Theories of Reading

Every Child Reading• Every healthy child should be reading by age 9.• Base educational decisions on evidence.• Promote adoption of texts based on the evidence of what works.• Provide adequate professional development, especially for

teachers of ELL students. • Promote whole-school adoption of effective methods.• Involve parents in support of their children’s reading.• Provide early childhood experiences that promote literacy.• Improve pre-service education and instruction.• Provide additional staff for tutoring and class-size reduction.• Improve early identification and intervention.• Introduce accountability measures for the early grades.• Intensify reading research.• Professional development should be provided for everyone!

Every Child Reading

• Studies found that:• Phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, and concepts

of print are necessary.• The alphabetic code: Phonics and decoding work.• Fluent, automatic reading of text is increased.• Vocabulary is extended.• Text comprehension is better with fluent readers.• Written expression is aided by phonics instruction.• Spelling and handwriting follow along with writing.• Screening and continuous assessment to inform

instruction is necessary. 

National Reading Panel

• Analysis revealed that systematic phonics instruction produces significant benefits for students in kindergarten and first grade.

• In 2nd through 6th grade phonics failed to have an impact with low achieving students.

• The ability to read and spell words was enhanced in kindergartners who received systematic beginning phonics instruction.

• First graders who were taught phonics systematically were better able to decode and spell, and they showed significant improvement in their ability to comprehend text.

 

National Reading Panel

• This panel asked members of society such as teachers, parents, scientists, administrators to look at:– The importance of parents in reading

instruction.– The importance of early identification.– The importance of phonemic awareness,

phonics, and good literature.– The role of the teacher.– Professional development for educators.

Reading IS Rocket Science

• About 20 percent of elementary students nationwide have significant problems learning to read.

At least 20 percent of elementary students do not read fluently enough to enjoy or engage in independent reading.

• The rate of reading failure for African- American, Hispanic, limited-English speakers and poor children ranges from 60 percent to 70 percent.

• One-third of poor readers nationwide are from college-educated families.

• Twenty-five percent of adults in this country lack the basic literacy skills required in a typical job.

 

Reading IS Rocket Science• These components and practices in reading instruction are

successful: Direct teaching of decoding, comprehension, and literature

appreciation.• Phoneme awareness instruction.• Systematic and explicit instruction in the code system of written

English.• Daily exposure to a variety of texts, as well as incentives for

children to read independently and with others.• Vocabulary instruction that includes a variety of complementary

methods designed to explore the relationships among words and the relationships among word structure, origin, and meaning.

• Comprehension strategies that include prediction of outcomes, summarizing, clarification, questioning, and visualization.

Teaching Reading IS Rocket Science

• Strong, core standards are missing from the education of our educators.

• Teacher preparation must be better.• Number one reason that children are

unsuccessful in reading is…

Putting Reading First

• Phonemic Awareness/Phonics instruction works.

• With these skill children have an easier time learning to read/spell.

Putting Reading First

• Found that Phonemic Awareness– can be taught and learned.– Helps children learn to read.– Helps children learn to spell.– Includes instruction where children are taught

to manipulate phonemes related to the alphabet.

– Is most effective when it focuses on only 1-2 types of phoneme manipulation such as onset/rimes and blending and segmenting.

– Should be taught in small group instruction.

Behaviorism

• Learning occurs because of change in behavior.• The environment shapes and changes behavior.• Positive reinforcement is essential to explaining

the learning process.• Consistent repetition of material with small

progression sequences.• Motivation is extrinsic.• Drill and kill.• Question/Answer• Bottom-Up Theory of Learning• Phonics based

Cognitivism

• The memory system is an active and organized processor of information.

• Prior knowledge plays an important role in learning.

• Brain-based learning.• The teacher facilitates discovery by

providing necessary resources. • Motivation is internal.

Social/Constructivism

• Active involvement of learners constructing knowledge for themselves.

• Emphasizes top-down approach. • Begin with complex problems and

teach basic skills along the way.• Whole Language.• Teacher acts as a facilitator.

Schema

• Make connections between ideas.• Background knowledge is essential to

learning.• Teachers must provide if necessary.• Schemata are well organized and

embedded in other schema.

Dogs

Bottom Up Model of Reading

• Influenced by Behaviorists.• Focuses on developing basic skills

like matching sound with letters. • Associated with phonics.• Based on recognition and recall.• Most comprehension is literal.

Top Down Model of Reading

• Focuses on background knowledge a reader uses to comprehend a certain text.

• Associated with schema theory.• “meaningful learning” introduces

new information and connects it with the text.

Transactional Model of Reading

• Meaning is based on knowledge and experiences.

• Student centered and balanced.• Readers interact with text to gain

meaning.• Whole Language based.

Psycholinguistic Model of Reading

• Same as the top down model of reading.

• Begin with the task and learn the basic steps as you go along.

Interactive Model of Reading

• An interactive instructional program is a program for teaching reading and writing.

• It focuses on teacher-directed interaction between whole language and phonics activities.

• The rationale behind it is based on the belief that learners need explicit instruction about various reading strategies that they can use to help them understand a text.