Text Types and Their Relation to Efficacy in Beginning Reading Interventions

Abstract

Researchers disagree about the value of controlling the decodability of texts for students with reading difficulty, specifically what type of text they should read: decodable texts (words limited to taught patterns), nondecodable texts (those not limited by instruction), or both. We analyzed the effects of reading intervention for elementary‐age students with reading difficulty (k = 119) to determine whether effects varied by the type of texts students read—decodable, nondecodable, or both—compared with interventions without text reading. Inadequate information was available to code text type for 22 interventions including text reading; effect sizes were calculated for 97 studies. Effects for interventions with decodable or nondecodable reading did not differ from no‐text interventions. For both types of interventions, the effect (g = 0.28) approached significance versus no‐text, 95% CI [−0.09, 0.65]. Disaggregating effects by whether the measures were standardized or researcher‐designed showed a significant both‐types effect, g = 0.45, 95% CI [0.02, 0.89] relative to no‐text. Disaggregating by whether outcomes were for word recognition or reading comprehension showed a positive both‐types effect for word recognition outcomes; data were inadequate to examine comprehension. A possible confounding effect of time spent reading was tested but was uncorrelated with the intervention effect. The both‐types finding suggests the possible value of varied reading experiences in intervention, but this analysis did not account for other factors that might be correlated with text type and the intervention effect. Furthermore, more comprehensive reporting about text types is important for replication and meta‐analytic review.