By Frederick Classical Charter School, Inc.

Reading Instruction

By Frederick Classical Charter School, Inc.

Overview of Presentation1. Announcements2. Consumer’s Guide to Reading

• Is reading achievement a problem?• What is the debate in reading education?• What does research say?

3. Our Reading Program• What reading program did we select?• How will we train teachers?

4. Answer audience questions.

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Consumer’s Guide to Reading

By Frederick Classical Charter School, Inc.

Is reading achievement a problem?

The National Assessment of Educational Progress reported in 2009 that 67% of fourth grade students and

68% of eighth grade students are not reading proficiently.

Only 21% of eighth graders read for fun daily.

That’s means most students don’t read well.

Reading performance is a serious issue, more serious than math, since all subjects require reading.

http://nationsreportcard.gov/reading_2009/

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Why is reading performance a problem?It has to do with the “reading wars” which go

back 100 years, and are well-documented.

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Why is reading performance a problem?Educators have swung back-and-forth on a pendulum between phonics and “whole

language”, which has also gone by other names.

These terms mean “whole language” or are implemented as

such in practice.

1930’s “whole-word” or “look say” (example: Dick and Jane readers)

1980’s “whole language”

2000’s “balanced literacy”

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What are these approaches?“Phonics” approaches systematically and explicitly teach students how language works, building from individual

sounds into entire words. Literature is also taught.

“Whole language” focuses heavily on learning entire words by sight in early instruction, and also on interesting

literature, the theory being that students will “naturally” learn to read because they are more motivated. Phonics may

also be taught incidentally, but not systematically.

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How can you tell the difference?Read this article, a must for all parents.

By Frederick Classical Charter School, Inc.

Article Summary

“Whole Language” SBRRGuess the words based on

pictures, context, or other wordsSound out the words using directly taught sound-letter

correspondencesRejection of phonics, spelling, and

grammarPhonics, spelling, and grammar

are taughtRelying on “leveled readers” to

organize instructionUsing decodable readers in early instruction so that students can

read without guessingReading Recovery program used

as an interventionInterventions that have a solid,

scientific basis

60% of students learn to read adequately (but not necessarily well) through just about any method, but 40% of students

need scientifically-based instruction to succeed, and all students benefit from it.

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So what happened in the “reading wars”The pendulum shifts were driven largely by philosophical

beliefs, not by evidence.

From 1962-1965, Dr. Jeanne Chall from the Harvard School of Education conducted research commissioned

to put an end to the reading wars.

She wrote a book about her findings, “Learning to Read: The Great Debate”, published in 1967

The conclusion: phonics approaches were superior.This fact was largely ignored by schools.

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So what happened next?Dr. Chall continued to research and publish, including

consulting for Sesame Street

The second edition of “The Great Debate” published in 1983 considered all the new research and reached the

same conclusion: teach phonics systematically.

It was largely ignored.

The third edition, published in 1996, met the same fate.

Dr. Chall died in 1999, but fortunately trained many other teachers to evaluate scientific evidence.

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What about other research?Here’s a graph from the largest education study ever conducted in human history, called Project Follow Through, which compared 22

approaches in math and reading. It lasted from 1967-1995.

The program that used systematic phonics won by a landslide.These results were largely ignored.

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adiep/ft/grossen.htm

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What about other research?The National Reading Panel reviewed the available

research (including research conducted by the National Institutes of Health by Dr. Reid Lyon) from 1998-2000.

They identified five components of scientifically-based reading instruction. When it came to phonics, they said:

“systematic phonics instruction is significantly more effective than instruction that teaches little or no

phonics”

These findings have still not been fully embraced.By now, you probably are seeing the pattern.

http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/nrp/findings.cfm

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So does good reading instruction=phonics?No. It’s not just about phonics.

Good reading instruction is much more complicated.

It is a science. (Indeed, rocket science.)1

The National Reading Panel identified five components of scientifically-based reading instruction.

We’ll explain each component to give you a crash course in the science of reading. We’ll focus mostly on phonemic awareness and

phonics for time’s sake. Much more could be said.

1http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/downloads/teachers/rocketsci.pdf

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What are the five components?Phonemics Awareness

PhonicsVocabulary

FluencyComprehension

We’ll go through each of these in order.

These are not the same

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Phonemic AwarenessPhonemic awareness is the ability to hear and

manipulate speech sounds.

It has nothing to do with printed letters.

A “phoneme” is a single speech sound.

We write phonemes like this: /k/

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Phonemic AwarenessDifferent languages have different phonemes, but humans have the equipment to produce them all.

1 http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/anatomy.htm

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Phonemic AwarenessLet’s start with an easy example.

