Chapter 2

Nature of Reading

Introduction• Historical Context for Models of Reading• Simple View of Reading• Developmental Models of Reading• Adams’ Cognitive Model of Reading• Information Processing Model of Reading• What Is the Relation Between Reading and IQ?• Transactional View of Reading• Speaking, Reading, and Writing• An Inclusive View of Reading• How Do We Know If a Student Has a Reading Disability?• How Do We Distinguish English Language Learning Challenges from

Disabilities? • Adults with Limited Literacy Skills• The Literacy Instruction Pie• Using Knowledge of Reading to Understand Reading Assessment

Historical Context for Models of Reading

• Medical Models to Explain Reading Difficulties• “word blindness”

• Within the Individual Etiologies

Simple View of Reading

• RC = D x LC, • RC is reading comprehension• D is decoding• LC is linguistic comprehension• Both can be expressed as a value between 0 (nullity) to 1

(perfection)

• Gough and Tunmer (1986) and Hoover and Gough (1990)

SimpleView of Reading

Developmental Models of Reading

• Chall’s Stage Model• Spear-Swerling: Off-track: “Becoming Disabled”• Frith’s Developmental Model (Sawyer, Kim & Lipa-Wade)

TABLE 2.1 Chall’s Model of the Developmental Stages of Reading  

Stages/Names Age Learning Goals Activities/Tools

Stage 0: Prereading and emergent literacy

Birth through preschool and kindergarten

Relation between alphabet, words, sounds and meaning, purpose of books

Hearing stories and nursery rhymes read by caregivers, “pretend reading and writing,” modeling communications and language from Sesame Street and similar programs/formats

Stage 1: Initial Reading/Decoding

Grades 1 and 2 Specific linkages between letters, words, and sounds; start to realize reading mistakes and rules of spelling

Educator-lead reading and phonics using preprimers and primers, basic writing instruction, some trade books

Stage 2: Confirmation and Fluency; ungluing from print

Grades 2 and 3 Building fluency and automaticity and beginning use of context to make meaning

Reading about known content using basal readers, trade books, worksheets/workbooks

Stage 3: Reading for Learning new knowledge (from a single viewpoint)

Grades 4 through 8 Learning from content text; acquiring vocabulary; developing strategies

Basal readers; novels, dictionaries; textbooks from content areas

Stage 4: Appreciating multiple viewpoints

Grades 9 through 12, technical school, and early college years

Appreciate varying perspectives, layers of complexity

Textbooks for content areas, reference books such as encyclopedias, journals; nonfiction biographies

Stage 5:Construction and Reconstruction—A world view

Late college and graduate school

Reading for targeted detail and purpose for complete understanding within world-wide context

Books, journals, reference books in areas of advanced complexity/expertise

Spear-Swerling& Sternberg

DevelopmentalModel (1996)

Frith’s Developmental Model (Sawyer, Kim & Lipa-Wade, 2000)

Adams’ Cognitive Model of Reading

Adams’CognitiveModel(1990)

Information Processing Model of Reading

GeneralInformationProcessing

Model

TABLE 2.2 Cognitive Abilities and Related Reading/Writing Skills

Cognitive Ability Associated Literacy Skill

Long Term Memory/RetrievalStorage and retention of informationAbility to retrieve and use previously stored information

 Basic Reading SkillsReading ComprehensionWritten Expression 

Auditory ProcessingDiscrimination, analysis, and synthesis of auditory stimuliAuditory attention, perception and discrimination despite background noise

 Basic Reading SkillsWritten Expression

Phonemic AwarenessManipulation, analysis and synthesis of discrete sounds

 Basic Reading SkillsSpellingWritten ExpressionBasic Writing Skills 

Visual ProcessingPerception, analysis and synthesis of visual stimuliStorage and memory of visual stimuli

 

 Not strongly related to achievement

Short Term Memory (Auditory) Processing and holding auditory stimuli in awareness and manipulating/using it within a few seconds

 Basic Reading SkillsReading Comprehension

Processing SpeedRapid cognitive processing without higher order thinkingAttentiveness and fluency in processing

 

 Basic Reading SkillsWritten Expression

 Verbal Reasoning

Reasoning and comprehension using language Verbal expressionVocabulary

 Basic Reading SkillsReading ComprehensionWritten Expression

 General Information and Knowledge

Acquired knowledgeLong term memory

 

 Basic Reading SkillsReading ComprehensionWritten Expression

Fluid ReasoningInductive and deductive reasoningProblem solving on novel tasks

 Reading ComprehensionWritten Expression

CognitiveCorrelates of

Reading and Writing

What is the Relation Between Reading and IQ?

• Increases with age• IQ is more highly correlated with reading comprehension than

with basic reading skills• When is it helpful to administer IQ/cognitive ability tests to

struggling readers?

Transactional View of Reading

• Reading is transaction, a two-way process, involving a reader and a text at a particular time under particular circumstances” (Rosenblatt, 1982, p. 269).

Speaking, Reading, and Writing

• Some researchers have argued that vocabulary is more important than phonological awareness in predicting early reading skills (see Gee, 2001).

• Both writers and readers are drawing on personal linguistic/experiential reservoirs in a to-and-fro transaction with a text. Their composing and reading activities are both complementary and different” (Rosenblatt, 1993, p. 384).

An Inclusive View of Reading

Appendix B

How Do We Know If a Student Has a Reading Disability?

How do we know if a student has a learning disability in reading?

• Learning disability is a valid construct• LD Roundtable, 2004

• Dyslexia is the most common type of learning disability

• Weakness in a sea of strengths (Shaywitz, 2003)• Difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition• Deficits in phonological processing &/or rapid automatic

naming• Secondary difficulties in reading comprehension

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) 2004

• Definition of learning disability did not change • Specific learning disability means a disorder in one or more

of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia and developmental aphasia.

