Reading Strategies for Struggling Readers: Grades 2-6

1. Reading Strategies for Struggling Readers: Grades 2-6 August 2008 Becky Hinze, Reading Consultant Mary Montgomery, Professional Learning and Leadership Consultant Heartland Area Education Agency 11

2. Housekeeping • Handouts • Today’s handouts (Bring back for Day 2) • Tomorrow-Additional handouts provided • Sign-in each day • Facilities • Breaks • Table full of resource examples to view

3. Credit Options • Graduate Credit is available • Additional $ 90.00 for One Credit from Drake • Grade Requirements: All done in class • Sample Data set Activity • Demonstration of Instructional Strategy-Small Group • Daily Response Sheet • 100% Attendance • Payment due at sign-up • Sign-up after lunch & before class tomorrow GO DRAKE!

4. Parking Lot • This will be interactive, ask questions whenever you want • If you don’t feel comfortable…use the parking lot

5. Who is here today?

6. Learning Targets • Review the 5 Essential Components of Reading • Review the 3 types of assessments • Gain skills in matching appropriate instructional strategies to assessment data • Learn to implement a variety of specific instructional strategies for building alphabetic principle, fluency, and comprehension skills

7. Putting It All Together • Curriculum is “What we teach.” • Instruction is “How we teach.” • Assessment “Guides the process.”

8. For struggling readers, just making progress isn’t good enough. Benchmark 3 Benchmark 1 Benchmark 2 Established - Benchmark Score Emerging - Strategic Deficit - Intensive Time

9. When curriculum, instruction, and assessments are working together… Benchmark 3 Benchmark 1 Benchmark 2 Established - Benchmark Score GOAL: Close the gap! Time

10. Simple Observation • Teaching reading is important • Learning to read is extremely complex • What it takes to teach reading effectively is grossly underestimated • Reality: We have a solid and converging knowledge base about what works • We know the skills that enable successful readers. We know the skills that can be taught. • Generalization of reading skills should not be left to chance. We must teach generalization.

11. Enabling Skills • Enabling skills are skills that could be considered prerequisite skills for the demonstration of proficient performances on larger assessments measures • They represent the sub-skills of higher order performance demonstration • Deficiencies in enabling skills will often result in lower performance on assessments

12. Five Essential Components in Reading 1. Phonemic Awareness - the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in spoken words 2. Alphabetic Principle (phonics) - the ability to associate sounds with letters and to use those sounds to read and spell words 3. Accurate and Fluent (effortless) Reading of Connected Text- “accurate reading at a minimal rate with appropriate prosodic features (expression) and deep understanding”-(Hudson, Mercer, and Lane, 2000)

13. Five Essential Components in Reading 4. Vocabulary Development - the ability to understand and use words to acquire and convey meaning 5. Comprehension - the complex cognitive process involving the intentional interaction between reader and text to extract meaning. COMPREHENSION

14. Complex Alphabetic Code

15. IDM CYCLES:Core,Supplemental,Intensive IDM Cycles • Curriculum • Instruction • Assessments Core Supplemental Intensive

16. Students with Reading Difficulties

17. Why are you here? • Think about the specific students you are currently teaching or have taught in the past that brought you to this class today. Write down 3-5 characteristics of that student(s). • Share with a partner. Together list 3 characteristics in common. • As a table group share your lists and write down any common characteristics. Be prepared to share out.

18. Complex Alphabetic Code Language Develops Naturally but Reading Must be Taught • All humans have a biological predisposition to develop oral language • However, our alphabetic reading and writing system is a human invention • Many children will not learn this complex system without explicit instruction

19. Instruction or Practice?The $64, 000 Question The fact of the matter is that students with serious reading difficulties will need extensive opportunities for both instruction and practice. The question is not which one, but what to teach, what to practice and how to manage it. -Wendy Robinson

20. Automatic Acquisition of Words • Typical learners have to read a word 4-12 times meaningfully to learn it automatically • At-risklearners have to read a word 12-42 times meaningfully to learn it automatically • For some students with serious reading difficulties they have to read a word up to 1400 times to learn it automatically

21. Putting It All Together:Assessment • Curriculum is “What we teach.” • Instruction is “How we teach.” • Assessment “Guides the process.”

22. TIME TO THINK… • For the next three minutes, write down what reading assessments are given at your grade level, and why are they given? • Use Time to Think Activity Sheet • Large group share out…

23. Assessment Considerations • Measurement strategies are chosen to… • Answer specific questions • Make specific decisions • Give only with a “purpose” in mind • There is a problem if one doesn’t know why the assessment is being given.

24. Three Functions of Assessment Needed to Guide Instruction 1: Screening -Target a group of students 2: Diagnostic - Pinpoint instructional needs 3: Progress Monitoring- Shows whether the instruction is effective and impacting student skill development ALL PART OF AN ASSESSMENT PROCESS!

25. What is Screening? • An assessment process used to recognize the potential existence of problems or to sort students into instructional groupings.

