Transcript Teaching Every Child to Read: the Knowns and the Unknowns

Teaching Every Child to Read:
the Knowns and the Unknowns
Dr. Joseph Torgesen
Florida State University and
Florida Center for Reading Research
NASP Distinguished Lecture, April, 2004
On January 8, 2002, President Bush
signed into law the No Child Left
Behind Act of 2001, reauthorizing the
Elementary and Secondary Education
Act.
The act sets a new goal for every
elementary school in America: Every
child will read at grade level by the
end of grade three within 12 years.
How will “grade level” reading be defined?
Each state will set their own “grade level” standard
State standards are universally measured by some
type of reading comprehension test
Many states have set very high standards in reading
comprehension for their third grade students,
other states have set lower standards
What skills,
knowledge, and
attitudes are
required for good
reading
comprehension?
What we know about the factors that
affect reading comprehension
Proficient comprehension of text is influenced by:
Accurate and fluent word reading skills
Oral language skills (vocabulary, linguistic comprehension)
Extent of conceptual and factual knowledge
Knowledge and skill in use of cognitive strategies to
improve comprehension or repair it when it breaks down.
Reasoning and inferential skills
Motivation to understand and interest in task and
materials
Word reading fluency and accuracy
X
Knowledge and Strategies for Linguistic
comprehension
X
Motivation and interest
=
Reading Comprehension
How might tests of reading comprehension
differ in ways that affect their difficulty
Length of passages that must be read before questions
are answered
How difficult is the vocabulary used in the passages?
Sentence structure and syntax?
What kind of questions are asked – simple factual recall,
complex factual recall, inferential, interpretive, etc.
Do we currently have a national standard for
“grade level” performance in reading
comprehension in third grade?
No, but we have a national standard in 4th grade
The NCLB act requires that each state participate in
the National Assessment of Educational
Performance in 4th and 8th grade
States are not required to use the NAEP as a
standard, but percent of children meeting
standards on the state test is likely to be
compared to performance on the NAEP
So, how are we currently
doing on the NAEP test in
th
4 Grade?
Right now, all over the United States, we are leaving too
many children behind in reading
And, a large share of those children come from poor and
minority homes
Percent of Students Performing Below Basic Level - 37%
10
White
20
30
40
50
60
70
27
Black
63
Hispanic
58
Poor
60
Non-poor
26
80
90
100
Percent of students below grade level on the NAEP vs. the FCAT
Percent below grade level
50
NAEP
FCAT
45
40
40
35
37
30
25
20
15
10
4th Grade
What is the FCAT and why is it interesting to study?
It was specifically created to place high demands on
vocabulary and reasoning/inferential skills
“FCAT demands an in-depth understanding and
application of information that is not typical of most
standardized tests.” (Lessons Learned, 2002)
Design specifications call for “application of skills
in cognitively challenging situations.”
Proportion of questions requiring “higher order”
thinking skills increases from 30% in grade three to
70% in grade 10
We recently completed a study to understand what
factors were most important in explaining individual
differences in performance on the FCAT in 3rd Grade
Gave 2 hour battery of language, reading, nonverbal
reasoning, and memory tests to approximately 200
children at each of grades 3rd graders around the state
Language – Wisc Vocab and Similarities
Listening comprehension with FCAT passage
Reading–
Oral reading fluency, TOWRE, Gray Oral
Reading Test
NV Reasoning – Wisc Matrix Reasoning, Block Design
Working Memory– Listening span, Reading Span
Fluency
Verbal
Non Verbal
Memory
Percent of variance accounted for
60
55
50
47
40
3rd Grade
30
23
20
17
12
10
7
Individually
2
Unique
Dominance Results
Fluency completely dominated Language,
Nonverbal Reasoning, and Memory
Language completely dominated
Nonverbal Reasoning and Memory
Nonverbal Reasoning and Memory were
equally (un)dominate.
