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Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Session 5

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The Baseball Experiment (Background Knowledge)

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The Baseball Experiment (Background Knowledge)

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This post is published with permission from , the Core Knowledge Foundation's publishing partner for the Core Knowledge Language Arts® program. This post, subtitled "How two Wisconsin researchers discovered that the comprehension gap is a knowledge gap," examines an experiment that yielded interesting, and perhaps unexpected, results.

Posted by Core Knowledge Foundation

Category: Curriculum

In Norway, Wisconsin, as in much of the state, cold winters are a way of life. People allow extra time to bundle up and then waddle through town like Michelin men edged with fur. For the few months that grass is visible, it is tightly shorn. Lake Michigan, 20 miles to the east, makes the climate a little milder, so that the first freeze comes with the end of the baseball season, and the last freeze with the start of the next. Houses appear recently painted, and the low-slung school buildings sprawl as if the architect was unsure how to fill such a generous plot of land.

In one of those buildings in 1987, two young researchers from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Donna Recht and Lauren Leslie, ran an experiment elegant in its simplicity but profound in its implications. They took over an empty classroom and created an 18 by 20-inch replica of a baseball field furnished with four-inch wooden figures. Over several days, they invited 64 students to enter the room one by one. Leslie silently handed each student the same story narrating half an inning of a made-up baseball game. They were asked to read the story and use the model to reenact the action. The passage began in the middle of the action:

Churniak swings and hits a slow bouncing ball toward the shortstop. Haley comes in, fields it, and throws to first, but too late. Churniak is on first with a single, Johnson stayed on third. The next batter is Whitcomb, the Cougars' left-fielder.

All day long, Recht, dark-haired and ruddy, took copious notes, while Leslie, fair with eyes that expect you to try your best, ran through the task with a student. One 12 year old after another studied the passage and acted out the play:

The ball is returned to Claresen. He gets the sign and winds up, and throws a slider that Whitcomb hits between Manfred and Roberts for a hit.

Each student read carefully, laboring over every line, straining to capture each detail of the action.

Dulaney comes in and picks up the ball. Johnson has scored, and Churniak is heading for third. Here comes the throw and Churniak is out. Churniak argues but to no avail.

Every day, four-inch figures were pushed and pulled across the field, each motion representing the turning of the wheels in students' brains as they worked through the play. Eventually, Recht gave each student a quiz designed to assess his or her baseball knowledge, while Leslie reset the pieces and ushered in the next kid.

It took two full weeks to work through the 64 students and another month to compile their scores and analyze the results before they were able to pinpoint who did best at correctly reconstructing the story. Was it:

Strong readers;

Kids with good knowledge of baseball;

It made no difference?

Pause for a moment to make your prediction before reading further.

To their surprise, Recht and Leslie found that reading ability had little impact on how well kids understood the story. But knowledge of baseball did. In fact, those who were weaker readers did as well as strong readers if they had knowledge of baseball.

"Prior knowledge creates a scaffolding for information," explains Recht. "For poor readers, the scaffolding allows them to compensate for their generally inefficient recognition of important ideas."* If those same kids were taking a state test, the SAT or any other standard test of comprehension, and the passage just happened to be about baseball, they would outperform everyone else. But if they encountered a passage on a topic they knew little about, they would fare much worse.

High-stakes tests don't contain passages on baseball precisely because that would be unfair to kids who don't follow the sport. But they do contain passages on the founding documents of the United States, animal ecology, and space exploration. (In [another article in this issue](/blog/article/the-10-knowledge-domains-that-will-give-your-students-an-advantage-on-parc c), we present analysis of over 100 PARCC and SBAC passages, showing the prior knowledge that would give students an advantage.) Beyond test taking, others have identified the prior knowledge necessary to succeed in college and life. Beyond school, writers of newspaper articles, magazine pieces and books all make assumptions about basic knowledge shared by readers.

What Recht and Leslie showed was that knowledge counts much more than we think in understanding text. They point out that an emphasis on teaching reading strategies-such as finding the main idea and summarization-has become very prevalent in US classrooms based on evidence that they help weak readers. But practicing these strategies over and over has diminishing returns-and comes at the cost of a crucial missed opportunity; building knowledge is at least as important.

