Nurture A Reader

Peg Tyre on Identifying Good Schools

2011-11-13T19:26:00.000-08:00

There is a significant disconnect between how scientists know children learn to read and how children are taught to read in school. Word to the wise: Make sure your first-grade child gets a solid dose of that old Eisenhower bad-boy phonics.

- Peg Tyre, NY Times Schoolbook, Nov. 7, 2011

Giving their children a solid dose of phonics may well mean parents must teach it themselves; few parents are able to choose schools for their children.

Additional word to the wise: Just because a school says it teaches phonics, doesn't mean there is anything systematic about the teaching of it. And if the school is teaching phonics, it is unlikely to be the most effective type: synthetic phonics.

Printable Letter-Sound Flashcards (print letters)

2011-10-23T19:46:00.000-07:00

Here is a good source for free, downloadable grapheme-phoneme tiles, aka letter-sound cards, aka phonogram cards. These are in print letters, which are more likely to be used in the U.S. than the "pre-cursive" letters often used in England.

The tiles are not just the alphabet letter-sounds; they include letter-groups.

Denise Eide: The Logic of English

2011-10-15T21:10:00.000-07:00

Since my most recent post about sight words, I had the following book recommended to me:
Uncovering The Logic of English by Denise Eide. I will have to buy it...especially after finding Eide's web page, which includes "The Kill and Drill of Sight Words":

Try to imagine reading each word, without any understanding of the code. Notice the minor variations in shape from word to word. Without understanding the logic behind these spellings, learning to read these words is a difficult task in subtle visual distinctions and in visual memory.

thank - that - the - their - them - then - there - these - they- think - this - those

has - had - him- his- her - here - help - hold - hot

Put yourself in a child’s place for a moment. Without knowing something about sounds, how would you memorize them and not mix them up?

Here's a quotation from her book:

The three Latin spellings of /sh/, ti, ci, si, are some of the most powerful phonograms for reading and spelling. Many students begin to plateau in their reading levels after learning to read simple one- and two- syllable words. Yet knowing these three phonograms helps to unlock the mystery of thousands of multi-syllable words.

Oh, and I see from the Amazon "Look Inside!" preview that Eide refers to Diane McGuinness's work. SOLD!

4 Down. Circa 599,996 To Go.

2011-10-14T15:52:00.000-07:00

Lots of kindergartners here in the U.S. have begun the process of learning words as wholes. It's mid-October and many students are this far along:
The, I, am, little

or:

The, an, away, me

Unfortunately, at best, they can only distinguish those words from each other. Very few could actually distinguish them from words that look similar. And the biggest shame is that many of these students have no idea that there is any connection between the letters in these words and the sounds.

How far along are the students taught with Jolly Phonics or other synthetic phonics programs? That's a story for another post.

Passing the Bar vs. Passing a Teacher Licensing Exam

2011-10-08T17:23:00.000-07:00

Ed Law Soup: Reviewing the Nation's Schools of Education, by Arthur McKee (National Council on Teacher Quality)

In a profession like the law, a rigorous licensing exam such as the bar keeps law schools honest. The ABA and its state affiliates determine what new entrants to the profession need to know, and at what level of sophistication. A newly minted J.D. who had not been required to take the equivalent of a contracts course would have a devil of a time passing the bar (and would probably have a prima facie case that her law school had defrauded her!).

In teaching, licensing exams are administered by state governments. But by and large, in a classic case of regulatory capture, the bar for passing these exams is set at such a low level that virtually anyone can pass them.

Had I taken the bar exam and passed, I would have celebrated my accomplishment with family and friends. When I passed the state teacher licensing exam, there was something slightly embarrassing about the situation. I mean, does anyone NOT pass?

Learning Words as Whole: An Experiment

2011-10-08T03:38:00.000-07:00

In Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention, Stanislaus Dehaene, describes an experiment conducted by Bruce McCandliss at the Sackler Institute. McCandliss created a new alphabet and used it to write words. But to create the words he stacked the letters one atop the other, rather than placing them side-to-side. He told two groups of students the meaning of 30 of the words. He then asked one group of students to "memorize each word as a global shape," without informing them of the existence of letters. He informed the second group that the words "were made up of a sequence of letters written from bottom to top."

Thereafter, the two groups were trained identically through repeated exposure to a given shape and the corresponding English name.
The very slight difference in instruction given to the two groups had an impressive cascading impact. After one day of training on a list of thirty words, the whole-language group was actually better at recognizing them than the analytic group, who were still struggling to discover the letters. This interesting result fits with reports by many advocates of the whole-language method. They repeatedly assert that their approach gives children a head start. However, this is only true at the beginning, for the first thirty words or so. The acquisition of letter-to-sound correspondence requires greater initial effort, but the results in the long run are more rewarding. Indeed, on the second day, when students learned a new list of thirty words, the whole-language group began to lose ground. They learned most of the new words - but at the expense of the initial list, which they quickly forgot. The same pattern recurred each time a new list was introduced....The group was trying to accomplish the impossible task of learning each word independently. (pp. 225-226)

Dehaene provides further explanation of the experiment and the results.

Although there are exceptions, many, many teachers, paraprofessionals, and volunteers are currently drilling students in classrooms across the country with lists of whole words, without initially working with the students to analyze the letter-sound correspondences therein. In kindergarten classrooms this routine is typically focused on the 25 or so "sight words" that the students "need to learn" by the end of the year. This is done in the name of "fluency." [I have yet to understand why this type of drilling is not included in the "drill and kill" accusation thrown at phonics proponents.] The students who have not mastered the letter-sound correspondences continue to confuse these high-frequency words with each other... so the drills continue. "They need to recognize these words as wholes," is a common statement. It is terribly unfortunate, for the teachers and for the students, that the scientific research into HOW such words most easily become recognizable by readers has not trickled down to the classroom.

The book, now out in paperback, is available at local independent bookstores and at:
Powell's Books and Amazon

A couple of very good videos on synthetic phonics

2011-05-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

Read Write inc. in Action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNSSU1O3KU8

Debbie Hepplewhite on Blending, Segmenting, and Handwriting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pei0o-_cFc

Marilyn Jager Adams on Older, Struggling Readers

2011-01-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

Dr. Marilyn Jager Adams, author of Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print and Research Professor in the Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences Department at Brown University was interviewed by Delia Stafford-Johnson of EducationNews.org in 2008 about the older struggling reader.

I can't tell you how many educated people continue to believe that reading difficulty is a problem for only a few, unfortunate children. Our country cannot gather the resources or will to fix this problem unless, and until, people wrap their arms around the facts that it is the majority of our children who are failing and that an inability to read takes with it the ability to learn in every other academic domain.... [As assessed by the NAEP] in 2007...the percentage of 8th graders below grade level was 69%.

I wish that all upper grade level teachers would receive professional development in how to look for signs of reading difficulties. There are so many poor readers in the middle and upper grades whose reading difficulties are never detected. Such students are too often labeled as unmotivated or lazy or difficult when, in fact, they just plain can't read well enough to get through their assignments productively....

Every student with poor school performance or full-scale reading scores should be considered a possible reading casualty. As a next step, oral reading fluency samples are a solid, first-pass means of identifying those whose educational difficulties are rooted in reading. Oral reading fluency also offers an objective, quantitative means of monitoring growth. Having said that, however, I wish quickly to add two cautions. First, while fluency assessments can indicate who has reading trouble, figuring out how to help requires follow-up, which includes sitting and working with the student while she or he reads. Second, it is not uncommon for older students to obtain marginally respectable fluency scores despite serious reading difficulty. It [is] important to follow up with any student whose reading fluency lies below 130 words per minute.

More from Marilyn Jager Adams here:

Interviewed by David Bolton at Children of the Code

Regarding the Three-Cueing System

Which Type of Phonics Instruction is Most Effective?

2011-01-08T20:18:00.000-08:00

Although there is quite a bit of empirical research demonstrating the effectiveness of synthetic phonics over analytic phonics (such as the studies conducted by Johnston and Watson in Clackmannanshire, Scotland), researchers are continuing to look into the question. A study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology in 2009 (vol 101, No. 3) used a computer-based program to tightly control the comparison between the two. Although the primary research question was whether the ABRACADABRA program (free and web-based) is effective compared to the regular classroom balanced literacy instruction, the secondary question was whether a rhyme-based (onset-rime) or phoneme-based (synthetic phonics) approach is more effective. The researchers kept all aspects of the treatment the same, including the facilitators, except for the word attack instruction.

Compared to the classroom control group, "There were significant improvements in letter knowledge in the analytic phonics program and significant improvement in phonological awareness, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension at immediate posttest and in phonological awareness and reading fluency at a delayed posttest in the synthetic phonics program."

[In case you are wondering: The synthetic phonics group "just missed" significance with letter-sounds.]

Although the synthetic phonics group performance was higher in most areas than the onset-rime phonics group the authors were cautious about concluding that there was truly significant difference between the two.

Savage, Robert, Philip Abrami, Geoffrey Hipps, and Louise Deault (2009), A Randomized Controlled Trial Study of the ABRACADABRA Reading Intervention Program in Grade 1, Journal of Educational Psychology, 101, 590-604.

What is this Praxis sample question suggesting to preservice teachers?

2010-09-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

According to a presentation by Margie Gillis, Senior Scientist and Project Director at Haskins Laboratory in New Haven, CT, the following is a sample Praxis (011) question:

A small group of second-grade students are reading a story together orally. One of the children has difficulty reading the word "sparkled." To make sure that all the students understand the word, the teacher asks the student to read the rest of the paragraph aloud. Then, when the student has finished reading, the teacher asks the group how the character in the story felt as she spoke and what her eyes did to show her excitement.
The teacher is helping her students use which of the following word-attack strategies?
(A) Phonic clues
(B) Context clues
(C) Configeration clues
(D) Morphemic clues

Rationale for a Dedicated Reading Licensure Test: Preparing Highly Qualified Teachers for Arkansas (April 28, 2009, Slide 18.)

Many states require aspiring teachers to take and pass a Praxis exam.
This sample question certainly supports Gillis' conclusion that the Praxis exams are Whole Language in philosophy.

What does this sample question suggest is an appropriate activity for a teacher when a student struggles with reading a word? Go through each letter-sound with the child and helping her blend them all to form a word? No. The suggestion is that the teacher should direct the child away from the written word, first by reading the rest of the paragraph, then by discussing the unfamiliar word as a vocabulary word. No mention at all is made of the letter-sound correspondences. In fact, the child isn't directed to the letters written on the page at all. S-p-ar-k-le-d. These letter sounds are quite "regular," although there could be some confusion for a struggling reader at the very end of the word: should that "e" be pronounced, but still, with a slight "flexing" or "tweaking" of the sounds, something quite close to "sparkled" should come forth from the child. Not until that point should "context" come into play. I.e. it can be utilized to help a child tweak the pronunciation or it can/should be utilized to determine the meaning of a word.

Does the hypothetical child, a second grader, not know the grapheme-phoneme correspondences in this word? And/or does she not know how to blend all those sounds from left-to-right to form a word? Does the hypothetical teacher not need to ask these questions?