What we know how to
do
We know how to help almost
all children become accurate
and fluent readers by third
grade
Some facts about reading growth
that must be introduced at this point:
To be a fluent reader by third grade, a child must
acquire strategies (phonics and other strategies)
that support accurate reading by the end of 1st
grade
After children have become accurate readers, they
must read a lot in order to learn to recognize many
thousands of words “by sight” or “at a single glance”
If children can recognize most of the words in third
grade text “by sight” they are likely to be fluent
readers
We can prevent early problems with reading
accuracy in almost all children
Percent of children scoring below the 30th percentile
Study
Amt. of instruction
% delayed
overall %
Foorman
174 hrs.- classroom
35%
6%
Felton
340 hrs. - groups of 8
32%
5%
Vellutino
35- 65 hrs. 1:1 tutoring
46%
7%
Torgesen
88 hrs. 1:1 tutoring
30%
4%
Torgesen
80 hrs. 1:3 tutoring
11%
2%
Torgesen
91 hrs. 1:3 or 1:5 tutoring
8%
1.6%
Mathes
80 hrs. 1:3 tutoring
1%
.02%
We do not yet know how to prevent reading difficulties
in “all” children
Percent of children scoring below the 30th percentile
Study
Amt. of instruction
% delayed
overall %
Foorman
174 hrs.- classroom
35%
6%
Felton
340 hrs. - groups of 8
32%
5%
Vellutino
35- 65 hrs. 1:1 tutoring
46%
7%
Torgesen
88 hrs. 1:1 tutoring
30%
4%
Torgesen
80 hrs. 1:3 tutoring
11%
2%
Torgesen
91 hrs. 1:3 or 1:5 tutoring
8%
1.6%
Mathes
80 hrs. 1:3 tutoring
1%
.02%
Growth in Word Reading Ability
National Percentile
75th
70
50th
30
25th
October
January
May
We do not yet know how to prevent reading difficulties
in “all” children
Percent of children scoring below the 30th percentile
Study
Amt. of instruction
% delayed
overall %
Foorman
174 hrs.- classroom
35%
6%
Felton
340 hrs. - groups of 8
32%
5%
Vellutino
35- 65 hrs. 1:1 tutoring
46%
7%
Torgesen
88 hrs. 1:1 tutoring
30%
4%
Torgesen
80 hrs. 1:3 tutoring
11%
2%
Torgesen
91 hrs. 1:3 or 1:5 tutoring
8%
1.6%
Mathes
80 hrs. 1:3 tutoring
1%
.02%
Fourth grade follow-up for students participating in early intervention
through second grade
100
Accuracy
Rate
90
80
70
40th
Percentile
We do not yet know how to prevent reading difficulties
in “all” children
Percent of children scoring below the 30th percentile
Study
Amt. of instruction
% delayed
overall %
Foorman
174 hrs.- classroom
35%
6%
Felton
340 hrs. - groups of 8
32%
5%
Vellutino
35- 65 hrs. 1:1 tutoring
46%
7%
Torgesen
88 hrs. 1:1 tutoring
30%
4%
Torgesen
80 hrs. 1:3 tutoring
11%
2%
Torgesen
91 hrs. 1:3 or 1:5 tutoring
8%
1.6%
Mathes
80 hrs. 1:3 tutoring
1%
.02%
These are likely to be overestimates of
our success in preventing reading
difficulties in all children
46% of sample had broad vocabulary scores below
the 30th percentile
At end of second grade, although word level skills
stayed strong (1.6% below 30th), estimate 4.1%
failure rate for silent reading comprehension
Problem with comprehension will become more
pronounced as comprehension tests become more
complex
Evidence from one school that we can do
substantially better than ever before
School Characteristics:
70% Free and Reduced Lunch (going up each year)
65% minority (mostly African-American)
Elements of Curriculum Change:
Movement to a more balanced reading curriculum beginning
in 1994-1995 school year (incomplete implementation) for K-2
Improved implementation in 1995-1996
Implementation in Fall of 1996 of screening and more
intensive small group instruction for at-risk students
Hartsfield Elementary Progress over five years
Proportion falling
below the 25th
percentile in word
reading ability at the
end of first grade
30
20
10
Average Percentile
for entire grade (n=105)
Screening at beginning of first
grade, with extra instruction
for those in bottom 30-40%
31.8
20.4
10.9
6.7
3.7
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
48.9 55.2 61.4 73.5 81.7
30
Proportion
falling below
the 25th
Percentile
20
31.8
20.4
10.9
10
Average Percentile
6.7
3.7
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
48.9 55.2 61.4 73.5 81.7
30
Proportion
falling below
the 25th
Percentile
20
Hartsfield
Elementary
Progress over
five years
14.5
9.0
10
5.4
Average Percentile
1996
58.2
2.4
1997 1998 1999
67.1 74.1 81.5
FCAT Performance in Spring, 2003
40
Level 2
Level 1
35
30
25
20
15
10
Hartsfield Elem.
State Average
Why the disparity between early wordlevel outcomes and later comprehension
of complex texts?
Demands of vocabulary in complex text at third grade
and higher place stress on the remaining SES
related “vocabulary gap”
More complex text demands reading comprehension
strategies and higher level thinking and reasoning
skills that remain “deficient” in many children
What we haven’t yet
demonstrated we know how
to do
Close the “vocabulary gap” between
low SES and higher SES children
This gap arises because of massive
differences in opportunities to learn
“school vocabulary” in the home
Language
Hart and Risley (1995) conducted
a longitudinal study of children
and families from three groups:
• Professional families
• Working-class families
• Families on welfare
Measures of Parent and Child Language
Families
Measures
Professional Working-Class
Welfare
Parent Child Parent Child
Parent Child
Recorded Vocab. 2,176
size
1,116
1,498
749
974
525
Average utterances 487
per hour
310
301
223
176
168
Average different
words per hour
297
251
216
167
149
382
Differences in exposure to words over
one year
Children in Professional Families -- 11 million
Children in Working-Class Families -- 6 million
Children in Welfare Families -- 3 million
The Effects of Weaknesses in Oral Language on Reading
Growth
(Hirsch, 1996)
16
High Oral
Language in
Kindergarten
15
14
5.2 years difference
Reading Age
Level
13
12
11
Low Oral Language
in Kindergarten
10
9
8
7
6
5
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Chronological Age
14
15
16
Bringing
Words to Life
Isabel Beck
M. McKeown
L. Kucan
Guilford Press
Big ideas from “Bringing Words to Life”
First-grade children from higher SES groups know about
twice as many words as lower SES children
Poor children, who enter school with vocabulary
deficiencies have a particularly difficult time learning
words from “context”
Research has discovered much more powerful ways of
teaching vocabulary than are typically used in
classrooms
A “robust” approach to vocabulary instruction involves
directly explaining the meanings of words along with
thought-provoking, playful, interactive follow-up.
