reading is rocket science final

READING IS ROCKET SCIENCE

Cynthia R. Smith, M.A., CCC-SLPKatherine D. Smith, B.A.

BEGINNER'S MIND

In medicine, if research found new ways to save lives, health care professionals would adopt these methods as quickly as possible, and would change practices, procedures, and systems. Educational research has found new ways to save young minds by helping them to become proficient readers; it is up to us to promote these new methods throughout the education system. Young lives depend on it. (P.5)

Reading Is Rocket Science

Scientists now estimate that fully 95 percent of all children can be taught to read...Yet, in spite of all our knowledge, statistics reveal an alarming prevalence of struggling and poor readers...[the] risk of reading difficulties could still be prevented and ameliorated by literacy instruction that includes a range of research-based components and practices. But, as the statistics testify, this type of instruction clearly has not made its way into every classroom (P.7)


Perhaps the dubious quality of past educational research has justified the prevalent cynicism among educators, who are often told that research exists to support any point of view. However, reading is actually one of the most studied aspects of human behavior, and a large body of work based on sound principles of objective inquiry exists that could be informing the field. (p.26)


The tragedy here is that most reading failure is unnecessary. We now know that classroom teaching itself, when it includes a range of research-based components and practices, can prevent and ameliorate reading difficulty... while parents, tutors, and the community can contribute to reading success, classroom instruction must be viewed as the critical factor in preventing reading problems and must be the primary focus for change. (p.9-10)


Tragic because not only reading is adversely impacted

In the words of Keith Stanovich (Adams, 1990, pp. 59-60):Slow reading acquisition has cognitive, behavioral, and motivational consequences that slow the development of other cognitive skills and inhibit performance on many academic tasks. In short, as reading develops, other cognitive processes linked to it track the level of reading skill. Knowledge bases that are in reciprocal relationships with reading are also inhibited from further development. The longer this developmental sequence is allowed to continue, the more generalized the deficits will become, seeping into more and more areas of cognition and behavior. Or to put it more simply -- and sadly -- in the words of a tearful nine-year-old, already falling frustratingly behind his peers in reading progress, "Reading affects everything you do"


Children who can crack the code, read more words, learn more vocabulary, comprehend more, are motivated to read, and enjoy reading

Children without adequate word recognition skills read less, read slowly, have slower development of vocabulary, and are less motivated to read

Research should guide the profession

Teachers must be educated to identify, read, respect, and apply the findings of scientific research to their practice. (p.25)

If research guides their profession teachers will be in a better position to countermand the proliferation of appealing but unsupported ideas that have been harmful influences for more than a decade. (p.25)



Examples of popular misconceptions include:Reading instruction is only needed until third gradeCompetent teachers do not use published reading programsAvoiding published reading programs empowers teachers and enhances the professional status of teachingTeaching phonics, word attack, and spelling skills directly to children is harmfulThose who favor good code instruction are opposed to literature and comprehension instructionReading a lot is the best way to overcome a reading problemChildren should be taught to guess words on the basis of meaning and syntaxSkills must always be taught in the context of literature

The idea of giving a child another year to "catch-up" and develop needed skills sounds like a positive alternative. However, research shows that outcomes for kids who are retained generally are not positive. In its 2003 "Position Statement on Student Grade Retention," the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) reports:

Academic achievement of kids who are retained is poorer than that of peers who are promoted.Achievement gains associated with retention fade within two to three years after the grade repeated.Kids who are identified as most behind are the ones "most likely harmed by retention."Retention often is associated with increased behavior problems.

Outcomes of Retention


Grade retention has a negative impact on all areas of a child's achievement (reading, math, and language) and socio-emotional adjustment (peer relationships, self-esteem, problem behaviors and attendance).Students who are retained are more likely to drop out of school compared to students who were never retained. In fact, grade retention is one of the most powerful predictors of high school dropout.Retained students are more likely to have poorer educational and employment outcomes during late adolescence and early adulthood.Retention is more likely to have benign or positive impact when students are not simply held back, but receive specific remediation to address skill and/or behavioral problems and promote achievement and social skills.

Outcomes of Retention (con.)


