INSIGHTS FROM RESEARCH ON READING

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INSIGHTS FROM RESEARCH ON READING Elisheva
Barkon ETAI Maalot-Tarshicha September 4, 2007
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Introduction

• Basic vs. proficiency
• Literacy in the US
• Instructional casualties
• Learning to read in grades 1-2
• Shame
• Reading is not natural
• Shifting the blame
• Training teachers
• The local setting
• www.childrenofthecode.org

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Reading is a language skill

• Listening and speaking come before reading.
• This is an important point because we must
  remember that reading is essentially a language
  skill.

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Implications

• Work on linguistic knowledge before teaching
  learners to read. More specifically, engage
  learners in a lot of listening to familiarize
  them with the sounds, stress, rhythm and
  intonation of the language. In addition, teach
  core vocabulary.

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Mastering reading
Mastering reading in any language depends on many
skills and competences. Three deserve priority
knowledge of the alphabetic system, segmentation
into meaningful syntactic or semantic units, and
meaning construction. Barkon, 2006
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Alphabetics
Instruction in phonemic awareness involves
teaching children to focus on and manipulate
phonemes in spoken syllables and words. NRP,
2000
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Alphabetics
Phonemic awareness and letter knowledge are the
two best school entry predictors of how well
children will learn to read during the first two
years of instruction. Phonemic awareness
training leads to improvement in students
phonemic awareness, reading, and spelling
following training. NRP, 2000
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Phonics instruction
The primary focus of phonics instruction is to
help beginning readers understand how letters are
linked to sounds (phonemes) to form letter-sound
correspondences and spelling patterns and to help
them learn how to apply this knowledge in their
reading and writing. NRP, 2000
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Phonics instruction
Children need to be able to blend sounds together
to decode words, and they need to break spoken
words into their constituent sounds to write
words. Programs that focus too much on the
teaching of letter-sound relations and not enough
on putting them to use are unlikely to be very
effective. NRP, 2000
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Phonics instruction
Psychologists now know that the process of
mentally sounding out words is an integral part
of silent reading, even for the highly
skilled. This understanding suggests that
learning the correspondences between letters and
sounds (phonics) is keenly important for
beginners.
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Reading instruction
Remember! Reading instruction is most effective
when combined with writing instruction. NRP, 2000
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Phonemic awareness training
Caution Phonemic awareness training does not
constitute a complete reading program. Rather,
it provides children with essential foundational
knowledge in the alphabetic system. NRP, 2000
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Sight vocabulary
Alphabetic knowledge is a requirement for
automatic word recognition / a large sight
vocabulary.
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Sight vocabulary
A large sight vocabulary is the basis of fluent
reading. In fact, it may be considered a
precondition for fluent reading. Day and Bamford,
1998
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Why is it important to recognize words rapidly?

• If text is read in a laborious and inefficient
  manner, it will be difficult for the reader to
  remember what he has read and relate the ideas
  expressed in the text to his or her background
  knowledge. This is because information necessary
  for integration will fade from memory before it
  has been integrated with current information and
  background knowledge. Thus meaning construction
  will be negatively affected.

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How do skilled readers recognize words so quickly?

• The answer is that skilled readers
• Recognize letters in groups, or chunks
• Break words into syllables with little conscious
  analysis
• Use their knowledge of how words are spelled to
  read by analogy
• Employ their knowledge about the way a written
  text is structured
• Activate their extensive vocabulary
• Hall and Moats (1999)

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There is a paradox about learning to read.
In order to read fluently and efficiently you
need to quickly recognize words. Yet the way to
achieve rapid word recognition is to study the
letters in words repeatedly, so that letter
chunks, syllables, and whole words will become
part of the repertoire of words you recognize
automatically. Hall and Moats, 1999
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There is a paradox about learning to read.
The paradox is that the process of breaking the
word apart and studying it on a letter by letter
basis is exactly what ultimately allows you to
become automatic in reading that word and not
have to study it letter by letter later. Hall and
Moats, 1999
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What do we mean by accurate word recognition?

• Eye movement research has taught us that skilled
  readers
• fixate on almost every word
• process every individual letter in every word
• perceive letters in chunks, not individually
• do not rely on context to recognize words
• Hall and Moats, 1999

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Sight vocabulary
Caution A large sight vocabulary does not cause
comprehension. Efficient word recognition seems
to be a necessary but not sufficient condition
for good comprehension. Stanovich, 1992 cited in
Day and Bamford, 1998
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Learning to read

• Bottom line
• In the early stages of teaching FL/SL reading,
  learners are learning to read not reading to
  learn. In other words, they are learning how to
  identify words automatically, accurately and
  rapidly. To that end they need practice with easy
  texts where all the words are familiar so that
  they can develop sight vocabulary.

