Being a Reading Leader: How to Support Effective Literacy Instruction in the

Elementary Classroom

David J. Chard Quality QuinnUniversity of Oregon Quality Quinn, Inc.

California Reading AssociationAnnual MeetingSacramento, CANovember 8, 2002

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1976)

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where --” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“--so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

Recent Headlines and Quotes

• More than half of California 9th Graders Flunk Exit Exam, Education Week, June 2001

• “It will take at least ten years to reach proficiency for all learners” Sec. of Ed., PA

• “adequate yearly progress” Pres. Bush

• Still Leaving Children Behind Krista Kafta, Heritage

• Bush Seems to Ease Stance on School Accountability, New York Times, July 2001

• Reading is the New Requisite for Math; Education Week, January 2002

Leave No Child Behind1. States must establish AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) for ALL

students within 12 years (2013-2014).

2. AYP must be based on state assessments and must also include one additional academic indicator.

3. Schools that have failed to meet their AYP objective for 2 consecutive years will be identified for improvement.

4. Data must be disaggregated for all subgroups.

5. States may aggregate up to 3 years of data in making AYP decisions.

• Sustaining a schoolwide improvement initiative

• Professional development

• Setting and maintaining instructional priorities

• Impacting the achievement of ALL learners by meeting the needs of EACH learner

Major Challenges to Impacting Student Achievement

What does sustained improvement require?

• Contextual fit between effective practices, the school vision, and the classroom environment,

• Creative decision-making, long-term planning and investment,

• A method for monitoring performance data at the classroom- and student-level, and

• Sufficient conceptual and procedural understanding on the part of administrators, teachers, and parents.

What is being done?

• Mandatory summer school

• Same thing, but LOUDER

• Expensive intervention programs with uneven results

• Teacher training institutions changing reading requirements

What should be done?

• Dedicated developmental reading testing- preparedness program 5th through 8th

• Continued professional development for ALL teachers in reading intervention 5-12

• Initiate on-going professional development in science, social studies, and math reading & writing

• Integrate a “testwiseness” curriculum for state testing programs with strong emphasis on the content areas

Teacher Knowledge and Perceptions about Reading

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“...lower level language mastery is as essential for the literacy teacher as anatomy is for the physician” (Moats, 1994, p.99).

Moats, L. (1994). The missing foundation in teacher education: Knowledge of the structure of spoken and written language. Annals of Dyslexia, 44, 81-102.

Preparing Teachers toTeach Reading Effectively

Assumption:• Linear model--teacher receives information and acts accordingly

Advantages:• Faster

Problems/Potential Problems:• Administrators leave• Administrators adapt to shifts in state or national policies• No institutional memory• Administrative support wanes over time

Assumption:• Recursive model--teacher change requires practice and reflection

Advantage:• Teachers who reach mastery on a particular innovation are likely to sustain its use

Problems/Potential Problems:• Time consuming• Resource intensive• May lose investment if teachers leave or retire

Better Teaching

TeacherUnderstanding

National Reading Panel Report (2000)

Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (1998)

Beginning to Read (1990)

Handbook of Reading Research (2001)

Scientifically-Based Reading Research

Three Muscles:

• Early Language Experience–Phonemic awareness and concept development–Vocabulary, academic language and alphabetic principle

–Three ways of getting meaning off the page•(1) phonics…primary decoding strategy•(2) semantics and vocabulary •(3) syntax and structure

–Reads a lot of words fast w/ comprehension* –Class libraries of leveled or decodable text–Every day, every reader reading at a level of success of self-selected quality literature

• Fluency muscle

• Decoding muscle

Oral vocabulary in grade 1 predicts about 30% of grade 11comprehension.

(Stanovich & Cunningham, 1997)

If readers understand less than 95% of the words in a text, theylose the meaning of the text.

(Biemiller, 2001)

Vocabulary differences in K-2 prevent children from ‘catching up’in comprehension in the later grades.

(Biemiller, 2001; Biemiller & Slonim, in press)

Increased Emphasis on Vocabulary

Phonemic Awareness

Rhyming songs

Sentencesegmentation

Syllablesegmentation& blending

Onset-rime,blending, &segmentation

Blending &segmentingindividualphonemes

LessComplexActivities

MoreComplexActivities

Alphabetic Understanding and Phonics

Words in the spoken language can be represented by printed symbols.

Each sound in a word is represented by a symbol or symbols.

Printed symbols are arranged from left to right when written.

