Evidence-Based Reading Instruction: Effective Fluency and Vocabulary Instruction

1. Evidence-Based Reading Instruction: Effective Fluency and Vocabulary Instruction Keynote Speaker University of Mississippi - 2nd Annual Reading Conference School of Education D. Ray Reutzel, Ph.D. Board of Directors International Reading Association

2. Last Week

3. Learning to Read   Jake is 5 and learning to read.   He points at a picture in a zoo book and says, “Look Mama! It’s a frickin’ Elephant!”   Deep breath…. “What did you call it?”   “It’s a frickin’ Elephant, Mama! It says so on the picture!”

4. And so it does…..   A F R I C A N ELEPHANT Thank you so very much for your attendance and attention here today. Thank you so very much for your attendance and attention here today.

5. Evidence Based Reading Instruction Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (National Research Council) Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction (National Reading Panel) The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development). National Assessment of Educational Progress 2007 Reading Results for 4th Grade

6. Evidence Based Reading Instruction

7. Evidence Based Reading Instruction Until the turn of the millennia, NAEP trend data in 4th grade reading scores suggested unacceptably high rates of below basic reading proficiency among vast segments of the population of children. The achievement gap was widening, particularly in rural and urban centers and in specific ethnic populations.

8. Evidence Based Reading Instruction The Nation’s Report Card on Reading – NAEP 1971-2007

9. Evidence Based Reading Instruction

10. Evidence Based Reading Instruction

11. Evidence Based Reading Instruction The most expensive burden we place on society is those students we have failed to teach to read well. The silent army of low readers who move through our schools, siphoning off the lion’s share of administrative resources, emerge into society as adults lacking the single prerequisite for managing their lives and acquiring additional training. They are chronically unemployed, underemployed, or unemployable. They form the single largest identifiable group of those whom we incarcerate, and to whom we provide assistance, housing, medical care, and other social services. They perpetuate and enlarge the problem by creating another generation of poor readers.” Fielding, L., Kerr, N., & Rosier, P. (1998). The 90% reading goal, p. 6-7. Kennewick, WA: National Reading Foundation.

12. Evidence Based Reading Instruction During the 1990s and early 2000s the “Reading Wars” were raging. Why have we turned to evidence-based practices in reading instruction? Resolving disputes in practice should be grounded in evidence rather than the product of political processes. We need quality control mechanisms and consumer protection in educational research and practice.

13. “Our hospital’s statistics show what studies everywhere else have shown – that we doctors and nurses wash our hands one-third to one-half as often as we are supposed to.” (pg. 15) Evidence Based Reading Instruction

14. Evidence Based Reading Instruction What does the evidence say about Reading Fluency Instruction?

15. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency “Because the ability to obtain meaning from print depends so strongly on the development of word recognition and reading fluency, both of the latter should be regularly assessed in the classroom, permitting timely and effective instructional response.. (p. 323). Snow, Burns, and Griffin, 1998

16. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency

17. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency

18. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency

19. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency What are the conditions for practice to be effective? Imagine the following conditions for learning to drive in a high school driver’s education class. The teacher models how to drive in his/her own car. The teacher does not communicate or interact with students about how to drive. Students can choose any car they want for learning to drive. Students can choose any road and traffic conditions for driving practice. Students will practice daily without supervision or monitoring. In fact, the teacher does not hold the student accountable for actually practicing their driving each day.

20. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency How do the conditions for learning to drive in high school and learning to read in middle and high school differ? Motivation is very high to practice driving but not so high for practicing reading for many students. Stakes for failing to learn to drive are much lower than failing to learn to read. Others….

22. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency Defined Accuracy and Automaticity Readers decode words accurately. Readers decode words effortlessly. Reading Speed or Rate Readers read with an age or grade level appropriate rate. Reading speed is adjusted for purpose and text difficulty. Expression and Prosody Readers read with smoothness, phrasing, and inflection. Comprehension Readers comprehend important ideas.

23. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency Skilled readers can read words in context three times faster and read words in lists two times faster than can struggling readers. With this distribution of fluency in a classroom whole class instruction and singular approaches will not be likely to meet the needs of all children. Struggling readers are slower because of problems in list reading as context doesn’t make any unique contribution to fluency rates and accuracy. Jenkins, J.R., Fuchs, L. S., Van den Broek, P., Espin, C., & Deno. S. L. (2003). Accuracy and fluency in list and context reading of skilled and RD groups: Absolute and relative performance levels. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 18 (4), 237-245.

24. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency

25. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency 107 words make up over 50% of the words you read! 930 words make up 65% of the words you read! 5,000 words make up 80% of the words you read? 13% of words occur only once in one million words Zeno, S. M., Ivens, S. H., Millard, R.T., & Duvvuri, R. (1995). The educator’s word guide. New York: Touchstone Applied Science Associates, Inc. Hiebert, E. H. (2004). Texts for Fluency and Vocabulary: Selecting Instructional Texts that Support Reading Fluency

26. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency Sight Word Teaching Strategy See the word -the Say the word - the Spell the word - the Visualize the word (Take a picture in your mind) - the Cover the word Verbally spell the word Check Spell the word Cover the word Write the word

27. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency Effective fluency lessons include practice and explicit instruction on the elements of fluency. Fluency practice is effectively accomplished using a variety of effective practices such as readers’ theater, oral repeated readings, buddy or paired reading, assisted reading, closed caption TV, choral reading, etc. Worthy, J., & Broaddus, K. (2002). The Reading Teacher, 55(4), 334-343. Worthy, J., & Prater, K. (2002). The Reading Teacher, 56(3), 294-297.

28. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Explicit Instruction of Fluency

29. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Explicit Instruction of Fluency Explanations – explicit teaching of the terms and components of fluency. Modeling – teacher demonstrations of fluency and disfluency characteristics. Scaffolding ME, YOU and ME, YOU Easier texts to more difficult Charts, visuals, diagrams to convict you of teaching fluency terms, concepts, and fluency fix-up strategies

30. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency Effective fluency lessons include practice and explicit instruction on the elements of fluency.

31. Explicit Fluency Lessons: An Example Lesson Plan Explanation: What: Today boys and girls, we are going to be learning about how to read expressively. Important parts of reading expressively are pausing, stopping, and raising or lowering our pitch as we read. Pitch is how high or low the sounds are that we make with our voices (demonstrate high and low pitch). Marks on the page called punctuation marks (point to) help us to know when we need to pause, stop, raise or lower our pitch. Why: We need to read expressively so that we can show that we understand what we are reading. Punctuation tells us what we need to know about how to express the words, phrases, and sentences with the right pauses, stops, and pitch. When/Where: Whenever we read, we should pay attention to the punctuation so that we know where to pause, stop, and raise or lower our pitch.

32. Explicit Fluency Lessons: An Example Modeling: Example To begin, I am going to read this page with good expression paying attention to what the punctuation tells me to do, such as pause, stop and or raise or lower my pitch. Please look at the page on the overhead. Notice that I have colored each punctuation mark with a different color to help you see them more clearly. Follow what I read with your eyes. Listen very carefully to see if I stop, pause, or change my pitch where I should. Non-example Now I am going to read this page with poor expression paying no or little attention to what the punctuation tells me to do. I won’t pause, stop or raise or lower my pitch. Please look at the page on the overhead. Notice that I have colored each punctuation mark with a different color to help you see them more clearly. Follow what I read with your eyes. Listen very carefully to see where I should have changed my reading to stop, pause, or raise or lower my pitch.

33. Explicit Fluency Lessons: An Example Scaffolding Whole Group (Me & You) Now that I have shown you how and how not to read this page, let’s practice it together! We will begin reading this page all together. (Point) Watch my pen so that we can all stay together. Now we will read this again using echo reading. How many of you have ever heard an echo? Show me if you know what an echo is by putting your hands on your head like this. So if I say, HELLO..the echo will say HELLO. I will read and you will echo me… Let’s begin… Small Group/ Partners/Teams (Me & You) Now turn to your neighbor. Partner 1 will read and the other will echo. After Partner 1 reads, Partner 2 reads.

34. Explicit Fluency Lessons: An Example Individual (You) Next, take your fluency phone and read this page again to yourself listening carefully to see where of IF you are stopping, pausing, and raising or lowering your pitch.

