liz leadership summit april 2017 legalsignoff handout

4/24/17

1

Maximizing the Impact of Reading Assessment and Instruction:

The Important Role of Language

Elizabeth Brooke, Ph.D., CCC-SLP Chief Education Officer

Maximizing the impact of reading assessment and instruction

– The science of reading assessment and instruction

–  The critical role of oral language in relation to reading

– Translating the research into practice

Agenda

 What does research tell us about:

– Where do we start? –  What should we focus on? –  How do we make sure we are using time most efficiently?

Maximizing the Impact of Reading Assessment and Instruction

4/24/17

2

Comprehensive Assessment Plan

Iden�fy Monitor

Collect Assess

Purpose of Assessments

  Worth taking (part of good instruction, not a departure from it)   High quality   Time-limited   Fair and supportive of fairness (Equity in Opportunity)   Fully transparent to students and parents   Just one of multiple measures   Tied to improved learning

Taken From USDOE Fact Sheet Testing Action Plan – 10/24/15

Assessments Must Be…

4/24/17

3

Amit Sofia Marcus

1 red red red

2 car car car

3 and and and

4 that that that

5 book book book

6 spell spell spell

7 crust crust crust

8 whale whale whale

9 paste paste paste

10 brain brain brain

Classical Testing Example

Adaptive Testing Example…

 Easily (reliably) administered & scored

 Reduces frustration & boredom

 Reduces time (on average)

 Detects growth

Benefits of Adaptive Testing

4/24/17

4

The Science of Reading Instruction is Well Known

  Phonological Awareness

  Phonics

  Fluency

  Vocabulary

  Comprehension

The “Fab Five” of Reading - NRP

Scarborough’s Braid

4/24/17

5

Effective Instruction

Data/Student

Why is it taught

Content

What is taught

Instructional delivery

How it is taught

Kame’enui&Simmons(1990)


resources

skill

More Powerful Instruction involves…

  More instructional time

  Smaller instructional groups

  More precisely targeted at the right level

  Clearer and more detailed explanations

  More systematic instructional sequences

  More extensive opportunities for guided practice

  More opportunities for error correction and feedback

Foorman&Torgesen(2001)

Simple View of Reading

LLaanngguuaaggee CCoommpprreehheennssiioonn

WWoorrdd RReeccooggnniittiioonn

RReeaaddiinngg CCoommpprreehheennssiioonn=x

Gough and Tunmer (1986); Hoover and Gough (1990)

4/24/17

6




Simple View of Reading

  “Not only are oral language skills linked to the code-related skills that help word reading to develop, but they also provide the foundation for the development of the more-advanced language skills needed for comprehension” (Cain & Oakhill, 2007, p. 31).

  “Beyond decoding, the substantial role that language skills play in the achievement of skilled reading comprehension has largely been ignored.” (Hogan, Bridges, Justice, & Cain, 2011, p.1 ).

Oral Language Skills connection to Reading

  Phonology

  Vocabulary/Semantics

  Grammar/Syntax

  Morphology

  Discourse

  Pragmatics

What is Oral Language?

4/24/17

7

  Phonology

–  includes the organization or system of sounds within a language. Once the phonological system has been acquired for basic listening and speaking, children begin to develop phonological awareness.

  Vocabulary/Semantics

– The development of vocabulary focuses both on expressive vocabulary and receptive vocabulary.

– You also have to consider in assessment and instruction the student’s breadth of knowledge (# of words known) and depth (relationships between words – synonyms, antonyms, and multiple meanings, shades of meaning, figurative language, etc.)


  Grammar/Syntax

–  includes the set of structural rules that govern the combination of words and phrases into sentences and how sentences are combined into paragraphs

  Morphology

– Sometimes considered under syntax and sometimes considered under vocabulary

– Focused on the smallest unit of meaning within a word, called a morpheme

– Can also include the study of structural analysis which includes how words are joined together and build vocabulary by analyzing the morphological structure of the word (prefix, root and suffix)


  Pragmatics

–  ‘hidden curriculum’ of classroom – Social use of language (turn taking, personal space, eye contact, etc.) – Think Seinfeld!