Teaching reading is a job for an expert...[because] learning to read is a complex linguistic achievement. For many children, it requires effort and incremental skill development...For best results, the teacher must instruct most students directly, systematically, and explicitly to decipher words in print (p.11)


Some children learn language concepts and their application very easily in spite of incidental teaching, but others never learn unless they are taught in an organized, systematic, efficient way by a knowledgeable teacher using a well-designed instructional approach. Children of average ability might learn enough about reading to get by, but may not develop the appreciation for language structure that supports learning words from context, organization of the mental dictionary, comparing words, or precise use of language (p.12)


...to understand printed language well enough to teach it explicitly requires disciplined study of its systems and forms, both spoken and written. (p.12)


Expert teaching of reading requires knowledge of language structure at all levels. Without such knowledge, teachers are not able to respond insightfully to student errors, choose examples for concepts, explain and contrast words and their parts, or judge what focus is needed in a lesson. (p.20)



Reading vs. LiteracyReading = “getting meaning from print”

Literacy = “a variety of outcomes--dispositions toward learning, interests in reading and writing, and knowledge of subject-matter domains--that go beyond reading”

VS.

Rayner, et al, “How Psychological Science Informs the Teaching of Reading”


Literacy

...dimensions of literacy entail the achievement of a broad range of skills embedded in cultural and technological contexts. An extended functional definition is useful in helping to make clear the wide range of literacy tasks a society must present to its members (e.g., computer literacy, historical literacy, scientific literacy, etc.).



The starting point for literacy is reading skill.



Learning to read builds on cognitive, linguistic, and social skills that have developed from the earliest age. The most important among these is the child’s competence in language, which provides the basic foundation for reading.



Children are routinely subjected to teaching practices that have not been tested or proven effective...Experts agree that children who initially are at risk for failure are saved, in most cases, by instruction that teaches directly the specific language skills on which proficient reading depends. (p.21)


Effective teachers of reading raise awareness and proficiency with every level of language organization including sounds, syllables, meaningful parts (morphemes), phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and various genres of text. (p.21)

Only recently has basic research allowed the community of reading scientists and educators to agree on what needs to be done (p.12)


What did the National Reading Panel do? Specifically, congress asked the panel to: • Review all the research available (more than 100,000 reading studies) on how children learn to read. • Determine the most effective evidence-based methods for teaching children to read• Describe which methods of reading instruction are ready for use in the classroom and recommend ways of getting this information into schools. • Suggest a plan for additional research in reading development and instruction.

5 Big Ideas of Reading

Big Ideas in Beginning Reading (BIBR) focuses on the five BIG IDEAS of early literacy:

Phonemic Awareness: The ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words. Alphabetic Principle: The ability to associate sounds with letters and use these sounds to form words. Fluency with Text: The effortless, automatic ability to read words in connected text. Vocabulary: The ability to understand (receptive) and use (expressive) words to acquire and convey meaning. Comprehension: The complex cognitive process involving the intentional interaction between reader and text to convey meaning.



What makes a Big Idea a Big Idea?


What is Phonemic Awareness?

An understanding that a single-syllable word such as "cat" can be subdivided into beginning, middle, and ending sounds (segmentation)An understanding that individual segments of sound at the phonemic level can be combined to form words (blending or synthesis)Knowledge or awareness of the distinctive features of individual phonemes

University of Indiana

Phonological Awareness Continuum

Syllable

Onset-Rime & Rhyming

Phonemes

Isolation

Identity

Categorization

Blending

Segmentation

Deletion

Addition

Substitution Phonemic Awareness

I’ve Dibel’d…Page 132


Examples of Phonemic Awareness Skills:

Blending: What word am I trying to say? Mmmm...ooooo...p.Segmentation (first sound isolation): What is the first sound in mop?Segmentation (last sound isolation): What is the last sound in mop?Segmentation (complete): What are all the sounds you hear in mop?

Critical Features of Phonemic Awareness Instruction


Research indicates that, without direct instructional support, phonemic awareness eludes roughly 25% of middle-class first graders and substantially more of those who come from less literacy-rich backgrounds (p.1)

Measures of schoolchildren’s ability to attend to and manipulate phonemes strongly correlate with their reading success through the twelfth grade (p.2)

Lack of PA means poor spelling and comprehension

Adams, et al, Phonemic Awareness in Young Children


What is Alphabetic Principle?

The alphabetic principle is composed of two parts:

Part 1: Alphabetic Understanding: Words are composed of letters that represent sounds

Part 2: Phonological Recoding (blending): Letter sounds can be blended together and knowledge of letter-sound associations can be used to read/decode words.

Dynamic Measurement Group


Letter-sound knowledge is prerequisite to word identificationA primary difference between good and poor readers is the ability to use word-sound correspondences to decode wordsLetter-sound knowledge can be taughtTeaching the alphabetic principle leads to gains in reading acquisition/achievement

Why Alphabetic Principle?


