A Crash Course in Reading (and Related Factors)

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A Crash Course in Reading (and Related Factors)

• Diane Dahl, M.ED.
• Supervisor of Special Services,
• Reading Specialist

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Ultimate goal of reading instruction

• The ultimate goal of reading instruction is for
  children to become sufficiently fluent to
  understand what they read.
• To read grade-level material with comprehension
• To motivate students to want to read
• To prepare students to be successful in college
  and career

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Scary statistics

• Our research shows that, under current
  conditions, the level of academic achievement
  that students attain by eighth grade has a larger
  impact on their college and career readiness by
  the time they graduate from high school than
  anything that happens academically in high
  school.
•  
• From The Forgotten Middle (ACT, 2008)

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• Adults with lower levels of literacy and
  education are more likely than adults with higher
  levels of literacy and education to be unemployed
  or to earn an income that falls below the poverty
  level (Kutner et al., 2007).
•  Furthermore, adults without a high school
  diploma or postsecondary education are more
  likely to be incarcerated than adults with higher
  levels of education (Harlow, 2003).
• From Reading on Grade Level in Third Grade How
  Is It Related to High School
• Performance and College Enrollment? (2010)

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• Average annual 2008 earnings of workers 18 and
  older
• without a high school diploma- 21,023
•  
• with a high school diploma- 31,283
•  
• with a bachelors degree- 58,613
•  
• with an advanced degree- 83,144
•  
• From Back to School (U.S. Dept. of Commerce,
  2010)

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Reading is a complex skill/process

• Requires many sub-skills
• Requires coordination of many simultaneous
  processes
• Failure of any one of these skills or processes
  results in some type or degree of reading
  difficulty

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The Many Strands that are Woven into Skilled
Reading (Scarborough, 2001)
Reading is a multifaceted skill, gradually
acquired over years of instruction and practice.
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Process of skill acquisition

• Novice level
• Conscious processing
• Time-intensive
• Expert level
• Mostly unconscious processing- automaticity
• Much faster

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How memory works

• You sense something (see, hear, smell, etc.)
• That piece of information stays in immediate
  memory for 15-30 seconds.
• If rehearsed immediately, info moves to short
  term memory (15-30 minutes)
• If the info is elaborated upon or processed, it
  can move to long-term memory.
• Info should be reviewed 10/24/7 for true
  retention

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Motivation and student self-efficacy

• Factors that affect motivation
• Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation
• Self-efficacy
• what a person believes they are capable of doing

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Attribution theory (Weiner, 1980, 1992)

• An individuals success at a task can be viewed
  as
• Internal or external (factors in us vs. in
  the environment)
• Stable or unstable (directly related
  to our behavior)
• Controllable or uncontrollable
  (changeable or not)
• and can be attributed to one of four factors
• Ability (internal, stable,
  no personal control)
• Task difficulty (external, stable, no
  personal control)
• Effort (internal, unstable,
  learner-controlled)
• Luck (external, unstable,
  no personal control)

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Attribution theory (cont.)

• How people attribute their success or failure
  will determine future behavior in regard to this
  type of task
• People will attribute success or failure to
  whatever factor enables them to retain a positive
  self-image.
• It is best for students to believe that their
  behavior and effort (not external factors) leads
  to success or failure.

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How is reading typically acquired?

• NOT a natural process- requires instruction
• FIVE PILLARS OF READING INSTRUCTION
• Phonics
• Fluency
• Vocabulary
• Comprehension
• Phonemic awareness

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Phonological/Phonemic awareness

• Phonological awareness-
• Overall understanding that oral speech can be
  broken down into smaller units- sentences, words,
  syllables, individual sounds (phonemes)
• Phonemic awareness-
• The understanding that words are composed of
  individual sounds (phonemes) which can be
  manipulated to create new words.