It is hard to find the "main idea" of a piece of writing if you aren't really understanding any of the ideas. Is a kangaroo rat large like a kangaroo or small like a rat? How does a rainforest feel when you are wearing a wool uniform like the English schoolboys did in Lord of the Flies? Prior knowledge can transform a poor reader into a capable one and a poor writer into a fascinating one.

*Recht and Leslie published their research in Recht, D.R. and Leslie, L., 1988. Effect of prior knowledge on good and poor readers' memory of text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(1), p.16.

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The Baseball Experiment - Core Knowledge Foundation

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In 1987, two young researchers from Marquette University ran an experiment. Their results showed that even as many Language Arts programs emphasize "reading strategies," knowledge counts much more than you might think when it comes to understanding text.

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~7:30

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The Brain Prize Presents: Stanislas Dehaene

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Gots: I learnt how to use spelling screener

Wants: How to engage students in reading, especially when there is a large gap between the advanced ones and low ones - how to differentiate the instruction to engage both?

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Reading A-Z
Epic!
OpenLibrary
Tumblebooks
Storyline Online (not for Read Aloud but good source for books for kids to listen to a fluent reader)

Subscription Needed
PebbleGo
Sora
Skybrary (one month free)

Search taobao for other titles of favorite read alouds!

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Session 1: A notebook/writing utensil
Session 2: Assessment Data
Session 3: Observational Notes

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Oral Reading Fluency (ORF)
Spelling Screener
Phonological Awareness Screening Test (PAST)
Phonics and Word Reading Survey

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12 years pedagogical experience:

Certification in Elementary Ed, Special Ed, Bilingual Ed, and TESOL

Migrant Educational Outreach Teacher

Bilingual Educator (Spanish/English)

Bilingual ICOT (Integrated Co-taught SPED)

Literacy Coordinator

Head of Student Support Services

English as a New Language (ENL)

New York/China

Cheese-maker
Traveler
Pun-lover

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12 years pedagogical experience:

Certification in Elementary Ed, Special Ed, Bilingual Ed, and TESOL

Migrant Educational Outreach Teacher

Bilingual Educator (Spanish/English)

Bilingual ICOT (Integrated Co-taught SPED)

Literacy Coordinator

Head of Student Support Services

English as a New Language (ENL)

New York/China

Cheese-maker
Traveler
Pun-lover

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gots - There are other strategies that we can use to assess the areas of learners that they encountered reading

wants - ways we can address the needs of learners in word recognition and comprehension

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gots - Word Recognition * Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension. We can use the Spelling Screeners to assess students.

wants - How to meet each student's learning need  when they are hugely differently leveled? Is Phonics a priority and a necessity in English teaching and learning?

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Gots -- 1. Students need a strong vocabulary foundation to comprehend the reading materials. When they have better word recognition and language comprehension, students will have good reading comprehension. 2. Use both tools to assess students' vocabulary foundation skills: quick tools, including ORF & Spelling Screener. and Word Recognition, including PAST & Word Survey.

Wants -- 1. leveled up resources of phonics and word recognition, so at different grade level we as teachers know the standards, and implement it into our daily lessons.

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gots：NO reading comprehension without good vocabulary recognition and language understanding.

wants：How to engage students in reading when they are in different reading levels;
teaching strategies that teachers can use in our daily reading lessons;

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gots-I learnt a useful way to check students spelling and their reading fluency. Besides, word recognition is the prerequisite for reading comprehension.

wants-for students in grade 4, they can read proper passage fluently, but they do not really understand the meaning. How to solve this problem?

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Gots: I learned that the spelling screener and phonological awareness screening are constructive ways to gauge students' reading level and help the teacher find corrective measures.

Wants: I want to use ORF in a differentiated classroom effectively. I also want to know other methods to supplement this technique.

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Eileen Yuan-G5
Gots: Word Recognition*Language comprehension=Reading Comprehension, this helps me know my students better, so I know what area each kid should focus on more next.