IDEA 2004 cont’d

• Does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, or mental retardation, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage

IDEA 2004 cont’d• Changes in identification procedures for specific learning

disabilities • States

• 1) Must not require the use of a severe discrepancy between intellectual ability and achievement for determining whether a child has a specific learning disability, as defined in 300.8(c)(10)

• 2) Must permit the use of a process based on the child’s response to scientific, research-based intervention; and

• 3) May permit the use of other alternative research-based procedures for determining whether a child has a specific learning disability, as defined in 300.8(c)(10)

What are areas of Specific Learning Disability (SLD)?

• Basic reading skills (decoding and word recognition)• Reading fluency (added in 2004 regulations)• Reading comprehension• Math problem solving• Math computation• Written expression• Oral expression• Listening comprehension

Why Focus on Reading?

• 80–90% of all students identified with SLD exhibit weaknesses in reading

• Students with SLD comprise about half the Special Education population

• Students in other disability categories (e.g., intellectual disabilities, emotional disturbance) typically have reading difficulties

• Reading proficiency is critical for academic and vocational success

IDEA (2004) Definition of Specific Learning Disability in Reading

Historically included:

Basic Reading Skills• Phonetic decoding (nonsense words, phonics) • Sight recognition (automatic recognition of letters and “sight” words)

Reading Comprehension• Vocabulary (synonyms, antonyms, analogies, fill-in-the blank,

definitions, context)• Comprehension (answering questions, cloze, maze, retelling)

IDEA (2004) Definition of Specific Learning Disability in Reading

Now includes Reading Fluency• Fluency-accuracy, rate, and prosody• Most measures are oral• A few measures are silent • Measures include passages, sight and nonsense

words, phonemes, and retelling

Alphabet Soup: Alternate DefinitionDSM-5* (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)

• Specific Learning Disorder with Impairment in Reading• Word reading accuracy• Reading rate or fluency• Reading comprehension

Difficulties learning and using academic skills, as indicated by the presence of at least one of the following symptoms that have persisted for at least 6 months, despite the provision of interventions that target those difficulties:1. Inaccurate or slow and effortful word reading (e.g., reads single

words aloud incorrectly or slowly and hesitantly, frequently guesses words, has difficulty sounding out words).

2. Difficulty understanding the meaning of what is read (e.g., may read text accurately but not understand the sequence, relationships, inferences, or deeper meaning of what is read).

*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

Ways to Determine SLD: IQ-Achievement Discrepancy Model

• Attempts to assess SLD as a gap between ability and achievement in a specific academic area such as reading

• Criticisms: • “Wait to fail” model• Yields limited instructional information

Ways to Determine SLD: Response to Intervention (RtI)

• Students who fail to respond to generally effective (i.e., scientifically-based) instruction are referred for comprehensive assessment to determine SLD

Ways to Determine SLD: Pattern of Strengths and Weaknesses

• Requires a comprehensive evaluation of both cognitive abilities and achievement, one that operationalizes the broad range of intellectual abilities (e.g., working memory, long-term memory, auditory and visual processing, processing speed, quantitative reasoning, fluid reasoning) and relevant areas of achievement (e.g., basic reading skills, reading fluency, reading comprehension, basic math skills, math reasoning)

Pattern of Strengths and Weaknesses cont’d

• An important distinction between the PSW model and the ability-achievement discrepancy model is that the PSW requires that a link be established between achievement deficits and the specific cognitive weaknesses shown in the research literature to be related to those achievement deficits.

How Do We Distinguish English Language Learning Challenges from Disabilities?

• Second Language Acquisition-Associated Phenomena (Brown, 2004)

• Consider performance in native language• Does the student perform similarly to other ELL students with

similar background? • Compare BICS (basic interpersonal communication skills)

with CALP (cognitive academic language proficiency)• Compare verbal to nonverbal performance

Adults with Limited Literacy Skills

• Individuals with disabilities and individuals whose first language is not English are overrepresented in the adult basic education population, the population of adults who exhibit low literacy levels in English and do not hold a high school diploma.

• Not all adults with limited literacy skills are alike.

The Literacy Instruction Pie

WordAnalysis

Fluency

Reading& WritingConnection

Vocabulary

Comprehension

Using Knowledge of Reading to Understand Reading Assessment

What’s the connection?

• How do the IDEA areas of reading/learning disabilities related to the National Reading Panel findings?

Com

pre

hen

sion

Bas

ic R

ead

ing

Areas Recognized by National Reading Panel

Vocabulary

Phonics Fluency

Comprehension

Sight Recognition

Phonemic Awareness

(Morphology)

(Orthography)

Salient Differences

• IDEA identified three areas: Basic Reading, Reading Fluency, and Reading Comprehension (and Written Expression)

• NRP identified five areas: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension

Why Are the NRP/IDEA Areas Important in Choosing an Assessment?

• Awareness of the areas helps you choose assessments to administer

• If you are unaware of an area, you may not assess it and thus miss an important factor that may account for difficulties or that may be a strength to build upon

Summary• Historical Context for Models of Reading• Simple View of Reading• Developmental Models of Reading• Adams’ Cognitive Model of Reading• Information Processing Model of Reading• What Is the Relation Between Reading and IQ?• Transactional View of Reading• Speaking, Reading, and Writing• An Inclusive View of Reading• How Do We Know If a Student Has a Reading Disability?• How Do We Distinguish English Language Learning Challenges from

Disabilities? • Adults with Limited Literacy Skills• The Literacy Instruction Pie• Using Knowledge of Reading to Understand Reading Assessment