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We Need a "Writing Rope"! - Keys to Literacy

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The literature and discourse related to literacy instruction tends to focus on reading, even though writing is just as important for student literacy achievement. In addition, significant attention is paid to the multi component nature of skilled reading, while writing tends to be referred to as a single, monolithic skill.

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"Those who tell the stories rule the world." This proverb, attributed to the Hopi Indians, is one I wish I'd known a long time ago, because I would have used it when teaching my students the craft of storytelling. With a well-told story we can help a person see things in an entirely new way. We can forge new relationships and strengthen the ones we already have. We can change a law, inspire a movement, make people care fiercely about things they'd never given a passing thought.

But when we study storytelling with our students, we forget all that. Or at least I did. When my students asked why we read novels and stories, and why we wrote personal narratives and fiction, my defense was pretty lame: I probably said something about the importance of having a shared body of knowledge, or about the enjoyment of losing yourself in a book, or about the benefits of having writing skills in general.

I forgot to talk about the power of story. I didn't bother to tell them that the ability to tell a captivating story is one of the things that makes human beings extraordinary. It's how we connect to each other. It's something to celebrate, to study, to perfect. If we're going to talk about how to teach students to write stories, we should start by thinking about why we tell stories at all. If we can pass that on to our students, then we will be going beyond a school assignment; we will be doing something transcendent.

Now. How do we get them to write those stories? I'm going to share the process I used for teaching narrative writing. I used this process with middle school students, but it would work with most age groups.

A Note About Form: Personal Narrative or Short Story?

When teaching narrative writing, many teachers separate personal narratives from short stories. In my own classroom, I tended to avoid having my students write short stories because personal narratives were more accessible. I could usually get students to write about something that really happened, while it was more challenging to get them to make something up from scratch.

In the "real" world of writers, though, the main thing that separates memoir from fiction is labeling: A writer might base a novel heavily on personal experiences, but write it all in third person and change the names of characters to protect the identities of people in real life. Another writer might create a short story in first person that reads like a personal narrative, but is entirely fictional. Just last weekend my husband and I watched the movie Lion and were glued to the screen the whole time, knowing it was based on a true story. James Frey's book A Million Little Pieces sold millions of copies as a memoir but was later found to contain more than a little bit of fiction. Then there are unique books like Curtis Sittenfeld's brilliant novel American Wife, based heavily on the early life of Laura Bush but written in first person, with fictional names and settings, and labeled as a work of fiction. The line between fact and fiction has always been really, really blurry, but the common thread running through all of it is good storytelling.

With that in mind, the process for teaching narrative writing can be exactly the same for writing personal narratives or short stories; it's the same skill set. So if you think your students can handle the freedom, you might decide to let them choose personal narrative or fiction for a narrative writing assignment, or simply tell them that whether the story is true doesn't matter, as long as they are telling a good story and they are not trying to pass off a fictional story as fact.

Here are some examples of what that kind of flexibility could allow:

A student might tell a true story from their own experience, but write it as if it were a fiction piece, with fictional characters, in third person.

A student might create a completely fictional story, but tell it in first person, which would give it the same feel as a personal narrative.

A student might tell a true story that happened to someone else, but write it in first person, as if they were that person. For example, I could write about my grandmother's experience of getting lost as a child, but I might write it in her voice.

If we aren't too restrictive about what we call these pieces, and we talk about different possibilities with our students, we can end up with lots of interesting outcomes. Meanwhile, we're still teaching students the craft of narrative writing.

A Note About Process: Write With Your Students

One of the most powerful techniques I used as a writing teacher was to do my students' writing assignments with them. I would start my own draft at the same time as they did, composing "live" on the classroom projector, and doing a lot of thinking out loud so they could see all the decisions a writer has to make.

The most helpful parts for them to observe were the early drafting stage, where I just scratched out whatever came to me in messy, run-on sentences, and the revision stage, where I crossed things out, rearranged, and made tons of notes on my writing. I have seen over and over again how witnessing that process can really help to unlock a student's understanding of how writing actually gets made.

A Narrative Writing Unit Plan

Before I get into these steps, I should note that there is no one right way to teach narrative writing, and plenty of accomplished teachers are doing it differently and getting great results. This just happens to be a process that has worked for me.

Step 1: Show Students That Stories Are Everywhere

Getting our students to tell stories should be easy. They hear and tell stories all the time. But when they actually have to put words on paper, they forget their storytelling abilities: They can't think of a topic. They omit relevant details, but go on and on about irrelevant ones. Their dialogue is bland. They can't figure out how to start. They can't figure out how to end.

So the first step in getting good narrative writing from students is to help them see that they are already telling stories every day. They gather at lockers to talk about that thing that happened over the weekend. They sit at lunch and describe an argument they had with a sibling. Without even thinking about it, they begin sentences with "This one time..." and launch into stories about their earlier childhood experiences. Students are natural storytellers; learning how to do it well on paper is simply a matter of studying good models, then imitating what those writers do.

So start off the unit by getting students to tell their stories. In journal quick-writes, think-pair-shares, or by playing a game like Concentric Circles, prompt them to tell some of their own brief stories: A time they were embarrassed. A time they lost something. A time they didn't get to do something they really wanted to do. By telling their own short anecdotes, they will grow more comfortable and confident in their storytelling abilities. They will also be generating a list of topic ideas. And by listening to the stories of their classmates, they will be adding onto that list and remembering more of their own stories.

And remember to tell some of your own. Besides being a good way to bond with students, sharing your stories will help them see more possibilities for the ones they can tell.