Wants: resources of word recognition, because some students can read well, but they don't really understand what they are reading. and I wonder if grammer also an important part in terms of reading?

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Gots：Building the student’s phonological awareness is very important. Once automaticity of it becomes, they can go through the reading from recognition, language to comprehension easily.
Wants: the ways students are centered when the reading class is on.

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Chengdu Meishi IS Reading Group Assessment Data

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Word Recognition
Word Rec & Fluency
Fluency & Comp
Comp & Vocab

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Epic! Books
FunBrain
NewsELA
ReadWorks

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Access various reading and math resources and educational tools related to Lexile and Quantile levels for teachers and parents.

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently. Students can complete the activities in small groups, pairs, or individually.

Accompanying these Student Center Activities is a Teacher Resource Guide that offers important insights on differentiated instruction and how to use the Student Center materials.

Component

Name of the reading component: Phonological Awareness (PA), Phonics (P), Fluency (F), Vocabulary (V), or Comprehension (C). Each component is color coded: PA is purple, P is orange, F is red, V is green, C is blue.

Subcomponent

Name of the reading subcomponent, which is a subskill of the component.

Activity Name

Activity Number

The letters correspond with the reading component (PA, P, F, V, or C). The numbers are listed in ascending order within each component. The activities are sequenced from simple to more complex within each component and subcomponent.

Student Icon

The suggested number of students for the activity. One student icon indicates that students may work independently or with a small group. Two student icons indicate that the activity requires students to work in pairs. Two student icons with a plus sign indicate that the activity requires two or more students.

Objective

States the goal of the activity, which is aligned with the subcomponent.

Materials

Materials are located on the pages that follow the Activity Plan. Most materials are non-consumable to be prepared and used repeatedly (e.g., word cards can be laminated). Some materials are consumable and will need to be duplicated for each student doing the activity. Other materials, such as counters, are commonly found in most classrooms.

Activity Statement

One sentence explanation of the purpose of the activity and what students do to complete the activity.

Activity Steps

The first step describes how to setup the center. The second step begins with: The student, Students, Working in pairs, or Taking turns depending on the number of students needed to complete the activity. The second step also starts the series of steps to complete the activity. The next steps explain what the student does to complete the activity. The last step lists one of three accountability methods: Self-check, Peer evaluation, or Teacher evaluation.

Example

A visual of the activity and key materials.

Extensions and Adaptations

Suggestions that extend or provide an adaptation for additional practice on the skill addressed in the activity. Materials for the extensions and adaptations are included after the pages that align to the Activity Plan.

Users may use the FCRR Student Center Activities resources as long as modifications are not made, the resources will only be used for non-profit educational purposes, and the copyright belong jointly to the Florida Department of Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research. These resources may not be used for any commercial purposes. These resources on our site may be linked to but not reposted, reproduced, modified, or copied to other sites. For questions about the use of these resources, please contact The Florida Center for Reading Research at fcrr@fcrr.org.

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently.

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Literacy Consultants & Consulting Services | Erin Kent Consulting

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Literacy Consultants & Consulting Services | Erin Kent Consulting

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EKC provides literacy consultants, consulting services, and literacy professional learning for schools.

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Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

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Gots - Word recognition --- reading fluency --- comprehension and production. Differentiated guidance to individuals.

Wants - Convenient resources for leveled reading that students can use at home without adult's assistance.

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Thanks for sharing lots of useful resources! I will carry those resources in the guided reading group. Some approaches takes more than 3 days. I will try and see what happen. Things I still want are that you can provide a few minute Demo Classes if possible.

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Thanks for giving us some new views to deal with discrepant class so that I have more confidence to group them and level them to guide them reading scientifically！and also I really like the syllable types and other resources!

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Gots — 1. very appreciate that Hannah shared the lesson plan forms for different groups. It’s very practical. 2. After Hannah explained how to use the lesson plan I reflected my guided reading. I realized that I did the opposite way, which probably made the reading challenging for the lower group. I will have lessons on the challenge vocabulary first. Then read the book.