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Phonics

• The relationship between the spoken sounds
  (phonemes) and the written letters (graphemes)
  that represent those sounds.
• Used in reading (decoding) and spelling
  (encoding).
• A childs phonics knowledge can be assessed by
  analyzing his errors in reading and spelling-
  random errors are rare.

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Fluency

• Speed, accuracy, and prosody (phrasing) while
  reading
• Automatic word recognition and decoding leaves
  cognitive resources for comprehension
• Millers number of items (7/- 2) in working
  memory
• Reduces the time required to read a text,
  decreasing fatigue and frustration
• Benchmark fluency rates by grade

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Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) Target Rate Norms
Developed and reported by  Hasbrouck, J.,
Tindal, G. (2006) ORF Norms A valuable
assessment tool for reading teachers.  The
Reading Teacher, 59(7), 636644. Hasbrouck, J.,
Tindal, G. (2005) Oral Reading Fluency
Normshttp//www.brtprojects.org/publications/techn
ical-reports.   
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Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) Target Rate Norms
Grade Fall(WCPM) Winter(WCPM) Spring(WCPM)
1234 30-6050-9070-110 10-3050-8070-10080-120 30-6070-10080-110100-140
5678 80-120100-140110-150120-160 100-140110-150120-160130-170 110-150 120-160130-170140-180
Source Adapted from AIMSweb Charting the Path
to Literacy, 2003, Edformation, Inc. Available
atwww.aimsweb.com/norms/reading_fluency.htm. Data
are also adapted from Curriculum-Based Oral
Reading Fluency Norms for Students in Grades 2
Through 5, by J. E. Hasbrouck and G. Tindal,
1992, Teaching Exceptional Children, 24, pp.
41-44.
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Vocabulary

• Most vocabulary is learned orally through
  conversation and read-alouds
• Can be learned through reading, but more
  difficult (dependent on ability and text
  density)
• Must be taught and reinforced repeatedly
• Be aware of idioms and culturally American
  concepts when working with ELLs (drive-in,
  cut-offs, gonna, wanna, etc.)

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The Effects of Weaknesses in Oral Language on
Reading Growth (Hirsch, 1996)
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5
High Oral Language in Kindergarten
5.2 years difference
Reading Age Level
Low Oral Language in Kindergarten
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Chronological Age
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Comprehension

• Strategies should be taught orally while students
  are still learning to read fluently.
• Listening comprehension does not replace reading
  comprehension
• Be aware of idioms and culturally American
  practices/schema when working with ELLs
  (birthday parties, Field Day, Mischief
  Night)
• Be cautious about interpreting accurate
  read-aloud as comprehension. Require students to
  explain or summarize to demonstrate comprehension

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Skilled beginning reading requires

• Automatic sight-word recognition
• Automatic or fluent decoding of non-sight words
• Many poor comprehenders really lack one of the
  above skills- if oral comprehension is not a
  problem, its probably not a comprehension issue.

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High-frequency words (sight words)

• Comprise at least 60-70 of all text.
• Automatic recognition is required for fluent
  reading.
• Some decodable, others not
• Require repeated exposures to master
• Incidental exposures vs. intense, concentrated
  exposures
• Make sure each exposure is paired with the
  CORRECT pronunciation- practice makes
  permanent
• Several lists- Dolch, Fry, others.

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Teaching sight words

• Student needs to accrue the magic number of
  exposures, paired with correct pronunciation to
  cement the word in long-term memory
• In isolation until automaticity is reached-
  flashcard procedure
• If student has letter-sound knowledge, this
  should happen more quickly.
• Daily multiple opportunities to read aloud should
  reinforce current sight words
• Other ways of teaching sight words quickly

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Phonic skills acquisition sequence

• Single consonant sounds
• Consonant blends ((bl, cr, st, etc.)
• Consonant digraphs (ch, sh, th, wh)
• Short-vowel sounds
• Long- vowel patterns
• R-controlled vowel sounds
• Weird vowel sounds (vowel digraphs and
  diphthongs) (ow, oy, oo, etc.)

