by Lori-Anne Busch | Jan 11, 2021 | Teaching Reading to Struggling Readers
Advice that is commonly given to teachers of students who lag behind their peers in reading is to make sure that they get lots and lots of practice. Your students who need remediation must get more practice reading than those who are reading well, we are told. You might wonder, “How can my student practice reading, if they can’t read?”
In education, the term “Matthew Effect” was adopted by the psychologist Keith Stanovich to describe a phenomenon observed in research on how new readers acquire the skills to read. It is based on a verse from the Bible, from the book of Matthew:
“For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance: But from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away”.
The Matthew Effect describes the situation in which students who struggle to read, tend to read less, and therefore their skills do not progress very quickly. At the same time, those who pick up reading easily end up reading more. The more they read, the better they get. If a student begins school lagging behind his or her peers, the gap does not disappear, and in fact it gets larger. In contrast, early success in learning to read usually leads to later successes, as the student moves through the school system (Stanovich, 1986).
The same holds true for vocabulary: Students who begin school with a small spoken and oral vocabulary tend not to undergo any change to this characteristic, as time goes by. Huge gaps in vocabulary that start when kids are young, just get larger. This is due to the reality that students who read often tend to be exposed to a much larger number of words, as compared to those who struggle. The students who struggle may avoid reading since it is difficult for them. It is quite common to avoid and dislike things that we are not good at. We enjoy and want to do more of the things that we do well.
“With this information, you can make a difference! Just get your struggling readers to read more! Get them to love reading!” is the message ….but how?
Unfortunately the students who struggle to read sometimes are further delayed in their development by the inadvertent effects of remedial programs (Clay, 1979). This is because these programs often provide support in a range of skills to improve overall development. They strive to build up the students’ pre-reading skills, such as sorting letters by similar characteristics, learning about sequencing and letter formation, improving the student’s oral language and vocabulary skills, and so on. However, much of this is time spent away from the direct act of reading – so they fall further behind. Any remedial program that results in less reading is feeding into the Matthew Effect.
As teachers, it is important to ensure that all of the students we work with spend a substantial amount of time directly engaged in the act of reading. Richard Allington, the well-known reading researchers and professor, tells us that the weakest readers we work should get even more practice reading than their peers (2013).
You might ask, “How can I have the student spend more time reading, if they can’t read?” It is true that the reason many students are referred for additional supports to specialists and resource teachers is because they have not developed the skills to be able to read. Yet, we can’t have someone practice something they simply cannot do, can we?
I have spent some time contemplating this question. “Is this a Catch 22?” I wondered. I don’t want my students to fall further behind as a result of not gaining practice reading, yet how can this practice be accomplished by a student who is not yet able to associate letters with sounds, or blend sounds together to form words?
I have come up with a short list of tasks that can be used with these very students, with components taken from a few of my favorite reading programs. Here they are:
- The Blending Drill, Orton-Gillingham Approach
- Learning High Frequency Irregular Words
- Echo Reading
- Decodable Texts
I will describe each part in detail, below:
The Blending Drill, Orton-Gillingham Approach
Here is one suggestion for how students at this very emergent stage may “practice reading”. This is the Blending Drill, from the Orton-Gilingham approach (Brainspring Orton-Gillingham, 2019).
Have the student blend sounds together by imitating you. Begin by having them blend two sounds together to make a word. Some of the “words” that you make will be “nonsense words”, since they are only so many two letter words in the English language. However, this is okay. It is the skill of blending two sounds together that is the first step toward the act of reading.
- Write the letters of the alphabet on cards, and begin with combinations of two letters: Consonant and vowel. (CV). (For example, the letters might be “t” and “a”.)
- Place two letter cards in front of the student, and point to them, one after the other, saying the sound they represent. Then blend the two sounds into a “word”. Recall that when we put slashes around a letter, it indicates that we are saying the sound that the letter represents, not the letter name.
/t/ /a/ /ta/
- Have the student do this after you, touching each letter, saying the associated sound, and then blending them.
/t/ /a/ /ta/
- Change the consonant out, and make a new “word”. Repeat steps 2 and 3.
/s/ /a/ /sa/
- Repeat with VC combinations, and slowly build up to CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant words).
High Frequency, Irregular Words
Many high frequency rules are decodable; they can be sounded out, such as “in”, “it”, “at”, “on”, “but”, “and”, “am”, an”, “can” and “us”. Others actually follow predictable spelling patterns. For example, the high frequency words “he”, “she”, “we”, “go”, “that” and “see” follow rules to do with open syllables, digraphs and vowel teams. For more information on spelling patterns, please see my post entitled Structured Literacy: The Sextuplets (Busch, Oct 2020).
However, some words must be memorized, since they do not follow any of the spelling rules in English. Words like “there”, “does”, “want”, “of”, “is” “here”, “where”, and “said” are examples of high frequency, irregular words. These words in the English language occur very frequently in print, and cannot be sounded out.
Teaching these little words can have a large pay off, since students will come across them very frequently in reading and writing.
This reading activity can involve playing games with the letters in these words:
- Write the word on a mini white board, have the student look closely, and then turn the board away while erasing one of the letters. Turn it back toward the student and ask, “What’s missing?” (Richardson, 2016). Do this over and over again until the entire word is erased. The student then needs to spell the whole word orally to you. Give the students the letters on cards or use magnetic letters, and have them mix the letters up and sort them out again to form the word (Richardson, 2016).
- You can also teach students to read and spell high frequency words using multi-sensory techniques. Have the student form the word in sand with their finger or tap it out on their arm, while saying the letter names and the word aloud (Pride Reading Program, 2019):
“F- R – O – M, From!”
These are all ways that our struggling readers can gain practice reading. Ensure that the student says (or reads) the word aloud over and over again in practicing this with you.
Echo Reading
Finally, every lesson, including those with our most emergent readers, should include reading “connected text”, that is where letters are strung together to form words and meaningful sentences. Finding words and sentences for use with a student can be a challenge if they have learned fewer than ten letters and the associated sounds. However, students that are still learning their sounds can still imitate or repeat after you:
- Take out a short book with only one or two sentences per page. Read a few words at a time, and have the student echo read, saying the same phrase right after you.
- Guide the student to touch the words as they say them aloud.
- Ensure that the child is looking at the words, as they read them. If they are not looking, require them to highlight as they go.
If you read the same text this way, day after day, soon the child will have memorized the sentences.
For more information on echo reading, please see Dr. Freeze’s book, Precision Reading Instructor Manual (2010).
It is true that we do not want students to think that reading is about memorization, however, this activity can support the child in gaining confidence, and in hearing how words are separated by a short pause. This teaches one to one correspondence, sequencing and directionality. Moreover, students eventually are able to read many, many words by sight, if this approach is repeated daily.
Decodable Texts
Contrast this echo reading task (above) with some decoding:
- Guide the student through the sentences word by word.
- Select some words that your student knows all of the letters and sounds for, and pause at these words, for the child to sound the word out.
- Have them sound out these words before you have them echo-read the sentence.
Another option, for students who have learned most of their letters and sounds, is to provide the child with a sentence that is decodable, except for some irregularly spelled sight words. Highlight the irregular words with a bright marker, and tell them to the student before they are given the task of reading the sentence:
The cat is on a mat.
It is about a man. He can go in the bus.
Highlight any word that is not decodable, and provide those words to the child in advance. (Show them to the student and have them repeat the words. Then ask them to read the full sentence. Expect them to solve the remaining decodable words only (Wilson, 1996).
In sentence reading:
- Provide the sight words to the student immediately. Say the word as soon as the student comes to it in the sentence, if they do not automatically say it.
- For the decodable words in the sentence, if the student does not immediately say the word when it comes up, prompt them by providing the first sound in the word. Continue to prompt sound by sound, as needed.
