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Visible Learning™
Visible Learning MetaX™
Version 1.4 – Updated February 2026

Sound or inference

Overview

  • Influence: Sound or inference
  • Domain: Curricula
  • Sub-Domain: Reading, writing and the arts
  • Potential to Accelerate Student Achievement: Potential to accelerate
  • Influence Definition: Sound or inference includes programs that derive word meaning from context, spelling to sound regularities and reading, morphological teaching, or rapid automatized naming and reading.

Evidence

  • Number of meta-analyses: 6
  • Number of studies: 137
  • Number of students: 8,856
  • Number of effects: 574
  • Weighted mean effect size: 0.46
  • Robustness index: 3

Meta-Analyses

Meta-Analyses
Journal Title Author Article Name Year Published Variable Number of Studies Number of Students Number of Effects Effect Size
Review of Educational Research Fuchs, Fuchs, Mathes, Lipsey, & Roberts Is "Learning Disabilities" Just a Fancy Term for Low Achievement? A Meta-Analysis of Reading Differences between Low Achievers with and without the Label. Executive Summary. 2001 Deriving word meaning from context 12 NA 21 0.43
Journal of Educational Psychology Metsala, Stanovich, & Brown Regularity Effects and the Phonological Deficit Model of Reading Disabilities: A Meta-Analytic Review 1998 Spelling to sound regularities and reading 17 1,116 38 0.58
Review of Educational Research Bowers, Kirby & Deacon The effects of morphological instruction on literacy skills: A systematic review of the literature 2010 Morphological teaching 22 2,652 285 0.32
Annals of Dyslexia Goodwin & Ahn A meta-analysis of morphological interventions: Effects on literacy achievement of children with literacy difficulties 2010 Morphological teaching 17 NA 79 0.33
Journal of Educational Psychology Elleman Examining the impact of inference instruction on the literal and inferential comprehension of skilled and less skilled readers: A meta-analytic review 2017 Inference instruction on comprehension 13 NA 13 0.58
Journal of Educational Psychology Rice & Wijekumar Inference skills for reading: A meta-analysis of instructional practices.  2024 Inference skills 56 5,088 138 0.50
TOTAL/AVERAGE 137 8,856 574 0.46
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