How about: Teach the child to decode, so that when the word "sparkled" (or a close approximation) comes up in a text, the teacher can THEN give the vocabulary lesson.

What does this child, who apparently does not have strong decoding skills, do if she is reading on her own and comes across a vocabulary word such as "sparkled" that is not in her oral vocabulary? It is quite likely she will skip the word. Or she will supply some other word, thereby changing the meaning of the text.

How comforting to know that the vast majority of aspiring teachers pass the Praxis (97% in Arkansas, for example).

Study regarding Reading Comprehension Programs

2010-08-22T20:49:00.000-07:00

"Ameliorating Children's Reading-Comprehension Difficulties: A Randomized Controlled Trial," published recently in Psychological Science, looks interesting.

The researchers compared the results of three different approaches to improving reading comprehension: Text Comprehension Strategy (such as visualization), Oral Language Training (emphasizing vocabulary development), and a third approach which utilized components of the other two. Gains were made by all children, who were aged 8 and 9, but those receiving instruction in Oral Language Training made the largest gains.

The authors of the study are: Paula J. Clarke, Margaret J. Snowling, Emma Truelove, and Charles Hulme.

The results certainly tie into the Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer): Decoding x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension.

Science Daily: Overcoming Reading Comprehension Difficulties in Children: Training Program Can Help

Early Ed Watch blog: A Key to Reading Comprehension in 3rd Grade

Focusing on Sight Words

2010-06-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

I finally got myself a copy of Bonnie Macmillan's Why Schoolchildren Can't Read. The book has been influential in the U.K., but is little known here in the States. This is unfortunate.

Here is Macmillan on the focus in the early grades on teaching "sight words.":

Another disadvantage of many reading schemes is the emphasis given to whole-word learning and the building up of large sight vocabularies; this is a practice that reinforces the child's natural inclination, at an early stage, to see words purely as visual shapes. Byrne (1992) describes this natural tendency as the 'default acquisition procedure'; recognising words in a logographic way, as if they are pictures, occurs in the absence of guidance. The procedure eventually breaks down when the child is faced with too many words, and too many similar words (Ehri, 1991; Gough, Juel, & Griffith, 1992; Vellutino & Scanlon, 1991).

Evidence from a number of experiments suggests that reading failure may actually result from having too much success with this suboptimal strategy of word recognition, and that a substantial proportion of children with reading difficulties who have reached the limit of their memories do not abandon whole-word strategies (Boder, 1973; Johnston, 1985; Snowling, 1980). - Macmillan (1997)pp. 44-45

Many Whole Language/Balanced Literacy proponents suggest that it is because children initially see words as wholes, as pictures, that this is a good starting point and teachers should continue to encourage this.

But words are not pictures. And continuing to think that they are is going to affect a child's reading speed and accuracy, and therefore comprehension, at some point down the road. I have seen a number of students seem as though they are zooming out of the starting gate of reading, only to come to a crashing halt a year or two later; it turned out that they were learning words as wholes.

I notice that children pick up a violin or a guitar or a flute for the first time and hold it, "naturally", in an incorrect position. Should the music teacher encourage the child to do this and wait for the student to "develop" and gain "inner control" as time goes by, assuming that the student will ultimately hold the instrument in a way that will not be detrimental to good playing? Or should she work, right from the start, to help her student learn how to hold the instrument properly? I have heard of no music teacher who does not emphasize proper positioning from the start. A musical instrument, like written language, is a human-made technology. No matter the "natural" way a child initially tries to use the technology, there is a way that is going to be most effective for long-term learning.

See a previous post on sight words.

See a previous post about an adult who was not taught as a child that the letters in words actually represent the sounds of the English language:
http://nurtureareader.blogspot.com/2009/09/she-taught-herself-to-read-and-spell.html

Engelmann on Faulty Instruction and on Programs Needed to Fix the "Guessing Problem"

2010-04-14T06:05:00.000-07:00

At the Children of the Code website:

"Teachers have told them things like, "Look at the first part of a word and guess what word that could be." Teachers have told them, "Read the context, think of the context. What could that word be?" The reason why kids have great excitation in their language areas, poor readers anyway, is because they're trying to treat the reading task as a verbal task! They're trying to figure out the meaning before they read the words!

In fact, in a field tryout of one of our programs, we had one kid tell us this: The kid made a mistake, and the teacher said, "No. Sound it out." And the kid looked at her and he said, "Tell me the word, and I'll sound it out." And I thought, what a smart-ass kid, but then thought, No! He just said it all! That's it! That's what he believes! He has to know the word to sound it out!

Another example is when kids read words in lists they make fewer mistakes than when they read the same words in context. Why? Because in grade one, teachers did eminently stupid stuff, like have them look at the picture, discuss the picture, and then read the words. I'm sorry, Virginia, pictures do not generate specific words! But specific words generate certain features of pictures! So the proper order is: Read the words. What are you going to see in the picture? Here's the picture. Not the other way around!

Another thing teachers do is to always discuss, discuss, and discuss. Frame, think, then read. Wrong! That's what these poor readers are already trying to do. They're trying to figure out if there's some kind of crazy set of rules for them. And obviously, Shaywitz and a lot of others have demonstrated that this approach is inappropriate because it's asking a kid to read the context just to find out ‘what could that word mean?’ So they're forever making guessing mistakes and missing words. But if you have them read words in a list, they do just fine.

So, what implication does that have for a reading program? All kinds. It means that you need unpredictable sentence structures. Why? Because they'll guess on the basis of sentence structure. "Tim and John said, 'Let's go to the lake.' So, Tim and John"...everybody could complete that sentence. No. So, we would design that sentence so that if the kid said, "went to the lake," it would be wrong. Okay? Why? So we can provide the kid with information at a high rate to change their guessing behaviors."

- Siegfried Engelmann, in an interview with David Boulton

Using Rhyme to Teach Reading?

2010-04-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Here's what many children do when "reading" rhyming words:

The teacher says "mop" [or the child sounds out "mop" or sees a picture of a mop]. Then the student looks at the next word, and says "hop!" So... is he looking at all the letters? Or is he simply looking at the first letter and then rhyming? Easy enough to tell.... just throw a similar, but not quite the same word in.... mop, hop, cop, pot. What happens? Does the child say "pop"? I have seen that happen frequently. What could possibly make them say "pop"? They've been taught to look at the first letter and then rhyme (that gives the child a chance to look up at the ceiling and see what new crack has formed).

Using onset-and-rime encourages looking at the first letter and then not following through with the rest of the letters in the word. Why encourage that?

One answer I have seen is: because children find it easier to chunk the phonemes together, so "op" and "at" are easier than reading /o/p/ and /a/t/.
Okay, that may be so, but this opens you up to all sorts of analogies, such as,
It's easier for a child to hold an instrument a certain way, but is it going to help, IN THE LONG RUN, to learn how to hold it a different way? Just because something is easier does not mean:
a. that an alternative is too difficult
b. that it is not worth the effort to get it right.

It is imperative that children learn how to decode unfamiliar words phoneme-by-phoneme in order to become truly skilled readers. Why not help them to do that, right from the start?

By the way, I have noticed that even some wonderful phonics programs stray from the phoneme level to teach "ing" instead of "ng". Why? I have heard that it is because it is difficult to separate out the vowel from the nasal /ng/. But... I have seen this approach end up encouraging students to read "ing" for all "ng" words, including words with "ung" and "ang". It takes time to fix this; let's get it right the first time. The phoneme /ng/ may be one of the more difficult phonemes to say without other phonemes attached, but it doesn't take a whole lot of practice. I've seen it take all of 2 sessions, for children with exceedingly low "phonemic awareness."

Synthetic phonics teaches reading at the sound of the phoneme. Why? That is the level that the alphabetic code refers to. We do not have a code based on rhyme or "word families" (nor on syllables, nor on whole words).

SP programs with aspects of Precision Teaching

2010-04-01T20:15:00.000-07:00

Here, I promote the practice of using Precision Teaching with synthetic phonics.

Here is a U.K. synthetic phonics program that specifically incorporates what it calls "Precision Monitoring":
Sound Discovery. http://www.syntheticphonics.net

This is a sample Precision Monitoring page: Sheet 1 satpin

Here is a U.S. synthetic phonics program that incorporates aspects of Precision Teaching:
Abecedarian

In order to be fully PT, it seems to me, then graphing on a logarithmic chart would be necessary. But, hey, observable and measurable targets are presented in these programs, and that is fabulous.

Of course, teachers can incorporate Precision Teaching into their instruction without the program providing the fluency sheets.

Leveled Books

2010-03-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

Many naive parents (and I was one of them) thought that the levels of books created for "beginning readers" would, well, actually consist of levels that would work efficiently toward skilled reading. What is the point of providing "levels" if they lead kids up the wrong hill?

The levels of "Leveled Books" or "Guided Reading Levels" or "DRA Levels" (you get the idea) have very little to do with the primary skills a beginning reader needs to acquire:
Decoding the squiggles on the page and blending the resulting sounds into words.

Because Whole Language (now frequently called Balanced Literacy)holds that decoding is but one of a myriad of skills readers use to figure out unknown words (and a lowly skill at that), the WL/BL leveled readers encourage other "skills":
The "skill" of using a picture to figure out the word.
The "skill" of using context clues to figure out a word.
The "skill" of memorizing words as wholes.

How do the first 8 or so levels of "leveled" books encourage these "skills," (which are really maladaptive strategies)?
By providing lovely eye-catching pictures, with the key word (the one on the page that isn't part of the repetitive, predictive part of the text) figuring prominently.
By providing text with high predictability. Kids can frequently guess the word without even looking at the page.
By providing lots of repetition of text. The child encounters the same high-frequency words over and over and over.

What about the skill of decoding, which sometimes shows up at the bottom of the "Multiple Strategies" list for children? There is absolutely no attention paid to this. Words such as "laugh," "picture," "pencil," and "Australia" show up in the very first levels (1-4).

Those kids who, despite the "leveled books," manage to learn how to decode words from left to right and who have this on autopilot when arriving at an unfamiliar word, will go up one hill.
And the kids who develop the "skills" promoted by the leveled books, will go up another hill.
The latter become better and better at using picture clues, and context clues, and at memorizing words as wholes. And so, ta da, they can "read." But WHAT can they read? and HOW do they read?
Honestly, I had no clue that this type of reader exists, but they are all around us. (E.g. see my interview with Kelly Rowlingson here.)
They can read text with lots of high frequency words, where the low-frequency words are predictable. They may well "blurgh" over words that they haven't memorized as wholes and that are not predictable (such as characters' last names, place names, or low-frequency multi-syllable words of any subject area.)
A third group exists, of course. Without explicitly being taught the alphabetic code, these children simply never get to the level even of "functionally literate."

Judging by the masses and masses of leveled books sold in bookstores, sitting on shelves in our public libraries, and being put into the hands of our children in schools, it is clear that somehow we have come to believe that these books are necessary for our children to learn to read. Goodness, how DID folks in the old days manage without them?