  Discourse

– Oral and written communication – Narrative and expository structure – Be able to understand and tell stories in different formats before they

can begin to write those forms


4/24/17

8

Hart & Risley, 1995

50 million

40 million

30 million

20 million

10 million

48 24 12 36

Age of child in months

0 Est

imat

ed c

umul

ativ

e w

ords

add

ress

ed to

chi

ld

0

Language Experience

Children in low-SES families – 12 million words

Children in working-class families – 30 million words

Children in professional fa

milies –

48 million words

Language Gap è Achievement Gap

Hart and Risley Resources

Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of

Young American Children by Betty Hart and Todd Risley

© 1995

The Social World of Children Learning to Talk

by Betty Hart and Todd Risley

© 1999

  Studied 48 infants across the period of time from 18 months to 24 months

  Significant differences in language processing and vocabulary development were found in infants as early as 18 months between infants from high and low SES families

  At 24 months, there was a 6 month gap in language processing efficiencies between infants from high and low SES families

Language Development Study (2013)

Fernald,A.et.Al(2013)

4/24/17

9

  Amount of exposure to language

  Exposure to print

  English not spoken at home

  Background experiences

  Parents’ level of education

  Transitions and disruptions to student’s home life

Risk factors impacting Oral Language for EL Students or Low SES Students

  Students who struggle with oral language are 4 to 5 times more likely than their peers to have trouble with reading (Catts et al., 2001)


  Studies of reading comprehension provide significant evidence that both reading accuracy along with oral language skills predict performance on outcome measures and should be targets for instruction (Mehta et al., 2005; Foorman et al., 2012)


4/24/17

10

  Vocabulary knowledge and syntactic knowledge have been shown to account for the majority of individual differences in reading comprehension performance for students in upper elementary school through high school (Foorman, Koon, Petscher, Mitchell, & Truckenmiller, 2015)

Most Predictive Components

Foorman, et al. (2015) Journal of Educational Psychology

Decoding fluency

Syntax

Vocabulary

Oral language

Reading Comprehension

72% - 99% variance

Structure of Reading 4 – 10

  “…the specialized language, both oral and written, of academic settings that facilitates communication and thinking about disciplinary content” (Nagy & Townsend, 2012)

What is Academic Language?

  Grammatical rules, the structure of texts, the content of discussion, conventions for discourse…

4/24/17

11

  For many students, the language of the classrooms can seem opaque; a barrier to accessing content (Bailey et al., 2008)

  English language learners and children from low-SES backgrounds need academic language development support (Schleppegrell, 2004)

Academic Language in the Classroom

 Reading comprehension difficulties are in large part due to students’ challenges in understanding the academic language of school texts (Uccelli et al., 2015)

 Children who are less skillful in academic language are less likely to succeed in school (Snow and Uccelli, 2008)

Research in Academic Language

 What does research tell us about:

– Where do we start? –  What should we focus on? –  How do we make sure we are using time most efficiently?

Maximizing the Impact of Reading Assessment and Instruction

4/24/17

12

Iden�fy Monitor

Collect Assess

Purpose of Assessments

  Which of my students are at-risk for difficulty?   Universal Screener

  How much progress are my students making?   Progress Monitoring

  What is the profile of skills for my student? Where do I need to focus intervention?

 Diagnostic

  Have my students learned the material that has been taught?

  Outcome

Guiding Questions

Assessment - Simple View of Reading




Gough and Tunmer (1986); Hoover and Gough (1990)

4/24/17

13

Literacy Assessment Review Literacy

Assessments

PurposeofAssessment

(e.g.,iden�fyrisk,monitorprogress,studentprofile,

outcome)

AreaofLiteracy

(Phonics,Fluency,etc.)

StudentPopula�onandGradeLevels

Administra�onDetails


Data/Student

Why is it taught

Content

What is taught

Instructional delivery

How it is taught


  What are you using to answer the why of instruction? What types of assessments or tasks within the assessments are you using? What kinds of data do you have at the student, class and school/district level?

  What type of content is being taught? Think about the

NRP Fab 5, Scarborough’s Braid and the Simple View of Reading, are these various components being covered in instruction? Especially the most predictive skills?

  How is the content taught? What is the instructional delivery model? Blended learning? Systematic instruction?

Guiding Questions

4/24/17

14

Instruction - Scarborough’s Braid

Literacy Curriculum Review

LiteracyPrograms

AreaofLiteracy(Phonics,Fluency,etc.)

StudentPopula�onandGradeLevel

ScheduleOfUse

(LiteracyBlock,Pullout,etc.)

Format(Blended,etc.)

Summary

  The key to oral language instruction is focusing on building a foundation of these skills through listening comprehension and oral expression and not waiting until the student can read before working on the skills

  Assessment and instruction must address oral language and more specifically academic language.

  Assessment and instruction must be practical for educators, meaningful to students, and relevant to the classroom - while maintaining the rigor of the research.

liz leadership summit april 2017 legalsignoff handout

Documents