reading instruction for older, struggling readers susan keesey, ph.d. western kentucky university...
TRANSCRIPT
Reading Instruction for Older, Struggling Readers
Susan Keesey, Ph.D. Western Kentucky University
November 24, 2015
Reading struggles
Only 35% of 4th graders are proficient readers
Only 36% of 8th graders read at a proficient level
Only 38% of 12th graders are proficient readers
Nearly 2/3 of our student are not proficient readers!!
(National Center for Education Statistics, 2013)
Reading struggles
Only 20% of 4th graders and 8th graders from low SES backgrounds are proficient readers
80% of low SES students are below proficient (both 4th and 8th graders)
(National Center for Education Statistics, 2013)
Reading struggles
32% of 4th graders are at or below the basic level
25% of 12th graders are at or below the basic level
More than 8,000 students drop out of high school every day!
(National Center for Education Statistics, 2013)
Reading struggles
60% of urban children do not graduate from high school
40% of those that do graduate read at only a 4th grade level
85% of children in the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate
(Educational CyberPlayGround, 2015)
Reading struggles
Over 93 million adults read at the basic level necessary to successfully function in life
More than 60% of inmates are functionally illiterate
Costs over $25,000/yr. for incarcerated adults and over $50,000/yr. for incarcerated juveniles (National Center for Adult Literacy, 2003)
Why is literacy such a problem in the United
States?
Why the problem?
•Blaming the victim
•Lots of excuses
•Lowered expectations
•Lack of knowledge
Need more/better teacher training!!
What’s the solution?
solution
•Stop blaming the victim and work together to solve the problem•Collaborative partnerships•Better teacher training•More research
What does the research say?
National Reading Panel (2000)
•Phonemic Awareness
•Phonics
•Fluency
•Vocabulary
•Comprehension
Important distinctions
•“Older reader” – reading to learn rather than learning to read
•Need to determine whether student has a learning disability or is a victim of poor teaching
10 Keys to student success
1. Make student a learner
2. Teach what will really make a difference
3. Get student to buy-in and reinforce behavior
4. Fill in gaps
5. Consistent progress monitoring
10 Keys to student success
6. Use data to drive instructional decision making
7. Make changes as needed (repeat)
8. Set goals
9. Teach student to monitor progress
10. Lots of positive reinforcement – success
What does the research say?
National Reading Panel (2000)
•Phonemic Awareness
•Phonics
•Fluency
•Vocabulary
•Comprehension
Phonemic Awareness
•Highest level of phonological awareness
•Phoneme = sound
•Auditory only
•Known precursor for reading
•Separating words into individual sounds
Phonemic Awareness
•Segmenting and Blending are most critical•Segmenting – break the word into
individual sounds•Cat = /k/ /ă/ /t/
•Blending – combine sounds to make words• /k/ /ă/ /t/ = cat
True Value in Phonemic Awareness
•NRP found blending and segmenting to be the two most important phonemic awareness skills
•Gains can be made with only a few minutes a day of instruction
•Gains in phonemic awareness significantly accelerates subsequent reading and writing achievement
Phonemic Awareness
• Phonemic awareness is a consistent deficit among struggling readers regardless of age
• Consistent throughout all alphabetic languages
• Without direct, explicit instruction approximately 25% of middle-class first graders, and many more from less literacy-rich backgrounds, fail to acquire phonemic awareness (Moats et al., 1998)
Phonemic awareness
•Need to explicitly teach until mastered
•Teachers must know their sounds – remove the schwas!
•Often difficult but students will learn
Word Box Instruction
Word boxes are an effective way to teach phonemic awareness
Word boxes can be easily faded
Students enjoy using the word boxes
(Joseph, 2007; McCarthy, 2008)
Brief Demo – Three Skills
1• Segmenting with counters
2• Segmenting with letters
3 • Spelling
What about older students?
•Correct pronunciation of sounds is key
•May need longer duration and more repetitions for older students to be successful
•Faulty visual memory often compounds the difficulty for older students. Using nonsense words can help minimize this.
