A child reads aloud in class. They stumble over a word. The teacher interrupts: “No, that’s not correct. Try again.” The child repeats the word correctly this time. Next sentence. Next mistake. And next correction. It is such a familiar classroom scene that it almost feels natural: feedback during reading instruction is about fixing errors.

But what if feedback does more than correct? What if it also shapes what kind of reader a child is allowed to become?

A recent large-scale systematic review by Karianne Megard Grønli and colleagues examined how teachers provide feedback when young children read aloud, from kindergarten through Grade 5. The authors analysed 52 empirical studies and mapped the full landscape of feedback practices. Their aim was not to determine which single method is “best”, but to understand what kinds of feedback teachers actually use—and what these different practices mean for students.

They organised feedback along two simple dimensions.

• The first dimension runs from explicit to implicit. Explicit feedback is direct and corrective: “That’s wrong,” “This is how you pronounce it,” “Pay attention to that sound.” Implicit feedback consists of prompts and questions: “What would make sense here?” “Does that fit with the sentence?” “How did you work that out?”
• The second dimension runs from decoding to meaning. Decoding-focused feedback targets letters, sounds, speed, and accuracy. Meaning-focused feedback targets understanding, interpretation, and making sense of the text.

When these two dimensions are combined, a clear pattern emerges. Most feedback practices cluster in two areas: explicit feedback on decoding and implicit feedback on meaning. The other two combinations, implicit feedback on decoding and explicit feedback on meaning, are much rarer.

That finding alone is interesting. But the central question of the review was different: which kinds of feedback support student agency?

By agency, the authors do not simply mean engagement or participation. They refer to something deeper: do students see themselves as active readers who can think, make choices, persist through difficulty, and learn from mistakes? Or do they mainly experience reading as something that is judged and corrected by the teacher?

To answer this, the researchers examined five dimensions:

• whether students can express their own ideas,
• whether feedback contributes to their self-image as readers,
• whether they can make choices,
• whether they learn to persist when reading becomes difficult, and
• whether there is real interaction between the teacher and the student.

The pattern is strikingly consistent. When teachers focus on meaning and use implicit feedback, through questions, prompts, and dialogue, they actively strengthen student agency. These practices push students to reflect on their reading, analyse mistakes, choose strategies, and see themselves as learners who can grow.

By contrast, feedback that stays mainly explicit and decoding-oriented weakens agency. It may increase speed and accuracy, but it leaves little space for reflection, choice, or ownership. The message shifts to: you read, the teacher judges.

This leads to an uncomfortable conclusion. Students who struggle most with reading, struggling readers and second-language learners, receive the least agency-supporting feedback. Teachers correct them more often, focus more on errors, and control the interaction more tightly. Students in regular classrooms, on the other hand, more often receive feedback that invites them to think about meaning.

In other words, schools mostly help weaker readers avoid mistakes, while they help stronger readers become readers.

This pattern does not stem from bad intentions. Many studies describe what the authors call “missed opportunities”: moments when a student offers an interpretation of the text, only for the teacher to redirect attention to sounds and words. Or situations in which difficult texts trigger more teacher talk and less student thinking. Support meant to help can unintentionally shrink autonomy.

This does not mean that explicit feedback or attention to decoding is wrong. In early reading, it is essential. The review also shows that effective feedback shifts over time. Teachers may begin with implicit prompts and become more explicit when necessary, or model strategies first and then gradually step back. The problem is not the correction itself, but remaining stuck there.

The deeper lesson is that feedback does more than improve reading skills. It defines what reading is. Is reading a technical task to be performed correctly? Or is it an activity in which students construct meaning, solve problems, and develop understanding?

Small changes in feedback can make a large difference. “Good job” closes the interaction. “How did you figure that out?” opens it. “No, that’s wrong” stops thinking. “Does that make sense in this sentence?” invites thinking. The first trains compliance; the second teaches reading.

This matters for instructional design. If we want students to think deeply, persist through difficulty, and see themselves as readers, we must look beyond texts and exercises to the questions we ask while they read. Not less feedback, but different feedback. Less focused on correction, more focused on thinking.

Feedback is never neutral. It always sends a message about who the learner is and who the learner can become. Perhaps that is the central insight of this review: learning to read is not only about sounds and words, but also about identity. And every line of feedback helps shape that story, whether we intend it to or not.