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Phonics assessment and instruction

• Assessment
• Informal phonics inventory (Stahl)- others?
• Frequency- end of each MP
• Analyze errors to determine starting point
• Instruction
• Goal is MASTERY- 90 or better to move on
• Accuracy then speed (fluency)
• Accountability and documentation

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• So..
• How do we improve student reading scores????

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What Really Matters for Struggling
Readers (Allington, 2012)
1. Kids need to read a lot 2. Kids need books
they can read 3. Kids need to learn to read
fluently 4. Kids need to develop thoughtful
literacy.
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1. Kids need to read a lot

• John Guthrie suggests that increased practice
  results in increased proficiency. In order to
  accelerate struggling readers, they need more
  practice. The problem is that struggling 4th
  graders may need 3-5 hours a day of successful
  reading practice.

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Reading Volume of Fifth-Grade Students of
Different Levels of Achievement(Based on In and
Out of School Reading Logs)
Achievement Percentile Minutes of Reading per Day Words per Year
90th 40.4 2,357,000
50th 12.9 601,000
10th 1.6 51,000
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2. Kids need books they can read.

• Reader-text mismatch causes frustration.
• Text choice- 95 accuracy just right (5 finger
  rule)
• Student choice enhances motivation
• Multiple sources of leveled books

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DRA book levels

• Based on word count, text complexity, sentence
  length
• Essential for teachers to understand
• Students should be able to read multiple books
  FLUENTLY at a level before he is assessed and
  moved up.
• Assessment levels correspond to text levels

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DRA book levels

• Based on word count, text complexity, sentence
  length
• Essential for teachers to understand
• Students should be able to read multiple books
  FLUENTLY at a level before he is assessed and
  moved up.
• Assessment levels correspond to text levels

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Stages of book levels

• Repeated, patterned, memorized books with
  picture support (DRA A-2)
• Books containing only sight words with picture
  support (DRA 3-6)
• Books containing mostly sight words, but
  requiring decoding of short and long-vowel words
  (DRA 8-14)
• Books with sight words, requiring decoding of
  short, long, and r-controlled vowel words,
  diminishing picture support (DRA 16-24)
• Books with sight words, requiring decoding of
  all simple vowel patterns, plus decoding of
  multi-syllable words, little picture support.
  (DRA 28)

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DRA levels 1-16
DRA level Word count Dolch words ( and ) Short/long decodable words Total
1 16 12 (75) 3 (19) 15/16 94
2 36 30 (83) 3 8) 33/36 92
3 46 34 (74) 1 (2) 35/46 76
4 53 40 (75) 7 (13) 47/53 88
6 71 47 (66) 12 (17) 59/71 83
8 86 52 (60) 30 (35) 82/86 95
10 134 82 (61) 15 (11) 97/134 72
12 137 65 (48) 19 (14) 84/137 61
14 203 130 (64) 9 (4) 139/203 68
16 266 164 (62) 30 (11) 194/266 73
2-1 Reader (random story) 653 104 (53) 35 (18) 139/196 71
3-1 Reader (random story) 578 367 (63) 114 (20) 481/578 83
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Book leveling practice
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3. Kids need to learn to read fluently.

• Enhances comprehension and vice-versa
• Shortens task-completion time
• Increases student motivation to read

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Struggling readers are.

• more likely to read material too difficult for
  them.
• asked to read aloud more.
• interrupted more often and quickly.
• more likely to wait for prompts.
• more likely to be told to sound it out!

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while better readers

• read books at their level.
• are asked to read silently.
• are expected to self-monitor and correct.
• are only interrupted at the end of a waiting
  period.
• are asked to reread and cross-check, not to sound
  out!

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4. Kids need to develop thoughtful literacy.

• No more read, remember, and recite (p.129)
• Conversation and connections
• Summarize, analyze, synthesize, evaluate
• Vocabulary instruction
• Literate conversations

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Conclusions