26. One Screening Purpose: Identify Kids At Risk • Systematic or School-Wide • All students given assessments to determine which may need additional instruction or assessment • Minimum proficiency scores must be determined: How good is good enough? • Heartland Norms • DIBELS Standards • ITBS-40th percentile • Other Research-Based Standards

27. Look at ITBS as a Part of a ScreeningProcess • List students falling below the 40th NPR-Reading Comprehension • Consider raising the expectation to 50-60th NPR-Reading Comprehension

28. At Risk

29. DIBELS as a Part of a Screening Process • One could look at the DIBELS data printouts • Highlight students not at benchmark

30. DIBELS Class List Example

31. Screening Assessment Questions • Screening assessments can answer the questions: • “How does the student compare to expectations/standards/peers?” • “Who is not performing at the expected level?” • “How far is the “GAP” between the student’s performance and expectations/standards/peers?” All VITAL information for guiding instruction to close the “GAP”

32. Activity • Review your current reading assessment list • Place the letter “S” next to those assessments that are “Screening Assessments”… REMINDER: Screening assessments can answer the questions: • “How does the student compare to expectations/standards/peers?” • “Who is not performing at the expected level?” • “How far is the “GAP” between the student’s performance and expectations/standards/peers?”

33. Three Functions of Assessments Needed to Guide Instruction • 1: Screening Assessments-Target a group of students 2: Diagnostic Assessment- Pinpoint instructional needs • 3: Progress Monitoring- Shows whether the student is being effected by the instruction.

34. Purpose of Diagnostic Assessment • The major purpose for diagnostic assessment is to provide information that is useful in planning more effective instruction. • Diagnostic tests should only be given when there is a clear expectation that they will provide new information about a child’s difficulties learning to read that can be used to provide more focused, or more powerful instruction.

35. The Diagnostic Process 2-6 Work Our Way Back 2nd Grade May Enter HERE! 3-6th Grade Should Enter HERE!

36. Diagnostic Assessment Questions • “Why is the student not performing at the expected level?” • “What skills does the student need to learn to be a skilled reader?” Digging Deeper!

37. 2nd grade too, If data is available! Diagnostic Process Grades 3-6 Step 1 • Is reading comprehension at the expected level? • Validate • Consider other data to ensure initial screening measure was not a result of a performance problem rather than a skill problem. • Tools to help answer the question: • ITBS Reading Comprehension Subtest: If available • Cloze/Maze • Classroom Benchmarks, Performance and Tests

38. Diagnostic Process: Step 1Is reading comprehension at the expected level? • If YES: Difficulties may be a result of task-related issues (i.e. motivation, attention, etc.). Work to determine cause of poor performance and intervene. • If NO: Continue to gather data to find out why. • Look at Enabling Skills. Go to next Essential Component (Accuracy and Fluency with Text)

39. Begin with Reading Fluency and Accuracy

40. Steps 2 & 3: Fluency Rate and Accuracy • Step 2- Is the student fluent? Must define fluency expectation • Fluency Measuring Tools: • DIBELS (grades K - 6) • AIMSWeb (grades 1 - 8) • Curriculum-Based Measures (CBM) • Fuch’s reading probes (grades 1 - 7) • Jamestown reading probes (grades 4 and up) GATHER ERROR SAMPLES FROM THESE TOOLS! • Step 3- Is the student accurate? • Must define accuracy expectation • Consensus in reading research is 95%

41. Organizing Fluency Data:

42. Reading Fluency Dimensions of Reading Fluency: • Accuracy • Rate • Quality Why focus on fluency?

43. Reading Fluency Labored, inefficient reading Declining Comprehension Lack of Fluency A Self-Perpetuating Cycle Limited knowledge of academic language Lack of motivation Smaller Vocabulary Lack of Practice

44. Reading Accuracy • Comprehension is hindered by low accuracy.

45. Accuracy • Task: Read the section from the book, The Call of the Wild. • This selection provides the reader with 90% of the words. Is 90% accuracy enough to comprehend the text?

46. Buck did not read the ______, or he would have known that ______ was brewing, not only for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the ______ darkness, had found a yellow _______ and because steamship and transportation companies were ______ the find, thousands of men were ______ into the ______. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were _______ dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and ______ coats to protect them from the ______. Buck lived at a

47. Reading Accuracy: Considerations • Gather a large enough reading sample-Student may look accurate and not be.. • Gather Error Samples from Instructional Reading Level Materials Percentage of Accuracy • Independent reading level, 96-100% • Instructional reading level, 91-95% • Frustration reading level, 90% and below • Are the errors violating meaning? -Go to higher criteria (95% - 98%)

48. Curriculum Based Measurement • Oral Reading Passages • Standardized administration procedures • Standardized scoring procedures • Standardized materials • Standardized times

49. Administration: Reading • You must follow the standardized directions provided with the assessment you are using. • Example Directions: When I say please begin, start reading aloud at the top of this page. Read across the page. Try to read each word. If you come to a word you don’t know, I’ll tell it to you. Be sure to do your best reading. Are there any questions?

50. A Fluent Reader