> more phonics This paper is about high-school students, where the difference between "phonics" and (largely discredited) "real language" approaches to basic l

> more phonics This paper is about high-school students, where the difference between "phonics" and (largely discredited) "real language" approaches to basic literacy skills is simply not relevant. The gap in "reading skills" is not really measuring literacy, it's more about all sorts of other stuff that the authors don't really get into. (We can assume that what's being tested is "text comprehension" of a sort, but better text-comprehension skills are hardly an obstacle for STEM!)