Overview of Scientifically Based Reading Research for Adults and Children

1. Overview of Scientifically Based Reading Research for Adults and Children

2. National Reading Legislation • The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) • No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 • Title I, Part B • Reading First (Replaced Reading Excellence Act of 1998) • Early Reading First • Even Start

3. Reading First • Funding to states and districts for • establishing reading programs based on scientifically based reading research to ensure that every student can read at grade level or above not later than the end of grade 3. • grades K-3 and K-12 SPED in low-income/low-achieving schools. • programs that include essential components of reading instruction

4. Early Reading First • Funding to support local efforts to • enhance language, literacy and prereading development of preschool age children, particularly those from low-income families. • provide preschool age children with knowledge and skills necessary for optimal reading development in kindergarten and beyond. • demonstrate language and literacy activities based on scientifically based reading research. • integrate scientifically based reading research with existing programs of preschools, child care agencies and programs, Head Start centers, and family literacy services

5. William F. Goodling Even Start Family Literacy Programs Unified Family Literacy Program • Early Childhood • Adult literacy or Adult Basic Education • Parenting Education Instructional programs must • be based on scientifically based reading research • address the prevention of reading difficulties for children and adults

6. Scientifically Based Reading Instruction • Research based instruction • Evidenced based reading research

7. In a nutshell… • “Evidence-based reading instruction” means that a particular program or collection of instructional practices has a tested and proven record of success. That is, there is reliable, trustworthy, and valid evidence to suggest that when the program or the practices are used with a particular group of learners, the learners can be expected to make adequate gains in reading achievement. • International Reading Association, 2002

8. Educators agree that such evidence should be: • Objective—data would be identified and interpreted similarly by any evaluator. • Valid—data adequately represent the tasks that children need to accomplish to be successful readers. • Reliable—data will remain essentially unchanged if collected on a different day or by a different person.

9. Evidence should also be: • Systematic—data were collected according to a rigorous design of either experimentation or observation. • Refereed—data have been approved for publication by a panel of independent reviewers.

10. Preventing Reading Difficulties, 1998 • Sponsored by National Academy of Science • Definitive statement of what we knew about • teaching reading to young children • Unprecedented distribution • Policy makers • Popular press version

11. Key findings: • Strong support for balanced literacy • New found emphasis on • Phonemic awareness early • Phonics first and fast • Also strong support for • Oral language and concepts of print • Comprehension • Fluency • Wide reading (easy and challenging)

12. National Reading Panel, 2000 • Sponsored by National Institute of Child Health • and Human Development (NICHD) • Very selective criteria for including research • studies • Experimental/Control groups • No natural or qualitative experiments allowed • Made statements only about those issues in • teaching reading for which a substantial number • of scientific studies could be found.

13. National Reading Panel Report(2000) • Identified five critical areas for reading instruction: • Phonemic Awareness • Phonics • Fluency • Vocabulary • Comprehension

14. Five Essential Elements • Phonemic Awareness: The ability to hear and manipulate the sounds within words. • Phonics: The ability to relate letters and letter combinations with the sounds they make. • Fluency: The ability to read text accurately, at an appropriate rate of speed, and with proper expression. • Vocabulary: The ability to understand a large and growing body of words. • Comprehension: the ability to use strategies independently to enhance understanding of text.

15. Research-Based Principles for Adult Basic Education Reading Instruction, 2002 • Report of the Reading Research Working Group (RRWG) • Established by the National Institute for Literacy and co-sponsored by the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy

16. Research-Based Principles for Adult Basic Education Reading Instruction • Report addresses four components • Alphabetics • Phonemic Awareness • Word Analysis • Fluency • Vocabulary • Comprehension

17. National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) • Family Partnership in Reading • Funded by National Institute for Literacy • Designed to serve Head Start, Early Head Start, Even Start, and other programs as they: • Help young children develop the foundational skills they need to become good readers. • Equip parents to support their children’s literacy development. • Improve reading instruction for parents in family literacy programs.

18. National Early Literacy Panel • Coordinated by NCFL in consultation with • NICHD • USDE • Head Start Bureau • Panel of nationally-recognized experts • Began work in 2002 • Reviewed scientifically based research in language development, literacy and communication for children ages 0-5

19. NELP’s Four Research Questions • What are young children’s skills and abilities that predict later reading, writing and spelling outcomes? • What environments and settings contribute to or inhibit gains in children’s skills and abilities and are linked to later literacy outcomes?

20. Research Questions (cont.) • What child characteristics contribute to or inhibit gains in children’s skills and abilities and are linked to later literacy outcomes? • What programs and interventions contribute to or inhibit gains in children’s skills and abilities and are linked to later literacy outcomes?

21. NELP Findings • Strongest predictors of literacy outcomes • Alphabet Knowledge • Concepts About Print • Phonological Awareness • Invented Spelling • Oral Language • Writing Name • Rapid Automatic Naming/Lexical Access (RAN)

22. There’s good news and bad… Good news: People are paying attention Bad news: People are paying attention

23. The Bush Administration’s Vision for Adult Basic and Literacy Education • Adults will have opportunities to improve their basic and literacy skills in high-quality, research-based programs that will equip them to succeed in the next step of their education and employment. • From: Blueprint for Preparing America’s Future, June 2003

24. What have we learned from research in each of these areas?

25. Phonemic Awareness: What do we know from research? • Phonemic awareness can be used to predict how well children will learn to read. • Teaching phonemic awareness to young children significantly increases their later reading achievement. • Words are learned faster when the reader is able to match speech sounds or phonemes with the letters seen in print. • Instruction in letters should accompany phonemic awareness instruction.