See here for information about decodable books for beginning readers.

Anthony Pedriana's blog

2010-03-25T19:01:00.000-07:00

"If the relationship between teacher credentials and student achievement remains murky, it is probably because the training required to procure such credentials remains seriously flawed. This is especially true in the arena of literacy instruction where teacher preparation institutions have long ignored the most viable data and continued along a path proven to be woefully inadequate for those at greatest risk of reading failure.

This victimizes children but also teachers since they are assigned a disproportionate share of the blame, not only for reading failure, but also for school failure in general."

- Anthony Pedriana, www.LeavingJohnnyBehind.blogspot.com

Pedriana is not an outsider looking in. He was a teacher and a school principal. He admits it took him years before he realized there a problem with reading instruction. He is definitely not a "teacher basher." Pedriana knows, as well as anyone, that the teachers are products of the ed schools that don't train them to teach reading. (I apologize to those 15% or fewer of ed schools that do.)

Pedriana's posts are short and to-the-point. His site is definitely worth a visit.

2009 NAEP Results released today

2010-03-24T14:38:00.000-07:00

The 2009 NAEP (National Assessment of Academic Progress) results for Reading in grades 4 and 8 were released today.

"About two-thirds of fourth-graders performed at or above the Basic Level in 2009,and one third (33%) of fourth-graders performed at or above Proficient."

All sorts of explanations will be forthcoming in the media (well, if the subject is covered at all) as to why the proficiency rates continue to be startlingly low, why proficiency rates have increased for certain groups and not for others, etc. But, until we start using assessments that show where the skills lie and don't lie (for example simply breaking the assessments down according to the Simple View of Reading: Decoding x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension) we can't even tell if students are struggling more on the decoding piece or the comprehension piece. If comprehension, then what comprehension skills are lacking? If decoding, then what parts of the alphabetic code are kids not learning, and are they learning the skill of blending?

So, yes, we have a problem. Sixty-seven percent of our fourth-graders are not at the Proficient level. NAEP certainly points the literacy problem out more accurately than most of the states' tests, which frequently have "dumbed down" cut-off scores. But we need more specific information on a national, state, local, school level.

Despite Susan Pementel's comment in today's New York Times, there are plenty of folks who see depressing evidence every day that "basic reading skills" are not being taught "fairly efficiently" in American schools. In some schools, yes. Kudos to those administrators and teachers who have forged ahead on this issue and are explicitly teaching their students the components of reading comprehension: decoding and language comprehension.

Wisconsin Reading Coalition

2010-02-22T06:22:00.000-08:00

A grassroots effort begins in Wisconsin: Wisconsin Reading Coalition.

"Current teaching methodologies stifle the growth of our most talented children, and seriously hinder academic and life success for children with disadvantaged backgrounds or learning disabilities."

Anthony Pedriana, author of Leaving Johnny Behind, will be speaking at the kick-off.

Synthetic Phonics Teaching Principles

2010-02-21T20:52:00.000-08:00

http://www.rrf.org.uk/pdf/Final_03__The_Synthetic_Phonics_Teaching_Principles%2011-2-10.pdf

This, from the website of the Reading Reform Foundation of the UK, provides a good overview of synthetic phonics instruction (what it IS and what it IS NOT).

Cumulatively Decodable Books appealing to Boys

2010-02-05T10:40:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of series that I recommend looking at closely when considering purchasing cumulatively decodable books that are appealing to many boys:

[Please keep in mind that ALL books are "decodable" once you know the alphabetic code.]

BRI-ARI books: www.3rsplus.com and www.piperbooks.co.uk OR
Reading for All Learners books: www.iseesam.com
(These two sets of books are actually different versions of the same original set of "SWRL" - Southwest Regional Laboratory for Educational Development and Research - books, published c. 1970)

These little books have very appealing stories for young boys (and girls). I hear again and again about how young boys are utterly enthralled with the characters of Sam and Mat et al. who inhabit the first few levels of this extensive collection of books. I saw this with a young struggling reader who was frequently in trouble at school. His eyes lit up and he smiled a rare smile whenever he saw that Sam would be the main character of the next story. The animal and human characters in the stories at all 8 levels frequently get into trouble in one way or another, and then find their way out, often with the help of friends. The letter-sound correspondences are introduced slowly. Lots and lots of practice is possible, because there are so many books. (In contrast, the Bob Books, which I have found useful to some degree, are not nearly as interesting in their story lines, nor do they provide the practice that many children need at each level.)

Sample text [I did not include the paragraphing] from one page at various levels of the 3rsplus books:
From level 1, Who Am I?:

"What am I? I am a mess." (Funny picture on the page. But, happily, the pictures in this series do NOT provide "clues" for word-identification!)

From level 2, Ben the Ant:

"I fell into this mud! I wish we had Will with us."

From level 4, The Box Cave:

Then Bob came out of the cave but Vic did not. "Vic must still be in there," said Carlos. Carlos yelled, "Vic, get out of the cave. It's late and we must go now." "I can't get out," yelled Vic. "All the boxes are long. All the paths are the same. I'm in a trap. This game is not safe!"

From level 6, The Blue Creature:

"When Patsy reached the gold door, she knocked twice. A voice from behind the door said, "Come inside and see the future." Patsy wanted to see the future so she opened the door and went inside. The sky was crowded with flying spaceships. Smoke from the spaceships had turned the sky a dark brown. Patsy did not like the future. When she turned around to leave, she came face to face with a blue creature with a glowing head. Patsy was afraid!"

(That takes up less than half the page of text. This is yet another reason I love this series. Level 6 is still introducing complex letter-sound correspondences, carefully, yet there are about 205 words on this page. Children at this level are getting lots of practice without the constant interruption caused by pictures, nor by frustration due to frequently coming across words they can't yet decode.)

www.jollylearning.com
There are 4 levels of Jolly Phonics readers, and there is a non-fiction set at each level. The introduction of letter-sound correspondences follows the Jolly Phonics Handbook, which introduces digraphs earlier than many code-based programs. These books are introduced after the teaching of one spelling for each of the 43 phonemes, so these books are not for kids just starting out. But, with the JP progression taught expertly, level 1 books are accessible to many kids after 3 months of learning.
Sample text from one page from three of the Jolly Readers levels:
From level 1, Insects:

...and start as grubs, maggots, or caterpillars

From level 2, Rainforests:

Parrots swoop about in the thick treetops.

From level 3, Snakes:

Some snakes are poisonous and have poison called venom. When a snake bites, it injects venom into its victim, with its fangs.

Certainly not the "Fat cat on the mat" fare that decodable readers are frequently accused of being....

Nor do they bear any resemblance to the "phonics" readers sold at the big box stores. Move over Dora the Explorer Phonics Book Reading Program. (Sample page from BOOK 1: "I like to go on adventures. I can go by raft or blast off in a spacecraft.") Move over Scooby Doo Phonics Book Reading Program. (Sample page from BOOK 1: "Scooby lifted the lid. The cat sat inside! The cat purred. Scooby wagged his tail. This cat was not so bad.")
In fact, Dora and Scooby, please head back into the television set.

Timed Drills

2010-01-27T21:35:00.000-08:00

I used to think that DRILLING and TIMING was NUTS. . . .

But I was encouraged by some knowledgeable folks to read further on this subject, and what I learned about Precision Teaching (PT) had me very intrigued. So I decided to learn the basics. I began using it (timed drills, often as short as 10 seconds, and charting the data on a standard celeration chart)in late Summer. I think PT is an amazing tool, and I can't help but think with regret about the students at a nearby school whom I tutored without PT. What additional gains could they have made? Lots, judging by what PT is doing for my current tutees.

1. The students can "see" progress, even seemingly small progress, from one day or week to the next.
2. The students begin to feel competitive within themselves and actually ask to do more timings in order to try to reach the target rate-of-response.
3. The students are utterly focused during the timings. It is clear how hard they are working.
4. Accuracy appears to be helped rather than hindered by the timings, as long as the teacher follows #5 below:
5. The teacher uses the chart to determine whether an instructional change is in order. Has the student reached the target? Move to the next level. Has the student shown no improvement in 2 or 3 days? The TEACHER needs to make a change: perhaps reduce the timing amount, or highlight the difficult items, or reteach, or provide a practice sheet on the difficult items prior to the timing, or move back to a previous skill level. An odd by-product of what seems like a terribly uncreative activity is, in fact, creativity on the part of the teacher.
6. If improvement isn't happening, it is seen as the fault of the teacher, not the student. Rather than this feeling like an undue burden on me as a teacher, it makes me feel empowered. Go figure.

Here is a beginner-friendly Precision Teaching chart:
http://precisionteaching.pbworks.com/f/Giroux-Crow-Color.pdf
This chart is easy enough that the student can do the charting. (In fact, evidence suggests that self-charting brings about even quicker improvement.)
I should clarify that the above is not the Standard Celeration Chart, which is, well... STANDARD.
http://courses.washington.edu/edspe510/Downloads/Standard_Celeration_Chart_%28blank%29.pdf

What to time? Letter-sound correspondences, words***, and text.
*** Caveat: PLEASE do not do drills with words, unless your students are reading the letters from left-to-right! I keep meaning to write a post about how the current fashion of drilling kids on "sight words" is incredibly detrimental to the process of learning to read skillfully.... For now I just want to reiterate: Please do not teach students to read words as wholes. It is a disaster waiting to happen.

Continuing to Teach the Alphabetic Code after 100 Easy Lessons

2010-01-25T21:48:00.000-08:00

I love Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons as a sure-fire start to learning to read (and so do most of the 529 people who have commented on it on Amazon). But... the book does not cover enough of the alphabetic code to ensure a child's success once she starts reading trade books. E.g. "igh" isn't covered. Some kids will certainly resort to guessing, particularly if "multiple strategies" in word identification are taught in the classroom. So, I encourage anyone using that book to CONTINUE to teach the code explicitly. For those who love the Direct Instruction approach of Zig Engelmann: Ken DeRosa and Palisadesk have some advice for where to go after 100 Easy Lessons:

http://d-edreckoning.blogspot.com/2008/06/question-4-what-to-do-after-100-easy.html

Another approach is to continue on via a synthetic phonics program. Take a look at the Alphabetic Code chart on the Phonics International website http://www.phonicsinternational.com/USA_Canadian_Resources.html to see what pieces of the code Engelmann, et al. left out of 100 Easy Lessons.

It would be nice if the authors were to publish a volume 2 of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. You know, Easy Lessons 101-200. But come to think of it, that would require admitting something. . . .

Mary Damer on Phonics, Explicit Instruction, and the "Dirty Secret of the Suburbs"

2010-01-25T21:05:00.000-08:00

Some of the best places to eavesdrop on conversations about education these days are on blogs...in the comments sections. Not mine, mind you. But scattered around the Internet, there are incredibly experienced, impassioned, intelligent individuals dropping in and out of discussions that are quite informative to parents and educators.

