Transcript Slide 1
Language Arts
Framer’s Meeting
State of the State in Reading
November 12, 2008
Evan Lefsky, Ph.D.
Reading K-3 vs. 4-12
Reading K-3
Acquire strategies for “decoding” unfamiliar words
Build “sight word vocabulary” of many thousands of words
Learn to coordinate skills for fluent reading of text
Begin extension of vocabulary beyond oral language limits
Acquire variety of strategies for enhancing
comprehension, or repairing it when it breaks down
Develop or maintain a positive attitude about reading and
view it as an important skill for learning and for
pleasure
Reading K-3 vs. 4-12
Reading 4-12
Extend “sight vocabulary” to unfamiliar words in
increasingly challenging text
Learning meanings of thousands of new words –
vocabulary expansion
Increasingly detailed knowledge of text structures and
genres
Expansion of content knowledge in many domains
Thinking and reasoning skills increase
Reading specific comprehension strategies become more
complex
Why Oral language experience is not
enough
Frequency of Word Use in Major Sources of Oral and
Written Language (Hayes & Ahrens, 1988)
Rare Words per 1,000
I. Printed texts
Newspapers
68.3
Popular magazines 65.7
Adult books
52.7
Children’s books
30.9
Preschool books
16.3
II. Television texts
Adult shows
22.7
Children’s shows 20.2
III. Adult speech
College graduates 17.3
talk with friends/
spouses
“Ensuring adequate ongoing literacy development for
all students in the middle and high school years
is a more challenging task than ensuring excellent
reading education in the primary grades, for two
reasons: first, secondary school literacy skills are more
complex, more embedded in subject matters,
and more multiply determined; second, adolescents
are not as universally motivated to read better or as
interested in school-based reading as kindergartners.”
Biancarosa & Snow, (2005)
Each year skills and knowledge required
to meet standards increases
Must be able to draw upon more extensive
background knowledge
Must learn to deal with longer sentences and more
complex ideas
Must acquire many new vocabulary
words
Must learn to recognize many new words
automatically
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th
Teaching Reading is Urgent
A student at the 10th
percentile reads
about 60,000 words a
year in 5th grade
A student at the 50th
percentile reads
about 900,000 words
a year in 5th grade
Average students
receive about 15
times as much
practice in a year
(Anderson, Wilson, & Fielding, 1988)
The consequences of early and continuing
reading difficulties
Lack of reading practice-affects fluency
Lack of wide reading-affects growth of
vocabulary and knowledge of the world
Lack of wide reading- affects growth of strategic
reading skills
Limited reading of classroom assignmentsaffects growth of essential knowledge
Loss of interest in reading and learning
Primary Characteristics of Struggling Readers
in Elementary, Middle and High School
They are almost always less fluent readers—sight
word vocabularies many thousands of words
smaller than average readers
Usually know the meanings of fewer words
Usually have less conceptual knowledge
Are almost always less skilled in using strategies to
enhance comprehension or repair it when it breaks
down
Will typically not enjoy reading or choose to read
for pleasure
Why Kids Struggle with Reading
Inadequate understanding of the words used in text
Inadequate background knowledge about the domains
represented in text
Lack of familiarity with the semantic and syntactic
structures that can help predict the relationships
between words
Lack of knowledge about different writing conventions
that are used to achieve different purposes via text
Verbal reasoning ability which enables the reader to
“read between the lines”
Ability to remember verbal information
(Lyon, 2002)
What Will It Take?
Strong assessment system
Content area reading (will not get the job
done for some students)
Reading intervention classes (will never
get the job done alone)
Differentiated intensity based on need
“Adequate” progress is different with a
struggling reader
Reading, Writing, and Discussion
as the Norm
Every day, every classroom
Reading to kids every day
Kids asking the questions, not the
teachers
Kids reading leveled content texts
everyday to practice skills and build
domain knowledge
Strong core instructional principles in
every classroom first
Integration across content areas
(Deschler, 2008)
This is what we want in terms
of instruction!
Observation of Teacher Practice Study
1. Lecture/read
2. Give directions
3. Listening
4. Ask questions
5. Monitor
6. Model
7. Verbal rehearsal
8. Simple enhancer
9. Advance organizer
10. Role Play
11. Content Enhancement
(complex)
12. Elaborated Feedback
13. Write on board
14. Describe skill/strategy
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
1. 1.
Lecture/read
Lecture/read
2. 2.
Give
directions
Give
directions
3.3.
Listening
Listening
4. 4.
Ask
question
Ask
question
5.5.
Monitor
Monitor
6.6.
Model
Model
7. 7.
Verbal
rehearsal
Verbal
rehearsal
8.8.
Simple
enhancer
Simple enhancer
9.9.
Advance
organizer
Advance
organizer
10.10.
Role
Play
Role Play
11.11.
Content
(complex)
ContentEnhancement
Enhancement
(complex)
12.12.
Elaborated
Feedback
Elaborated Feedback
13.13.
Write
onon
board
Write
board
14.14.
Describe
skill/strategy
Describe skill/strategy
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Engagement/Motivation
Students need one of the following to attach
to:
A topic
An adult
A reason to keep them going
Engaging curriculum=kids keep going when
text gets tough
Amount of engaged reading correlates
higher with reading achievement than
gender, family income, or parental
education (Guthrie)
Classroom Practices that Build
Engagement
Relevance
Microchoice
Lack of Success-Single biggest source of
disengagement
Relationships
Thematic Units
Challenges of FCAT
Endurance
Reading
and writing for 160
minutes
Text Length average=900 words
No connection to text
MOTIVATION!
