USING DIRECT, EXPLICIT, SYSTEMATIC, AND

CUMULATIVE METHODS TO IMPROVE THE READING OF

OUR STUDENTS

JODI HIRSCH REIN

Fostering Automatic Readers, Writers, and

Spellers

Improving Our Students’ Reading

Through a better understanding the language system

By understanding how the language system impacts a students’ reading ability

Teaching the patterns of English

Using multisensory learning strategies in the classroom

Reading is a multifaceted skill, gradually acquired over years of instruction and practice.

The Many Strands that are Woven into Skilled Reading(Scarborough, 2001)

BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE LANGUAGE STRUCTURES VERBAL REASONING

LITERACY KNOWLEDGE

PHON. AWARENESS

DECODING (and SPELLING) SIGHT RECOGNITION

SKILLED READING: fluent execution and coordination of word recognition and text comprehension.

LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION

WORD RECOGNITION

increasingly

automatic

increasingly

strategic

Skilled Reading- fluent coordination of

word reading and comprehension

processes

Discourse/PragmaticsThe purposeful use of language

SyntaxThe order in which words are put together to

make meaning—grammar

SemanticsThe meaning of words and sentences

MorphologyThe way words are constructed of prefixes,

roots, and suffixes

PhonologySpeech sounds in the language

Levels of Proficiency

Accuracy: is the ability to perform the task correctly with help

Fluency: is the ability to perform the task correctly, independently taking time and effort

Automaticity: is unconsciously performing a task which frees up all your cognitive resources for higher order thinking

Children who have not achieved automaticity in reading may seem to read fluently and with expression, but don’t comprehend what they have read

Developmental Red Flags forReading Difficulties

Delay in speaking

Pronunciation problems: children should have little to no problems saying most words by 5-6, should not be confusing the order of sounds

Insensitivity to rhyme: children should hear rhyme in pairs of words and be able to do other phonological Awareness tasks

Word retrieval: children who talk around a words in order to avoid words

Letter names and sounds: Children who enter preschool and do not know all the letters and sounds are those who later may have reading problems

Good Readers

• They accurately process internal details of each word including the phonological, morphological and orthographic features.

• They have strategies to break words into syllables are to break down the phonemes within words and syllables.

• They translate print to speech rapidly and accurately.

• They are able to attend to the meaning of what they are reading and read with comprehension.

Poor Readers

• Often have weakness in phoneme awareness and phoneme manipulation skills

• Decode slowly and inaccurately or decode smoothly without comprehension

• Have difficulty with spelling

• Exhibit language processing difficulties

• Have poor inferencing skills

• Avoid reading, say that they do not want to read

Speed and Accuracy

Students need to be reading quickly enough to be able to process upper level grammar.

Phonological Awareness

The ability to hear and manipulate the sound structure of language at the phoneme, word, and syllable level.

This is an entirely oral language skill that is assessed and taught entirely without text.

These skills are not easily acquired and need to be systematically developed.

When we add text, the skills being practiced are phonics skills and tasks are much harder.

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is the strongest predictor of reading success in young children and lack of skills in this area can contribute to reading problems into adulthood

Phonemic Awareness

Children who lack phonemic awareness are unable to distinguish or manipulate SOUNDS within SPOKEN words or syllables. They would be unable to do the following tasks:

Phoneme Segmentation: what sounds do you hear in the word hot? What's the last sound in the word map?

Phoneme Deletion: what word would be left if the /k/ sound were taken away from cat?

Phoneme Matching: do pen and pipe start with the same sound?

Phoneme Counting: how many sounds do you hear in the word cake?

Phoneme Substitution: what word would you have if you changed the /h/ in hot to /p/?

Blending: what word would you have if you put these sounds together? /s/ /a/ /t/

Rhyming: tell me as many words as you can that rhyme with the word eat.

Teaching Phonemic Awareness:Sequencing Phonemic Awareness Skills

Teaching Phonemic Awareness:Sequencing Phonemic Awareness Skills

How We Develop Phonics Skills?

Ensure that students have strong skills in phoneme (sound) manipulation before introducing text.

Teach the patterns of language: the spellings of the sounds, the syllable types, and the syllable dividing rules.

Use multisensory methods to teach the connections between text and the sounds of language.

A multisensory method stimulates the visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic sensory channels at the same time.

Simultaneous oral spelling (SOS) is the basis of the Orton-Gillingham multisensory reading remediation method. The student writes or traces the spelling pattern saying the sound out loud.

What is Multisensory Instruction?

How do we bring this to the classroom?

Have students read out loud in classRepeated reading is well documented to be a

very effective way to increase reading speed and accuracy.