- Do not provide the full word to the child, for any of the decodable words. Rather, have the student break the word down letter by letter, and blend the sounds together, so that they solve the word on their own. This may be time consuming and difficult for the child, so limit the number of challenging words, and space them out with words or tasks that the child can do with ease.
It is true that these sentences are not highly engaging, but remember that this time spent on decoding is just one part of a larger literacy program, in which the child is exposed to a wide variety of high-quality literature, stories from multiple genres, poems and songs.
Also, it is possible to make it more fun by rhyming or playing a game with the words. Take out a word and put in a blank. Let the student try to fill in the missing word. Remember, your enthusiasm and enjoyment during the activity is contagious.
In addition, remember that the student should be experiencing success. If they are struggling, increase your prompting, take a step back and return to an easier task.
I hope you find these ideas helpful, in ensuring that your weaker readers get lots of experience reading every day!
Can you think of other ways to support your students who are not yet reading to gain “practice” reading? We would love to hear your ideas!
References
Allington, R. (2013). What Really Matters When Working with Struggling Readers. The Reading Teacher, 66 (7), 520-529.
Brainspring Orton Gillingham. (2018, August 1). Helpful hints: The blending drill – orton-gillingham multi-sensory tools. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbh4jkEpP_A&feature=emb_logo
Clay, M. M. (1979). The early detection of reading difficulties. (3rd. ed.). Heinemann.
Freeze. R. (2002 / 2010). Precision reading: Instructors’ handbook (2nd Edition). D. R. Freeze Educational Publications.
Pride Reading Program (2019, March 25). Orton-Gillingham lesson: Sight words. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA32NO5UN9U
Richardson, J. (2016). The next step forward in guided reading: An assess-decide-guide framework for supporting every reader. Scholastic Inc.
Stanovich, K. E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 22, 360-407. https://www.readingrockets.org/articles/researchbytopic/4862
Wilson, B. A. (1996). Wilson reading system instructor manual. (3rd Ed.). Wilson Language Training Corporation.
by Lori-Anne Busch | Oct 31, 2020 | Dyslexia / Specific Disability in Reading, Evidence-Based Practices Series, Grade 1, Teaching Reading to Struggling Readers
You may be hearing more and more about the Science of Reading lately.
Do you wonder what it is that everyone is talking about?
My goal is to give you a quick synopsis of the Science of Reading, so that you can see what all of the excitement is about!
With this information you may decide to adopt some new techniques or strategies that will benefit the students you work with. In my experience, teachers who find out about the Science of Reading are grateful to finally have the knowledge to support students who they had not been able to help learn to read, up until this point.
No matter what grade you teach, you are likely to have students who struggle to read in your classes. The Science of Reading can be applied to support readers at any age. All of us can improve our practices by learning more about the scientific research behind reading. If you are a life-long learner, as I am, this information brings a breath of fresh air to literacy instruction, and to teaching in general.
What is the Science of Reading?
It is research that is based on a formula called the Simple View of Reading, first proposed in 1986 by researchers Gough & Tumner, which shows that reading comprehension depends on two basic components: decoding, and language comprehension (Farrell et al., 2019).
Decoding (D) x Language Comprehension (LC) = Reading Comprehension (RC)
Essentially, it is research that shows that a person will not be able to understand what they are reading if they do not have strong skills in both decoding, and language comprehension (Farrell et al., 2019, para 1). The significance of this research is that it shows the importance of directly and explicitly teaching students to associate letters and sounds, and then to sound out words letter by letter.
“Gough and Tunmer (1986) proposed the Simple View of Reading to clarify the role of decoding in reading. Many educators did and still do believe that strong decoding skills are not necessary to achieve reading comprehension if language abilities are strong” (Farrell et al.,2019, para 3).
Breaking Down the Formula
The formula can be further explained and broken down.
The multiplication symbol in the formula is significant, because it shows how a student with poor skills in either area would struggle to understand what they were reading.
An explanation by Dr. Jan Hasbrouk from The Reading League, helps to clarify this: “If the decoding skill is weak…especially if it is so weak we would have to say it is basically a zero, in terms of competency in decoding, no matter how smart you are, how language proficient you are, …what a good thinker you are, you are not going to have reading comprehension” (Hasbrouk, 2019, 7:25).
This kind of profile is characteristic of students with dyslexia, who have average or above average intelligence, yet experience a “block” when it comes to interpreting written language (Hasbrouk, 2019).
Students who are learning English often experience the opposite challenge, compared with students who have dyslexia. They may be able decode or pronounce the words that they are reading, yet not be able to understand the meaning of the words. Imagine, for example, that the student does not know any of the English words in a paragraph they have been given to read in science class. Even if their decoding is 100%, (that is, they can pronounce all of the words aloud), if their understanding of the meaning of the English words is low, they will not have any understanding of what they’ve read (Hasbrouk, 2019).
This research is important because it provides an opposite view of learning to read, from the very common whole-language approach. In the whole-language philosophy, successful readers are thought to bring what they already know about language to the page, and to predict upcoming words. They apply their understanding of oral language, sentence structure and meaning to reading the words (Zakaluk, 1982, para. 9-10). In contrast, in phonics-based approach, reading is seen as beginning with letters and sounds, and the emphasis is on cracking the code (para. 5). The whole-language approach remains very popular in schools today, and was the main approach used throughout the 80s and 90s.
Why is there so much attention on the Science of Reading now?
If the Simple View of Reading was first proposed in the 1980s, then why is it being brought up so much lately, you might wonder.
Over the past ten years or so, there has been extensive research into what happens inside the human brain, as a person develops the ability to read (Kearns, 2019, p. 185). Neuroscientists have been observing brain waves in readers, and have been using neuroimaging data to observe the difference between the brains of students with typical reading skills and those with dyslexia (p. 182). Their discoveries have implications for teaching reading, which confirm what Gough & Tumner presented in 1986:
“In the early elementary grades, students require extensive instruction and practice to help them learn grapheme-phoneme connections and recognize many words by sight. Some kinds of instruction – especially explicit, systematic phonics instruction – are especially effective in helping students acquire word reading skills. In its absence, some students will not develop good reading skills” (Kearns et al., 2019, p. 183).
For more information on connecting graphemes (letters) with phonemes (sounds), please see my previous post, on orthographic mapping.
Phonics and Whole-Language Combined
In contrast to the whole-language approach, the Simple View of Reading indicates the importance in teaching students how to decode, or to sound out words by matching letters to sounds. In the Simple View of Reading, language skills remain an important factor, but it is only half of the equation. Students need both decoding and language skills to comprehend what they read.
Even though research on the importance of teaching decoding has existed for over forty years, and even though this research has been replicated many times, and has not been dis-proven, many teachers do not know about it (Farrell et al., 2019, para 1,3) or are not convinced of its merit.
Many early years teacher do teach phonics and decoding, however some continue to believe that this is not necessary, or that it should only be touched on, in passing. There is the belief that students will grasp what they need to know about letters and letter patterns through exposure to words and reading, and that it is not important to spend time deliberately, directly teaching phonics. For example, Marie Clay, creator of the Reading Recovery program, states: “The beginning reader must discover for himself how to scan and visually analyze print to locate cues and features…” (p. 8).
As a previous resource teacher, and reading intervention teacher, I have worked with many, many students who were not able to deduce letter and sound correspondence through general reading practice. Instead, they required very intensive, explicit instruction, in order to learn to read. Developing the ability to decode was what finally helped them find success. In fact, I recently learned that up to 50% of students will struggle to read, if they are not directly taught sound symbol relationships (Hasbrouk, 2019). Bringing phonics into your instruction benefits all readers!