An important remaining
question
If we provide poor children five years of
intensive and robust vocabulary
instruction (beginning in pre-school), will
that be sufficient to provide them the
vocabulary required on “high stakes”
measures of reading comprehension in
third grade?
What we haven’t yet
demonstrated we know how
to do
Effectively train teachers on a massive
scale to provide powerful instruction in
the “thinking strategies” required on
complex measures of reading
comprehension (Report of the National
Reading Panel)
•Life Experience
•Content Knowledge
•Activation of Prior
Knowledge
•Knowledge about
Texts
Knowledge
•Motivation &
Engagement
•Active Reading
Strategies
•Monitoring Strategies
•Fix-Up Strategies
Language
Reading
Comprehension
Metacognition
•Oral Language Skills
•Knowledge of Language
Structures
•Vocabulary
•Cultural Influences
Fluency
•Prosody
•Automaticity/Rate
•Accuracy
•Decoding
•Phonemic Awareness
•Life Experience
•Content Knowledge
•Activation of Prior
Knowledge
•Knowledge about
Texts
Knowledge
•Motivation &
Engagement
•Active Reading
Strategies
•Monitoring Strategies
•Fix-Up Strategies
Language
Reading
Comprehension
Metacognition
•Oral Language Skills
•Knowledge of Language
Structures
•Vocabulary
•Cultural Influences
Fluency
•Prosody
•Automaticity/Rate
•Accuracy
•Decoding
•Phonemic Awareness
Some definitions of reading
comprehension to make a point about
remaining gaps in our knowledge
“Acquiring meaning from written text”
Gambrell, Block, and Pressley, 2002
“the process of extracting and constructing
meaning through interaction and involvement with
written language”
Sweet and Snow, 2002
“thinking guided by print”
Perfetti, 1985
Preparing children to meet grade level
standards in reading comprehension by
the end of third grade is as much about
providing the vocabulary and thinking
skills they need as it is about helping
them learn to read accurately and
fluently
This point becomes increasingly
important as we move up the grades
Fluency
Verbal
Non Verbal
Memory
Percent of variance accounted for
60
51
50
43
40
7th Grade
30
22
20
10
5
Individually
8
10
2
Unique
Dominance Results
• Dominance was not established
between fluency and verbal
knowledge/reasoning, but both
completely dominated nonverbal
reasoning and memory
Fluency
Verbal
Non Verbal
Memory
Percent of variance accounted for
60
52
50
40
10th Grade
32
30
28
20
15
7
10
5
Individually
2
Unique
Dominance Results
• Verbal knowledge and reasoning
completely dominated fluency and
memory. Fluency completely
dominated memory.
Conclusions:
We know how to prevent problems in reading
accuracy and fluency in almost all children–
whether we do it or not depends most on “how we
feel about the fact we haven’t done it so far”
We have not yet demonstrated that we know how
to close the “vocabulary gap” for poor children—
although we have some promising new techniques
to try
We do not yet know how to “scale up” effective
professional development to train all teachers to
provide effective instruction in comprehension
strategies
A big idea to keep in mind:
Preparing children to meet grade level
standards in reading comprehension by the end
of third grade and beyond is a job for all
teachers, not just “reading teachers.”
It’s at least as much about building content
knowledge, vocabulary, and thinking skills as it
is about helping children learn to read
accurately and fluently
One more concluding thought….
There is no question but that “leaving no child
behind in reading” is going to be a significant
challenge…
It will involve professional development for
teachers, school reorganization, careful
assessments, and a relentless focus on the
individual needs of every child…
But, its not the most difficult thing we could be
faced with…
References:
Torgesen, J.K., Wagner, R. K., Rashotte, C.A., Rose, E., Lindamood, P.,
Conway, T. , & Garvin, C. (1999). Preventing reading failure in young
children with phonological processing disabilities: Group and individual
responses to instruction. Journal of Educational Psycholog, 91, 579-593.
Torgesen, J.K., Rashotte, C.A., Alexander, A. (2001). Principles of fluency
instruction in reading: Relationships with established empirical outcomes. In
M. Wolf (Ed. ), Dyslexia, Fluency, and the Brain. Parkton, MD: York Press.
King, R. & Torgesen, J.K. (2003). Improving the effectiveness of reading
instruction in one elementary school: A description of the process. Technical
Report #3, Florida Center for Reading Research, Tallahasee, Fl.
Beck, I., & McKeown, & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing Words to Life. Guilford
Press
Thank You
www.fcrr.org
Science of reading section