Use peer tutorsUse choral readingHave students read aloud at home what they

have read in schoolHave students partner with younger students

to read aloud to them

Tools for the Classroom

Air SpellingSound BlocksSandpaperCarpetChalkWiki SticksPlaydoughSandRiceJeans/Clothing

Teach Spelling Patterns

Teach spellings and their most common positions in words:

For example: LONG A SPELLINGS:ai is most often used at the beginning and in

the middle of words mail, aimay is found at the end of words may, Fridayeigh is found anywhere in a word eight, neigh,

weight

Teach Spelling Patterns

Avoid teaching more than one spelling of one sound at a time:

For example: teach ai and ee in one lesson, don’t teach ee and ea in one lesson

Teach one sound for one spelling at a time:Teach ea as /ē/ in one lesson lead, speakTeach ea as /ĕ/ in another lesson bread or

as a sight word

Teach Spelling Patterns

Avoid teaching exceptions to a spelling rule in the same lesson as you are teaching the rule

Do practice different spellings in a practice dictation:

1. tail 2. say 3. main 4. tray

Does the sound come in the middle or at the end of the syllable?

Teach the Syllable Types

A syllable is a wordor part of a word

with 1 talking vowel.

Syllable Patterns - CLOVER

C – closed – has one vowel and usually a short sound that is closed in by a consonant at, cat, struct

L – consonant le – (-ble, -cle, -dle, -ckle, -fle, -gle, -ple, -tle) bubble, uncle, handle, rifle, giggle, apple, kettle, pickle, huddle

O – open –one vowel, usually long sound, opened at the end and is not closed by consonant – ro, me, hi, go, tri

V – vowel team – two vowels together that usually make one vowel sound - ee, ea, oi, ou, ow, oa, aw, oy, ew – ouch, stream, spoil, float

E – silent e – VCe – e at end makes first vowel have a long sound - ake, ite, ube, ade, eve, ane, ize, ate, ile, oke

R – r controlled – all the vowels are controlled by r, er, ir, ur, or, ar– her, third, purse, sharp, earth

Teach Syllable Division Rules

Teach Word Parts as Vocabulary

pro means “ahead”ject means “to throw”or means “thing that” or noun

Projector

a projector is a thing that throws (light) ahead

Writing and Tracing Words as Part of Spelling and Vocabulary

least __________: the least has less than any other____________________________________

most__________: the most has more than any other_____________________________________

difference_______: the amount of one is less than the other

____________________________________

Differentiating Instruction

Different students need differing amounts of practice. Some need many perfect repetitions of a skill to learn it to automaticity

Computer Work in small groups Train peer tutors Train parents to work on skills at home Repeated Reading

By Fifth Grade:

Students need to be reading passages with sentences longer than two clauses.

They need to be reading grade level texts at at least 120 WPM without errors and with comprehension

Elementary students need to practice reading non-fiction texts fluently and accurately

Every Student Can Learn to Read Well

By learning the patterns of written and spoken

language The spelling patterns

The syllable patterns

By practicing the patterns using simultaneous oral

spelling

By learning the word parts, what they mean, and

when they are used

Insist that students re-read passages that they

struggle with.

Resources

Words their Way – Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, Johnston

PAF (Preventing Academic Failure) – Bertin, Perlman

How to Teach Spelling – Laura Rudginsky, Elizabeth Haskell

Explode the Code – Nancy Hall, Rena Price

Beyond the CodeMegawords – Kristin Johnson

Project Read, Phonics Guide – Green, Enfield

Vocabulary from Classical RootsVocabulary through Morphemes

Megawords

Book 1: Syllable Patterns

Book 2: Common Suffixes and Prefixes

Books 3&4: Schwa and Advanced Suffixes

Books 5-6: Vowel and Consonant Variations

Books 7&8: Unaccented Vowel , Advanced Syllables and Prefixes

Vocabulary From Classical Roots

Click icon to add pictureVocabulary Through Morphemes

Advanced Reading Skills for Our Students

We need to continue to address decoding after children have learned to read in order to make sure that they reach the level of skill and automaticity that will serve them in middle and high school.

We do that by teaching the patterns of written language including the meaningful word parts that contribute to the child’s vocabulary.

A final thought about reading…

“…Socrates never knew the secret at the heart of reading: the time it frees for the brain to have thoughts deeper than those that came before….the mysterious, invisible gift of time to think beyond is the reading brain’s greatest achievement; these built-in milliseconds form the basis of our ability to propel knowledge, to ponder virtue, and to articulate what was once inexpressible—which, when expressed, builds the next platform from which we dive below or soar above.”

- Maryanne Wolf in Proust and the Squid