Mary Damer wrote several hefty comments on the EdWeek blog "What Works for Rich Kids Works for All Kids" [or does it?] this past Fall. I had a hard time deciding which of her comments to quote from.

"If you look at the data and the extensive research (in the field of reading, not math where we aren't that fortunate), the effectiveness of systematic and explicit phonics has been clearly established with a wide range of children. You have to ignore that body of research to make other claims. I sometimes wonder what it's like for brilliant, serious reading researchers in neurology, cognitive psychology, ophthalmology, and educational psychology to have their work ignored so widely by much of the educational community. How painful is it for Raynor,Shaywitz, Hiebert, Ehri, and Torgesen to know that children who could be learning to read at grade level aren't and never will because so many districts ignore the data over assumptions and dogma. The negative impact of ignoring that research for children in poverty is devastating for them and for our culture.

I've never heard the pejorative term "heavy phonics" and assume it refers to systematic and explicit phonics which is only one part, albeit one that should be more "heavily" emphasized until students have learned all of the letter-sounds and letter-sound combinations. At that point by the end of second grade, their brain is so automatically decoding from left-to-right, in saccadic movements, processing text in milliseconds, that the term "sight" word reading can truly be used. They are no longer aware of associating letter sounds with orthography, but for them that link has fortunately been established. For about 20% of the students in a typical kindergarten class, all they will need is three or four months of phonics before they push ahead having broken the code with little effort.

A school will have nowhere near the academic achievement that is possible unless their systematic and explicit phonics is accompanied by rich vocabulary and content knowledge of the type Isabel Beck and Dan Willingham write about, explicit comprehension accompanied by graphic organizers and strategy instruction (and in prek and K phonemic awareness). By mid-first grade, a certain percentage of students will require systematic fluency practice with passages. All of the students will profit from a spelling program that emphasizes first phonetic spelling, then rule-based spelled and finally morphographic spelling. Unfortunately in 90% or more of schools, spelling is still taught as a visual memorization task and any college professor will sadly describe the impact that's had on students' writing."

And:

"...that same systematic explicit reading instruction would reduce the large amount of early grade tutoring that is the dirty secret of the suburbs, the parent teaching at night, and the ultimate failure in school for 20 – 30% of those students."

- Mary Damer

Damer is author of: Reading Instruction for Students Who Are At Risk or Have Disabilities.

Palisadesk on Dehaene's Reading in the Brain

2010-01-14T20:09:00.000-08:00

Palisadesk, a frequent contributor to the RRF message forum and kitchentablemath blog, has been reading Stanslas Dehaene's Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention. Here is her summary thus far:

"Dehaene brings a different perspective, being French rather than American or British (the book is written in English, not translated ); he has a background in mathematics and how number concepts are learned, as well as in language and reading issues. The book is well-written but dense due to the amount of information, the author's unique approach and marshalling of evidence to illustrate his hypotheses, etc. His book does not deal except tangentially with instructional matters: he asserts that the science of neuroimaging and brain process monitoring is not yet at the level where we can abstract specific classroom practices. He does, though, explain how we *can* assert with confidence that Whole Language and "balanced literacy" practices are not only unsupported by evidence, but are actually harmful. He also explains in illustrative detail how it is impossible to learn words by their shapes, with an illustration from an experiment by Bruce McCandliss in NYC which I am curious to know more about.

He effectively refutes the "all children learn differently" meme by pointing out that all children are indeed unique individuals but have the same neuronal networks and need to master the same GPC's and skills for reading, and that evidence shows that explicit instruction in the code and how to use it is the most efficient way to ensure that children eventually have the freedom to read as they wish -- the supposed goal of Whole Language.

I may post more about the book later but it is not only interesting, it breaks new ground for American readers especially in how it incorporates much research from other countries and languages. So far I give it three thumbs up." - from a post on the Alphabetic Code yahoogroup

Tom Burkard on Teaching Teachers to Teach Reading - U.K. style

2010-01-14T19:43:00.000-08:00

Tom Burkard of the Promethean Trust in the U.K. has left a comment on the Core Knowledge blog. Apparently the situation at ed schools there matches up to the situation this side of the Atlantic.

We are just in the middle of surveying the books on teaching reading recommended by teacher training courses in England. Overwhelmingly, the titles are about ‘literacy’–but very few of them deign to comment on teaching children to decode. When they do, they parrot the ’searchlights’ model, which is the same thing as the three-cueing system in the US. Phonics is only touched with a very long spoon.- Tom Burkard

I will keep my eye open for the publication of said survey. In the U.S., one can look at the appendix of the National Council of Teacher Quality's Report, What Education Schools Aren't Teaching About Reading, to see a list of the texts assigned in various ed school courses in reading. The NCTQ rated the texts as to whether they are acceptable (or not. . .) as core texts or supplemental texts. I would love to see a detailed critique by the NCTQ of some of the more commonly used texts. One of the key points made by NCTQ, however, is that there aren't really any commonly used texts in this subject area, unlike in, say, medicine. Most of the texts were used in just one of the 300+ courses looked at by the NCTQ.

And here is a related post on the RRF message board: Early Reading Acquisition: What Trainee Teachers are Taught.

Report on Teacher Prep Programs in New Mexico

2010-01-11T20:10:00.000-08:00

In September 2009, the National Council on Teacher Quality released another scathing report on ed schools and how they prepare teachers to teach reading and mathematics. This report focuses on New Mexico's undergraduate teacher preparation programs. It is one of four short State-specific reports released in late 2009 as a follow-up to its 2006 report on ed schools around the nation.

"One of New Mexico's eight preparation programs provides training to teacher candidates in all five components of effective reading instruction. Of the remaining programs, three provided training in only reading comprehension, and the other four programs did not provide any exposure to any of the five components. Thus, nearly all of New Mexico's programs provide no preparation in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development or fluency."

[Note, however, that phonemic awareness may well be best taught with letters, as part of a systematic phonics program.]

And:

"We found approximately 20 reading textbooks in use in New Mexico's eight preparation programs. The quality of almost all of the required reading texts is poor. Their content includes little to none of the science of effective reading instruction, and, in many cases, the content is inaccurate and/or misleading. Interestingly, the one program providing teachers with adequate exposure to the science of reading relied on a course packet with materials drawn from numerous research journals and publications, rather than a standard textbook."

Research journals and publications in courses on reading instruction?
Nice job, University of New Mexico/Albuquerque.
Let's hope others follow in your footsteps.

Leaving Johnny Behind, by Anthony Pedriana

2010-01-07T21:49:00.000-08:00

Anthony Pedriana, Leaving Johnny Behind: Overcoming Barriers to Literacy and Reclaiming At-Risk Readers.
http://www.amazon.com/Leaving-Johnny-Behind-Overcoming-Reclaiming/dp/0982200544/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258230486&sr=1-1

Pedriana was an elementary school principal in Milwaukee. He learned a great deal, late in his career, from a young teacher, Gayle Gorman:

"[The district's] approach to reading skills development reflected those constructivist ideals that stressed meaning and comprehension over part-to-whole strategies such as direct and systematic code-based training. There was nothing surprising about that. Most schools operated within that framework, one that reflected the kind of training provided by schools of education across the country.

I never doubted that philosophy nor deviated from it until late in my career when a young teacher named Gayle Gorman joined our staff. . . . Early in the year, Gayle asked permission to use a program called Direct Instruction (D.I.). She told me the approach was very different from what we were currently doing and that it would employ a systematic, drill-oriented emphasis of the alphabetic code.

What Gayle was suggesting, of course, was heresy. The word "drill" alone would normally squelch consideration of any program that used such a tactic. . . . It was repetitive practice until one could demonstrate mastery. Such contrivances, I had always been taught, were antithetical to the very notion of child-centricity.

But Gayle had piqued my curiosity. Her group was of second-graders losing ground in their efforts to read and comprehend. Only a few months out of first grade, they had already managed to amass significant deficits. As most educators will attest, such deficiencies tend to be cumulative, a condition that causes those who have them to become increasingly less proficient as they travel through the grades. This is harmful to all children, but nowhere is it more devastating than among victims of poverty and all its associated ills. Over ninety percent of the children in my school fell into that category. . . .

Normally, a group like Gayle's would generate a list of specific interventions. For examples, we might have suggested individual counseling for a student who had recently been placed in foster care. Or perhaps we would have done vision and hearing screening on a child who was exhibiting problems with visual and/or auditory discrimination. If necessary, we would develop individual behavior plans for those who chronically disrupted classroom proceedings or made a referral for a child with a suspected processing deficit.

But Gayle didn't mention any such issues. She simply had a group of below-level readers and she felt strongly that she could turn things around. . . .

The way Gayle saw it, the goal for every one of her second-graders, regardless of their current functioning, was for them to perform at their age-appropriate level by the end of the year." . . . .

When I first opened Pedriana's book, I read a snippet here and a snippet there and thought, "Well, there's nothing much new here" and I set it aside. But a friend suggested I read it from the start to the finish (fascinating concept, that). So I did. And I must say, I think it is a very important book. . . particularly, but not exclusively, for those questioning whether illiteracy is an automatic by-product of inner-city poverty. What this book does well, that I could not sense from my snippet-approach, is illustrate the light-bulb moment of someone who had been steeped in, well, ed-school thinking for most of his career and who suddenly realized that all was not as it seemed it must be. Specifically: the impoverished children of our inner cities (and anywhere else for that matter) CAN learn to read. . . and read well. Oh, and for those folks who have not read up on the history of the scientific research into reading instruction, check out the chapter entitled "Preponderence of the Evidence." Oops. Did I just suggest you jump right into the middle of the book? I take it back.

Precision Teaching and Reading Instruction

2010-01-07T21:16:00.000-08:00

Richard M. Kubina Jr. (Penn State) and Clay M. Starlin (University of Oregon) wrote "Reading with Precision," published in 2003 in European Journal of Behavior Analysis
http://www.precisionteachingresource.net/KubinaStarlin.pdf

"ORF [Oral Reading Fluency] predicted comprehension better than direct measures of reading comprehension such as questioning, retelling, and cloze. ORF measures involve recording the number of words read aloud correctly and incorrectly per minute. While oral reading fluency has received considerable attention in the reading literature, Precision Teaching further enhances its use by including "performance standards." . . . . Precision Teaching defines performance standards as performance frequencies empirically associated with retention, endurance, and application (Binder, 1996; Haughton, 1984). In other words, a response that occurs within a certain frequency range will display retention, endurance and application."

