated. However, the evidence suggests that
incorporating encoding into early phonics-based instruction
is likely to be beneficial for most students.
Morphological Awareness in Early
Reading Instruction
Thus far, attention has been on instruction focused on the
relation between individual sounds and letters. However, a
review of the evidence on the effective ways to teach young
children to read words would be incomplete without consid-
ering instruction in morphological awareness as a promising
endeavor for improving the word reading skills of young
readers. Morphological awareness is the ability to con-
sciously identify, reflect on, and manipulate morphemes, the
smallest units of meaning in a language. Given that written
English is a morphophonemic language (i.e., word spellings
reflect both the word and sound structure of the language),
the relation between children’s reading outcomes and their
ability to consciously think about morphemes has been a
topic of increased interest in recent years. Notably, research-
ers have found that children’s morphological awareness
skills are positively related to their reading outcomes (e.g.,
Apel & Henbest, 2016; Apel et al., 2012; Deacon & Kirby,
2004; Kirby et al., 2012; Nagy, Berninger, & Abbott, 2006;
Wolter, Wood, & D’zatko, 2009).
Instruction in morphological awareness involves teach-
ing students to think about base words, prefixes and
308 Communication Disorders Quarterly 39(1)
suffixes, their meanings, and how base words and affixes
are combined and spelled. For example, during this type of
instruction, a child might be encouraged to identify the base
word (underlined) in the word “unfriendly” and then iden-
tify the prefix and suffix (bolded). Several review papers
have been published on the effect of morphological aware-
ness instruction on students’ literacy outcomes. In the first
of these reviews, Reed (2008) examined three studies that
directly investigated the effect of morphological interven-
tions on word reading scores and found medium effect sizes
(ds ranged from 0.60 to 0.79), on word reading accuracy
and speed. Two years following, Bowers, Kirby, and Deacon
(2010) completed a systematic review on 22 intervention
studies that included morphological awareness instruction
as a component. Overall results indicated that morphologi-
cal awareness interventions as compared with untreated
control groups resulted in moderate effect sizes (d = 0.41)
for word reading outcomes (e.g., word recognition accuracy
and speed) and that morphological awareness instruction
was particularly effective for struggling readers and those in
early elementary grades. Furthermore, embedding morpho-
logical awareness instruction with other reading instruction
methods (e.g., phonics) was more effective than teaching
morphological awareness in isolation.
Contrastively, in a review by Goodwin and Ahn (2010),
although significant effects were found for morphological
awareness instruction on several literacy measures (e.g.,
phonological awareness, reading comprehension), no sig-
nificant effects were found for morphological instruction on
students’ decoding skills. However, more recently, a meta-
analysis conducted by Goodwin and Ahn (2013) resulted in
different findings. In their analysis of 30 studies, morpho-
logical interventions resulted in significantly greater gains
on several reading measures including decoding (d = 0.59).
Consistent with the review by Bowers et al. (2010), effects
were greater for younger students.
Since the publication of Goodwin and Ahn’s (2013)
meta-analysis, investigations on morphological awareness
interventions have yielded mixed results. For example,
Apel, Brimo, Diehm, and Apel (2013) conducted a feasibil-
ity study investigating the effect of a morphological aware-
ness intervention on the literacy abilities of kindergarten,
first- and second-grade students. The intervention was
implemented in small groups, 4 days per week for 9 weeks
in 25-min sessions. The lessons provided explicit instruc-
tion in prefixes and suffixes and how to manipulate these in
various ways. For example, one activity was a word sort in
which the children were required to sort words based on the
presence or absence of the target affix (e.g., plural “s”).
Results of this investigation indicated that effect sizes were
medium to large for all three grades on measures of word
reading and pseudoword reading (ds ranged from 0.50 to
0.87). However, in contrast, another study by Apel and
Diehm (2013) found significant gains on measures of
morphological awareness following the intervention, but no
significant gains were found on word reading scores.
Similarly, a study by Wolter and Dilworth (2014) found
that, for second-grade students who were in a letter–sound-
focused intervention, adding morphological awareness to
the instruction did not result in any greater gains than the
letter–sound intervention alone.
The results of the aforementioned systematic reviews
and meta-analyses support the incorporation of instruction
in morphological awareness in early word reading instruc-
tion. However, some recent studies have resulted in null
effects for morphological awareness interventions’ contri-
bution to word reading skills. The mixed findings from
recent studies may be due to differing focuses in the mor-
phological awareness interventions, the length and dosage
of the interventions, or age of participants. Undoubtedly,
further research is needed to parse out the active ingredients
in morphological awareness interventions, and future inves-
tigations should examine which portions of morphological
awareness interventions are most effective for increasing
the word reading skills of early readers. Nonetheless,
instruction in morphological awareness seems to be a prom-
ising component for early word reading instruction.
Conclusion
To summarize the findings presented in this report, there is
evidence to support that explicit instruction covering mul-
tiple linguistic aspects of written language is beneficial for
improving the word reading skills of young readers.
Particularly, evidence for explicit instruction in letter–
sound relations focusing on both grapheme–phoneme cor-
respondences and/or onset-rime is well established, and
educators can be confident that they are implementing evi-
dence-based practice when they are providing these types
of instruction to young readers. It is recommended that
future research continue to investigate the effects of com-
bining both synthetic and analytic phonics instruction for
improving the word reading skills of early elementary-age
students.
Although further research is needed to parse out the
exact effects of instruction in encoding and morphological
awareness, there is mounting of evidence to date that sug-
gests that including these components in early reading pro-
grams is beneficial for improving word reading skills. To
provide stronger support for these methods of instruction,
however, the added benefit of including encoding practice
and instruction in morphological awareness should con-
tinue to be investigated. These future investigations should
include examining which types of morphological awareness
instruction are most effective, when, and with which popu-
lations. Until some of these questions are answered, it is
recommended that early elementary educators provide sys-
tematic phonics–based instruction to their early readers and
Henbest and Apel 309

Table 1.  Examples of the Linguistic Units Addressed in Three Instructional Strategies (Synthetic and Analytic Phonics and
Morphological Awareness) and Expected Learning Outcomes.

Instructional Linguistic units

strategy addressed Example What the child learns
Synthetic Letter–sound “fat” [f] - [a] - [t] /f/ - /æ/ - /t/ “I can read the word fat because I can match letters
phonics to sounds, like f says /f/, a says /æ/, and t says /t/.
When I blend these sounds together, I make the
word fat.”
Analytic Onset–rime “lip” [l] - [ip] /l/- /ɪp/ “I can read the word lip because I know the letter l
phonics makes the sound /l/, and the last group of letters, ip
make the sounds /ɪp/. I know this because I know
other words that end in /ɪp/ like dip, sip, hip, and
how they are spelled. This can help me read lip.”
Morphological Morphemes “magician” [magic]-[ian] “When I see magician, I see the word magic (but I
awareness don’t hear it). Still, I believe magician is related to
magic; it shares meaning. I see the ian. I’ve seen ian
in other words and it means—a person who does,
such as musician, or comedian. So, magician must
mean, someone who does magic. I can read the
word magician.”

consider the incorporation of other linguistic-based strate-
gies in their reading programs. See Table 1 for examples of
instructional strategies. Instruction on how to read unknown
words should undoubtedly be explicit and direct. Based on
the results of the studies reviewed here, providing early
word reading instruction in a manner that draws students’
attention to the phonological, orthographic, and morpho-
logical relations in written language is appropriate for facil-
itating early reading skills, especially for our youngest
readers.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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