Effective Instruction for Adolescent Struggling Readers Professional Development Module

1. Effective Instruction for Adolescent Struggling Readers Professional Development Module Christy S. Murray, Jade Wexler, Sharon Vaughn, Greg Roberts, Kathryn Klingler Tackett The University of Texas at Austin Marcia Kosanovich Florida State University

2. The Center on Instruction is operated by RMC Research Corporation in partnership with the Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida StateUniversity; Horizon Research Inc.; RG Research Group; the Texas Institute for Measurement,Evaluation, and Statistics at the University of Houston; and the VaughnGross Center for Reading and Language Arts at The University of Texas at Austin.The contents of this PowerPoint presentation were developed under cooperative agreement S283B050034 with the U.S. Department of Education. However, these contents do not necessarilyrepresent the policy of the Department of Education, and one should notassume endorsement by the federal government.2008 The Center on Instruction requests that no changes be made to the content or appearance of this product.To download a copy of this document, visit www.centeroninstruction.org.

3. Adolescent Literacy: Research and Practice One in three fourth-graders is reading below a basic level. Only 31 percent of eighth-graders are proficient readers. (Lee, Grigg, & Donahue, 2007)

4. Essential Components of ReadingElementary Level vs. Secondary Level

5. Objectives Enhance your understanding of selected research-based instructional practices associated with positive effects for adolescent struggling readers. Learn how to implement these research-based practices. NOTE:Assessment and its influence on instruction will not be a focus of this presentation.

6. Reading Interventions for Adolescent Struggling Readers:A Meta-analysis With Implications for Practice Overall, how effective are the reading interventions for adolescent struggling readers that have been examined in research studies? What is the specific impact of these reading interventions on measures of reading comprehension? What is the specific impact of these reading interventions on students with learning disabilities? Available for download:www.centeroninstruction.org.

7. Scientific Rigor of Highlighted Studies All highlighted studies usedrandom assignment and standardized measures.

8. General Findings of the Meta-Analysis Various levels of intervention effectiveness: Students with LD vs. students without LD; Researcher-implemented vs. teacher-implemented; and Students at the middle school level vs. students at the high school level.

9. Highlighted Studies: Caveat The instructional practices used in the studies we selected represent some of the practices associated with improved outcomes for students in grades 4–12. The scope of this presentation does not allow us to present all studies and referenced practices from the meta-analysis.

10. Essential Components of Reading for Adolescents Word Study Fluency Vocabulary Comprehension Motivation

11. What is Word Study? What do I do when my students with reading disabilities and difficulties cannot read grade-level words accurately?

12. Word StudyPractices that improve word-level reading Research indicates that… Older students in need can benefit from word study instruction(Edmonds et al., in press; Scammacca et al., 2007).

13. COI Meta-analysis FINDING Interventions focused on word study had a moderate overall effect. IMPLICATION For older students struggling at the word level, specific word study intervention is associated with improved reading outcomes.

14. Word Study (Bhattacharya & Ehri, 2004; Nagy, Berninger, & Abbott, 2006; Boardman et al., 2008)

15. Reasons for Word Study Difficulties Students might not have been effectively taught how to decode in the earlier grades. Students might not have been given adequate opportunities for practice. Students may struggle to understand letter-sound correspondences or the “rules of the English language.”

16. Strategies for Teaching Word Study Following are examples of two types of word study practices that can be used with older readers.

17. Word Study: Instructional Practice #1 Instruction in orthographic processing, or the ability to recognize letter patterns in words and their corresponding sound units. Instructional focus: Various advanced word study components such as syllable types and blending multisyllabic words.

18. Instructional Practice #1: Example Mumble = mum – ble Locate = lo – cate Invalid = in – val – id

19. Instructional Practice #1: How do I Teach it? Teach students to identify and break words into syllable types. Teach students when and how to read multisyllabic words by blending the parts. Teach students to recognize irregular words that do not follow predictable patterns. Teach students to apply these practices to academic words (e.g., tangent, democracy, precision).

20. Syllable Types and Examples Closed (e.g., cat) short vowel Open (e.g., no) long vowel Vowel-consonant-e (e.g., like): e makes vowel long Consonant-le (e.g., mumble) R-controlled (e.g., ar, or, er, ir, ur) Double vowel (e.g., team)

21. Word Study: Instructional Practice #2 Expose students to information and strategies that will help students gain access to the meaning of words and make the connection between decoding and comprehension. Instructional focus: Prefixes, suffixes, inflectional endings, root words, and base words.

22. Instructional Practice #2: Example Transplanted = trans (across) + plant(base word)+ ed (happened in the past) Useless = use (base word) + less (without; not) Careful = care (base word) + ful (full of)

23. Instructional Practice #2: How Do I Teach It? Teach students the meanings of common prefixes, suffixes, inflectional endings, and roots. Provide instruction in how and when to use structural analysis to decode unknown words.

24. Highlighted Study:Bhattacharya & Ehri (2004) Participants 60 struggling readers (non-LD), grades 6 through 9 Received one of two interventions provided by a researcher for four sessions totaling 110 minutes. Received current school instruction. (Comparison Group) n = 20 Syllable Chunking n = 20 Whole Word Reading n = 20

25. Students were taught to: Orally divide multisyllabic words into syllables; State thenumber of syllables; Match syllables to their spelling; and Blend the syllables to say the whole word. Syllable Chunking Intervention

26. Five Steps in Syllable Chunking Intervention Students read the word aloud. If incorrect, they were told the word and repeated it. Students explained the word’s meaning. If incorrect, they were provided corrective feedback. Students orally divided the word’s pronunciation into its syllables or beats by raising a finger as each beat was pronounced and then stated the number of beats. If incorrect, the experimenter modeled the correct response. (e.g., fin – ish = two beats)

27. Five Steps in Syllable Chunking Intervention (continued) Students matched the pronounced form of each beat to its spelling by exposing that part of the spelling as it was pronounced, while covering the other letters. (Different ways of dividing words into syllables were accepted.) If incorrect, the experimenter modeled and explained the correct segmentation and students copied the response. Students blended the syllables to say the whole word. If incorrect, they were told the word and repeated it.