News Flash!!!!!• 26 letters and 44 sounds

• 17 reliable letters, (letters that always sound the same) q, w, r, t, p, d, f, h, j, k, l, z, x, v, n, m, b

• 4 that are switch hitters... s, g, c, r

• 3 that are pests ...a, o, u

• 3 that will make you CRAZY!!!!…i,e,y

• Double vowels: oa, oo, ee, ea, oi, ou, au

• Blends: ch, sh, wh, pl, sl, fl, gl, cl, bl, kl,cr,scr

Understanding and Promoting Fluency

Fluency

Definition of Comprehension

Comprehension is defined as:

“intentional thinking during which meaning is constructed through interactions between the text and the reader” (Harris & Hodges,1995)

Research Validated Comprehension Strategies

National Reading Panel (2000) recommends: • Question answering,• Comprehension monitoring,• Cooperative learning,• Graphic/semantic organizers/story maps,• Question generation, and• Summarization.

Testwiseness: An Important Piece of a Comprehensive Intervention Strategy

• On-going, sustained test readiness and rehearsal, i.e. testwiseness

• Phonics instruction for those who received “hit-or-miss” decoding during whole language approach

• Build fluency with an “every day, every child reads at a level of success” approach

• Use regular non-fiction writing events to teach science & social studies syntax

Project Optimize(Simmons & Kame’enui, 2001)

Objective: To identify the features of a kindergarten intervention in literacy that would alter

the learning trajectory for each struggling reader.

Participants

1. 441 Kindergarten children from 7 schools in Oregon screened on:

a. Onset Recognition Fluency (m = <7)b. Letter Naming Fluency (m = <3)

2. Bottom 25% on both criterion measures invited to an “extended-day” kindergarten intervention (112 participated)

Observed Growth in PSF by Intervention

Observed Growth in Phonics

3.

General Findings

1. Implementing a systematic program of instruction with fidelity is more effective that incidental teaching.

2. Not all instructional elements are of equal importance to strugglingreaders.

3. Providing scaffolded instruction as a supplement to the core instructional program is crucial for all children to succeed.

Five Steps to Two Years’ Growth for One Year of Instruction

• Vertical team study of K-8 reading curriculum with evidence of student work

• Phonics training for 3rd through 8th grade teachers

• Vocabulary instruction training geared more toward “word harvest”

• Ready availability of compelling leveled text with conditional assessment

• Classroom management strategies that provide intensity and focus for below level readers

Useful References

• Adams, M.J. (2000). Beginning to Read: thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

• Alexander, K. & Entwisle, D. (1996). Schools and children at risk. In A. Booth & J. Dunn (Eds.). Family-school links: How do they affect educational outcomes? Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

• Baker, L. (1994). Contexts of emergent literacy: Everyday home experiences of urban pre-kindergarten children. College Park, MD: National Reading Research Center.

• Baker, L., D. Scher, and K. Mackler. (1997). Home and family influences on motivations for reading. Educational Psychologist 32(2): 69:82.

• Burns, M.S., Griffin, P., & Snow, C.E. (1999). Starting out right: A guide to promoting children’s reading success. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

• Baker, L., Allen. J., Schockley, B, Pelligrini, A.D., Galda, L. & Stahl, S. (1996). Connecting school and home: Constructing partnerships to foster reading development in L. Baker, P. Afflerbach & D. Reinking (Eds.), Developing engaged readers in home and school communities, Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 21-41.

• Burns, M.S., Griffin, P., & Snow, C.E. (1999). Starting out right: A Guide to promoting children’s reading success. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

• Bus. A.G., M.H. van Ijzendoorn, and A.D. Pellegrini. (1995). Joint book reading makes for success in learning to read: A meta-analysis on intergenerational transmission of literacy. Review of Educational Research: 65(1): 1-21.

• Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement. (2001). Put reading first: The research building blocks for teaching children to read. Jessup, MD: Partnership for Reading. Available: www.nifl.gov.

• Edwards, P.A. (1995). Empowering low income mothers and fathers to share books with young children. The reading teacher 48: 4888-564.

• Epstein, J.L., Coates, L., Salinas, K.C., Sanders, M.G., & Simmons, B.S. (1997). School, family and community partnerships: Your handbook for action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

• Gallimore, R., & Goldenberg, C. (1993). Activity settings of early literacy: Home and school factors in children’s emergent literacy. In E. Forman, N. Minick, & A. Stone (Eds.), Contexts for learning: Sociocultural dynamics in children’s development (pp. 315-335). New York: Oxford University Press.