For all teachers, the Simple View of Reading is a helpful tool in determining how to help students who are struggling with reading comprehension (Farrell et al., 2019). Keeping the formula in mind when deciding what type of support to provide to students, the teacher can quickly see whether the problem is breaking down for the student over decoding or understanding language. This provides a very helpful starting point.
Middle Years and High School Students Who Struggle to Read
No matter what age the student is, consulting the Simple View of Reading can support the teacher in deciding how best to teach reading to an individual who is struggling:
“All of us can think of an older student who struggles with reading words. This struggle usually occurs because poor decoding skills were not mastered during the foundational instruction phase. Often students in these grades have adopted inefficient coping strategies that negatively impact comprehension. Even in later grades, students can benefit from phonics instruction and teachers are encouraged to provide time to enable “catch-up” growth. There is no substitute for effective decoding, and it can be taught at any age” (The Barksdale Reading Institute, Phonics tab, “Advanced Phonics Continuum”).
Where to Look Next:
According to The Reading League, a website that was created with the goal of supporting teachers in improving the reading skills of students in the state of Mississippi, there “two key reports” that teachers should be aware of:
“Teachers should be knowledgeable about two national reports that articulate key recommendations for instruction that are based on the science of reading.
- The National Reading Panel (2000) emphasized that phonics instruction should be systematic and explicit.
- The Institute of Educational Sciences (2016) confirmed the findings of the National Reading Panel by emphasizing again that it is important to explicitly teach the alphabetic principle and that students need to decode, encode, and analyze word parts in order to internalize the sound-symbol associations.
- In addition, the IES report recommended the importance of reading decodable connected text everyday during the early reading instruction years to build accuracy and fluency. (The Barksdale Reading Institute, Phonics tab, “Research: Two Key Reports” section)
I hope that you will find this helpful, and that you will apply this research with the students you teach. I am convinced if you give it a try, you will see positive changes not only in the readers who are experiencing difficulty, but with all of your early readers!
Happy Teaching!
References
Clay, M. M. (1979). The early detection of reading difficulties. Heinemann.
Farrell, L., Hunter, M., Davidson, M., & Osenga, T. (2019). The simple view of reading. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/simple-view-reading
Hanford, E. (2020, October 3). Influential literacy expert Lucy Calkins is changing her views. APM Reports. https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/10/16/influential-literacy-expert-lucy-calkins-is-changing-her-views?fbclid=IwAR26L9qEoFLsxBYbe7y74qZMHgXUzrfiO2-vpOTQVxEYiPmlWuZyr5dbU10
Harbrouk, (2019, July 9). The science of reading: An overview (by Dr. Jan Hasbrouck) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTvHSgoTeZE
Kearns, D. M., Hancock, R., Hoeft, F., Pugh, K. R., & Frost, S. F. (2019). The neurobiology of dyslexia. Teaching Exceptional Children, 51 (3), 175-188.
Kilpatrick, D. A. (2016). Equipped for reading success: A comprehensive, step by step program for developing phonemic awareness and fluent word recognition. Casey & Kirsch Publishers.
The Barksdale Reading Institute. (n.d). The Reading Universe: Understanding the Big Picture of Literacy Instruction [interactive grid]. https://www.readinguniverse.org/copy-of-concepts-of-print
Zakaluk, B. (1982). A theoretical overview of the reading process: Factors which influence performance and implications for instruction. [Unpublished monograph]. University of Manitoba.
by Lori-Anne Busch | Sep 8, 2020 | Dyslexia / Specific Disability in Reading, Teaching Reading to Struggling Readers, Understanding Research
Now, here is something to really sink your teeth into. Get yourself a cup of coffee or tea, and find a cozy, quiet spot to read. I have been learning about orthographic mapping over the past many months, and I feel that I am finally getting a grasp on it. This post covers recent reading research that is incredibly interesting, but also quite complex.
The big question we are concerned with today is, “How do students develop the ability to read words with ease?”
It is an important question to answer, because if we can help more students become fluent readers, we will be able to get them to the point where they can read for fun! This happens only when students are able to read words automatically, with ease. When words are instantly recognized, reading turns into something effortless and fun, and kids can dive into books and stories for enjoyment.
When first learning to read, students who have been taught to decode through phonics instruction are able to sound out words letter by letter. This happens very slowly, but eventually, most students are able to recognize words instantly. How does this happen?
Word learning, or developing a sight word vocabulary, involves a mental process called “orthographic mapping” (Kilpatrick, 2016, p. 27).
When we talk about orthography, we are talking about the symbols (letters) that are put together to form words. A word’s orthography is the precise sequence of individual letters, in a precise order (Kilpatrick, 2016, p. 39). Certain letter combinations that occur frequently in English become “unitized” once the child processes them a number of times. This means that the common combinations like “str” and “ing” become single units, with the letters attached together in a chunk (Kilpatrick, 2016, p. 33).
Orthographic Knowledge
Orthographic knowledge is the understanding that there are rules which determine the correct order of letters within words (Zakaluk, 1982 / 1886). This structure is predictable, since in the English language, certain rules govern how letters can be arranged in words (Zakaluk, 1982 / 1996).
“One of the most significant facts about language is that it is structured: orthographic symbols are arranged according to a fixed set of rules and cannot be put together in nonpermissable graphemic sequences. For example, it is appropriate to string together the letters s, t and r to form /str/, but inappropriate, in English to combine them to form the sequence /tsr/…The fact that letters cluster in repetitive patterns thus serves as a generalization that can be applied to decipher new words” (Zakaluk, 1882/1996, Section: Orthographic Mapping, para: 1, bolding mine)
Sight Word – Definition
Reading researchers use the term “sight word” to mean “a familiar word that is recognized instantly, automatically and effortlessly, without sounding it out or guessing. It does not matter if the word is phonetically regular or irregular. The point is that it is immediately recognized” (Kilpatrick, 2016, p. 27). This is important to clarify, since many people use the term “sight word” to mean a word that is spelled in a non-phonetic, irregular way. In orthographic mapping, any word can become a sight word. It happens when the word is instantly recognized by the reader.
When students read with ease, fluently, we know that they can’t be using their decoding skills to do it. It happens too quickly for that. We assume that the student has a picture of the full word stored in the brain, like a kind of visual picture of the word (Kilpatrick, 2016 / Dehaene, 2013). However, this assumption turns out not to be true. In fact, it has been shown by recent brain research that visual memory is not involved in reading, after all (Kilpatrick, 2016, p. 27).
Whole Language Versus Phonics
Dr. Stanislas Dehaene (2013), a cognitive neuroscientist, has explained how recent science proves that words are not stored visually, as whole words. Dehaene explains that even though it feels like we read words as whole words, in actuality, we process letters one at a time, or in familiar chunks, when reading (Dehaene, 2013). This knowledge of how we decipher words using our brains is important, because when teachers learn about this science, it can’t help but impact their teaching practices.
If you are an early-years teacher, this knowledge that words are not stored as “whole words” may cause you to think differently about the kinds of tasks you have your students do. Common practice in many classes, especially for teachers who have a “whole language” philosophy about reading, is to compile a list of irregularly spelled or high frequency words for students to memorize. Students are assigned a stack of word cards, and the words are flashed in front of the child, while the word is said aloud. The child repeats the word, and moves on to the next card.
In this task, typically the child’s attention is not drawn to the internal structure of the word (the letter combinations / the sounds), but rather they notice general way that it looks, the shape of the word. The idea is that the child will remember the full word, once they have seen it and heard it said aloud numerous times. However, we now know that this practice is not likely to be useful for many students. Dehaene (2013), explains that having students pay attention to the “global shape” of a word, attending to the way that the letters descend below or rise above the lines, is not an effective method to develop a student’s sight word vocabulary. Instead what is needed is for students to develop strong letter – sound knowledge. Letter sound correspondence and decoding words, or sounding words out letter by letter is taught through the phonics method. Dehaene’s research is important because it essentially puts the debate to rest about whole language versus phonics instruction (Dehaene, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25GI3-kiLdo).
