Evidence-Based Reading Instruction: Effective Fluency, Vocabulary and Comprehension Instruction

1. Evidence-Based Reading Instruction: Effective Fluency, Vocabulary and Comprehension Instruction Featured Presentation D. Ray Reutzel, Ph.D. Board of Directors International Reading Association

2. 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!”

3. And so it does….. A F R I C A N ELEPHANT

4. 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

5. Evidence Based Reading Instruction “The mission of public schooling is to offer every child full and equal educational opportunity, regardless of the background, education, and income of their parents. To achieve this goal, no time is as precious or as fleeting as the first years of formal schooling. Research consistently shows that children who get off to a good start in reading rarely stumble. Those who fall behind tend to stay behind for the rest of their academic lives.” —Burns, Griffin, & Snow, 1999, p. 61

6. 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.

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

8. Evidence Based Reading Instruction NAEP, 2007: Fourth Grade Trends http://nationsreportcard.gov

9. Evidence Based Reading Instruction NAEP, 2007: Fourth Grade Trends http://nationsreportcard.gov

10. 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.

11. 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.

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

13. 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

14. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency Practices Recommended in the Report as “Research-Validated” • Focused on analysis on: • 1) Guided oral repeated reading; • 2) Independent reading (encouraging more reading on their own).

15. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency Practices Recommended in the Report as “Research-Validated” • 77 guided, oral repeated reading studies were analyzed. • Results show that guided, oral, repeated reading is effective in promoting reading fluency. • The Effect Size was = .41 of a standard deviation or approximately 14 percentile points difference).

16. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency Practices Recommended in the Report as “Research-Validated” • 14 studies were located and analyzed looking at independent reading practice (SSR, Dear, Accelerated Reader, voluntary reading). • Mostly of the studies were of poor quality. • Only studies 3 found differences. • The differences weren’t large enough to be considered educationally significant (Effects of less than 5% difference).

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Fluency 25 words make up 33% of the words you read! Thorndike-Lorge magazine count. Ed. E.L Thorndike & I. Lorge. New York, 1944: Columbia Univ.. [entries from "The teacher's word book of 30,000 words"; on RLIN]

20. 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

21. 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.

22. 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

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

24. 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.

25. 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.

26. 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.

27. 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.

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

29. 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.

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

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

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

33. 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

34. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Vocabulary Practices Recommended in the Report as “Research-Validated” • Vocabulary should be taught both directly and indirectly. • Repetition and multiple exposures are important to learning new vocabulary.

35. Evidence Based Reading Instruction: Reading Vocabulary Practices Recommended in the Report as “Research-Validated” • Learning vocabulary in rich contexts is valuable. • Vocabulary learning tasks should be restructured when necessary. • Vocabulary tasks should entail active engagement.

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

37. Illustration of Vocabulary Essential #1 : Read Aloud The Weighty Word Book By Paul M. Levitt Douglas A. Berger Elissa S. Guralnick Illustrated by Janet Stevens ISBN:0-917665-13-9

38. 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

39. 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.

40. 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.

41. 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.

42. “The door banged open, and Big Bill Ritchie swaggered in.” From Farmer Boy by L. I. Wilder, p. 43 Detective: Student Name Swagger Part of Speech: Verb Clue: It describes how Bill walked into the school. After winning the football game, I swaggered off the field. Walk with a bold, rude, orsuperior air. Clue: Big Bill Ritchie is a bully. He thinks he is better than everyone else. My Sentence Meaning Illustration of Vocabulary Essential #2 : Explicit Instruction using a Graphic Organizer Ainslie, D. (2001). Word detectives. The Reading Teacher, 54(4), 360-62.

43. 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

44. 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. Beck, I. L., Perfetti, C., & McKeown, M. (1982). Effects of long-term vocabulary instruction on lexical access and reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74(4), 506-521.

45. 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. Beck, I. L., Perfetti, C., & McKeown, M. (1982). Effects of long-term vocabulary instruction on lexical access and reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74(4), 506-521.

46. Word Wizards Display Inventions Technology Electricity Appliances Jamie √ √ √ Jackson √ √ √ √ √ Cambry√ √ √ √ √ √ √ Shania √ √ √

47. Evidence Based Reading Instruction What does the evidence say about Reading Comprehension Instruction?

48. Rand Study Group (2002) Definition of Reading Comprehension Reading comprehension is the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning. Comprehension involves three elements: 1. The reader who is doing the comprehension 2. The text that is to be comprehended 3. The activity in which comprehension is a part -Sweet & Snow, 2003, pp. 2-3

49. National Reading Panel Report Definitionof Reading Comprehension “Comprehension is a complex process…often viewed as ‘the essence of reading’. Reading comprehension is…intentional thinking during which meaning is constructed through interactions between text and reader. Meaning resides in the intentional, problem-solving, thinking processes of the reader that occur during and interchange with a text.” The National Reading Panel Report, 2000, p. 4-5

50. National Reading Panel Report Definitionof Reading Comprehension Continued “The content of meaning is influenced by the text and by the reader’s prior knowledge and experience that are brought to bear on it. Reading comprehension is the construction of the meaning of a written text through a reciprocal interchange of ideas between the reader and the message in a particular text.” The National Reading Panel Report, 2000, p. 4-5