Empower Reading
Fair Evidence of Relative Effectiveness:
Summary: Empower Reading has been the subject of a couple intervention studies in its older iterations ( it was known then as PHAB or PHAST ). So far I have reviewed 2 studies. Of these, 100% showed that the program had statistically significant, positive results after 35-80 hours.
I am currently reviewing additional studies.
Empower Reading Research (formerly PHAB / PHAST)
Empower Reading (formerly known as PHAB or "Phonological Analysis and Blending" Instruction) is a Canadian program designed by medical researchers at the Hospital for Sick Children and modelled after Direct Instruction approaches (note the capitalization). The PHAB program was later combined with a reading strategy program, becoming PHAST, and eventually has been branded as Empower Reading TM. It is only available via training. Also known as the “DI” or “Engelmann Approaches,” Direct Instruction programs are explicit, highly scripted phonics programs. Of the intervention studies I have reviewed thus far, DI programs are of middling length for a phonics program. The interventions ranged from 35 to 80 hours, spanning 1-2 years.
Lovett & Steinbach 1997 studied two interventions: the PHAB/DI program for phonological awareness and phonics, which was modeled after the DI program Reading Mastery and Corrective Reading, as well as the WIST program, which taught students to tackle words in chunks (such as morpheme chunks) and to adjust vowel sounds (set for variability). After 35 hours of intervention, both the PHAB and WIST interventions performed better than controls with statistically significant results across all reading measures. No effect sizes were calculated. When comparing the two interventions to one another, the WIST tended to have a bigger impact on word identification, while PHAB/DI tended to have a bigger impact on reading nonsense words and sound-spellings accurately. In a follow-up study, Lovett et al. 2000 examined the PHAB/DI and WIST interventions again, as well as combined PHAB + WIST interventions, alongside Control Groups. After 70 hours of intervention, researchers found that students who received intervention performed better than controls in terms of Nonsense Word Reading and Word Identification, and the results were statistically significant. Effect sizes were not calculated. Researchers also found that those who received 35 hours of PHAB and 35 hours of WIST had greater improvement than those who received 70 hours of a single program.
My Takeaway? Of the Direct Instruction programs that I have reviewed, the PHAB / PHAST / Empower Reading approaches seem to get the most consistent results. However, I have not reviewed many studies yet. Furthermore, as the program is only available in some Canadian schools, or by group training sessions with your school, it might be hard to access. Efficiency wise, they are a middling program. They don't take as long to accomplish their work as many phonics programs, which is a plus, but they also aren't nearly as swift as Speech-to-Print programs.
Research Studies:
Lovett, M. W., & Steinbach, K. A. (1997). The effectiveness of remedial programs for reading disabled children of different ages: Does the benefit decrease for older children?. Learning disability quarterly, 20(3), 189-210. Google Scholar
Lovett, M. W., Lacerenza, L., Borden, S. L., Frijters, J. C., Steinbach, K. A., & De Palma, M. (2000). Components of effective remediation for developmental reading disabilities: Combining phonological and strategy-based instruction to improve outcomes. Journal of educational psychology, 92(2), 263. Google Scholar
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This Research Summary is a work in progress.
Leave me a comment if you know of other studies that I could include!
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