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Using a pretest-posttest comparison-group design, this 16-week study investigated the effects of 2 instructional approaches on the phonological awareness, alphabetic knowledge, and early reading of kindergarten children. The primary goal was to compare a form of contextualized instruction based on an adapted interactive writing program with a field-tested program of metalinguistic games. For instructional purposes, the children in each treatment group were divided into small intervention classes, with groupings based on children's common strengths and needs. Each week, these classes met with trained literacy tutors for 4 20-min lessons. Pretest and posttest measures provided data on children's phonological awareness, spelling, and reading development. Statistical analyses of the data indicated no between-groups differences with regard to phonological awareness and spelling achievement. In contrast, results revealed statistically significant differences between the 2 groups on word identification, passage comprehension, and word reading development measures, with the adapted interactive writing group demonstrating greater achievement. These findings verify that the children participating in a contextualized program matched or exceeded the achievement of the children participating in a structured program of metalinguistic games.