How many phonemes in this word?

cat/k/ /a/ /t/

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Phonemic AwarenessHow many phonemes in this word?

ship/sh/ /i/ /p/

This is a unique sound. It is a postalveolar fricative It has its own symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet: ∫

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Phonemic AwarenessHow many phonemes in this word?

six/s/ /i/ /k/ /s/

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Phonemic AwarenessHow many phonemes in this word?

long/l/ /o/ /ng/

This is a unique sound. It is not a blend of n and g. It has its own symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet: ŋ

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Phonemic AwarenessThere are 26 letters in English.

There are roughly 40 phonemes in English.1

These phonemes can be spelled over 250 different ways!

Learning the graphemes (combinations of printed letters) that spell phonemes is phonics instruction, not

phonemic awareness instruction.

1 http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/pa/pa_what.php

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Phonemic AwarenessThere is a logical sequence of instruction for phonemic

awareness.1

I’ll demonstrate some of these.

1 http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/pa/pa_sequence.php

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Phonemic AwarenessPhonemic awareness is important.

It predicts later outcomes in reading and spelling.

Even before a student learns to read, phonemic awareness skills predict which students will be good or

poor readers by the end of third grade and beyond.1

Phonemic awareness is necessary to use the alphabetic code; it is a pre-requisite for phonics instruction.

1 Good, R.H., Sommons, D.C., & Kame’enui. Scientifiic Studies of Reading, 5, 257-288

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PhonicsOnce students have phonemic awareness, they can begin

to connect the sounds (phonemes) to the letters and letter combinations (graphemes) used to spell them.

Students need to understand the “alphabetic principle”, which is the idea that words are composed of letters that

represent sounds.1

1 http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/au/au_what.php

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PhonicsThe best phonics programs begin with the most

common letter-sound correspondences and introduce irregular (or “sight words”) in a limited fashion.

Regular words become “sight words” as students develop automaticity with the alphabetic code.1

1 http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/au/au_what.php

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PhonicsThe ability to decode words correlates with future

reading comprehension.

1 http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/au/au_what.php

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PhonicsWords in the English language vary from being 100%

“regular” (using the most common letter-sound correspondences) to being truly odd (old words whose pronunciation significantly changed from the original).

Only 4% of words are truly odd.1

But those 4% are the most frequent.

There is logic behind how words are spelled. It is based on history.

1 http://www.ldonline.org/article/8845

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PhonicsEnglish has four layers (Anglo-Saxon, Norman French,

Latin, and Greek), each of which has contributed spelling patterns to the language.1

1 http://archive.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/winter05-06/Moats.pdf

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PhonicsPhonics is not just about sounding out words.

Good phonics instruction goes beyond that to cover morphemes (meaningful parts of words, such as the

prefix “re” and the suffix “ing”) and word origins.

It also covers spelling, which is often neglected.

English is a morphophonemic language, and should be taught as such.

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PhonicsStudents’ spelling mistakes can reveal weaknesses with phonological processing, as well as common confusions

that are due to the mechanics of producing sound.

What does this misspelling of “uncle” reveal?

ungl

1 “Speech to Print”, Louisa Moats, pp 170-171

An expert teacher would know that this student made a voicing substitution. The student substituted the /g/ sound for /k/. Both sounds are velar stop consonants, and have the same place of articulation. The difference is that /g/ is a voiced sound, but /k/ is voiceless. Depending on the student’s age and other mistakes, he or she may have a phonological processing problem.

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PhonicsTry this: Explain the spelling and

pronunciation of this word.

phone/f/ /ō/ /n/

Our students will be taught that words spelled with “ph” are Greek in origin

The silent e changes the vowel to the “long” vowel sound, or what linguists call a lax vowel sound. This pattern is from the Anglo-Saxon layer of English.

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VocabularyBut phonics instruction won’t work if students don’t

recognize the words they sound out.

Students must have a corresponding entry in their mental lexicon, or oral vocabulary.

Knowledge of words correlates with knowledge of the world. The more words you know, the more things you

know about, because words represent ideas.1

1 “The Knowledge Deficit”, by E.D. Hirsch,

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VocabularyStudents acquire most of their vocabulary informally.1

The average student knows 6,000 words by grade two.2

Disadvantaged children know 4,000 words by grade two.

Though research does not yet have a proven approach to eliminate this gap, a good core, comprehensive

reading program will include vocabulary instruction.

Parents should look for a strong vocabulary component when evaluating reading programs.

1 http://www.ednews.org/articles/an-interview-with-dan-willingham-reading-comprehension.html 2 http://www.baltimorecp.org/newsletter/BCPnews_winter07.htm#biemiller

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Fluency“Fluency” is the ability to read well enough so that the

student can focus on comprehending the meaning of the passage, not figuring out the words.