Alphabetic Principle
•Understanding that letters correspond to the sounds that make up spoken words
•Awareness of the phoneme/grapheme relationship
•Basis for reading and endures all alphabetic systems
•Allows students to decode & encode
Reciprocal Relationship Emerges
•Reciprocal relationship between reading and phonemic awareness
•Minimizes the Matthew Effect (Stanovich,1986)
phonics
•Begins with teaching of phoneme/grapheme (sound/symbol) relationships
•Scope and sequence – see where student is, teach the holes
•Structure and rules of language
•Teach rules in context not isolation
phonics
•Beware of “faux phonics”
•Differentiate between decodable words and sight words
•Teacher must be knowledgeable!!
•Eg., service
CLOVER
ADVANCED WORD READING
•Teaching morphemes and affixes
•Prefix – Root – Suffix
•Eg., Transport, Portable
•Efficient instruction
•Improved Vocabulary
Reading Fluency combines
1.Accuracy – Smoothly and accurately
2.Speed - Quickly when reading silently
3.Expression (Prosody) - Reading effortlessly and with appropriate expression as if talking when reading aloud
Research Determined
Successful readers...
•rely primarily on the letters in the word rather than context or pictures to identify familiar and unfamiliar words
•process virtually every letter
•use letter-sound correspondences to identify words
Research Determined
Successful readers...
•have a reliable strategy for decoding words
•read words for a sufficient number of times for words to become automatic
(Hasbrouck, 1998)
Fluency
•The bridge between word recognition and comprehension (NICHD, 2001)
•As if decoding occurs “automatically”
•More cognitive energy to focus on ideas in the text
•NRP (2000) determined reading fluency to be the “most neglected” reading skill
Critical Function of Fluency
•Fluency is not an end in itself but a critical gateway to comprehension
• Fluent reading frees resources to process meaning
Reading Instruction
• Independent Reading Level – at least 95% accuracy – student can read own his own
• Instructional Reading Level – 90–95% accuracy – difficulty level for teaching
•Frustrational Reading Level – less than 90% accuracy – Text is too difficult for the student
Fluency Instruction
NRP found two strategies most effective:
1.Repeated oral reading practice or guided repeated oral reading practice
2.Formal independent or recreational reading programs
Must monitor fluency!!
•Set goals and chart progress
•Very reinforcing for students
•Fluency is a progression
•Fluency is fluid
Fluency - comprehension
•Research determined that as students get older•Verbal knowledge and•Reasoning skillsplay a larger role in students’ ability to comprehend
vocabulary
•Must be explicitly taught – especially for struggling readers
•Matthew Effect – hasn’t learned vocabulary through reading
•Teach a minimum of 4 words/week
•Richness of oral language (teacher)
•Which words to teach?
Go FASTER
comprehension
•Purpose for reading
•Contingent on oral language skills – teaching at the sentence level
•Background knowledge is critical
•Think Alouds & Graphic Organizers
Comprehension Strategies
•Summarizing
•Main ideas and Details
•Comprehension Monitoring•Self-questioning•Making inferences
Teaching Comprehension strategies
•May need separate explicit instruction
•Reading must be at independent or instructional level – sometimes difficult to find rich literature that is interesting and readable
•Teacher read-alouds for grade level reading comprehension
•Books on tape
BOTTOM LINE
•Sell your students
•Appropriate instruction•Knowledgeable teacher•Material at the independent/instructional
level
•READ and BELIEVE!!!
RESOURCE SUMMARY
http://www.balancedreading.com/Feldman.pdf
References
Adams, M. J. (1991). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Joseph, L. M. (2000). Developing first graders’ phonemic awareness, word identification and spelling: A comparison of two contemporary phonic instructional approaches. Reading Research & Instruction, 39, 160–169.
McCarthy, P. A. (2008). Using sound boxes systematically to develop phonemic awareness. The Reading Teacher, 62, 346-349.
National Assessment of Educational Progress. (2011). The nation’s report card: Reading 2011. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
Stanovich, K. E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360-406.