Any idea what reading fluency rate has been determined to ensure retention, endurance, and application?
Words read orally correctly/minute: 150-250
Words read silently correctly/minute: 350-900
[in "common reading materials such as newspapers, magazines, and novels under typical conditions"]

"These Children Could Be Uniformly Taught to Read"

2010-01-07T20:59:00.000-08:00

Project Follow-Through:

The below is from Zig Engelmann's Needy Kids in Our Backward System
http://zigsite.com/for_readers_not-familar_with_project_follow_through.html

"DI [Direct Instruction] outcomes also debunked the myth that different programs are appropriate for children with different learning styles. The DI results were achieved with the same programs for all children, not one approach for higher performers and another for lower performers, or one for non-English speakers and another for English speakers. The programs were designed for any child who had the skills needed to perform at the beginning of a particular program. If the child is able to master the first lesson, she has the skills needed to master the next lesson and all subsequent lessons. The only variable is the rate at which children proceed through the lessons. . . If it takes more repetition to achieve mastery, we provide more repetition, without prejudice.
The enormous discrepancies in performance between our model and all the others implies that we knew something they didn't know about instructing the full range of children in the full range of academic skills. . . .
The Direct Instruction model was the only one that was effective with extremely low performers. We showed that these children could uniformly be taught to read by the end of kindergarten and read pretty well by the end of first grade. Performance of this magnitude and consistency had never been demonstrated in the schools before Follow Through."

Italics mine.
Direct Instruction was also the most effective with the highest performers, by the way.

Reading Unfamiliar Words: A Comment on the Core Knowledge Blog

2009-12-23T20:03:00.000-08:00

"My kids have been shocked that even in Honors or AP classes bright kids seem to have no idea how to approach unfamiliar multisyllabic words. Those unfamiliar words can have a whole sentence worth of subtle meaningful distinctions.

Please parents. If the school says they use a Balanced Literacy or Guided Reading approach, it is simply a more palatable name for Whole Language. Your child may be one of the significant percentage doomed to never move beyond sight reading of known words." - Student of History, in a comment on the Core Knowledge blog.

This reminds me of the time someone told me his son has difficulty with reading, because he "doesn't recognize" the words that he has in his oral vocabulary. Why should he have to recognize them? And if he doesn't have the tools (the alphabetic code and the skill of blending) to figure out words he has in his spoken vocabulary, how is he possibly going to read words that are entirely new to him?
It's no wonder so many recently-published books, for kids of all ages, have pictures on almost every page.

"Student of History" points out something that few people realize: there are different kinds of readers. The whole-word memorizers and the context-clue users can certainly get by. Apparently some make it to AP classes and beyond. But accuracy suffers.

Scotland's Literacy Commission Report calls for Synthetic Phonics

2009-12-04T12:09:00.000-08:00

Scotland's Literacy Commission Report (December 2009)

With frequent references to the effectiveness of the Clackmannanshire project, a recently released report by Scotland's Literacy Commission, "A Vision for Scotland," states the following:

"Successful schemes should involve the following elements:
a. Commencement at an early age
b. Reliance on a highly structured phonics programme (normally involving synthetic phonics) as the approach to getting the great majority of children decoding successfully." (p. 17)

In fact, the report states that

"All successful schemes have relied heavily on synthetic phonics" (p. 13)

Since many in the U.S. are familiar with entirely different sorts of phonics (e.g. word family phonics, analytical phonics, or what might be called "first-and-last-letter phonics"), I think it important to point out that synthetic phonics involves not just teaching the letter-sound correspondences, but also teaching children the rather difficult process of blending those sounds into words. Left-to-right reading, all through the word, is paramount. It does wonders for spelling too.

Nonsense Words

2009-12-01T22:22:00.000-08:00

"One of the most replicated findings in reading disability research is that, compared to chronological-age controls, reading-disabled children have difficulty reading pseudowords."
- Keith Stanovich, Progress in Understanding Reading (2000).

Yet there are plenty of instances of schools in which there is great resistance to the use of nonsense words for assessment purposes (or instructional purposes). After all, so the story goes, nonsense words aren't "authentic."

See also: Fien, Hank, et al., "Using Nonsense Word Fluency to Predict Reading Proficiency in Kindergarten through 2nd Grade for English Learners and Native English Speakers" School Psychology Review, (2008)37; 3 (391-408).

The Hype about Getting Kids "Interested" in Reading

2009-11-16T19:34:00.000-08:00

"Today's all-singing, all-dancing children's books are about as 'exciting' as it is possible to make them. When children don't want to read, it's because they don't know how."

Sound Foundations of the U.K.

Children of the Code: Dysteachia

2009-11-09T19:20:00.000-08:00

Dysteachia

"Mastery of the Alphabetic Code is Essential"

2009-11-08T12:08:00.000-08:00

In 2004, twenty-six Australian researchers, psychologists, linguists, and educators expressed their concern about the "whole language" approach, how it predominates in most schools systems, and how proponents claim that the debate between phonics and whole language is moot because they do incorporate phonics in literacy teaching (i.e. balanced or eclectic approach). The 26 put forth that "mastery of the alphabetic code is essential" and must be taught "directly," not implicitly through a "print-rich" environment. They stated that students who arrive at school from a "print-rich" background are better able to withstand the "whole language" approach primarily because their parents counteract the problem by teaching their children themselves or by hiring tutors.

Back in 1996 40 Massachusetts experts in linguistics and psychology were shocked to learn that whole-language proponents claimed that linguistics research supports their "constructing meaning" approach to teaching reading. In part as a result of these experts' efforts, Massachusetts revised its Language Arts framework to include direct, systematic instruction in phonics. References to using a variety of strategies to recognize unknown words were deleted.

Stanovich on Whole Language and Science

2009-11-04T13:45:00.000-08:00

Eventually - perhaps not for a great while, but eventually - the weight of empirical evidence will fall on their [whole language proponents'] heads. That direct instruction in alphabetic coding facilitates early reading acquisition is one of the most well established conclusions in all of behavioral science (Adams, 1990; Anderson et al., 1985; Chall, 1983b, 1989; Perfetti, 1985; Stanovich, 1986b). Conversely, the idea that learning to read is just like learning to speak is accepted by no responsible linguist, psychologist, or cognitive scientist in the research community.

pp 399-400.

- Keith Stanovich, Progress in Understanding Reading: Scientific Foundations and New Frontiers. New York: The Guilford Press, 2000.

Letter-Sound Knowledge and Blending the Sounds

2009-11-01T00:11:00.000-07:00

de Graaff, Saskia, Anna M.T. Bosman, Fred Hasselmann, and Ludo Verhoeven, "Benefits of Systematic Phonics Instruction" (2009); Scientific Studies of Reading; 13; 4 (318-333).

This study compared a systematic phonics approach with a non-systematic phonics approach.

It is interesting to note that children in both experimental groups progressed to the same extent on letter-sound knowledge. . . . Frequent exposure to graphemes and their corresponding sounds resulting in paired-associate learning, as was the case in both phonics programs, seems to be sufficient to make children learn grapheme-phoneme correspondences. However, to recognize and use letters in words is yet another skill. Reading requires the skill to blend letter-sounds or larger chunks into words.

Thus there are many children, taught phonics in an unsystematic way, who know many letter-sound correspondences, but then cannot read simple nonsense words such as "jat." Synthetic phonics teaches blending right from the start.

Phonics for the Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing?

2009-10-29T21:17:00.000-07:00

Here are some intriguing links about an issue that deserves further research:

1. Dave Krupke: What Exactly is Visual Phonics?
- Judy Montgomery, Communications Disorders Quarterly (2008); 29; 177.

The written symbols strongly associate with the production of the sounds of English - what actually happens in the mouth. . . .
It has been my experience...that See the Sound/Visual Phonics provides the connecting piece, the link that bridges the gap between letters and sounds. . . .

Visual Phonics fits very well with the literacy principle that "letters represent sounds" versus a commonly accepted belief that "letters have sounds."

2. Intervention in Students Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
- Jones-Oleson, Linda, Sarah Schreckhise, & Rebecca Plesko-DuBoise, Virginia School for the Deaf. Powerpoint Presentation, ASHA Convention (2007), Boston.

Visual Phonics is an instructional tool that has the potential to normalize the trajectory of literacy learning for many students who are D/HH.

(slide 4)

Deaf educators tend to believe that the inability to hear poses an insurmountable barrier to phonic-based reading instruction.

(slide 126)

3. DePaul Education Professor Devises Method to Help Deaf and Hearing Impaired Improve Their Reading Skills

Oh Yes, She/He/You Can.

2009-10-25T07:23:00.000-07:00

"My dog can't/won't." Clicker train him. Read Don't Shoot the Dog! by Karen Pryor.

"My child has little musical talent." Find a well-trained Suzuki music teacher. They believe, and prove, that "Every Child Can."

"My child can't draw." Learn how to draw, right along side him/her. Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes and Audo-Visual Drawing Program by Bruce McIntyre

"My child never...." Shape his/her abilities with positive reinforcement of a very particular kind: Don't Shoot the Dog! by Karen Pryor.

My child doesn't read well. Teach him. See the resources listed in my May 12 post.

"I can't do this... or that...." Oh yes you can. Start with Talent is Overrated. by Geoff Colvin.

No more excuses.
My new motto: If something isn't going right, there is always a better way.

The 4th Grade Hump (or Slump): Discussion at Kitchentablemath Blog

2009-10-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth B started a discussion on the 4th Grade Slump on the kitchentablemath blog, and the comments that follow hers make worthwhile reading. Palisadesk's are not to be missed.

A Good School Can and Should Teach All Children to Read.

2009-10-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

Ruth Miskin’s definition of a good school is one that teaches all its children to read and I agree wholeheartedly with that definition. Unfortunately too many people in education don’t believe that this is possible.

- Jim Curran
- One of the many succinct and pointed comments made on the Reading Reform Foundation of the U.K. message board

It's hard to accomplish something when you don't believe it is possible.
People like Ruth Miskin have shown it is possible.
It's long past time to toss the excuses in the trash.

Cushing Academy Library Throws Its Books Out

2009-09-30T15:18:00.001-07:00

The headline had previously stated: Cushing Academy Throws Out All Its Books
Say it isn't so.

Cushing Academy Embraces a Digital Future

Clarification, thanks to Anonymous' suggestion that I visit Cushing's website:
Ten thousand books have been removed from Cushing Academy's library. Some are now elsewhere on campus. The remaining 10,000 are there "this year," according to the Headmaster. The Boston Globe article indicates that the school decided to "discard all their books". It seems unclear what will happen to the remaining 10,000.

Core Knowledge Literacy Program Shows Early Gains

2009-09-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

WNYC: Early Start for Reading and New York Post: High Marks for Lit Plan
The 3-year pilot Core Knowledge reading program, which is based on synthetic phonics and the teaching of background knowledge, has completed its first year, and the results are reportedly looking good. I have not, as yet, been able to locate the specific test data; perhaps it will be made available to the public soon.

"Chancellor Joel Klein says the results with kindergarteners are promising. They scored higher on tests of early reading skills than kindergarteners in comparable schools – which all had high concentrations of poor and minority students.

KLEIN: The really, the dominant gains or perhaps the only gains to speak of were in the Core Knowledge group. . . .

MARKS: These kids were on or above grade level. And to see a kindergartener coming out with an H, F level, that’s sort of first grade the end of first grade. So we’re hopeful it will turn our school around."

- WNYC, September 23, 2009.

"I absolutely love this program," said principal Katie Grady of PS 104 in Far Rockaway, Queens, who said that 95 percent of her kindergartners entered the first grade reading well above grade level.