Phonological Awareness and Letter Sound Knowledge Support the Development of Sight Words
Moats & Tolman (2009) concur that it is not visual memory that is involved in reading, but rather a different process involving our phonological and orthographic processors. If you recall, “phonological” refers to the sounds in spoken language. Phonological awareness is the ability to break words down into syllables, and then into individual sounds or phonemes. Phonemes are usually shown in print by isolating a letter between two slashes, like this: /a/. The slashes around the letter a show the sound that the letter “A” makes, in a word like “cat”.
The phonemes for the word sit are: /s/ /i/ /t/.
For the word stand, the phonemes are /s/ /t/ /a/ /n/ /d/.
Some words have fewer phonemes than letters. An example is that in the word fish, there are four letters, but only three phonemes. The phonemes for fish are /f/ /i/ /sh/.
/sh/ is made up of two letters, but since it makes one sound, it is one phoneme.
As mentioned above, orthography has to do with the symbols in written language, the letters themselves. Therefore, it is both the sounds within a word, and the letters, that are involved in orthographic mapping. An important skill that must be developed then, is the ability to associate letters and their corresponding sounds quickly and instantly.
Dr. Dehaene explains that teaching letter to sound correspondence is the fastest way for children to learn to read and to comprehend what they read. He says that while visual memory is not used in full word reading, it is used in learning the names of the letters of the alphabet. Associating letters and sounds is ” a matter of visual-phonological memorization” (Kilpatrick, 2016, p. 30).
So how does orthographic mapping actually occur? This is a very difficult question to answer; it is hard to conceptualize exactly what is taking place. The information that I have come across on the topic is very intricate, but I will do my best to explain it, as I understand it. I highly recommend the following video, from the Reading League, that explains the process in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfRHcUeGohc.
Phonological Awareness
Kilpatrick believes that all children should receive phonological awareness training all the way through to the end of second grade. At the end of Grade 2, students should be screened to see which skills they still need to focus on. No age is too old, for teaching phonological awareness. Kilpatrick provides lessons for older struggling readers, who, he believes, will continue to struggle with reading if their phonological awareness difficulties are not addressed (2016, p. 18).
Dr. Kilpatrick recommends that we develop our students’ phonological awareness skills to the advanced stages, in order to develop strong readers. As mentioned above, phonemes are the smallest units of sound in a word. Phonological awareness is an umbrella term that encompasses the component skills involved in hearing the sounds in spoken language. These skills, which progress from easiest to hardest, include:
- Hearing distinct words within sentences
- Hearing syllables within words
- Noticing alliteration, or that certain words begin with the same sound (example: sun, sat, sip)
- Hearing rhyming, and being able to produce rhyming words
- Phoneme awareness, or hearing the individual sounds within a word (cat is made up of /c/ /a/ /t/)
- Phoneme manipulation, or being able to swap sounds in and out of a word, to create a new word
When a student is first developing the understanding that sentences are made up of words, and words are made up of syllables, they are demonstrating the beginning stages of phonological awareness. Eventually, students acquire the ability to break individual words into their smallest sounds, or phonemes. Students are able to hear alliteration, and can distinguish the first sounds in words. Usually, they will be able to hear the final sounds next, the sounds at the end of words. Eventually students are able to hear and pick out the sounds in the middle of words.
Phoneme Manipulation
The most complex phonological awareness task, and the task that is most highly connected with successful readers, is phoneme manipulation (Kilpatrick, 2016). Awareness of phonemes comes naturally to some students, and some need to be taught how to do this, in a very specific, direct way. For the 30 – 40% of students who do not develop this awareness on their own, it is essential to teach it, as they will not become strong readers without this ability (Kilpatrick, 2016).
Furthermore, Kilpatrick states that “poor phonological awareness is the most common cause of poor reading. Reading problems can be prevented if all students are trained in letter sound skills and phonological awareness” (2016, p. 13)
Phoneme manipulation is the most difficult of all of the phonological awareness tasks, because it involves taking a word apart (or segmenting it) into its component sounds, and then adding, deleting or changing one of those sounds. Here are some examples of phoneme manipulation tasks, taken from Kilpatrick’s book, Equipped for Reading Success: A Comprehensive Step by Step Guide for Developing Phoneme Awareness and Fluent Word Recognition (2016, pp. 221-221):
Teacher: “Say cord”
Student: “cord”
Teacher: “Now say cord, but instead of /d/, say /k/
Student: “cork”
Here is another one, that is a bit harder:
Teacher: “Say hand”
Student: “hand”
Teacher: “Now say hand, but don’t say /n/”
Student: “had”
According to Kilpatrick, activities like this help students to “map” words, so that they become sight words. In order to do these more difficult tasks with phonemes, students need to have mastered the easier phonological awareness tasks, to the point that they segment a word into phonemes so automatically that they do not even realise that they are doing it (Kilpatrick, 2016). The act of separating and blending sounds has the effect of cementing certain sound sequences together, in the brain.
How does this happen?
- The child takes a known word, divides it into phonemes.
- The child understands that certain letters or groups of letters correspond with each sound in the word, and then bonds these together. The graphemes (letters), are bonded to the phonemes (sounds) in an exact sequence.
- The sequence is specific to a single word, that becomes connected together, so that the word then becomes instantly recognizable (The Reading League, Retrieved on Sept 6, 2020 from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfRHcUeGohc).
This belief in the importance of teaching phonological awareness and phonics is echoed by Reutzel and Cooter (2016): “A prime objective of exemplary phonics instruction is to develop independent word-recognition strategies, focusing attention on the internal structure of words” (p. 187).
Phonics Defined
Recall here that phonics has to do with both letters and sounds, whereas phonological awareness has to do with just the sounds. Phonological awareness training happens orally, with no visuals, no pencil or paper, or letter tiles. Teaching phonics is visual, involving written letters. A good way to remember this is that you can do phoneme awareness tasks with your eyes closed. Phonics requires your eyes to be open.
Additional support for this kind of teaching, comes from the National Reading Panel (NRP) Report: “Recent findings indicate that connections between phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (letters) must be taught explicitly and that children must practice applying their phonological awareness skills in their reading and writing. These connections must be explicitly taught through phonics instruction, because “deduction does not always occur” (NRP, 2000 as cited by Reutzel and Cooter, 2016, italicized words mine). Some students might learn to read without explicit phonics instruction, yet without it, 30% of students will never become strong readers (Kilpatrick, 2016).
The Orton Gillingham Approach
What methods are best suited to teaching students to orthographically map words? A structured literacy program, in which letters and sounds, letter combinations, and rules for English spelling, are taught explicitly and systematically, is best suited for this. The Orton-Gillingham approach is one example of structured literacy. In this approach, students are taught “jingles” to help remember spelling rules. These rules are taught explicitly, with many examples, pictures and rhymes. Students memorize the rules, and repeat them over and over again, to help with reading and spelling (Bjornson, Orton Gillingham Academy, Classroom Instructor Course, June – July 2020). As Zakaluk (1982/1996) explains, the English language is very structured and redundant, making knowledge of English spelling rules very useful to beginning readers (Section: Orthographic Mapping, para: 1).
Further Explanation of Orthographic Mapping
I found a clear and teacher friendly explanation of how orthographic mapping occurs at another teacher’s blog site, and I strongly recommend it to you: https://sarahsnippets.com/how-do-we-learn-new-words-orthographic/. Sarah’s blog posts include helpful pictures, as well. She too, is a fan of Dr. Kilpatrick.