35. Fluency: Guided Practice Select an appropriately challenging, engaging, and short reading selection. Start with: Choral reading – echoic, unison, antiphonal, and mumble reading

36. Fluency: Supported Practice OR Select an appropriately challenging, brief, and engaging piece of reading. Paired Reading – Buddy, Peer, Tutor Assisted Reading - NIM, Read along tapes, CDs, etc.

37. Fluency: Recorded Practice Select an appropriately challenging, brief, and engaging piece of reading. Individual Recorded Reading Cassette tapes/Audio Computer Files

38. Fluency: Performance Select an appropriately challenging, brief, and engaging piece of reading. Reader’s Theater Radio Reading Recitation

39. Evidence Based Reading Instruction What does the evidence say about Reading Vocabulary Instruction?

40. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Vocabulary “Learning new concepts and the words that encode them is essential for comprehension development” (p. 217). Snow, Burns, and Griffin, 1998

41. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Vocabulary

42. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Vocabulary

43. Vocabulary Essential Number 1 Incidental Vocabulary Learning Examples: Read Aloud Interactions Wide Reading

44. Illustration of Vocabulary Essential #1 : Read Aloud

45. Vocabulary Essential Number 2 Explicit Vocabulary Instruction Typical Teacher Questions Word Selection – Which words? (Tier 2) Strategy Selection – Which strategies? (Definition, Contextal & Conceptual) How many per day? (2 -3) How many per week? (10-11) What does explicit vocabulary instruction look like? Explain the word meanings, model how to get word meaning from multiple exposures – contextual, conceptual, and definitional. Provide guided practice with words in multiple task formats

46. Vocabulary Essential Number 2 Tier One Words- Consists of basic words and rarely require instructional attention in school and highly frequent in life: clock, baby, ball, happy, walk, run, etc. Tier Two Words - High frequency use for mature language users and found across a variety of knowledge domains: coincidence, absurd, industrious, fortunate, etc. Tier Three Words - Low frequency use and limited to specific knowledge domains: isotope, lathe, peninsula, refinery, etc. Best learned when teaching specific content lessons such as geography, science, etc. Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. NY: Guilford Press.

47. Vocabulary Essential Number 2 Estimates indicate that about 8,000 basic words need no instruction – Tier 1 Estimates indicate that about 7,000 words for Tier 2 or about 700 words per year. Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (2002) recommend teaching about 400 words per year K-12. Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. NY: Guilford Press.

48. Vocabulary Essential Number 2 Albasa Albasa will usually be found at grocery stores and resturants. People like to eat albasa on their hamburgers, although albasa are tasty with a variety of dishes. Since albasa are a vegetable, they are also nutritious. One disadvantage of albasa is the strong odor which has been known to produce crying symptoms among those who slice them. Gipe, J.P. (1980). Use of a relevant context helps kids learn new word meanings. The Reading Teacher, 33,(5), 398-402.

49. Illustration of Vocabulary Essential #2 : Explicit Instruction using a Graphic Organizer

50. Vocabulary Essential Number 3 Word Awareness and Word Learning Strategies Examples Word Awareness Word Play Word Study Word Learning Strategies – When I don’t know what a word means, how can I find out? Dictionary use Thesaurus use Using context clues

51. Illustration of Vocabulary Essential #3: Word Wizards Copy the cover of a book for a vocabulary word wall (black and white copy will do) . Put the cover and the words from the book at the top of the word wall. Write children’s names down the left hand side of the vocabulary word wall.

52. Illustration of Vocabulary Essential #3: Word Wizards When children use one of the words on the wall in their conversation or in their written work they get a star, check, or some other mark. The student with the most marks at the end of the designated time period (say a day or week) is given the honor becoming the WORD WIZARD.

53. Word Wizards Display Inventions Technology Electricity Appliances

54. Evidence-Based Reading Instruction: Effective Fluency and Vocabulary Instruction “…an extensive knowledge base now exists to show us the skills children must learn in order to read well. These skills provide the basis for sound curriculum decisions and instructional approaches that can help prevent the predictable consequences of early reading failure.” (National Institute for Literacy, NIFL, 2001, p. ii)

55. D. Ray Reutzel, Ph.D. Emma Eccles Jones Endowed Chair Professor Utah State University www.cehs.usu.edu/ecc Presentations Button Left Hand Side or D. Ray Reutzel, Ph.D. IRA Board of Directors International Reading Association rreutzel@reading.org