Effectiveness of guided co-construction versus direct instruction for beginning reading instruction

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. In a field experiment with 178 first-grade pupils, the effects of an experimental beginning reading programme were investigated. Both an experimental and a control group worked with the most frequently used Dutch beginning reading programme, Learning to Read Safely. The instructional approach implemented in the experimental group was guided co-construction (GCC); the instructional approach implemented in the control group was direct instruction (DI). The results of an overall analysis of the development of word recognition (WR) over time (i.e., throughout the 1st grade) showed the pupils in the experimental group to outperform those in the control group. However, the better performance by the experimental group attenuated over time with better performance by the control group on the last measurement occasion. Majority pupils benefitted more from GCC but minority pupils more from DI. Minority pupils in the control group showed greatest progress. Introduction Teaching children to read is a complex task. Children enter school with substantial speaking competence but little or no reading or writing skills. The purpose of beginning school reading instruction is thus to help children master the many challenges of the written word, including knowledge of the alphabetic system, an ability to decode new words, a vocabulary which allows words to be read at sight, and an ability to construct, integrate, and remember the meanings of words in text. In order for children to link spoken language to written language, they must master the alphabetic code or, in other words, a system of grapheme-phoneme correspondences which associate the spellings of words with their pronunciations (Ehri, 1991). There are nevertheless large differences across children in the mastery of the alphabetic code, and the aim of this study was therefore to determine what form of beginning reading instruction …