Why teaching grammar helps kids learn to read (studies)
A national study of more than 6,000 students found that understanding how sentences are structured predicted reading achievement even after researchers controlled for family income, homework habits, and writing ability. Even after they accounted for everything else, sentence-level understanding still mattered. For reading.
“A lot of research into the relationship between explicit grammatical understanding and literacy development in L1 contexts has focused on writing. A lot less is known, however, about the interconnectedness of explicit grammatical understanding and reading. This study investigated the relationship between grammatical understanding and reading comprehension in Finnish 9th grade students. Using national assessment data (N = 6,044) and multilevel quantitative analyses, the study found that explicit grammatical understanding accounted for a significant portion of the variance in reading skills, even after controlling for various background factors such as school, family socioeconomic status, homework and book reading habits, attitudes towards studying L1, and writing ability. The findings suggest, without implying causality, that understanding language structure and making explicit metalinguistic observations are closely connected to reading comprehension. The study encourages further research on the benefits of explicit grammar teaching for reading comprehension using different study designs. Additionally, it highlights the need to investigate how grammar instruction can be linked to reading, as well as explore the effectiveness of such instruction in different educational and linguistic contexts.”
You can read the study here.
A meta-analysis of research from 1998 to 2022 confirmed it. The ability to understand how sentences are put together is one of the strongest predictors of reading comprehension we have. Right alongside vocabulary.
“The study aimed to examine the cohesive tie effect on reading comprehension through the grammatical knowledge cognition process. The present meta-analysis examined the correlation between grammatical knowledge and reading comprehension based on empirical results published between 1998 and 2021. This study selected 86 studies with a total of 14,852 readers whose grades were grouped from primary school to university. The results showed that the overall correlation effect size between grammatical knowledge and reading comprehension was large, and the significant interaction effect of the grade group was confirmed through moderator analysis. The results suggested that the grammatical knowledge’s function of the cohesive tie has a transfer effect across different text comprehension scripts.”
You can read the study here.
This is why grammar (syntax) is incorporated into the teaching at every level in Reading Kingdom and ASD Reading.
Reading Kingdom is an online K-3 reading program that uses a new “phonics-plus” model to teach students to read and write at a 3rd grade level with comprehension. Sign up for a complimentary Reading Kingdom trial (or any of our other products) here.
We also have a program for students on the autism spectrum and others who face unique learning challenges called ASD Reading. Sign up for a complimentary trial of ASD Reading.
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