Wants — Hannah shared a lot reading resources, such as books, vocabulary. I have not digging them yet. But I wonder if there is resources including the grammar, structure, and guiding questions for different level books.

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Eileen G5
Gots-Thank you for sharing those useful resources, tools and so on.

Wants-Demos lessons for different grades if possible.

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Reading Multisyllable Words with Xavier, Third Grader

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Thanks for your kind sharing!

Gots——I learned how to group students based on their reading levels and data from spelling  screener.

Wants——15-minute-detailed lesson plan for guided reading when teachers have to take 2 or 3 groups.

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~12 minutes

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Blending Sounds in Syllables with Autumn, Kindergartner

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Mastering Short Vowels and Reading Whole Words with Calista, First Grader

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Word Recognition
Word Rec & Fluency
Fluency & Comp
Comp & Vocab

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Flyleaf Publishing
Core Knowledge Student Readers
Starfall
Measured Mom Decodable Nonfiction
Speld Phonic Books (Thanks, Nancy!)

Other decodable books to purchase

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Phonological Awareness and Phonics/Word Study Games

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Phonological Awareness and Phonics/Word Study Games

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently. Students can complete the activities in small groups, pairs, or individually.

Accompanying these Student Center Activities is a Teacher Resource Guide that offers important insights on differentiated instruction and how to use the Student Center materials.

Component

Name of the reading component: Phonological Awareness (PA), Phonics (P), Fluency (F), Vocabulary (V), or Comprehension (C). Each component is color coded: PA is purple, P is orange, F is red, V is green, C is blue.

Subcomponent

Name of the reading subcomponent, which is a subskill of the component.

Activity Name

Activity Number

The letters correspond with the reading component (PA, P, F, V, or C). The numbers are listed in ascending order within each component. The activities are sequenced from simple to more complex within each component and subcomponent.

Student Icon

The suggested number of students for the activity. One student icon indicates that students may work independently or with a small group. Two student icons indicate that the activity requires students to work in pairs. Two student icons with a plus sign indicate that the activity requires two or more students.

Objective

States the goal of the activity, which is aligned with the subcomponent.

Materials

Materials are located on the pages that follow the Activity Plan. Most materials are non-consumable to be prepared and used repeatedly (e.g., word cards can be laminated). Some materials are consumable and will need to be duplicated for each student doing the activity. Other materials, such as counters, are commonly found in most classrooms.

Activity Statement

One sentence explanation of the purpose of the activity and what students do to complete the activity.

Activity Steps

The first step describes how to setup the center. The second step begins with: The student, Students, Working in pairs, or Taking turns depending on the number of students needed to complete the activity. The second step also starts the series of steps to complete the activity. The next steps explain what the student does to complete the activity. The last step lists one of three accountability methods: Self-check, Peer evaluation, or Teacher evaluation.

Example

A visual of the activity and key materials.

Extensions and Adaptations

Suggestions that extend or provide an adaptation for additional practice on the skill addressed in the activity. Materials for the extensions and adaptations are included after the pages that align to the Activity Plan.

Users may use the FCRR Student Center Activities resources as long as modifications are not made, the resources will only be used for non-profit educational purposes, and the copyright belong jointly to the Florida Department of Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research. These resources may not be used for any commercial purposes. These resources on our site may be linked to but not reposted, reproduced, modified, or copied to other sites. For questions about the use of these resources, please contact The Florida Center for Reading Research at fcrr@fcrr.org.

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently.

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Word Lists for Phonological Awareness and Phonics

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Word Lists for Phonological Awareness and Phonics

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Hand Motions for Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

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Hand Motions for Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

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Resources from IMSE | Twitter, Instagram, Facebook | Linktree

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gots - we need to make sure that before we introduce complex comprehension questions to our group we must be aware that we need to address some challenges, particularly on phonics

the planning format can help one teachers to handle and manage groups

wants - literature circles for upper primary students

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Gots - Thank you for sharing the resources and the demo lesson for foundational skills group.  I really like the concept mapping. It asses students pre knowledge, also summarize the reading.