Good fluency instruction does not focus on speed for speed’s sake.

There are norms for fluency. Students who are below the norm should receive interventions.

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FluencyThe National Reading Panel recommended repeated

readings of the same text to improve fluency.

However, beyond four repetitions of the same text is not likely to improve fluency.1

Fluency is heavily dependent on decoding skill (phonics), which is in turn dependent on phonemic awareness.

1 http://www.precisionteachingresource.net/02.pdf

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ComprehensionComprehension depends on two main factors: the ability

to fluently decode and background knowledge.

Students who can’t fluently decode will use their short term memory trying to figure out the words, not

focusing on the meaning of the passage.

However, just being a good reader isn’t enough. A number of studies found that poor readers who read a passage about

something they know (baseball, for example) had better comprehension than the “good” readers who didn’t understand

the topic.1

1 “Why Don’t Students Like School”, by Daniel Willingham, pp 20-21

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ComprehensionStudies on reading comprehension show that some

instruction in comprehension strategies can help, but six sessions of instruction were no more or less effective

than 50 sessions of instruction.1

Strategies with research support include monitoring your own comprehension, using graphic and semantic

organizers, generating questions, using mental imagery, summarizing, and asking questions.

1 http://www.archive.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/winter06-07/CogSci.pdf

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ComprehensionIn addition, students can be explicitly taught story grammar, figurative language, idioms, and unusual

sentence structures.

Reading comprehension is the most complicated aspect of reading, and involves many mental processes.

The best long term strategy for fostering comprehension is a broad vocabulary and rich knowledge base2, both of

which are hallmarks of a classical education.

1 http://www.archive.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/winter06-07/CogSci.pdf

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Research ConclusionModern research (via fMRI) confirms how we read.

This is your brain.This is your brain on reading.

Sound processing

Comprehension

Sound-Symbol Correspondence

Letter Recognition

1 Derived from LETRS Module 1, page 32 Used with permission.

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Consumer’s Guide ConclusionParents should look for a core reading program that integrates all

components of scientifically-based reading instruction.1

1 http://reading.uoregon.edu/cia/instruction/index.php

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Our Reading Program

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How Did We Select Our Program?We started with reading research.

We limited ourselves to core, comprehensive programs that taught all five components of

scientifically-based reading instruction.

We talked with six of the top reading researchers and practitioners in the country.

1 http://reading.uoregon.edu/cia/instruction/index.php

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How Did We Select Our Program?This left us with three choices.

We examined samples of each program and sought feedback from our founding families as

well as current FCPS employees.

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Our DecisionThere are no perfect programs.

All of the programs have strengths and weaknesses.

We chose Reading Street because it is close to what SBRR recommends, has excellent oral vocabulary and literature, encourages students to think about “big ideas”, and is very

comprehensive, including online components.

We’ll supplement it with other resources to address areas where it is not as strong, as would be needed

with any of the three final candidates.

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How Will We Supplement the Core Program?We will use several programs from Sopris West to teach areas of the English language that are

not addressed as well in the core program.

50 Nifty Activities Primary Spelling By Pattern

Phonics and Spelling Through Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping Vocabulary Through Morphemes

Teaching Basic Writing Skills School Set

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What About Literature?We will use the follow-on program to Reading

Street, Prentice Hall Literature grades 6-8

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Teacher TrainingChoosing a program is important, but choosing

teachers is more important.

Programs don’t teach students, teachers do.1

According to the National Council for Teacher Quality, 85% of education schools do not

adequately train teachers in SBRR.

Our training will address this.1 LETRS Module 1, by Sopris West, back cover 2 http://www.nctq.org/p/publications/docs/nctq_reading_study_exec_summ_20071202065444.pdf

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Teacher TrainingIn addition to vendor training, all teachers will undergo

LETRS training, which is world-class professional development in the science of reading instruction.

Our goal is to produce expertise that is sought locally, regionally, and, eventually, nationally. We plan to have

teachers become certified LETRS trainers.

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Progress MonitoringLike FCPS, we will use the DIBELS instrument to assess

student progress and identify those who may need interventions.

The goal is to prevent reading failure before it happens.

To do this, we will implement a Response To Intervention (RtI) approach, which we will describe at an upcoming

meeting.

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SummaryWe have chosen a core, comprehensive reading program that

reflects scientifically-based reading research (SBRR).

Our literature program is designed to follow the reading program.

LETRS training will provide world-class knowledge of reading.

Our supplementary resources are aligned to LETRS training, and our progress monitoring system aligns with SBRR.

All of the parts of our program are designed to work together.