Examples of alphabetic principle skills:Letter-sound associations: What is the sound of this letter?Soundblending: Blend the sounds of these letters to make a word “m-a-n”Segmenting: What sounds do you hear in this word?Manipulating letter-sound correspondences in words: What word would you have if you changed the /n/ in /nap/ to /l/?Reading pseudowords: What is this word, mip?Word identification: What is this word, map?

Alphabetic Principle skills


Critical Features of Alphabetic Principle Instruction


What is Fluency ?

A child who performs a task fluently, that is, both accurately and quickly, has learned the skill to mastery, is automatic in performing the underlying skills and is much more able to remember, maintain, and apply the skill than a child who has not achieved mastery. (p.2)

Truth About Dibels


Teaching Strategies and Examples of Fluency:

Letter-Sound FluencyExample: Given a set of letters, the student can produce the associated sound within one second

Irregular Word FluencyExample: Given a set of irregular words in a set or a passage, can identify words in one second or less

Oral Reading FluencyExample: By the end of Grade 2, students should read 90-100 words per minute fluently


Critical Features of Fluency Instruction:


What is Vocabulary?


Knowledge and use of words in spoken language

Sounds in words (phonology)Meaning (semantics)Order of words and relationship of words in sentences (syntax)Knowledge of word parts (morphology)Purpose/function (pragmatics)

What is Oral Language?



Why Vocabulary and Oral Language?



Why should Vocabulary and Oral Language be taught?

Vocabulary is not a developmental skill or one that can ever be fully mastered. The expansion and elaboration of vocabulary extends across a lifetime (Kamil & Herbert, 2005)



1) Provide students with skills/opportunities to learn words independently2) Teach students the meaning of specific words3) Nurture a love and appreciation of words and their use

Three Goals for Vocabulary Instruction


Critical Features of Vocabulary Instruction


What is Comprehension?

Comprehension is about getting meaning



Why Comprehension?



Comprehension Skills



Seven Evidence-Based Strategies for Improving Comprehension

Comprehension monitoringCooperative learningMultiple strategiesMental imagery/mnemonicsGraphic organizersSummarizationSemantic organizers including:story mapsquestion answeringquestion generation


Critical Features of Comprehension Instruction

Comprehension strategies for proficient readers


Teaching Strategies and Examples for Comprehension

Before Reading1) Set comprehension objectives2) Pre-teach difficult to read words3) Preview text and prime background knowledge4) Chunk text into manageable segments

During Reading1) Identify text structure elements2) Answer literal, inferential, and evaluative questions3) Retell stories or main ideas of informational text

After Reading1) Strategic integration2) Judicious review3) Formal and informal assessment

Each DIBLES indicator represents a broader sequence of skills and concepts to be taught (truth about dibels 1)

Outcome--Assessments that provide a bottom-line evaluation of the effectiveness of the reading programScreening--Assessments that identify which children are at risk for reading difficulty and need additional interventionProgress Monitoring--Assessments that determine if students are making adequate progress or need more intervention to achieve grade level reading outcomes(I’ve DIBEL’d, Now What?, pp.32-33)

What is the purpose of DIBELS?

Diagnosis--Assessments that help teachers plan instruction by providing in-depth information about students’ skills and instructional needs. Some instruments may also help determine the presence of a developmental disorder that requires specialized treatments and interventions

NOT

DIBELS are criterion-referenced because each measure has an empirically established goal (or benchmark) that changes across time to ensure students' skills are developing in a manner predictive of continued progress. The goals/benchmarks were developed following a large group of students in a longitudinal manner to see where students who were "readers" in later grades were performing on these critical early literacy skills when they were in Kindergarten and First grade so that we can make predictions about which students are progressing adequately and which students may need additional instructional support. This approach is in contrast with normative measures which simply demonstrate where a student is performing in relation to the normative sample, regardless of whether that performance is predictive of future success. (uoregon FAQ)

"Benchmark is where we want our lowest performing readers to be. It's the minimum of where we want our kids to be." (module 1)

"Benchmark is the bottom of 'okay'." (module 1)

The DIBELS benchmark goals are the minimal level students need to achieve to be confident they are on track for literacy outcomes. The ultimate goal is for 100% of children within a school to achieve each benchmark (myths and facts 10)

Dibels related to the Big Ideas:

The fact that teachers need better training to carry out deliberate instruction in reading, spelling, and writing should prompt action rather than criticism. It should highlight the existing gap between what teachers need and what they have been give. (p.8)

reading is rocket science final

Technology

reading problems

reading failure

reading diculty

reading progress

reading problem children

published reading programs

slow reading acquisition

risk of reading diculties