|
Book Excerpt
Chapter 1
About Reading
This book is based upon two premises: that all students need to develop
the skill of reading, the cognitive process of understanding a written
linguistic message (or more simply stated, making sense of symbols and words by making connections to them); and that educators need to dialogue early and often about how to best teach all students to read, regardless of their race, culture, economic status or disability. This is accomplished by using high quality, effective instruction and interventions that have been proven by research to work (Lyon, 2004). Research conducted through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at universities throughout the country and reviewed by the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) has dispelled some long-held beliefs about reading and disabilities and has produced evidence to substantiate the following:
Early language characteristics predict
later reading and writing skills.
Various studies report that 80 percent of preschool age children with language disorders later display some degree of reading difficulty. On the other hand, children who overcome early language difficulties before the age of five are not at risk (Adams, 1990; Catts, 1997).
Boys and girls are equally likely to have reading problems.
Reading problems do not discriminate.
The reason that a higher number of boys than girls are identified as having reading problems is that boys have a tendency to be more disruptive than girls in a classroom setting (Shaywitz et al., 1990).
About 20 percent of all children entering Kindergarten have significant difficulty learning to read. Whether or not they continue
to have difficulties depends on the instruction available in grades K-3.
Some children play with word structure for several years before going to school while others have no experience when they first enter the classroom. It is also known that the degree of emphasis placed on phonemic awareness in preschool contributes to additional variation, as does the explicitness and the developmental appropriateness of the instruction that was provided. Therefore, when children enter Kindergarten the variations in skill level are startling. As you can see from the illustration below, approximately five percent of students have absolutely no difficulties learning to read as opposed to sixty percent who find learning to read a challenge. Roughly half of that sixty percent find learning to read extremely difficult (Lyon et al., 2001 as cited in Finn, Rotherham & Hokanson).
According to Fletcher, et al., (1994 as cited in Grossen, 1997), the past practice of waiting until second or third grade to provide intervention to students exhibiting difficulties learning to read results in upwards of seventy–four percent of these students continuing to have reading problems in ninth grade.
The above-cited studies convey the bad news, which is that many of our students are not learning to read. The good news is we now know more about teaching reading than ever before and we can do something about it. The research conducted and documented over the past 30 years provides us with knowledge of the essential skills children must have to become successful readers.
So what does this mean for us as educators? Let’s consider the following:
Traditional approaches to reading instruction in the early grades have substantially underestimated the variability among children in their talent and preparation for learning to read. In other words, one reading program does not meet the diverse needs of all the children in a classroom.
Many youngsters have difficulty reading, not because they have a learning/reading disability, but because they enter Kindergarten lacking the necessary underpinnings and do not receive the appropriate classroom instruction needed to build the foundational language and early reading skills. Sometimes this lag has to do with environment, brain activity and structure, or genetics, but most often it is because these children need explicit instruction in the basic skill areas.
It has also been determined that a true reading disability is a persistent problem, not a developmental lag. So, if children have phonological processing and word recognition problems from the beginning they will continue to fall further behind without immediate intervention. Even more disturbing is the fact that many students who are provided with special education services for a reading learning disability do not necessarily benefit in ways that lead to improvements in reading.
These considerations are just the tip of the iceberg. Our biggest challenge as educators is to familiarize ourselves with all of the reading research so that we can choose the optimal interventions and implement them with fidelity. This speaks to the need for easy access to effective techniques, valid assessment tools and efficient methods for gathering and reporting data.
As professionals who work with both teachers and students, we realize the ever-increasing pressure and time constraints of sorting through the literature and research studies. We decided to do the legwork and identify effective, teacher-friendly, student-beneficial interventions that augment teaching reading as well as techniques for data collection that can be implemented in the classroom. We offer five validated interventions/strategies/techniques for each of the following areas: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. To further illuminate each of the areas, we begin Chapters 5-9 with a definition and brief description of each area and why it is important to reading acquisition. In Chapter 10 we open a conversation about motivation and persistence. Open your mind, arm yourself with knowledge and swing into action as you pursue the goal of teaching all students to read.
Chapter 2
The Cardinal Questions
Accountability is the key word in this chapter. We are reminded of a
Charlie Brown cartoon where Charlie tells his friends, "I taught my dog
to whistle." Snoopy sits there as the friends gather around spellbound and nothing happens. Annoyed, his friends state, "We thought you said your dog could whistle." Charlie quickly retorts, "I said I taught my dog to whistle, I didn’t say he learned!" While this may be Charlie Brown’s answer, it is not an acceptable response for educators faced with the challenge of NCLB’s requirement of closing the achievement gap, which calls for schools to have all students reach proficient levels in reading, math and science by the year 2014.
Let’s first think about how this vignette ties into teacher accountability. Whether related to one’s work, gaining knowledge or simply for pleasure, reading is a skill that is learned and improves with practice. There is much talk about using high-quality, scientifically-based instruction to close the gap that exists between high and low achieving students. This talk refers to what and how teachers are instructing the students in their classrooms.
Typically, educators implement the reading protocol that is provided to them by their administrator, and use ideas from their personal "bag of tricks." Sometimes this practice or program for teaching reading works and sometimes it doesn’t. Most times we don’t know that the approach is not working until it is too late! Once that happens, inevitably a referral is made to obtain out-of- classroom support.
Hence, it is time for a paradigm shift. Instead of waiting to find out if a student is learning we must assess progress early and often. Once we discover a student is not learning we must explore and implement alternative methods of instruction in the classroom instead of referring out under the assumption that the problem lies with the student.