"Their reading stats are through the roof and it's something that we haven't seen before," she added.

- New York Post, September 23, 2009.

Here is an interview with Matthew Davis from September 2008, in which Davis discusses the 3-year pilot program at 10 NYC schools.

"The Core Knowledge Reading Program is divided into two strands of instruction.

The first strand, the Skills Strand, aims to teach the mechanics of reading and writing. It uses a powerful scheme of phonics instruction known as synthetic phonics, which has been relatively little used in the U.S. but has produced strong results and is currently gaining traction in the U.K.

The second strand, the Listening and Learning Strand, is intended to build up vocabulary and background knowledge that will help the children make sense of what they read."

- EducationNews.org, September 9, 2008.

Daily Mail Report on Poor Boys in School

2009-09-22T07:14:00.000-07:00

This report in the Daily Mail certainly touches on a number of important issues, particularly the failure to teach many of our children to read:
A Horrifying Portrait of Schools Failing Young Boys - Harriet Sergeant
(I am not using the full title of the article, as I thoroughly dislike it, and I suspect that Sergeant did not compose it.)

In 3rd Grade and Can't Read

2009-09-18T06:19:00.000-07:00

My Third Grader Still Can't Read. What Do I Do?: A piece in The Globe and the Mail, by Margaret Wente (Canada).

The comments which are critical of Wente's piece are remarkable and disturbing.

1.Many of those commenting (on both sides of the reading debate) use anecdotes of themselves learning to read or of their children learning to read to draw broad-based conclusions about how all children would learn to read. We likely all have a tendency to use anecdotes as evidence, but since we are talking about children's futures here, it would be helpful if folks would take some time to look into the issue of WHICH approach to teaching reading is MOST likely to create skilled readers. While a significant number of children do learn to read on their parent's lap during storytime, a far larger percentage (between 94 and 98% of children) are able to become skilled readers using systematic phonics (Stanovich, Shaywitz, Chall, Jager, National Reading Panel, The Rose Report (U.K.), etc.).

2. The assumption on the part of many commentators that parents must not have read to their children if the children are struggling with reading is a common one, and I admit I had a somewhat similar feeling myself.... before my second child failed to learn to read by that approach. No one could possibly point their finger at me and state that my dh and I didn't read to our children enough. I speak with many parents who are saddened when a younger child of theirs does not learn with the "osmosis" method. Unfortunately, because they don't know what proper reading instruction looks like, they often assume the problem rests within their child.

3. Many of the comment-writers point their fingers at parents and say, essentially, "YOU should have taught your child to read. Why are you leaving it to the schools?" If it isn't one of the schools' primary functions, then it would be helpful if parents and social service agencies would be told that by the schools. Are any of these particular commentators elementary school teachers or principals, because schools do say that THEY teach reading. In fact, I have had pamphlets provided to me by schools which very much steer parents AWAY from teaching their children to read. It is highly discouraged in many cases.

4. It is time that our aspiring teachers get proper training in reading instruction at all of our nation's Ed Schools, not just at the 15% (at best) who provide trainees with informaton about scientifically supported reading instruction (What Ed Schools Aren't Teaching about Reading, NCTQ).

She taught herself to read and spell. . . properly this time

2009-09-02T21:48:00.001-07:00

Recently I interviewed Kelly Rowlingson, owner of the website A Step at a Time.
I interviewed her, via email, after I found the following passage on her website, in the My Personal Preference section:

My literacy struggle is a shame, I think, for me and the child that I was, but also for my children. It meant that as a mother I felt I had to avoid reading books to my own children (especially in public).

I always remember the times when I would come across an unknown word and I would strategically speak to one of the children about something else (distracting everyone from the story including any strangers), then return to reading the book although missing out the offending word. Either that or I would lower my tone to say that word then carry on as naturally as I could!

I suppose that is the thing, isn't it? That over the years I have had to use tricks to get by.

When I read for pleasure (which wasn't all that often), I never did know the person's name - the character was simply 'B' (the initial letter). I could always picture the person, but I didn't know the character by name. I also missed out a lot of the descriptive or richer language. I simply didn't know what those words were, but I got the gist of the story.

I had read Thank You Whole Language, which was eye-opening for me, but it is satire. Kelly's story puts a human face on the issue of the consequences of learning to "read" without learning the alphabetic code.

Below are my interview questions and Kelly's responses:

You write, on your website, one example of how you hid the extent of your poor reading skills from your kids. Were there any other ways that you hid it from them or from others?

My concern wasn't about my children knowing that I struggled to read and spell, instead it was about others (generally strangers) finding out. People assumed ... that as an intelligent woman I could be depended on to accurately transcribe lists for the group or read some obscure passage in a book. Never once was I asked if I was comfortable doing so.

As a youngster I found that I could hide my poor reading skills by using the talents I did have, e.g. problem solving! Many book reports were completed by reading the back of the book and then a few odd pages in the middle. I got the gist of the story.

I found that the most successful way to hide my poor reading skills as an adult was to change my behavior to distract others e.g. being humorous, shy and forgetful or need to go toilet....

How/when did you come to realize that your Whole Language reading instruction had hindered, rather than helped you? I find that most people have only the faintest memories of how their teachers taught reading. Are you sure you were taught with Whole Language? Do you recall any of the teaching specifically?

I do not recall any teaching, although I have my school books and it is obvious that I was expected to write quite complex words from the first day, such as "mother." What I did come to realise was that I couldn't do what my husband could. He was able to sound out words whereas I couldn't have even told you an alphabet sound. I wasn't even aware that letters or combinations of letters represented sounds. . . .
If I was taught phonics, I obviously didn't get it!!

As an adult, when you came across an unfamiliar word that you felt you needed to read accurately, how did you go about trying to figure it out?

The only time that I HAD to read a word accurately was when I had to read aloud. Surprisingly (or maybe not) I have found through the years that you can miss out many words and still get the general meaning from the text. It may not be as enjoyable, as interesting, as educational or as powerful emotionally for me as it was for a reader that could accurately read the text, but I would have got the gist.

What would I have done to read an unknown word accurately? Guess. If that didn't work, then I simply couldn't read it. It is that simple. My only other option if I didn't recognise the word was to distract my audience so that I could miss out that word.

How did you discover Mona McNee's Cat Phonics?

I knew that my eldest child was VERY similar to me. He had my "quirks" and many of my "talents." I just knew that he was going to be the next family member with literacy problems. There was no doubt in my mind and there still isn't to this day. I saved him from guaranteed failure.

Before he turned five (schooling age in NZ) I started looking on the Internet for options. I started learning about the different ways to teach literacy, the pros and cons, the opinions... then I found Mona McNee's site. Firstly I was excited because it was free, then I was excited because the way it taught actually made sense to me.

Did you realize that using synthetic phonics would end up helping you as well as your children?

No, and I'm not even sure at what point I realised that I was improving. It was a gradual process. I learnt each sound with him. I learnt alongside him how to blend and segment (with Mona's support, as it wasn't 'natural' to me).

Do you have any examples of your spelling prior to learning via synthetic phonics vs. afterwards?

Basically I went from absolutely shocking to average. My family has been amazed with my spelling progress (especially my husband). In fact, he commented on it just the other day. . . . The problems I did have were spelling some easy words such as diary/dairy, and chose/choose, because of their visual similarities. Then the more difficult words, words that were not in my 'automatic to spell list', were spelt with great creativity and absolutely no similarity to the real thing!

Did your weak decoding skills ever affect your professional life?

To be intelligent and not be able to read and spell adequately can do terrible things to your self esteem, and being anxious about your abilities can limit the careers you think you are capable of.

I am sure that it is difficult to reach your full potential with poor literacy skills. I will never know 'what could have been'. However, I have never let my poor literacy skills stand in my way, I think I have just had to be more creative than others in order to 'get by'.

How many years ago did you begin utilizing synthetic phonics?

Four and a half years.

Do you personally know other adults who have been hiding their weak reading skills pretty well?

Many. I have been very open about my own struggles, so in return others have been. For many it isn't until they are 'pressured' to perform in front of others that you can see they don't have adequate skills.

What made you think to create a website as well as design your own synthetic phonics materials?

After successfully teaching my own child to read by this 'alternative method,' I ended up with schools and other parents interested in my approach (through word of mouth). It soon became apparent that it would be easier to have the products available for sale rather than to produce them as-and-when-needed. Also, the creativity involved in designing different products is something I enjoy.

How would you describe the reading-instruction situation in New Zealand today?

NZ is most definitely the home of Reading Recovery. It will be difficult to change how reading is taught in NZ. We do have many phonics advocates who 'pop up' frequently and there are more and more people and companies (especially remedial) going this way. It will happen I suppose, but it will take time.

What does the future hold for you and your website - any new projects in the works?

I am always up to something. I enjoy creating and I would soon become bored if I didn't have a project!

I have recently written approximately 50 different books in line with my programme that have a very NZ flavour. I have drawn the short straw and I will be illustrating them even though my husband is a better and more experienced artist. At present I am still tweaking the books and finalising the 'look' of the characters.

As far as my website goes, soon all of my resources (which are currently in line with my own programme) will be made in line with Jolly Phonics. This will make my resources more useable for these parents/teachers.

Before I start on the Jolly
Phonics resources I am setting up another website which will
sell downloadable games and resources for all areas of
teaching. We are still setting it all up, but it should be
up and running in the next few weeks or so..... hopefully!

Do you read more for pleasure now than you did prior to learning the alphabetic code?

I probably do read more than I used to, although I don't think I will ever be a real bookworm. It is hard to know how much is to do with my poor literacy skills and how much is to do with my personality!

There really hasn't been any difference in the type of books I read, although sometimes I read medical/academic books, so I can decode unknown words. There would have been NO WAY that I could have read these books five years ago, absolutely none.

I would say that the main difference has been my ability to actually read the book. I can read the character's name, the country, the town now, instead of just seeing the initial letter and moving on (as I knew who or what it referred to visually, but couldn't have told you out loud).

I have expanded my vocabulary greatly since teaching myself phonics. There have been many words since that I have decoded and then gone: "So THAT'S what that word looks like" (as I would have heard it before but never actually been able to read it).

Thank you, Kelly, for sharing your story.

Phonemic Awareness: A Prerequisite?

2009-09-02T21:38:00.000-07:00

NATIONAL READING PANEL REPORT, 2000, Report of the Alphabetics Subgroup:

Instruction that taught phoneme manipulation with letters helped normally
developing readers and at-risk readers acquire PA better than PA instruction
without letters.

NATIONAL EARLY LITERACY PANEL REPORT, 2009

Although PA training can be conducted alone, the results of this meta-analysis
suggest that there may be an advantage of combining such training with
activities designed to teach children about specific aspects of print, such as
letter names and letter sounds.

So, almost hidden within these documents is the notion that phonemic awareness
is best taught WITH letters. I.e., PA is not a prerequisite to learning the
code.

Literacy Project in Hartford Schools, part 2

2009-07-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

The Haskins Literacy Initiative Report, Achieving Proficiency, states that one of the measures it used, "because of its current status as the recognized reading measure in the state," is the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA).