Thank you, Sarah, for your simplified explanations, and awesome visuals, and also to the Reading League for the very precise and descriptive videos! Please see the links below!
References:
Bjornson, V. (2020) Orton Gillingham Academy, Classroom Instructor Course.
Dehaene, S. (2013). Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25GI3-kiLdo.
Kilpatrick, D. A. (2016). Equipped for reading success: A comprehensive, step by step program for developing phonemic awareness and fluent word recognition. Syracuse: Casey & Kirsch Publishers.
Moats, L, & Tolman, C (2009). Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS): The Challenge of Learning to Read (Module 1). Boston: Sopris West.
Reutzel, D. R & Cooter, R. B. Jr. (2016). Strategies for Reading Assessment and Instruction in an Era of Common Core Standards: Helping Every Child Succeed. Pearson.
The Reading League, Retrieved on Sept 6, 2020 from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfRHcUeGohc
https://sarahsnippets.com/how-do-we-learn-new-words-orthographic/
by Lori-Anne Busch | Sep 1, 2020 | Dyslexia / Specific Disability in Reading, Evidence-Based Practices Series, Grade 1, Teaching Reading to Struggling Readers
As an identical twin, I think I look for doubles, similarities, or matches in almost everything I do. If you are a twin like me, you likely find other twins to be fascinating, and swarm toward them like moths to a flame. I had the absolute luck of getting to work in a classroom a couple of years ago in which the kindergarten teacher, the educational assistant, and I, the resource teacher, all had identical twin sisters! I experienced an immediate feeling of companionship whenever I entered the classroom.
Today I am going to introduce you to the six syllable types in English, and perhaps because of my personal way of seeing the world, I like to think of these syllable types as sextuplets. They are similar but unique in their own special way, just like sextuplets would be!
In structured literacy approaches, the six syllable types are explicitly taught to students, as they develop an in depth understanding of English spelling. Direct phonics instruction, that is carefully structured and sequenced, is key to structured literacy.
The National Reading Panel has identified five fundamental reading skills (Melekoglu, 2019, p. 412). These five skills are the basis for developing reading skills in students and “problems in any one of these skills can impact improvements in other crucial skills” (p. 413). The five skills are “phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and text comprehension” (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, as cited in Melekoglu, 2019, p. 413).
Structured literacy has to do with two of the five fundamental reading skills: the phonics and phonemic awareness skills, mainly. However the other components are not forgotten or left out. As you will see below, when a new letter or letter pattern is taught to students, they are given the opportunity to use that new knowledge in sentences and books. These skills are not taught in isolation, but rather, applied to reading real text, as soon as possible, and within the same lesson.
The important elements of structured literacy, according to Valdine Bjornson of the Manitoba Reading and Learning Clinic, (Orton Gillingham Academy, Classroom Instructor Course, June – July 2020) are:
- The reading instruction is highly sequenced, beginning at the most basic and working toward the complex. For example, short vowels are taught before vowel teams.
- It is cumulative, in that each lesson involves reviewing what was previously taught. This occurs when the teacher asks questions about concepts learned in earlier lessons, weaving the concepts into the current lesson. The teacher constantly spirals back to previously taught information, since the later tasks are built on them.
- Every lesson progresses logically, and builds sequentially. Tasks that are easier, come first in the lesson.
- Concepts practiced earlier on in the lesson are returned to towards the end of the lesson. The student applies the letters / patterns that were introduced early on in the lesson, to reading and writing words and sentences in the final steps of the lesson.
- Each lesson involves reading “connected text”; sentences or books that include the letters or patterns just taught. The teacher does not give students words or sentences to read that are beyond what they have been explicitly taught. Doing so would be considered unfair, and would not be emotionally sound. The teacher is careful to structure the lesson so that the student feels successful, and so they only give tasks to the student that they are confident the student will be able to do.
The Orton Gillingham approach is the premier model for structured literacy. Once students have learned the letter names and sounds, the teacher introduces the six syllable types in English. There are six syllable-spelling conventions used in English. It is useful to teach them because when students know the syllable types, it makes it easier for them to spell words correctly. It also helps them to know how to pronounce the vowels, in words that they do not yet know (Moats & Tolman, 2009). When students learn how to chunk longer words into syllables, and have been taught the syllable types, they are able to tackle longer words. They will be also be less likely to skip or guess at longer words (Moats & Tolman, 2009).
Here is a list of the six syllable types.
Before teachers can introduce the syllable types, students must learn how to divide a word into syllables, and how to count the number of syllables in a word. This is an oral activity, in which the student is asked to repeat a word, and then clap or tap the number of syllables they hear. Hearing syllables in words is one of the earliest steps in developing phonological awareness. As mentioned above, phonological awareness is one of the five essential components of teaching reading, according to he National Reading Panel.
It is sometimes helpful to have students count how many times their jaw moves down, when they say a word aloud. Syllables can be counted this way, since every syllable has a vowel, and our jaws drop down each time we make a vowel sound (Moats & Tolman, 2009).
Try saying the following words aloud, and while you do, place your hand on your chin.
Count the syllables in each of these words:
Apple (2)
Potato (3)
Watermelon (4)
Box (1)
Open Syllable
Open syllables are syllables that end in vowels. When the syllable ends in a vowel, the vowel sound is long. An easy way to see this at work, is to look at short words that end in long vowels. Remember that the long sound is when the vowel says its name. The short sound is when the vowel makes its soft, short sound. Long “E” is like the sound at the end of “me”, and short “E” is the sound in the middle of the word “bed”.
Each of these words end in a vowel, and the vowel sound is long. These are examples of open syllable words.
Me
He
Hi
She
No
Go
So
Closed Syllable
Some smaller words that are examples of closed syllables, are words like “mat” and “set”. Note that after each vowel, there is a consonant. Words that follow this pattern can be shown as “CVC” or consonant, vowel, consonant. They can also look like this: “VC”, in multisyllabic words like the first syllable in “ap-ple” or like in the word “ask“. The consonant “closes the door” and makes the vowel quieter. One way to help students remember this, is to tell them that it is harder to hear someone who is talking behind a closed door, because the sound is softer. That remind us that the vowel is making its soft sound.
Another idea is to use a visual cue, in which you show students how the pronunciation of a word changes when a consonant is added to the end of the word. To do this, you could have an open syllable word written on a longer card, so that part of the card can be folder over. On the back of the flap, a consonant is written. When the consonant is added to the end of the word, the pronunciation of the vowel changes.
For example, the word “me” is written on a card, with a flap that has a letter “T” written on the back. The flap is the door. When the door is open, the word is read as “me”, pronounced /m/ /ee/, but when the door is closed (the flap with the letter “T” on it closes like a door), the word now reads “met”. Opening the door again hides the “T” behind it, so the word reads “me” again. This demonstrates the idea of open and closed syllables, and is helpful in illustrating the way that the vowel changes its sound in open and closed syllables.
In the training offered by the Orton Gillingham academy, picture cues are used to remind students about the different syllable types. A tiger is used to show open syllables, due to the long “I” in the first syllable of the word ti – ger. A camel is used to show closed syllables, due to the short “A” sound in the first syllable, and the fact that the letter “M” closes the door, and signals to us that the vowel uses its short, soft sound in this syllable.
The other four syllable types are very recognizable, especially when illustrated with a few examples. Usually these syllable types are taught in single syllable words first, and then are expanded to words with multiple syllables. Remember that the “C” stands for “consonant”, and “V” for “vowel”.
