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or feedack I receive is a candidate for this discussion forum. If
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edit anything that I post on this page. You can send me
comments via the Feedback Page, or by e-mail (swren@balancedreading.com). I think that about covers it.
June 30, 2006
Can you give some examples how can I teach kids to show them how to use chunking in word identification?
"Chunking" is a more efficient strategy for word identification that
kids should be adopting in 2nd grade and beyond. There are
certain letters in the English writing system that tend to go together.
It is more efficient for students to process those chunks of
letters as a group than to process them individually. Common
chunks like "ING" or "THA" or "EAT" should be very quickly and
efficiently processed.
Some of Pat Cunningham's "making words" activities are great for teaching kids to chunk letters in word identification.
Start by giving each student letter cards or letter tiles with the following letters:
A E T L K S N
Tell the students to arrange the letters to make the word "TAKE."
Then ask them what letters they need to change to make the word "LAKE."
Then tell them to make the word "SAKE."
Then tell them to make the word "SNAKE."
Then change it to "STAKE."
Point out to them that the letters "AKE" are common letters in English.
They are used in a lot of different words. You can demonstrate
some more using other letters (SHAKE, FAKE, MAKE, BAKE, etc.)
You can do the same thing with initial letters or medial letters.
Go from STRING to STRONG to STRAW to STREET -- tell them that the letters "STR" are common in English.
Go from RING to BRING to STRING to THING to KING -- tell them that "ING" is a common chunk of letters.
To expand, have them look for common chunks of letters in their book --
letters that often go together. They might come up with examples
like:
"THE" (THE, THEM, THEY, THEME, THEIR, ANOTHER, etc.)
"OOK" (BOOK, LOOK, TOOK, SHOOK, BROOK, COOK, HOOK, etc.)
"PLA" (PLAY, PLATE, PLAN, PLASTER, PLACE, etc.)
"AME" (SAME, LAME, CAMEL, NAME, BLAME, etc.)
Have students create words for pocket charts that contain letter
chunks. Next to "OOK" they would have LOOK, BOOK, TOOK, SHOOK,
etc. When a student comes up with a new one, they can add it to
the pocket chart.
June 15, 2006
I have
some middle and high school teachers whom I expect will have
some questions (in other words, "resistance") regarding the
whole idea about older students needing to establish
precurser skills in phonics (accuracy, automaticity). Any
advice?
I have advice, but I don't think you'll like it.
When I work with secondary teachers, I tell them that every teacher
needs to be at least aware of the cognitive processes involved in
learning to read. Reading is so important, every teacher should
at least understand it. They should be armed with information and
skills because they never know what kind of impact they can have or
what kind of "teachable moment" will present itself.
However, I also tell secondary teachers -- content-area teachers --
that what I want them doing is focusing on fluency, vocabulary, and
comprehension within the content areas. Every day. I tell
them that I don't expect all secondary, "content-area" teachers to
teach basic reading skills, but I do expect them to use effective
strategies for teaching advanced reading (and writing) skills.
If a student is in 6th, 8th, 10th grade and still needs basic phonics
and word-identification work, it should not fall on the history or
science teacher to teach those skills. I think that's asking a
little too much. (If the history teacher is armed with knowledge,
and sees an opportunity to teach those skills to students in need,
that's wonderful -- but it is not an expectation I have.) If a
secondary student is struggling with reading at that level -- the basic
word-identification, phonics level -- that student should spend one or
two elective periods per day working on those skills with reading
teachers with advanced training and expertise in that kind of
instruction.
In the content areas, teachers should be spending their time teaching
fluency (through repeated oral reading of content material EVERY DAY
until all students are reading at or beyond a grade-appropriate
criterion), vocabulary (using effective research-based strategies), and
above all comprehension (at high levels of sophistication). And,
of course, I think they are also supposed to be enhancing relevant
background knowledge in whatever domain they are teaching.
And if there is one huge favor secondary teachers can do for their
students, it is to teach them to write. Every day.
Voluminously. I can't stand getting college-age students who
still don't know how to communicate thoughts effectively through
writing. Writing builds reading fluency. Writing builds
comprehension and vocabulary. Writing and revision and editing
builds appreciation for syntax and discourse and rhetoric. I am
just barely cynical enough to believe that teachers do not expect
writing from their students every day because they don't want to grade
that many papers every day.
Anyway, like I said, you probably won't like my advice, but there it
is. I know we want to believe that every teacher is a reading
teacher, and I do believe that. But secondary content-area
teachers should not be expected to teach basic reading skills.