Wants - For the advanced reading group, students usually get a long and complicated article\stories, would you suggest that we use such type of reading materials during guided reading??? The past 2 weeks I noticed that students aimed to complete the comprehension tasks. But for the grammar and vocabulary that we do want students to maser and apply into their speaking and writing, which is tough.

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Gots: Reviewing vocabulary before the reading may be beneficial for some students who struggle with word recognition. It can also help students understand key concepts and the main idea of the text.

Wants: Material and strategies for upper-level students who are beyond the stage of basic phonics. Also, what are some ways the teacher can maximize their role in reading groups? Are there things teachers should focus on before, during, and after reading?

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Gots - I observed the practice of guided reading in my colleague's classroom. I basically know how to carry it out in small groups.
Wants - I am teaching alone two classes that have around 50 students with the same assigned textbook. There seems little chance to do small groups works. I want some practical strategies that can be used in my classroom.

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Thanks for sharing the demo videos, which is quite useful. And I find those online books can be used as reading materials in my class. Besides, kids can review it anytime  anywhere.

Wants:
Dear Hannah, how do teachers choose proper textbook？

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Gots
Literacy assessment；Divide students into small groups according to “daily observation”；Give suggestion to students for the next steps according to the Planner；

Wants
Practical reading strategies for different leveled students in daily classes at the same time；
How and who will usually test the reading level.

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The Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction

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The Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction

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The Science of Reading Comprehension - Keys to Literacy

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The term Science of Reading has been the focus of attention for several years (see my January, 2020 post). The term refers to the research that reading experts, especially cognitive scientists, have conducted on how we learn to read. This body of knowledge, over twenty years in the making, has helped debunk older methods of reading instruction that were based on tradition and observation, not evidence. Much of the discourse around instruction based on the Science of Reading tends to focus on the importance of explicit instruction for phonemic awareness, phonics and fluency. But what does the research tell us about effective instruction for comprehension?

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Gots - I watched the demo class of the level Word Recognition and Fluency, in which most my students are. Introduce the chunk - games or activities to practice the chunk sound - teach the target word(can tell the corresponding words in mother language)- make student read the text (don't have to comprehend each sentence).
How to teach vocabularies - define - connect - relate to learning - turn and talk.

Wants - A demo class to teach vocabularies.

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Gots - 1. accept transferable language while teaching and learning. Students' mother language could be the foundation input and output during the concept and vocabulary learning time. 2. 3 tiered vocabulary: everyday words, academic across content , and low frequency in specific domains 3. 4 strategies to teach vocabulary: define - connect - relate to learning - turn and talk

Wants - how to select texts for upper level groups

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Gots - I saw all of your videos on comprehension vocabulary, word recognition, and word fluency. Reviewing these with students before and after reading can help students what to look for in the lesson and help them understand what they need to focus on moving forward. You also mentioned that teachers should encourage students to use their native language. The problem with this is that some of the ex-pat teachers do not understand Chinese and do not know whether or not students are saying things relevant to the reading. I let students interact with others in Chinese during guided reading to explain central ideas and certain concepts they do not understand in English. Still, I try to limit this because I want them to practice English as much as possible.

Wants - I would like to see a demo class teaching 5-6 upper-level students. In our guided reading classes, the students are divided into four groups. Since we only have two teachers, teachers can only work with one group at a time, leaving two groups to work independently. How do we ensure that the groups working independently use that time wisely? What can teachers do to help these students maximize class? Also, the students reading levels vary significantly in grade 5. The students should be divided into five or six groups, but it is not realistically possible because we only have two teachers. Other than having more teachers, how can we reasonably manage all the groups?

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Eileen Grade 5
Gots: 4and 4 methods.

Wants: How to improve their writng gradually?

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What have I learned that I will carry with me in my teaching?

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What have I learned that I will carry with me in my teaching?

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Next week?
Next month?
Next year?

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What have I learned that I will carry with me in my teaching?

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What goals do I have as a teacher and a learner?

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What goals do I have as a teacher and a learner?

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What do I need to achieve my goals?

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What goals do I have as a teacher and a learner? What do I need to achieve my goals?