Vowel Consonant – e
(VCe)
Examples: rake, bike, hope, com-pete, des-pite
Vowel Team
(CVVC, CVV)
These are syllables with long or short vowel sounds, that use two or more letters to spell the vowel. This category includes diphthongs like ou / ow, and oi / oy. Examples of vowel teams are oo, ae, ai,
Words: rain, read, away, loud, boy
Vowel – r
(V-r)
Also called “R controlled vowels”, because the letter “R” changes the way that the vowel sounds.
Examples are: er, ir, or, ar, ur
Words: fur, hurt, cart, yurt, sir
Consonant – le
(C-le)
These words have a consonant before the letter “L”, followed by a silent “E”.
Examples: apple, candle, little
Once you know the syllable types, you can notice different combinations of these types in multi-syllabic words. The word candle, for example, contains a closed syllable: “can”. Then, the second syllable in the words is a consonant – le syllable: “dle”.
Teaching reading this way involves many components, including supporting students in developing phonological awareness, or the ability to hear the sounds within words, which is what they do when they break a word into syllables. It also involves teaching them some vocabulary unique to English language. In this structured literacy approach, children are taught the meaning of the words “vowel”, “consonant”, and “syllable”, for example. They are taught difference between a long and short vowel sound. Additional vocabulary is introduced as we teach about open and closed syllables, and it expands from there.
David Kilpatrick, a well known reading researcher, advocates for using phoneme awareness and phonics in teaching students to read (2016). He points out that one might wonder whether it is necessary to teach reading in such a structured and direct way, since it seems that most students learn to read and spell fine without this. In reality, many students do learn to read without the use of a structured literacy approach, he agrees. However, for about 30% of students, direct, systematic phonics and phonemic awareness instruction is vital in becoming a successful reader (Kilpatrick, 2016, p. 16). Without it, these students will remain struggling readers throughout school.
Teaching phonics and phonological awareness is necessary, in order to prevent many students from becoming struggling readers. This method supports stronger readers in becoming even better at reading: “Typical first and second graders can learn to read more quickly and efficiently when they are trained in phoneme awareness” (Kilpatrick, 2016, p. 17). Without a structured literacy approach, such as the Orton Gillingham method, early elementary school teachers will continue to struggle to meet the needs of the weakest readers in their classes. Being a poor reader will have an impact on a student’s self-esteem and academic success, limiting their potential to become an accomplished, literate adult.
I hope you enjoyed meeting the sextuplets! They might even feel close to your heart, it you are a twin or a triplet yourself. I am sure you can appreciate the similarities and the important unique qualities of each. As a twin, similarities and differences were very important, when I was growing up. At times the differences were of utmost importance, as I struggled to define myself as an individual. At other times, the sense of belonging that came from having someone with the same DNA as myself, the same voice, hair, eyes, nose, and body type was very soothing.
I hope you found this post helpful. If you are interested in learning more about structured literacy, I strongly recommend the Orton Gillingham Classroom Educator course, offered by the Manitoba Reading and Learning Clinic. This post just barely scratches the surface, but if you would like to learn more, you can really go into it deeply through the Orton Gillingham training. For more information, please contact me below or through a message on the home page.
You can also go to directly to Manitoba’s very own Orton Gillingham Academy training locale, at https://sites.google.com/view/thereadingandlearningclinicofm/home?authuser=0
References:
Bjornson, V. (2020) Orton Gillingham Academy, Classroom Instructor Course.
Kilpatrick, D. A. (2016). Equipped for reading success: A comprehensive, step by step program for developing phonemic awareness and fluent word recognition. Syracuse: Casey & Kirsch Publishers.
Melkoglu, M. A. (2019). Evidence based fluency interventions for elementary students with learning disabilities. European Journal of Education Studies, 6 (5), 411-423.
Moats, L, & Tolman, C (2009). Excerpted from Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS): Spellography for Teachers: How English Spelling Works (Module 3). Boston: Sopris West. Retreived on August 31, 2020 from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/six-syllable-types.
by Lori-Anne Busch | Jun 15, 2020 | Evidence-Based Practices Series, Grade 1, Teaching Reading to Struggling Readers
In researching the topic of teaching reading, I was happy to come across the following statements, from two very respected and credible sources, adamantly vouching for phonics instruction:
“The topic is seemingly simple – phonics. Do children need instruction in phonics? Why is there an argument? The answer is “yes” (Fountas & Pinnelll, 2020, p. 1).
“The question of whether to include phonics instruction has been resolved. The answer is yes” (International Literacy Association, 2019, p. 2).
If you are like me, you may share your enthusiasm about phonics only with a few trusted colleagues. I picture us whispering in the back corner of the staff room, passing resources to each other under the table. Well friends, now that Fountas and Pinnell, and the ILA have shouted it from the rooftops, we can too! Phonics instruction works! Its the best! I believe in it, because I have seen it work, really work, and I L-O-O-V-E all of the programs out there that break teaching reading down into minute, sequential steps, that follow beautifully, from one to the next. It is like music to me.
In 1997, the U.S. Congress asked for a review of research on literacy, with the goal of improving reading and writing achievement (Lonigan & Shanahan, 2008, p. v). As you may know, in the 80’s and 90’s, whole language instruction was mainly used in schools, and the impact on reading scores was dismal. In fact, “a 1994 National Assessment of Educational Progress report found 56% of 4th graders in California read below a basic level after embracing Whole Language” (Betker, presentation, 2019, Retrieved from https://www.cde.ca.gov/)
The resulting report, which recommended systematic phonics instruction, was “influential in helping to guide reading-education policy and practice in the United States” (Lonigan & Shanahan, p. v). The report is called the “Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read” (NICHD, 2000). This report is very widely cited in articles about teaching reading, and has impacted how we teach reading in Canada, as well. After the report was released by the National Reading Panel in 2000, there was a dramatic increase in the use of systematic, explicit phonics instruction, in schools.
However, it is clear to me, and to many teachers who have heard the research conclusions, knowing that something is supported by science does not automatically lead to implementation in a regular classroom. The information needs to be interpreted in such a way that it is usable and practical. Also, there are important factors to consider, in ensuring that the method is applied in a way that is congruent with the research. As you can imagine, not all phonics instruction is equal – the sequence that a teacher uses is vitally important: “[T]his process is not left to accident but goes according to a superbly designed sequence” ( Fountas & Pinnell, 2020, p. 3).
In teaching reading, and incorporating phonics in one’s program, it is important to consider the following questions:
- Who is phonics instruction for? Isn’t it intended only for students who struggle to learn to read?
According to Fountas & Pinnell (2020), “[E]ven children who “crack the code” early and appear to have noticed letter-sound relationships and figured out how to use them will benefit from systematizing their knowledge and developing effective, efficient ways to use their knowledge, not only of letters and sounds, but also of patterns involving larger chunks of words” (p. 1). They go on to say that phonics instruction is “even more critical when we consider the large number of English learners in our schools. It is our responsibility as educators to ensure equity and access to language for all students” (p. 1). I would argue that the same need for equity exists among students who are first language English speakers, but whose early experiences have not enabled them to develop pre-literacy skills.
“Research has shown the power of this early instruction in phonics for young students’ reading and writing development. Government-funded documents have shown that phonics instruction is helpful for all students, harmful for none, and crucial for some” International Literacy Association, 2019, p. 2).
2. Is there a “best” way to teach phonics / decoding?
“[H]ow we translate …research into instructional practice varies widely, resulting in practices that are sometimes ineffective or unbalanced and instructional materials that too often have serious instructional design flaws. Some phonics instruction is random, incomplete, and implicit. Other instruction is overdone and isolated, devoid of the extensive application to authentic reading and writing needed for mastery. Neither is as effective as it needs to be” (International Literacy Association, 2019, p. 2).