The research that is readily available has provided much clarity in regard to what works, so there is no reason to apply practices arbitrarily or make referrals unnecessarily. The real tricks are:
- determining if all students are receiving the most effective core
reading instruction,
- deciding which students may need additional instructional
intervention,
- choosing and successfully implementing the most appropriate
techniques.
Keeping all this in mind, the ultimate educational accountability question becomes, "Can all of our students read and comprehend for whatever purpose they deem necessary?" If the answer to this question is not a resounding "yes," then the next logical question is, "Why not?" One really cannot even begin to answer this question without first addressing one’s own personal pedagogical content knowledge of reading. Our experience tells us that knowing one’s pedagogical strengths is as important a component of successful instruction as the research we consult.
To focus on this topic we have constructed what we call Cardinal Questions to use as a thinking framework. We think of these questions as having two functions: one, for teacher self-assessment, to discover and reflect on personal strengths; two, to utilize the same questions to assess the strengths of students.
Before proceeding to the Cardinal Questions, let’s quickly address the mis-conception that teachers know everything. We are fully aware that deep understanding and wide application of a new practice does not come naturally. Society and the profession itself must acknowledge that teaching requires life-long learning which is only achieved by making a commitment to stay abreast of new information through reading, questioning, staff development, collaboration, and coaching. One cannot teach what one does not know and has not practiced. And you cannot know what you don’t know until you engage in self-reflection.
"Teacher, know thyself." We encourage you to evaluate yourself and your pedagogical content knowledge; we suggest you begin this investigation by applying these Cardinal Questions:
1. What do you know about your content area — in this case,
about culturally responsive, research-based reading instruction? In
other words, what do you know about teaching reading and its
five component skills : phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency,
vocabulary and comprehension plus motivation?
2. What do you do about meeting the learning needs of all of your
students? In this case, while teaching reading, what do you do
about meeting the learning needs of your students?
3. How do you learn? To meet your optimal learning needs:
- What environmental preferences do you have (i.e., noise,
lighting, chairs, workspace, temperature)?
- What is your preferred sensory input modality (i.e., visual,
auditory, motor)?
- How are you smart (i.e., logic smart, music smart, body smart,
picture smart, word smart, people smart, self smart, nature smart)?
4. How do you approach or react to an unfamiliar task? When
you learn something new, how are you affected by:
- your cognitive style (i.e., impulsive/reflective, global/particular,
leveler/sharpener, synthetic/analytic, inductive/deductive,
concrete/abstract, random/sequential)?
- your personality type (i.e., introvert/extrovert, sensory/intuitive,
thinking/feeling, judging/perceiving)?
- your motivation to learn (i.e., intrinsic, extrinsic)?
5. What will you do with the information you gain from
answering the first four questions?
Once you have judiciously answered these questions, share the information with your colleagues in faculty meetings or study groups. Synthesize the knowledge of the entire staff so as a professional learning community you can support and learn from each other, and even more importantly, ensure a strong core reading program in every classroom.
"Teachers, know thy students." Ultimately you will want to apply the Cardinal Question thinking framework while getting to know your students. The Cardinal Questions that lead to a better understanding of a student’s ability are:
1. What does the student know?
2. What does the student do?
(Questions #1 and # 2 are revisited with more specificity in the chapters on the five precepts of reading as well as the motivation chapter.)
3. How does the student learn? To meet the student’s optimal
learning needs:
- What are the student’s environmental preferences (i.e., noise,
lighting, chairs, workspace, temperature)?
- What is the student’s preferred sensory input modality (i.e.,
visual, auditory, motor)?
- How is the student smart (i.e., logic smart, music smart, body
smart, picture smart, word smart, people smart, self smart,
nature smart)?
4. How does the student approach or react to an unfamiliar
task? When the student is learning something new, how are his/
her behaviors affected by:
- cognitive style (i.e., impulsive/reflective, global/particular,
leveler/sharpener, synthetic/analytic, inductive/deductive,
concrete/abstract, random/sequential)?
- personality type (i.e., introvert/extrovert, sensory/intuitive,
thinking/feeling, judging/perceiving)?
- motivation to learn (i.e., intrinsic, extrinsic)
5. What will you do with the knowledge gained from
answering the previous four questions?
Educators can use the Cardinal Questions as a starting point to assess the student’s approach to reading as well as other subjects. The Cardinal Questions are also valuable as a way to learn about your students’ background knowledge, families, cultures, strengths and interests.
This chapter would not be complete if we did not address student accountability. We fully realize the magnitude of engaging students in the process of learning and the importance of holding students accountable for their participation and efforts. As educators we cannot start early enough to teach and encourage students to be metacognitive, in other words, to think about their own thinking. Students who are less sophisticated in applying these metacognitive executive functions must be explicitly taught how to think about and regulate their own "brain" behaviors when it comes to learning new and unfamiliar subject matter (Blakey and Spence, 1990). As we monitor and assess student learning it is necessary to dialogue often with students. This is one of the purposes for which the Cardinal Questions were developed and they will prove invaluable in the process of assisting students with understanding and becoming responsible for their own learning.
Finally, as we wrap up the subject of teacher and student accountability, it makes sense for us to zoom in on the world of Response To Intervention (RTI) and Curriculum Based Measurement (CBM). The next chapters will discuss ways to advance accountability through adoption of a problem-solving process and incorporation of specific measurement techniques that will help all students learn to read.
As we reflect back to our friend Charlie Brown, it comes as no surprise that Snoopy will probably never whistle (never say never) and thank goodness, it’s not necessary for him to do so. On the other hand, students can and must learn to read in order to maximize the choices available to them in a literate society. Fortunately, we now know a great deal about what it takes to attain this goal of achieving literacy. The only challenge now is implementing this knowledge. No more excuses accepted. It’s time to learn again.
|