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Learning to read

• Bottom line (II)
• Mastering decoding takes time. It depends on
  massive practice with easy texts. In an FL/SL
  context this means reading texts with familiar
  vocabulary and content. Once decoding skills are
  in place learners can move to text with some new
  vocabulary. This does not mean that learners
  should not be exposed to texts from which they
  can learn more lexical items and facts about the
  world. Indeed, these texts are important too. But
  they should not be used for learning to read.

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Learning to read

• Bottom line (III)
• If when working on building sight vocabulary
  learners are required to practice with texts for
  which they do not have the lexical coverage the
  attention they should be directing at practicing
  reading will be channeled to working on the
  meanings of the lexis they dont know. This
  defeats the purpose of practice at this stage.

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Slow reading
Many SL learners are very slow readers. This may
be the result of what we do in class with the
texts we use (we focus on structure and
vocabulary) and the result of the level of the
texts (too difficult in terms of language and/or
content).
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Reading rate
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Slow reading

• Excessively slow, disfluent reading leads to less
  overall reading
• Excessively slow, disfluent reading is associated
  with poor comprehension
• Excessively slow reading leads to reading
  frustration
• Rasinski 2002

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Reading fluency

• One goal of reading instruction is to help
  children become fluent readers. When children are
  fluent they read automatically, decoding words
  quickly and accurately. Fluent readers read with
  prosody that is, they use the appropriate
  pitch, pace, phrasing, and expression. Fluent
  reading aids comprehension.
• Mandel Morrow, Kuhn and Schwanenflugel
  (2006)

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Reading fluency

• According to the report of the U.S. National
  Reading Panel, fluency is a predictor of reading
  success. Although it has been found that fluency
  is a major goal in reading instruction, teachers
  are not as familiar as they should be with
  fluency strategies, and they are not using them
  regularly.
• Mandel Morrow, Kuhn and Schwanenflugel (2006)

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The neglected link
Despite its importance as a component of skilled
reading, fluency is often neglected in the
classroom. This is unfortunate. If text is read
in a laborious and inefficient manner, it will be
difficult for the child to remember what has been
read and to relate the ideas expressed in the
text to his or her background knowledge. NRP, 2000
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Reading fluency

• It is often assumed that if students can
  decode they will become fluent. Research has
  indicated that this is not necessarily so, and
  therefore students need training in fluency
  strategies.
• Mandel Morrow, Kuhn and Schwanenflugel (2006)

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Prosodic reading
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Why is prosody problematic?

• There are features present in spoken language
  that provide clues to a speakers intent such as
  gestures, facial expression, intonation, and
  stress. These are not present in printed text.
• Hook and Jones 2002

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Mapping prosody onto text
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Reading in Phrasal Units - Chunking
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Fluency instruction
Reading practice is generally recognized as an
important contributor to fluency. Two
instructional approaches, each of which has
several variations, have typically been used to
teach reading fluency. NRP, 2000
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Fluency instruction
Guided repeated oral reading, encourages students
to read passages orally with systematic and
explicit guidance and feedback from the
teacher. Independent silent reading, encourages
students to read silently on their own, inside
and outside the classroom, with minimal guidance
or feedback. NRP, 2000
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Fluency instruction
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Fluency instruction
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Comprehension
There are three predominant themes in the
research on the development of reading
comprehension skills. NRP, 2000
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Vocabulary development and vocabulary instruction
To understand reading comprehension you need a
clear description of the role that vocabulary
development and vocabulary instruction play in
the understanding of what has been read. NRP,
2000
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The goals of vocabulary learning

• When we plan the vocabulary goals of a long-term
  course of study, we can look at three kinds of
  information to help decide how much vocabulary
  needs to be learned the number of words in the
  language, the number of words known by native
  speakers and the number of words needed to use
  the language.
• Nation 2001

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How many words are there in the language?

• Websters Third New International Dictionary
  contains around 114,000 word families excluding
  proper names.
• Nation 2001

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How many words do native speakers know?

• Recent reliable studies suggest that educated
  native speakers of English know around 20,000
  word families.
• These estimates are rather low because the
  counting unit is word families which have several
  derived family members and proper nouns are not
  included in the count.
• For each year of their early life, native
  speakers add on average 1,000 word families a
  year to their vocabulary.
• Nation 2001

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How much vocabulary do you need to use another
language?