They should further the literacy development of their students in
grade-appropriate ways.
April 15, 2006
Our
school system has invested $60,000 in the Scholastic READ 180
program, and many people feel that the results are disappointing,
at best. Have you had any feedback on this program? The
program services very few students, and many parents
have requested the removal of their children from READ 180.
Another issue we face is that the lowest students apparently
tested too low to be admitted into the program. Is READ 180
one of the recommended programs listed by the Federal Government?
Thanks,
I have worked with schools that use READ 180 -- I have mixed feelings
about it. It has been shown to be "effective" (i.e. it is listed
in the U.S. Dept. of Ed. "What Works Clearinghouse"), and it does focus
on some fairly important components of reading. But it is also
very, very expensive, and I don't think it is very flexible.
Hence, it works well for some kids, but not so much for others.
If you really want to try a computer-based program, check out Reading Assistant.
And let me know how it goes. Reading Assistant is a relatively
new product, and we don't know much about it. I am impressed by
the idea of it, though. Personally, I would use Reading Assistant
to let kids repeatedly read passages of text every day until they reach
a personalized goal of fluency for that passage. And I would have
the former Read 180 teachers working with the kids who still need
instruction in basic decoding skills (the kids who are "too low" to
benefit from Reading Assistant).
Of course, I am probably the wrong guy to ask about reading programs.
I'm really not a big fan of any of them. They cost too much, and
they do too little. I would much rather invest that money into
building the quality of the teachers. Good teachers just give you
more "bang for your buck." I'm not saying that schools should do
away with programs altogether -- programs are often the source of good,
engaging classroom materials. But schools across the country are
spending billions of dollars jumping from one program to another,
looking for that magic bullet -- and that is money that should be
invested in teacher quality.
If there were no strings attached to the money (and I know there
usually are), I would use that $60,000 to buy an effective literacy
coach. I would invest in stipends for teachers to work longer
hours and get more professional development. I would aggressively
recruit young, talented teachers. I would invest in leadership
training for the principals... There are just so many better ways to
use that money.
So, like I said, I'm probably the wrong guy to ask. But if you do
try Reading Assistant, let me know how it goes. I have to admit,
I am curious about that one.
Good luck.
April 13, 2006
I
am a graduate student in the reading program at
Marshall University. I would like to know why you beleive
your sight is helpful to teachers and/or parents. I am
currently researching literacy education sights as part of a
class.
I think BalancedReading.com is helpful because there are not very many
freely-available resources out there that effectively distill
complicated information about literacy research into common-sense,
understandable language. Researchers tend to write for
researchers, and most teachers are not very comfortable sifting through
technical research journals to get research-based information about
reading instruction.
The result of this, I believe, is that a lot of charlatans have been
allowed to run amok in the world of reading education, portraying
themselves as reading and literacy "experts." They promote ideas
and practices that are completely contrary to research evidence, and
sadly, they are simply better than most reputable researchers at
selling their ideas to educators.
There are a lot of very harmful myths and snake-oil in the world of
reading education, and the research community has not been very
effective at countering those bogus beliefs and practices and guiding
educators toward research-based, effective practices. I think
that BalancedReading.com goes a long way towards dispelling those
myths, cutting through the vitriol and rhetoric of the "great debate,"
and helping educators to access high-quality research evidence they can
use to guide their instruction.
Also, BalancedReading.com is one of the few literacy education resource
sites that has no advertising sponsorship, and does not exist for the
purpose of selling any particular product. Information and
resources on BalancedReading.com, in other words, are unbiased and
trustworthy. They represent the culmination of a large body of
convergent research evidence. Fads and quick fixes have no place
on BalancedReading.com.
I created BalancedReading.com about 5 years ago, and it has been a
creative outlet for me to share my passion about using research to
improve literacy education with the rest of the world. When I
created BalancedReading.com, I hoped that other reading researchers
would join in and add to the collection of information, materials, and
resources, but so far there has been very little of that.
Overall, however, I think that BalancedReading.com has been a
remarkable success. Currently, the site is getting about 100,000
"hits" per month, which tells me that there is a substantial demand for
this kind of understandable, unvarnished research information.
Thanks for your question, and good luck on your project.
April 10, 2006
Sigh. I get this silly thing every couple of weeks. I can't believe people actually buy this nonsense.
I
cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a
wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be
in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed
it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed
ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and
I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.
I wrote a response to this some time ago. Check it out here.
April 3, 2006
What are the problems that facing ESL learners during reading?