The DRA does not adequately measure children's ability to use the alphabetic code, which is the key skill required for decoding words. Therefore, if children make gains on the DRA in kindergarten or 1st grade, that does not necessarily indicate that they are becoming skilled readers. Those who learn to read with explicit, systematic phonics instruction can "lag behind" on the DRA in the earliest stage of learning to read (because they do not use picture clues and context clues to guess unfamiliar words), but as second grade approaches, the gains become quite apparent, even on the DRA. The data from the Haskins Report supports this.

In kindergarten, the DRA 2 doesn’t measure
the student skills addressed by teachers in
Hartford Haskins Literacy Initiative, so there
is little difference in the performance among
the three groups. However, in first grade,
students whose teachers participated in the
Initiative outperformed those students whose
teachers had not received Haskins training.
By second grade, the differences are even
more dramatic. p. 9

The graphs on page 10 of the report include the following figures for Spring 2008:
Kindergarten DRA2 Proficiency Scores
In non-Haskins schools: 55%
In Haskins schools: 59%

First Grade DRA2 Proficiency Scores
In non-Haskins schools: 41%
In Haskins schools: 50%

Second Grade DRA2 Proficiency Scores
In non-Haskins schools: 51%
In Haskins schools: 76%

I wish I knew the details of the phonics instruction.

There is an excellent comment on Rick Green's blog,

By DRM on July 7, 2009 6:47 PM

Superintendent Adamowski is wrong. Teaching reading is not rocket science. Any college graduate should be able to teach a child to read using phonics. .....
I taught both my sons to read before they entered first grade by this simple process.....
Some education professionals have inflated teaching reading into a difficult field of expertise that requires special training....

Phonics-Based Reading Instruction Brings Significant Gains to Hartford Students

2009-07-08T18:22:00.000-07:00

Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut, has been involved in reading research since the 1960's.
Haskins, which states that it ascribes to the Simple View of Reading (Decoding Skills + Listening Comprehension = Reading Comprehension) has helped lead five schools in Hartford to significant changes in reading skills of young students over the past three years. Phonics instruction has been a key component. A column by Rick Green, Literacy Initiative Crucial for Hartford Students , is from the Hartford Courant.

Three years ago I wrote about the Hartford school with a lone third-grader reaching the state goal for reading, a heartbreaking image of failure. . . .
That's why the news from Haskins, a private research institute in New Haven, is so encouraging. Haskins, which emphasizes phonics and understanding the sounds that make up words, offers a possible strategy to help children catch up. This effort isn't about blaming teachers — it's about training them so they understand how to better teach a child to read.

After three years of work in five Hartford schools, Haskins students are showing significant gains. According to a new analysis of the first two years' data, children in kindergarten, first grade and second grade outperform their peers, both in the state and nationally:

>> Kindergarten students reading proficiency test scores rose from below average to above average.

>> Second-graders were 33 percent more likely to reach proficiency than those not participating in the Haskins project.

>> Students who are taught a phonics-based curriculum showed significant gains in reading comprehension, demonstrating a critical link between reading and understanding text.

Many of the comments at the end of Green's column are definitely worth reading for insight into the system. There are currently four comments. Note that one is written by a Hartford teacher and another by a tutor in one of the Haskins schools.

Ken DeRosa Peeks at "Miscue Analysis"

2009-07-08T07:08:00.000-07:00

As you can see, John has made numerous (over 20) decoding errors half of which have been ignored because of the miscue analysis. All the errors with a plus sign (+) in the margin have been ignored because John's errors didn't affect the meaning of the text.

writes Ken DeRosa today on his D-Ed Reckoning blog.

http://d-edreckoning.blogspot.com/2009/07/when-is-decoding-error-not-error.html

DeRosa provides a link to an example of "miscue analysis" of a struggling fifth grader's reading of third grade text.
There is plenty to learn about the child's use of reading strategies from looking at his errors, but does the teacher realize the full implications?

Ex. 1: John reads "too" for "so" in the sentence "I'm not so sure."
Maladaptive strategy: Using Assumed Meaning to Determine the Word

The more a reader uses meaning to determine words, the less he is able to use words to determine the meaning.

Ex. 2: John reads "tru-dying" for "trudging"
Strategy: Part phonetic, but his understanding of the alphabetic code (or his lack of fluency with it) is weak if he doesn't have an automatic response when seeing "gi" and if he throws in sounds (/y/) that simply are not there.

Ex. 3: John throws in a number of words that simply are not on the page at all.
Maladaptive strategy: Using Assumed Meaning to Determine the Word (or Phantom Word).

Diane McGuinness, in Why Our Children Can't Read, states that the "whole word guessers" have a much larger problem with their reading than "the children who attempt to decode phonetically from left to right, getting the correct number of sounds in the word." (p. 25)

Perfetti re: Brain Scan Research on Dyslexics

2009-07-07T20:38:00.001-07:00

Charles Perfetti, Professor of Psychology and Linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh, points out that there may be various interpretations of the studies involving brain scans of dyslexics.

Brain-behavior relations in reading and dyslexia: Implications of Chinese results
Brain and Language 98 (2006) 344–346

However, it is important to emphasize
that a reference to a ‘‘biological origin’’ of dyslexia, as
made by Ziegler and others, should carry some disclaimers.
One is what we have emphasized: that the language
and the writing system make a difference for the biological
signature of dyslexia. A second, more general, disclaimer
is that the brain areas that are associated with
dyslexia do not necessarily constitute only biological causes.
They may partly represent biological consequences.
Studies of intervention effects suggest changes in brain
activation patterns following interventions that are consistent
with the functional roles assigned to left hemisphere
reading areas (Eden et al., 2004; Shaywitz et al., 2004;
Temple et al., 2003). Such studies allow varying interpretations
of the brain-behavior relationships that are modified
through instructional interventions. Certainly one
possibility is that the intervention changes ineffective reading
procedures that, in the dyslexic, had relied on brain
regions outside the typical alphabetic reading network.
Different reading procedures call on different brain
resources, and when new procedures are learned they
use the brain areas that support these procedures.

One conclusion that HAS been determined by the research is that systematic, explicit phonics instruction rewires the brains of dyslexics so that they function like the brains of skilled readers. This begs the question: What percentage of the population would be diagnosed with dyslexia (or a similar diagnosis involving difficulties with reading) if all children were taught systematic, explicit phonics from the start?

Sounds & Their Various Spellings: Video #1 of 2

2009-07-07T19:14:00.001-07:00

I remember being overwhelmed when I first viewed the comprehensive code chart that Debbie Hepplewhite has put together in various forms. "How could any child learn all THAT?," I worried. But they can, when the code is taught in manageable pieces, with many opportunities for practice. I have seen it happen before my eyes. More importantly, the research supports this. See the side links for The Rose Report and the Clackmannanshire Report and the alphabetic subgroup report of the National Reading Panel.

The fun for skilled readers in viewing the chart of the alphabetic code is that much of the information therein is something that we have learned with such automaticity that we have forgotten the details. ("Oh, that's right! The spelling "mn" IS code for /m/ in a number of words.") I see an analogy in driving instruction. I know how to drive a car, but I have had quite a difficult time trying to teach someone else how to drive because I no longer see the little details that make up the whole. (I will say, however, that I find the workings of the alphabetic code to be far more fascinating that the workings of a car.)

You can view the first half of Hepplewhite's presentation of the sounds of the English language, along with their spelling alternatives here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfPd0KQBzWY&feature=related

Differences in dialect will mean that Hepplewhite's choice of exemplar words might not quite fit local pronunciation. For example, I say the phoneme /or/ at the beginning of "orange," not /o/. But I find it remarkable that the vast majority of the exemplar words DO work so well for me, considering the ocean between us.

Video: Alphabetic Code - The Sounds/Phonemes

2009-06-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

Debbie Hepplewhite has made a video for YouTube in which she reads each of the phonemes of the English language while showing exemplar words which have those sounds. She includes examples of the pictures/words from her free alphabetic code charts. This could be quite helpful for parents and teachers new to the concept that written English is code for spoken English. It could also be helpful to those who have known for many years about the alphabetic code, but do not consciously know its finer points.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZc4l0e7FCE

Got a guesser/inaccurate reader on your hands?

2009-06-24T20:23:00.001-07:00

Here is one thing to try: The "Notched Card" Technique.

Developed by Tom and Hilse Burkard of the Promethean Trust, this technique has cured the guessing/inaccuracies of many a child. See the following link for a picture and description.

http://www.piperbooks.co.uk/documents/Notched_Card_Technique_000.pdf

The notch can reveal just one grapheme at a time, or (for those students who are not beginners) one word at a time.

Here is a discussion about the notched card:
http://rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?t=3815&highlight=notched+card

McKinsey Report: Achievement Gap

2009-06-09T06:49:00.000-07:00

McKinsey Report:
The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools:

http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/socialsector/achievement_gap_report.pdf

Here are some highlights:

Avoidable shortfalls in academic achievement impose heavy and often tragic consequences, via lower earnings, poorer health, and higher rates of incarceration.

The wide variation in performance among schools serving similar students suggests that these gaps can be closed....Many teachers and schools across the country are proving that race and poverty are not destiny; many more are demonstrating that middle-class children can be educated to world class levels of performance.

And despite large educational expenditures, school spending in the United States is among the least cost-effective in the world.

Differences in public policies, systemwide strategies, school site leadership, teaching practice, and perhaps other systematic investments can fundamentally influence student achievement.

Within the same school, student achievement can vary dramatically by classroom. Indeed, there is actually more variation in student achievement within schools than between schools in the United States.

On the Use of the Term "Sight Words"

2009-05-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

There appear to be four definitions of the term "sight words."

Here are the four commonly used meanings for "sight word." The first two are definitions that teachers frequently use in conversation with peers and with students.

1. Words that cannot be decoded [supposedly] and must, therefore, be memorized as wholes.

There are no words that are completely impervious to decoding. A handful of words get close, such as "eye" (the 'y' is sounded) and "one" (the /n/ is sounded). Let's use the term "irregular words" or, my preference, "tricky words," a term used in the Jolly Phonics program.

2. High-frequency words.
The term "high-frequency words" is clear. So, let's use that term when that is exactly what we mean.

3. Words that are memorized as wholes, from the start, i.e. not ever decoded.
I know it's cumbersome, but let's instead say: "words memorized as wholes." Clarity!

4. Words that have been decoded successfully often enough to be recognized now "on sight."
I like this definition best, in part because it's the only one that doesn't have an easy alternative. If you can think of one, please let me know.

Sometimes "sight words" refers to a combination of definitions # 1 and #2.

Often, when words have several definitions, the context in which they are used clarifies the meaning. That is rarely the case, however, with the term "sight words." So, let's either avoid using it, or quickly follow up with the chosen definition.

In a later entry I will discuss some of the problems that result from the efforts to teach words as wholes.