What Teachers Can Do
Ensure students:
Read extensively “in all classes” to build text
knowledge and fluency
Read for longer periods of time
Read longer texts
Read texts that are linked to the curriculum
Build background knowledge and vocabulary
Have access to self-selected texts related to the
content unit being studied
Test preparation
Test
preparation versus test practice
Teach deeply to the standards
Stay away from test practice books
Good teaching doesn’t mean lower
scores
Avoid FCAT Explorer abuse
Research-Based Reading
Classroom (Guthrie, 2002)
Which factors effect FCAT reading scores?
15%
Reading ability
10%
40%
Content
knowledge
Motivation
Format
15%
Error
20%
Research-Based Reading
Classroom
Which components should we focus on?
10%
10%
40%
20%
20%
Guided instruction
Engaged reading
Strategies
Motivation
Format
What We Know from Research
The scientific research on vocabulary
instruction reveals that most vocabulary is
learned indirectly and that some
vocabulary must be taught directly.
(National Reading Panel, 2001)
Indirect Vocabulary Learning
Students learn vocabulary indirectly when
they hear and see words used in many
different contexts – for example, through
conversations with adults, through being
read to, and through reading extensively
on their own.
Direct Vocabulary Learning
Students learn vocabulary directly when
they are explicitly taught both individual
words and word-learning strategies.
Direct vocabulary instruction aids reading
comprehension.
Vocabulary
Big, Large
Huge
Enormous
Gigantic
Colossal
Little, Small
Tiny
Miniscule
Minute
Petite
Vocabulary
Pretty, Beautiful
Gorgeous
Lovely
Exquisite
Attractive
Fair
Happy, Glad
Ecstatic
Blissful
Joyous
Content
Pleased
Reading, Writing, Oral Language
Connection
Require complete sentences and
academic language, both orally and in
writing
Show and discuss with students models of
good writing
Forcing support for ideas and identification
before writing or discussion
Why is fluency important?
Fluency affects comprehension. When one
must concentrate on decoding the text
there is less memory available for
constructing meaning.
Fluency affects flexibility. Good readers
change their reading rates according to
the difficulty of the text, the importance of
the material, and the task at hand.
Disfluent readers cannot be flexible.
Correct Words per Minute on Grade Level Text
160
Text difficulty
increases
Text difficulty
increases
Correct Words per Minute
150
140
18 WPM
23 WPM
130
22 WPM
120
Tindal, Hasbrouck, &
Jones, 2005
110
100
F
W
6th Grade
S
F
W
7th Grade
S
F
W
S
8th Grade
Factors Facilitating the
Development of Fluency
Management of text difficulty – the text must be
matched to the reading ability of the student
Time exposed, time on task, and time engaged
in reading
Vocabulary (listening or reading)
Memory – visual, verbal, short- and long-term
Motivation (individualization and ownership)
Confidence (self-efficacy and resilience)
Support (modeling, prompting, and scaffolding)
Keith Topping - What Research Has to
Say About Fluency Instruction
What does it mean to
understand?
“… in our discussions, in our assignments,
in our ‘learning’ materials, we ask students
to do little more than
answer questions;
2. restate, retell, or summarize text in some
way; and
3. learn content-related vocabulary.
1.
And when they can do those three things,
we conclude that they understand.”
Ellin Oliver Keene, 2007, p. 32
The Essence of Understanding
in Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice
Classroom Connection
If we want our students to move beyond
basic knowledge and summary learning . . .
What
do students need to be able to do
differently?
What needs to change in our instructional
practices?
How do our assessments need to change?
Characteristics of Proficient
Readers
Search for connections between what they know
and new information
Ask questions of themselves, the authors, and
the texts they read
Draw inferences during and after reading
Distinguish important from less important ideas
Synthesize information
Repair faulty comprehension
Monitor their comprehension
Visualize and create mental images
“Thoughtful literacy is more than
remembering what the text said.
It is engaging the ideas in texts,
challenging those ideas,
reflecting on them, and so on.”
Richard Allington, 2006, p. 135
What Really Matters for Struggling Readers
“For centuries, the central
question directed at the young
has been, How much do you
remember? The proper questions
for this era are, What’s going on
here? Why? Where is it likely to
take us and what should we be
doing?”
Marion Brady, 2008, p. 66
Cover the material – or teach students to think?
Educational Leadership, 65(5)
Reading Standards: Critical Areas
Are they clear and measurable
Explicit and systematic instruction in decoding
skills in the primary grades
Use of various comprehension strategies
Use of meaningful reading materials
Expectation for daily independent reading in
grades K-12 (in and out of school)
Guidance on minimum quantity (differentiated)
Guidance about quality
Progressive development of reading vocabulary
Word study
Broad reading
Listening
Reading Standards: Critical Areas
Balance of literary and non-literary texts should
be achieved in the upper grades through varying
content areas
Categorized by bodies of research in reading
Focus on how to participate in group discussions
of varying purposes and in different roles
Address reading to understand and use
information (K-12)
Progressive development of reading skills
Phonemic awareness
Phonics instruction
Fluency
Comprehension and study strategies
(skimming, questioning, summarizing, notetaking, and paraphrasing)
Reading Standards: Critical Areas
Knowledge and use of text features, genres, and
reading strategies for academic, occupational,
and civic purposes
Customary features of informational text
(purpose, organization, table of contents, index)
Different types of informational text are
represented (newspapers, instruction manuals)
Research process (developing questions and
locating, evaluating, and synthesizing
information)
Clear expectations about the reading levels of
texts required at a particular grade level through
examples (both literary and academic)
Fluency is the key! Read,
Write, and Discuss Everyday!
Resources
Getting Students Ready for Collegepreparatory/Honors English: What Middle
Grades Students Need to Know and Be Able to
Do (SREB, 2007)
Reading Between the Lines: What the ACT
Reveals About College Readiness in Reading
(ACT, 2006)
The State of State English Standards (Stotsky,
2005)