26. Phonemic Awareness (cont.) • The most effective phonemic awareness instruction involves teaching students to blend sounds to form words, and to break words down into their separate sounds. • Adult non-readers • have virtually no awareness of phonemes or sounds. • increase their application of phonemic awareness to reading and writing when they are taught to use letters to add, delete or substitute phonemes.

27. Phonics/Word Analysis: What do we know from research • Systematic phonics instruction was shown to produce substantial improvement in reading and spelling. • K-1 children benefit most from phonics instruction. • Gains in reading were demonstrated by children from all socioeconomic groups. • Phonics should not be the dominant component in a reading program—it should be viewed as a means to an end.

28. Phonics/Word Analysis (cont.) • Adult non-readers and beginning readers • have difficulty applying letter-sound knowledge in order to figure out new or unfamiliar words while reading. • The most effective strategies for teaching phonics involves teaching how to convert individual letters and letter combinations into sounds and to blend them together to form a word. • Increase in reading achievement when alphabetics is a part of adult beginning reading instruction.

29. Fluency Instruction: What do we know from research? • Difficulty with word recognition slows down the reading process and interferes with comprehension. • Fluency promotes comprehension by freeing cognitive resources needed for understanding. • Correct identification of words on first attempt is important for fluency.

30. Fluency (cont.) • The oral reading rate of adult beginning readers is similar to that of children who are beginning to read. • Repeated oral reading and oral reading practice with feedback or guidance is most likely to affect word knowledge, reading speed and accuracy. • Round Robin Reading is NOT supported by research. • Too much emphasis on fluency can detract from comprehension.

31. Fluency & Dyslexia • Dyslexia = an unexplained difficulty learning to read despite intelligence, motivation, and education • Skilled readers utilize a fast-paced word form system in the brain for rapid word identification. • Dyslexic readers must rely on secondary routes in the brain, use of which results in slower reading and a greater reliance on context.

32. Fluency & Dyslexia (cont.) • Dyslexic readers are more accurate when reading words in context, rather than isolation. • If dyslexic readers attempt to read too quickly, they are unable to identify words, which interferes with comprehension. • Learners diagnosed with dyslexia can become accurate, though not fluent, readers.

33. Vocabulary Instruction: What do we know from research? • The larger the reader’s vocabulary (either oral or print), the easier it is to make sense of the text. • Vocabulary instruction leads to gains in comprehension. • Vocabulary should be taught directly and indirectly. • Repetition and multiple exposures to new vocabulary is important.

34. Vocabulary (cont.) • Learning in rich contexts, incidental learning, and use of computer technology all enhance the acquisition of vocabulary. • Dependence on a single vocabulary instruction method will not result in optimal learning. • The vocabulary knowledge of adults enrolled in Adult Basic Education and reading at about a fifth grade level is similar to that of elementary school children reading at the same level.

35. The 30 Million Word Gap • Longitudinal study by Betty Hart and Todd Risley (2003) • “By age three, children from privileged families have heard 30 million more words than children from poor families. By kindergarten the gap is even greater. The consequences are catastrophic.”

36. The 30 Million Word Gap (cont.) • 86 to 98 percent of the words recorded in each child’s vocabulary consisted of words also recorded in their parents’ vocabularies.”

37. The 30 Million Word Gap (cont.) • In four years an average child in a… • professional family would accumulate experience with almost 45 million words • working-class family…26 million words • welfare family…13 million words

38. “The Matthew Effect” (Stanovich, 1998) The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

39. The Matthew Effect (cont.) • Adequate reading comprehension depends on the reader already knowing 90-95% of the words in a text. • Those who know 90% will comprehend and begin to learn the other 10%. • Those who don’t know 90% will • have difficulty comprehending • fail to adequately learn the content of the text • miss the opportunity to learn more words. • And the gap continues to widen….

40. Comprehension: What do we know from research? • Good readers use a range of strategies to deepen and enrich understanding. • Good readers are aware of their own thinking processes as they read; they predict, question, clarify and summarize. • Comprehension monitoring—noticing when one begins to lose the meaning of what they are reading—is IMPORTANT in grades two and above. • Use of cooperative grouping and graphic organizers have been shown to impact positively on reading comprehension.

41. Comprehension (cont.) • Strong comprehenders use their background knowledge to make connections among ideas in what they are reading. • Readers who lack background knowledge on a specific topic have greater difficulty comprehending. • Teaching a combination of reading techniques to assist in recall, question answering, question generation, and summarizing is most effective.

42. Skilled readers have world and word knowledge • Students need to be exposed to factual information about their world. • Teacher read-alouds should be roughly two grade levels above the learners’ reading levels. • Significant chunks of time should be devoted to discussion after each read-aloud to ensure all students comprehend the text and new vocabulary and start using new vocabulary, ideas and concepts.

43. Increasing word and world knowledge (cont.) • “Listening to and reading nonfiction develops vocabulary, builds domain knowledge, and for many, motivates more reading. “ (Duke, Bennet-Armistead, and Roberts, 2003).

44. Motivation to Read • The role of motivation in the effectiveness of any reading program cannot be overestimated. According to the National Reading Panel, future pedagogical research must take into account the approaches that teachers prefer and those that have proven to be most effective in successful classroom instruction.

45. In conclusion… • Teaching reading to adults—and preparing young children for reading instruction—are challenging responsibilities. • Fulfilling these responsibilities requires knowledge of effective practices and a willingness to use them. • It is our moral and ethical obligation to use the best evidence we have available for making policy and instructional decisions of consequence.

46. Dr. Kathy Barclay Western Illinois University One University Circle Macomb, IL 61455 KH-Barclay@wiu.edu Tel: 309-298-2676 (O)