To some extent that depends on whether the ESL learner can already read
in his or her native language. There are two components to the
act of reading -- decoding and language comprehension (see "S is for Simple View").
If a student already understands the mechanics of reading (decoding) in
one language, then the challenge of translating those skills to a new
language is a challenge of building comprehension skills (vocabulary,
syntax, semantics, etc.). But if a student does NOT already
understand the mechanics of text and reading (decoding) in ANY
language, then the challenge is both a challenge of decoding AND
comprehension. Trying to tackle both at once may be overwhelming
and frustrating.
ESL students, by definition, have limited English language
comprehension skills. This means they have poorer English
vocabularies, limited appreciation of English syntax and semantics, and
possibly limited background knowledge about relevant subject
matter. Dealing with that is enough of a challenge.
Teachers do not need to add to the challenge by trying to teach the
student decoding skills in a language the student does not really
understand.
Ideally, students should be taught decoding skills in the language with
which they are most comfortable. If, for example, a student
primarily speaks Spanish, the student should be taught to read and
decode Spanish text. That way, when each word is decoded, it
connects with vocabulary the student understands, thus reinforcing the
connection between written and oral language. If it is not
possible to teach the student in his or her native language (i.e. if
there is no teacher available who can teach the child in his or her
native tongue), then it is better to focus instruction on developing
English comprehension skills first, and THEN focus on teaching decoding
skills in English.
March 29, 2006
Excellent. Thank you very much. That is indeed a very impressive site -- very useful for educators.
Michael McKenna wrote the
remarkable database of on-line resources several years ago. Many
of the links are out-dated, and there are surely new sites that have
come along since he wrote this. It is tempting to remove it from
BalancedReading.com, but people do still use it.
March 24, 2006
I'm
trying to get a CWPM percentile table for adolescent and adult readers.
The best I have only goes through fifth grade. Do you know where I
could locate such a resource?
From 2nd through 8th grade, there is a fairly reliable formula I use --
multiply the student's age by 12 to get a target CWPM (Correct Words
Per Minute) -- so a 10 year old, should be reading about 120 words per
minute (give or take 10%). However, past 8th grade, the reading
rate necessary for comprehension levels off -- a 14 year old should be
reading about 168 words per minute, and that's fast enough for
reasonable comprehension into adulthood. A good reader with
practice CAN read faster than that, but it is not necessary for
comprehension.
Keep in mind, too, there is an upper limit. Reading faster than
350 words per minute (maybe 400 tops with easy text) also undermines
comprehension. The ideal range for adolescent and adult readers
is 200 to 350 words per minute.
You might also check out the book Partnering for Fluency -- it has the tables you are looking for.
March 21, 2006
I appreciate the suggestions. I'll check them out when I get a chance. Thank you.
I enjoyed reading your extremely informative essay (about Fluency).
I agree with most of what I read, but the essence of how words
become sight words was not discussed. In my opinion, this is
the heart of the "reading debate."
If
a student has not learned the body of orthographic knowledge to easily
decode, then that child needs explicit instruction in this knowledge
and how to use it in decoding. Along the same lines,
children need to be able to segment and blends sounds in order to
read and spell.
I
am interested in research about fluency of segmenting and blending
and how it affects the ability to read fluently. If children
are unable to read fluently but can segment and blend rapidly and
have at least a 2nd grade level of phonics knowledge, then
repeated readings would probably assist children in gaining reading
fluency. However, without these essential elements in
place, I believe that repeated readings encourage sight word
reading of the logographic type.
You are quite right, I didn't talk about
"sight words" very clearly, and I do think that is very, very
important. I wrote an essay a long time ago called "Reading by
Sight" (See S is for Sight Word Reading)
that, I hope, addresses your concerns. As for segmenting fluency,
you might want to read some of the more recent work by Ed Kame'enui --
he is taking a long-term, developmental view of fluency, saying that it
starts with picture-naming speed, letter-naming speed, and phonological
processing speed. A recent review of fluency intervention studies
by Therrien (2004) suggests that all students get some benefit from
repeated-reading instruciton, but that the students who get the
greatest benefit are those who can sound-out words (i.e. they have
reasonable cipher knowledge), but who do so slowly and laboriously.
Therrien, W.J. (2004). Fluency and Comprehension Gains as a
Result of Repeated Reading: A meta-analysis. Remedial and Special
Education, 25 (4) 252-261.
You are quite right -- Tim
has distinguished himself as an expert in this field with much useful
advice to share. Thanks for the tip. I just created a fluency section for the professional books section, so I'll definitely check these out.
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