28. Syllable Chunking InterventionLearning Trials Words were presented on index cards one at a time over four learning trials in random orders. Trial 1: Perform all five steps. Trials 2–4: Perform all steps except step 2. Read and analyzed 25 words on each of the 4 days.

29. Students practiced reading multisyllabic words with no applied strategy. Whole Word Reading Intervention

30. Three Steps in Whole Word Reading Intervention Students read the word aloud. If incorrect, they were told the word and repeated it. Students explained the word’s meaning. If incorrect, they were told the meaning. Students read the word again by looking at the print. If incorrect, they were told the word and repeated it.

31. Whole Word Reading InterventionLearning Trials Words were presented on index cards one at a time over six learning trials in random orders. • Trial 1: Perform all three steps. • Trials 2–4: Perform all steps except step 2. • Trials 5–6: Read words as quickly as possible and record time. Read and analyzed 25 words on each of the 4 days.

32. Highlighted Study:Bhattacharya & Ehri (2004) Participants 60 struggling readers (non-LD), grades 6 through 9 Received one of two interventions provided by a researcher for four sessions totaling 110 minutes. Received current school instruction. (Comparison Group) n = 20 Syllable Chunking n = 20 Whole Word Reading n = 20

33. Current School Practice(Comparison Condition) Students received the school’s typical reading instruction.

34. Which Strategy do You Think was Most Effective? Why? Study Findings Syllable training enhanced readers’ decoding ability on transfer tasks. Syllable training enhanced readers’ ability to retain spellings of words in memory. Whole word training was not found to help struggling readers on any of the decoding or spelling transfer tasks.

35. Implications for the Classroom There is value in teaching adolescent struggling readers to read multisyllabic words by matching syllables to pronunciations. Instruction in word study for the weakest readers is needed as well as comprehension strategy instruction. Authors note that the intervention could be enhanced by also teaching students information about root words and affixes, syllable types, etc.

36. Participant Activity You are teaching a sixth-grade reading class, and several of your students are having difficulty reading words. You decide to try a syllable chunking strategy with these students.

37. Syllable Chunking Intervention

38. Syllable Chunking Strategy Instruction Dictionary Federal Compensate

39. Conclusions About Word Study Instruction For adolescent readers who struggle at the word level, instruction in word study skills can improve word identification skills. There are a variety of instructional methods for this purpose, but most involve teaching students to decode words by recognizing syllables types or by analyzing parts of words.

40. What is Fluency? What do I do when my students with reading disabilities and difficulties cannot read words with automaticity?

41. Fluency The ability to read text with speed, accuracy, and prosody (expression) Research indicates that… Word study and comprehension are related to fluency (Shinn & Good, 1992). Fluency does not “cause” comprehension, but is one necessary component of successful reading (Rasinski et al., 2005).

42. COI Meta-analysis FINDING More research on fluency is needed with older students. IMPLICATION Fluency practices associated with improved outcomes with younger students may apply to older students struggling with fluency.

43. Fluency (Boardman et al., 2008)

44. Reasons for Fluency Difficulties Students are focusing too much cognitive effort on decoding the text. Students are not cognizant of punctuation’s role in reading. Students have a weak sight word vocabulary. Students have had limited exposure, instruction, and practice with reading text fluently or at all. Students are unfamiliar with the meaning of words in text.

45. Fluency: Differing Instructional Needs Adolescents whose oral reading rate on grade-level text is: Below 70 wcpm* need more practice with word recognition in addition to fluency practice; Between 70 and 120wcpm* may benefit from regular fluency instruction; and Greater than 120 wcpm* may benefit more from increased vocabulary and comprehension instruction rather than increased fluency instruction. * Ranges are approximations.

46. What areRepeated Reading and Wide Reading? Wide Reading Reading many different types of text Repeated Reading Reading and listening to the same passage several times

47. Rationale for Repeated Reading at the Secondary Level Repeated reading may be appropriate when providing students with practice on a targeted list of words. Students will have multiple exposures to words that may build their sight vocabulary and automaticity. Repeated reading interventions have been shown to have positive outcomes for students with reading difficulties in the younger grades (Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002). Therefore, repeated reading interventions may have a similar effect for students in the secondary grades at an early reading level. (Please note that more research in this area is needed).

48. Challenges Associated With Repeated Reading Repeated Reading Increases in speed generally fail to transfer to other texts unless there is word overlap(Rashotte & Torgesen, 1985). May not be more effective than wide reading for increasing reading speed(Homan, Klesius, & Hite, 1993). Limits students’ exposure to content, vocabulary, and different text types.

49. Rationale for Wide Reading at the Secondary Level Wide Reading Students are exposed to a variety of text structures and vocabulary (which coincides with the expectations of reading a wide variety of text in the upper grades). Students are exposed to more content (when compared to repeated reading), which may increase word/background knowledge. Background knowledge can have a positive impact on comprehension (Hansen & Pearson, 1983). There is less likelihood that students will see the same words over and over again across a variety of texts.

50. Wide Reading vs. Repeated ReadingWhich is More Effective? • More research is needed in the area of fluency • instruction for older students. • Recommendation: • Use a combination of repeated reading and wide reading. • Repeated reading provides opportunities for students to improve and automate their sight vocabulary. • Wide reading exposes students to new and different content, vocabulary, and text types.