“There is no one best way to teach phonics…That is, there is no single method that has been shown to be the most effective approach” (Cunningham, as cited in Allington, 2013, p. 522). However, some methods certainly are better than others, and some programs are more easily applied and adopted, I would argue. The main point here is that, students do need to learn to decode, and that this is an important part of becoming an effective reader (Allington, 2013, p. 522).
You may have heard the term “the science of reading”. In the last few decades, an incredible amount of research has been done, that actually looks at what happens in people’s brains, when they learn to read. In fact, we now know an astronomical amount more about teaching reading than we did only 40 years ago, according to Dr. Kilpatrick (2016, p. 46) a reading researcher and doctor of psychology. The science of reading essentially tells us how the brain changes as it learns to read. This information can help us to know which teaching methods would result in developing a reading brain.
A recent brain research study out of Stanford explained how beginning readers who focus on letter–sound relationships, or phonics, instead of trying to learn whole words, increase activity in the area of the brain best wired for reading. This has resulted in the conclusion that phonics instruction has a strong impact on students’ early reading growth” (International Literacy Association, 2019, p. 2, Retreived from https://www.literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/where-we-stand/ila-meeting-challenges-early-literacy-phonics-instruction.pdf).
The Orton-Gillingham approach is one example of how to teach students to read, using systematic, explicit phonics instruction. This approach is recommended for students with Dyslexia, however it has been applied to students of varied abilities, with success. If you are looking for a place to begin, I highly recommend learning as much as you can about this approach.
Some other specific phonics methods that you may be interested in looking into, especially if you are an early years teacher, are the use of word families, and teaching of onset and rimes. David Kilpatrick recommends the use of word families for Grade 1 students who can identify the first sounds and letters in words, but cannot yet decipher the middle and ending sounds (2016, p. 50). Additionally, colour-coded onset-rime phonics-based intervention has been shown to be effective with struggling readers, and is recommended as an intervention for students at Tier 2 and Tier 3 (Wall, Rafferty, Camizzi, Max & VanBlargan, 2016, p. 8).
What else is there to consider?
Teaching students to read through decoding is only part of phonics instruction. It is important to have students apply their developing phonics skills in writing. Using inventive spelling in kindergarten and first grade is an effective way to reinforce letter-sound correspondence, because children who get the chance to write suddenly become “interested in using those letter-sound relationships to read and write” (Adams, as cited in Allington, 2013, p. 522)
It is important to note that phonics instruction must not stand on its own. It must be taught “within a comprehensive literacy design that must also include reading high-quality books aloud to children, engaging them in shared reading, interactive read-aloud, small group guided reading instruction, small group book clubs, independent choice reading, and a wide range of writing contexts that support the expansive knowledge of words and how words work” (Fountas & Pinnell, 2020, p. 1).
“We must design lessons that provide the opportunities for struggling readers to actually read” (p. 526). Often lessons for struggling readers differ from lesson for good readers, in that there is less reading activity and more work on skills in isolation (p. 526). This limits the volume of reading that these students do. Additionally, they tend to read less overall, since a person who struggles at something tends to do less of it. Struggling readers may tend to choose to read less often, as a result of the difficulty they experience in reading.
It is a good idea to have explicit phonics instruction as part of a lesson, but this should be sandwiched between opportunities for the child to read connected text, at a level that they can read with success. It is best to provide an opportunity for the child to apply the phonics skills that they have been taught, in connected text immediately after. (Lourenzo, C., 2019, lecture in course “Diagnostic & Remedial Techniques in ELA, University of Manitoba).
Kilpatrick (2016) explains that we, as teachers, do not need to choose one approach to reading. Kilpatrick explains that each of the traditional approaches (from phonics, to whole words to whole language) is appropriate at specific stages in the process (p. 48). At the very beginning stages of reading instruction, he asserts that a more phonological approach is appropriate, and as students develop along the reading continuum, whole language or other approaches are suitable. Once students learn sound-symbol relationships, and are able to decode easily and automatically, using the strategy methods from whole language, would be appropriate and useful.
Most of all, what really matters, is having effective “expert” teachers working with struggling readers, according to Allington (2013, p. 523).
The expertise of the teacher is “the critical factor in the quality of reading lessons” according to research (Allington, 2013, p. 523)
The way to increase the reading abilities in students is to teach their teachers “about reading development and how to facilitate it” (Allington, 2013, p. 523). Allington recommends that each school employ a reading specialist with a graduate degree in literacy, to support teachers to this end. Additionally, he recommends that we move away from having educational assistants work with the students who struggle the most. Instead, those students should work with teachers who have the most expertise in teaching reading (p. 523).
In order to become good readers, all students need lots and lots of experience reading books that are matched to their reading level, not their grade. This is especially important for struggling readers (Allington, 2013, p. 525).
Self teaching occurs when students are engaged in reading books at their independent reading level (p. 525). For this reason, it is the “volume of reading activity” that is most important in developing strong readers (p. 526).
Allington provides teachers with the following list,that can be used to guide one’s practice. This list is for teachers to use, to check their lessons against the characteristics of research-based reading lessons (Allington, 2013, p. 528).
- “Do we expect our struggling readers to read and write more every day than our achieving readers?
- Have we ensured that every intervention for our struggling readers is taught only by our most effective and most expert teachers?
- Have we designed our reading lessons such that struggling readers spend at least two thirds of every lesson engaged in the actual reading of texts?
- Do we ensure that the texts we provide struggling readers across the full school day are texts they can read with at least 98% word recognition accuracy and 90% comprehension?
- Does every struggling reader leave the building each day with at least one book that they can read and that they also want to read?” (Allington, 2013, p. 528)
I see this as being so helpful to myself and to the teachers I work with, that I want to paint it on the sky!. I trust that you will find this as helpful as I have!
Onward we go, in developing our abilities as expert teachers! It is the teacher, not the method, that makes the difference for struggling readers! (p. 523). But don’t leave out the phonics!
I would also like to recommend the following two articles, for more information on phonics instruction:
Twelve Compelling Principles from the Research on Effective Phonics Instruction by Fountas & Pinnell, 2020
Literacy Leadership Brief: Meeting the Challenges of Early Literacy Phonics Instruction by The International Literacy Association, 2019
Thank you for being part of this contemplation on teaching reading.
What questions do you have, with regards to phonics instruction? What conclusions have you arrived at?
References
Allington, R. (2013). What Really Matters When Working with Struggling Readers. The Reading Teacher, 66 (7), 520-529.
Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2020) Twelve Compelling Principles from the Research on Effective Phonics Instruction. Heinemann. Retrieved on June 16, 2020 from https://www.fountasandpinnell.com/resourcelibrary/resource?id=484
The International Literacy Association (2019). Literacy Leadership Brief: Meeting the Challenges of Early Literacy Phonics Instruction. Retrieved on June 16, 2020 from https://www.literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/where-we-stand/ila-meeting-challenges-early-literacy-phonics-instruction.pdf
Kilpatrick, D. (2016). Equipped for Reading Success: A comprehensive, step by step program for developing phoneme awareness and fluent word recognition. Casey & Kirsch Publishers.
National Institute for Literacy (2008). Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. National Centre for Family Literacy.
Wall, C. A., Rafferty, L. A., Camizzi, M. A., Max, C. A., & Van Blargan, D. M. (2015). Action Research of a Color-Coded, Onset-Rime Decoding Intervention: Examining the effects with first grade students identified as at risk. Preventing School Failure: An Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 60 (1), 1-9.
by Lori-Anne Busch | Jun 3, 2020 | Evidence-Based Practices Series, Grade 1, Teaching Reading to Struggling Readers
I have been reading Dr. Kilpatrick’s book, Equipped for Reading Success (2016), which was very enthusiastically recommended to me by two colleagues. This book is about teaching reading through developing phonological awareness in students. Phonological awareness is the understanding that spoken language is composed of smaller units such as phrases, words, syllables, and phonemes (sounds).“Children need to be able to distinguish sounds so that they can attach them to letters” when learning to read and spell (Fountas & Pinnell, 2009, p. 174).