• There is a very small group of high-frequency
  words which are very important because these
  words cover a very large proportion of the
  running words in spoken and written texts and
  occur in all kinds of uses of the language.
• Usually the 2,000- word level has been set as
  the most suitable limit for high-frequency words.
• Nation 2001

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How much vocabulary do you need to use another
language?

• Since reasonable comprehension of a text
  requires the understanding of about 98 of its
  vocabulary, more than 2,500 word families should
  be familiar to the learner.
• Laufer (1992) suggests 5,000 word families.
• Laufer 2005

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How should teachers and learners deal with these
words?

• The high frequency words of the language are
  clearly so important that considerable time
  should be spent on them by teachers and learners.
• The words are a small enough group to enable
  most of them to get attention over the span of a
  long-term English programme.
• This attention can be in the form of direct
  teaching, direct learning, incidental learning,
  and planned meetings with the words.
• Nation 2001

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Specialised vocabulary

• There is a very important specialised vocabulary
  for second language learners intending to do
  academic study in English. This is the Academic
  Word List. It consists of 570 word families that
  are not in the most frequent 2,000 words of
  English but which occur reasonably frequently
  over a very wide range of academic texts.
• Nation 2001

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Specialised vocabulary

• Adding the academic vocabulary to the high
  frequency words changes the coverage of academic
  text from 78.1 to 86.6.
• With a vocabulary of 2,000 words, approximately
  one word in every five will be unknown.
• With a vocabulary of 2,000 words plus the
  Academic Word List, approximately one word in
  every ten will be unknown.
• Nation 2001

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Contextualized vs decontextualized vocabulary
learning

• Even though many language educators who adhere
  to communicative teaching do not accept learning
  from lists, there is ample evidence that people
  can learn a large number of words in lists and
  even remember many of them later.
• Laufer 2005

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Selecting words for instruction

• The most important perspective on word selection
  at the peresent time is that of Beck, McKeown,
  and Kucan (2002).
• Beck et al. view vocabulary as falling into
  three tiers.
• The first is high-frequency words and the third
  rare words that are specific to particular
  content domains.
• Pearson, Hiebert and Kamil, 2007

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Selecting words for instruction

• Beck et al. believe that vocabulary instruction
  should focus on second-tier words.
• Words in the second tier characterize the
  vocabulary of mature language users when they
  read and write. They are best thought of as less
  common labels for relatively common concepts
  stunning in place of pretty, pranced instead of
  walked, astonished but not surprised.
• Pearson, Hiebert and Kamil, 2007

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Comprehension
Comprehension is defined as intentional thinking
during which meaning is constructed through
interactions between text and reader (Harris
Hodges, 1995). Thus, readers derive meaning from
text when they engage in intentional, problem
solving thinking processes. Text comprehension in
enhanced when readers actively relate the ideas
represented in print to their own knowledge and
experiences and construct mental representations
in memory. NRP, 2000
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Reading comprehension
Reading comprehension is interactive - relating
current information to what has gone before and
constructive relating meaning to our knowledge
of the world. Field, 1995
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Text comprehension instruction
The Panel lists 7 categories of text
comprehension which have a solid scientific
basis Comprehension monitoring, where readers
learn how to be aware of their understanding of
the material Cooperative learning, where
students learn reading strategies together NRP,
2000
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Text comprehension instruction
Use of graphic and semantic organizers (including
story maps), where readers make graphic
representations of the material to assist
comprehension Question answering, where readers
answer questions posed by the teacher and receive
immediate feedback Question generation, where
readers ask themselves questions about various
aspects of the story NRP, 2000
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Text comprehension instruction
Story structure, where students are taught to use
the structure of the story as a means of helping
them recall story content in order to answer
questions about what they have read
Summarization, where readers are taught to
integrate ideas and generalize from the text
information. NRP, 2000
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Teacher preparation and comprehension strategies
instruction
The preparation of teachers to better equip
students to develop and apply reading
comprehension strategies to enhance understanding
is intimately linked to students achievement in
this area. NRP, 2000
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Teacher preparation and comprehension strategies
instruction
Reason Teaching reading comprehension strategies
to students at all grade levels is
complex. Teachers not only must have a firm grasp
of the content presented in text, but also must
have substantial knowledge of the strategies
themselves, of which strategies are most
effective for different students and types of
content and of how best to teach and model
strategy use. NRP, 2000
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Implications
Celebrate the alphabetic code to secure automatic
and accurate word recognition. Instruct
learners to recognize chunks and give expression
to the words in the text. Set goals for second
language reading speed. Monitor vocabulary
growth in second language learners. Engage
learners in strategies that direct attention to
content and structure. Establish an enticing
extensive reading program.