Catch a Struggling Reader Early

2009-05-12T11:45:00.001-07:00

Do you see warning signs that all may not be well with your child's reading development? Does your child:

* Confuse words that begin with the same letters (e.g. that/then)?

* Confuse words that look similar (e.g. was/saw or renew/review)?

* Read high-frequency words with ease, but lack proficiency in figuring out unfamiliar words?

* Replace words with words of somewhat similar meaning, but entirely different orthography (e.g. "hen" for "chicken")?

* Avoid reading?

You could just wait to see if your child can sort these problems out over time. But the so-called "Matthew Effects" kicks in by first grade. The term "Matthew Effects" was used by reading researcher Keith Stanovich to describe the phenomenon whereby the kids with poor reading skills fall further and further behind their peers. Catching up is unlikely without intervention, and intervention becomes more difficult as time passes. According to Reid Lyon, PhD., "Parents often take too long to take action."

It is helpful for parents to keep in mind that:

* Learning to read is not a natural process the way learning to speak is. Writing, particularly alphabetic writing, is a fairly recent human invention.

* Written English is alphabetic code for spoken English, but ours is a complex code, because only 26 letters are used to represent about 43 sounds, and many of those sounds have several spellings. Teaching the code in small, systematic steps eases the learning process greatly.

Once a child is taught that written English is code for the sounds we speak, how the code works, and how to blend the sounds while reading unfamiliar words, the child can focus his/her attention on fluency and comprehension. Systematic phonics instruction has been shown to actually rewire the brains of dyslexics to work like those of skilled readers.

A very fast-paced type of phonics, called synthetic phonics ("synthetic" refers to the blending of sounds), has shown remarkable effectiveness with both beginners and struggling readers. One of the key components is that, with few exceptions, children are not asked to read words that include code that have have not yet been taught, so children are successful almost all of the time. Not well known in the U.S., synthetic phonics has spread rapidly in the U.K. It works equally well across gender and socio-economic lines.

PROGRAMS (Inexpensive and easily used by parents)

Abecedarian. Teaches the code from sounds to letters. The program is scripted, so little preparation for lessons is required.

BRI/READ. or RALP. I use this extensive series of books (beginner - about 3rd grade level) as decodable readers to supplement other programs, but it is used by some tutors and parents as a self-contained program. The stories are very engaging indeed.

Phonics International. Unit 1, including a chart for the full alphabetic code, is free. The Early Starter's Package is for beginners or young strugglers. This program is also useful as a spelling program for those who are already skilled readers.

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, by Siegfried Engelmann et al. This is a scripted lesson book and used slightly-altered orthography in the beginning. Appropriate for preschool-early 1st grade. It does not cover the full alphabetic code, but it provides a sound start.

There are other effective synthetic phonics programs. I have only included those that I have reviewed and used.

Other resources:

* Diane McGuinness. Why Our Children Can't Read, 1997. I don't care for the way McGuinness attacks some fine phonics programs, BUT the first half of the book is a must-read for parents, teacher, and tutors. Eye-opening. Truly.

* Ted Hirsch. "Teaching Kids to Read." Pamphlet available for free download from the Core Knowledge Foundation bookstore.

* The Rose Report: Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading, 2006. U.K. All educators involved in reading instruction should read this full report.

55-year old illiterate man learns to read with synthetic phonics

2009-04-27T19:35:00.000-07:00

William Stewart, of Lisburn Ireland, finally found the right teacher with the right approach. Aged 55, father of two, and employed full time, he had been unable to read or write anything but his own name. As best as he could, he hid the fact that he could not read. Twice he had enrolled in adult literacy courses. Twice the tutors had focused on his memorizing high frequency words as wholes.

He got the courage to try yet again. He found Anne Curran at the local university. She taught him with Synthetic Phonics. She taught him once a week, for two hours, for over a year.

States Anne, "When he walks down the street he can now read traffic signs and names of high street shops, as well as safety signs at work. He can also read the destinations of his homeward-bound buses, so no longer needs to check with his neighbors in the queu."
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/words-of-praise-for-william-after-learning-to-read-and-write-at-55-14277666.html

On the RRF message board, Anne's husband Jim Curran wrote, "It was the synthetic phonics methodology that made all the difference and Anne used it in a multi-sensory way, see it, say it, hear it, write it. . . . He kept asking Anne why no one had shown him this way before."

William just won the "Overall Essential Skills Learner of the Year" award at the Department for Employment in Ireland.

According to Jim Curran, "As a result of this high profile success story Anne has been asked by the college to train a number of other tutors on how to use synthetic phonics methodology."

With a 40% adult functional illiteracy rate in the United States, and jails brimming with inmates who are illiterate (At one point Indiana was planning future prisons based on the number of non-readers in third grade. This may still be the case.), it's time to start questioning whether decades of encouraging children to memorize whole words, use picture clues and context clues, and skip words they don't "recognize", rather than directly teaching them the alphabetic code, is really in the best interests of the children or the future of our county.

How Ed Schools DON'T Teach Reading

2009-04-03T20:34:00.000-07:00

Schools of Education, by and large, are not serving aspiring teachers, nor their future students.

The state of Indiana decided to look closely at this issue after the National Council on Teacher Quality produced a report in 2006 that showed, quite clearly, that at least 85% of the Ed Schools across the United States are not teaching future elementary ed teachers how to teach reading.

What Indiana's Education Schools Aren't Teaching About Reading was just issued (March 2009) by the National Council on Teacher Quality. The NCTQ, commmissioned by the state of Indiana, looked at all of the syllabi and all of the texts assigned in the required courses on Reading Instruction in Indiana Ed Schools.
http://www.nctq.org/p/publications/docs/nctq_exec_summ_indiana_reading.pdf

The bold is my emphasis, not the NCTQ's.

Read it and weep. Here is a sampling (and please be sure to read the final quotation).

The findings of this study make it clear that Indiana's students cannot
expect to be taught with instructional strategies and methods grounded in
scientific research, because there is little likelihood that their teachers
were trained by the education schools they attended to use them. In fact,
there is little likelihood that teachers' education schools even exposed
them to the science of reading.

Almost all of the 41 institutions in the study earned a "failing grade,"
in spite of the fact that the study design makes it quite easy for an
institution to pass.

"This class examines children's play and its relationship to reading
development..." -Part of a course rationale St. Mary-of-the-Woods College

"The final class session will be a sharing of the journey of our
reading philosophies. You may do this traditionally via a 3-5 page paper OR
you can do an arts based representation (poem, collage, reader's theater, big
book, song, dance etc.) Students who are willing to explore with this
non-traditional evaluation form will be rewarded for their risk with highly
inflated grades because I believe you will learn more from taking the risk and
explaining your process than from writing a traditional paper." – One of a
course's assignments at Goshen College

"You will learn to do something you have been wanting to learn to do for
the past while (change the oil in your car, play a simple tune on the guitar,
make tamales, turn flips while swimming laps, batik fabric etc.) in order to
monitor how you learn and what you think about as you learn something new." – a
course's culminating project at Goshen College

Of the 170 texts included in this study, literacy experts found only five
(2.9%) that were acceptable as general, comprehensive textbooks for a reading course. Each of these texts was in use in only a single course, and three of
these courses were only required in special education programs.

Although many courses claim to be "research based," few require students
to read directly from research studies or scholarly journals. Still fewer
assign students to write a research paper, which would require them to organize,
analyze and synthesize multiple perspectives. The study identified only eight
courses (7%) that required any sort of research paper.

The most common assignment is a "literacy memoir," in
which students reflect on their own experiences learning to read.

"History of Self as a Reader Paper: Each student will reflect on their
development and history as a reader or as a non-reader, (however you see
yourself) and will write a short paper describing that development and history."
– course assignment from Indiana University-Southeast

["as a non-reader" Oh my. - Blognote ]

"Students will select a poem to share with the class. The student should
provide copies of the poem for all classmates. In addition to reading the poem
aloud, the student will provide at least one suggestion for how the poem could
be used to enhance learning." –
Course assignment at Indiana University/Purdue University-Columbus, in which students receive more credit for bringing enough copies for each class member than for connecting the poem to an instructional purpose.

The extra credit policies of many courses provide further evidence of their low
academic rigor. Teacher candidates can receive additional points toward their course grade for such activities as giving blood (Bethel College), bringing treats to class (University of Indianapolis) and, in one course, praying for the struggling reader being tutored (Taylor University-Fort Wayne).

Yes, pray for the struggling readers. They got that right at least.

Our teachers and children deserve better.

Keith Stanovich on Context Clues

2009-03-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

I am opening my blog with a selection from Keith Stanovich, whose research and writings about reading inspired the name of this blog.

Which do skilled readers use more to read unfamiliar words: context clues or graphic clues (i.e. the letters)? Here is Stanovich in his work, Progress in Understanding Reading: Scientific Foundations and New Frontiers (The Guilford Press, 2000):

Theorists [such as Ken Goodman] who developed top-down models of
reading consistently derived the prediction that skilled readers would rely less
on graphic clues and more on contextual information than less-skilled readers.
Smith's (1971) well-known hypothesis was that good readers were especially
sensitive to the redundancy afforded by sentences, were particularly good at
developing hypotheses about upcoming words, and were then able to confirm the
identity of a word by sampling only a few features in the visual array. . . .
These were the predictions that Rich West and I went on to test with
reaction-time techniques derived from cognitive psychology. To our surprise, all
of our research results pointed in the opposite direction: it was the poorer
readers, not the more skilled readers, who were more reliant on context to
facilitate word recognition. I write "to our surprise" because we embarked on
these studies fully expecting to confirm Smith's (1971) views. . . . In real
science one is eventually influenced by
the evidence, regardless of one's initial bias. (p. 6)

It was the
less-skilled readers who were more dependent upon context for word recognition
(West & Stanovich, 1978; Stanovich, West, & Feeman, 1981). The reason
for this finding eventually became apparent: the word recognition processes of
the skilled reader were so rapid and automatic that they did not need to rely on
contextual information. Over ten years later [Blognote: now 28 years later!]
this finding is one of the most consistent and well-replicated in all of reading
research. It has been found with all types of readers, in all types of texts,
and in a variety of different paradigms. . . . Perhaps understandably, at the
time our initial findings were published they were not warmly received by
researchers invested in the context-use theory which the results falsified.
Today, however, the implications of these results have been incorporated into
all major scientific models of the reading process. . . . Scientifically, the
results are now uncontroversial. However, they are still not welcomed by some
reading educators who would pertetuate the mistaken view that an emphasis on
contextual prediciton is the way to good reading.
It should be noted here
that the findings I have referred to concern the use of context as an aid to word recognition rather than as a
mechanism in the comprehension process. (pp. 394-395).

Do the ed schools still instruct teachers to encourage their students to rely on context clues (and picture clues) to determine unfamiliar words? MANY still do. Perhaps about 85% still do. The National Council on Teacher Quality reported in 2006 that only 15% of the nation's schools of educations provide "even minimal exposure to the science of reading" for future elementary ed teachers. Take a look at your school's curriculum framework, if there is one. Does it state how your school teaches a child to read unfamiliar words?