Kilpatrick explains that each of the traditional approaches (from phonics, to whole words to whole language) is appropriate at specific stages in the process of learning to read (p. 48). At the very beginning stages of reading instruction, he asserts that a more phonological approach is appropriate, and as students develop along the reading continuum, whole language or other approaches become suitable.
In fact, the National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) Report (2008) states that “children’s early Phonological Awareness –that is, their ability to distinguish among sounds within auditory language–[is] an important predictor of later literacy achievement” (Lonigan & Shanahan, p. viii).
Many of the songs that you remember from your childhood likely targeted various phonological awareness skills. My favorite one was The A – Z Name Game by Sharon Lois and Bram. I learned rhyming through singing, “Lori-Anne, Lori-Anne, banana, fanna, fo – Fori-Anne, Me, mi, mo, Mori-Anne, Lori-Anne!” Rhyming and word play in poems, books and songs, train students to distinguish the sounds in words. Some of these silly songs actually teach children complex phonemic awareness skills.
Developing phonological awareness comes before phonics instruction. Being able to hear the individual sounds in words is the first step in learning to read and spell. Next, students are taught to connect those sounds to letters. When letters become part of the instruction, it is no long phonological awareness that is being taught, but phonics. When kindergarten teachers and day care educators read books that have rhyming phrases in them, or sing songs in which different sounds are substituted in words, they are actually working on important skills that support literacy development.
Being a child in Canada in the 80s, I was raised on songs by Fred Penner and Raffi. You can’t imagine how star struck I was when one day, about five years ago, I actually saw Fred Penner in real life, having lunch in a restaurant in Winnipeg, at the table next to mine. I had seen him at a concert when I was really young, but this was different! He was ten feet away! I could barely keep myself from starting at him! He had to have been pretty amazing for me to still recognize his greatness over 30 years later!
In kindergarten and Grade 1, phonological awareness can be directly taught, as a stepping stone toward reading and spelling. It is important to teach these skills, because children “do not automatically identify sounds just because they can speak and understand language” (Fountas & Pinnell, 2009, p. 178). In fact, “[S]peakers focus their attention on the meaning of utterances, not sounds. Unless they are trying to learn an alphabetic code, there is no reason to notice and ponder the phonemic level of language” (National Reading Panel Report, as cited in Fountas & Pinnell, 2009, p. 175).
Some children transition from nursery rhymes and songs right into the next level, in which they associate sounds with specific letters. Not all children need phonological awareness training, and it may be beneficial only for those who struggle with reading problems (Bus & van IJzendoorn, 1999, p. 404). Some students, however, need to be specifically taught to hear the distinct sounds within words, and to “map” those sounds to letters, which is called “orthographic mapping” (Kilpatrick, 2016, p. 45). “Orthography” has to do with writing letters and words.
Students need to be able to connect “what is heard in the mind (phoneme awareness) with what is seen on the page (letter-sound skills)” (Kilpatrick, 2016, p. 45). Phonemic awareness and connecting letters with their most common sounds (phonics) are “prerequisites” to learning to read. In fact, early literacy teachers will not be able to move their students along in literacy, until the students are “proficient” with these two skills (Kilpatrick, 2016, p. 49). Letters and their sounds need to be connected easily and automatically for the child, before they can benefit from “formal reading instruction”, according to Dr. Kilpatrick (p. 49).
Formal reading instruction in Grade 1 usually includes “word study”, or phonics instruction. However, Dr. Kilpatrick recommends that prior to teaching students the beginning, middle, and ending sounds in words, which is part of the phonics instruction that usually happens at the start of Grade 1, it is a better idea to teach them word families. (Word families, I am sure you will recall, are sets of words that follow the same spelling pattern, like rat, cat, fat, mat, pat, sat). This would allow the children to apply their developing skills at letter-sound association with the first sound, in each of the word family words, and then use the rhyme to help them along, so that they can read full words.
Since most students are not able to map full words yet, in the first month of Grade 1, using word families is like providing “training wheels” for the students at this earlier stage in reading (Kilpatrick, 2016, p. 50). Many students at this stage can map the first sound in a word only, and so this approach could be used first, prior to phonics. The word family approach is called the “Linguistic Approach”, and Dr. Kilpatrick recommends that Grade 1 teachers use “a ‘linguistics first, phonics second approach, while systematically training phonological awareness” (p. 50).
Dr. Kilpatrick (2016) asserts that if Grade 1 teachers were to follow his advice on this, they would “reduce the number of struggling readers to a fraction of what any traditional method (including phonics alone) would produce” (p. 50). Currently there is a portion of students in every school who read far below grade level. If we apply the research that tells us about how reading progresses, we can dramatically lessen the number of students who struggle (p. 45).
It is at this point that I have some questions, and am curious to learn more about the best way Grade 1 teachers might spend their first months with their students. The idea that there is an absolute best way to spend this time, and that doing so will eliminate the likelihood that any students will struggle to read is very appealing! I have always been very interested in teaching reading, and I am constantly learning and growing as a teacher of reading. The reason why the first few months of Grade 1 is especially interesting to me now, however, is that I will be transitioning to a new position in my school division next September. My first task in this new role is to provide support to Grade 1 teachers, as our division moves away from Reading Recovery and toward a new approach.
I am questioning the use of word families, despite Dr. Kilpatrick’s very convincing argument, because I have recently been taking part in Orton-Gillingham training. My instructor explained the other day that she is opposed to using word families, because she believes it can lead students down the road to guessing, or to not attending to each letter and sound in words (V. Bjornson, presentation, May 30, 2020). Once students begin to guess, they are moving away from word mapping, and are not learning the core skills they will need to become strong readers. It is better, instead, to have the students attend to each letter in a word, one at a time. To me, this makes more sense, as I have spent lots of time working with students who think that reading is about guessing.
Dr. Kilpatrick seems to concur with some aspects of Bjornson’s argument when he says the following: “For beginning reading instruction we need to make use of reading materials that are appropriate to the level at which the student can phonologically and orthographically deal with words” (2016, p. 49). If students are asked to read texts that are above the level that they can decode, or if they are taught to memorize full words before they learn the letter-sound connections, they can sometimes develop unhealthy coping behaviors that can lead them down the wrong path (p. 49). Would word family words not be considered inappropriate for students who are not yet able to deal with three letter words, in the first month of Grade 1, I wonder?
However, I can also see benefits to word families, as they would help to build confidence in struggling readers. If time is spent on word families for a brief period while students solidify their letter-sound skills, and phonemic awareness, it can give them the satisfying feeling of reading words, even if they are actually reading just the first letter, and recalling the rhyme, when solving the rest of the word.
I am curious what your perspective is on this question. Have you used word families in the past? Have you noticed a tendency toward guessing words after having used it, or is it a helpful transition that segues into reading CVC words? What are your thoughts on phonological awareness training and phonics instruction?
References:
Bus, A. G., van Ijzendoorn, M. H. (1999). Phonological Awareness and Early Reading: A meta-analysis of experimental training studies. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91 (3), 403-414.
Lonigan, C. J., & Shanigan, T. (2008). Executive Summary of the Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. National Centre for Family Literacy.
Kilpatrick, D. (2016). Equipped for Reading Success: A comprehensive, step by step program for developing phoneme awareness and fluent word recognition. Casey & Kirsch Publishers.
National Institute for Literacy (2008). Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. National Centre for Family Literacy.
Pinnell, G. S. & Fountas, I. C. (2009). When Readers Struggle: Teaching that works. Heinemann.
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