Step 2: Study the Structure of a Story

Now that students have a good library of their own personal stories pulled into short-term memory, shift your focus to a more formal study of what a story looks like.

Use a diagram to show students a typical story arc like the one below. Then, using a simple story-like this Coca Cola commercial -fill out the story arc with the components from that story. Once students have seen this story mapped out, have them try it with another one, like a story you've read in class, a whole novel, or another short video.

Step 3: Introduce the Assignment

Up to this point, students have been immersed in storytelling. Now give them specific instructions for what they are going to do. Share your assignment rubric so they understand the criteria that will be used to evaluate them; it should be ready and transparent right from the beginning of the unit. As always, I recommend using a single point rubric for this.

Step 4: Read Models

Once the parameters of the assignment have been explained, have students read at least one model story, a mentor text that exemplifies the qualities you're looking for. This should be a story on a topic your students can kind of relate to, something they could see themselves writing. For my narrative writing unit (see the end of this post), I wrote a story called "Frog" about a 13-year-old girl who finally gets to stay home alone, then finds a frog in her house and gets completely freaked out, which basically ruins the fun she was planning for the night.

They will be reading this model as writers, looking at how the author shaped the text for a purpose, so that they can use those same strategies in their own writing. Have them look at your rubric and find places in the model that illustrate the qualities listed in the rubric. Then have them complete a story arc for the model so they can see the underlying structure.

Ideally, your students will have already read lots of different stories to look to as models. If that isn't the case, this list of narrative texts recommended by Cult of Pedagogy followers on Twitter would be a good place to browse for titles that might be right for your students. Keep in mind that we have not read most of these stories, so be sure to read them first before adopting them for classroom use.

Step 5: Story Mapping

At this point, students will need to decide what they are going to write about. If they are stuck for a topic, have them just pick something they can write about, even if it's not the most captivating story in the world. A skilled writer could tell a great story about deciding what to have for lunch. If they are using the skills of narrative writing, the topic isn't as important as the execution.

Have students complete a basic story arc for their chosen topic using a diagram like the one below. This will help them make sure that they actually have a story to tell, with an identifiable problem, a sequence of events that build to a climax, and some kind of resolution, where something is different by the end. Again, if you are writing with your students, this would be an important step to model for them with your own story-in-progress.

Step 6: Quick Drafts

Now, have students get their chosen story down on paper as quickly as possible: This could be basically a long paragraph that would read almost like a summary, but it would contain all the major parts of the story. Model this step with your own story, so they can see that you are not shooting for perfection in any way. What you want is a working draft, a starting point, something to build on for later, rather than a blank page (or screen) to stare at.

Step 7: Plan the Pacing

Now that the story has been born in raw form, students can begin to shape it. This would be a good time for a lesson on pacing, where students look at how writers expand some moments to create drama and shrink other moments so that the story doesn't drag. Creating a diagram like the one below forces a writer to decide how much space to devote to all of the events in the story.

Step 8: Long Drafts

With a good plan in hand, students can now slow down and write a proper draft, expanding the sections of their story that they plan to really draw out and adding in more of the details that they left out in the quick draft.

Step 9: Workshop

Once students have a decent rough draft-something that has a basic beginning, middle, and end, with some discernible rising action, a climax of some kind, and a resolution, you're ready to shift into full-on workshop mode. I would do this for at least a week: Start class with a short mini-lesson on some aspect of narrative writing craft, then give students the rest of the period to write, conference with you, and collaborate with their peers. During that time, they should focus some of their attention on applying the skill they learned in the mini-lesson to their drafts, so they will improve a little bit every day.

Topics for mini-lessons can include:

How to weave exposition into your story so you don't give readers an "information dump"

How to carefully select dialogue to create good scenes, rather than quoting everything in a conversation

How to punctuate and format dialogue so that it imitates the natural flow of a conversation

How to describe things using sensory details and figurative language; also, what to describe...students too often give lots of irrelevant detail

How to choose precise nouns and vivid verbs, use a variety of sentence lengths and structures, and add transitional words, phrases, and features to help the reader follow along

How to start, end, and title a story

Step 10: Final Revisions and Edits

As the unit nears its end, students should be shifting away from revision, in which they alter the content of a piece, toward editing, where they make smaller changes to the mechanics of the writing. Make sure students understand the difference between the two: They should not be correcting each other's spelling and punctuation in the early stages of this process, when the focus should be on shaping a better story.

One of the most effective strategies for revision and editing is to have students read their stories out loud. In the early stages, this will reveal places where information is missing or things get confusing. Later, more read-alouds will help them immediately find missing words, unintentional repetitions, and sentences that just "sound weird." So get your students to read their work out loud frequently. It also helps to print stories on paper: For some reason, seeing the words in print helps us notice things we didn't see on the screen.

To get the most from peer review, where students read and comment on each other's work, more modeling from you is essential: Pull up a sample piece of writing and show students how to give specific feedback that helps, rather than simply writing "good detail" or "needs more detail," the two comments I saw exchanged most often on students' peer-reviewed papers.

Step 11: Final Copies and Publication

Once revision and peer review are done, students will hand in their final copies. If you don't want to get stuck with 100-plus papers to grade, consider using Catlin Tucker's station rotation model, which keeps all the grading in class. And when you do return stories with your own feedback, try using Kristy Louden's delayed grade strategy, where students don't see their final grade until they have read your written feedback.

Beyond the standard hand-in-for-a-grade, consider other ways to have students publish their stories. Here are some options:

Stories could be published as individual pages on a collaborative website or blog.

Students could create illustrated e-books out of their stories.

Students could create a slideshow to accompany their stories and record them as digital storytelling videos. This could be done with a tool like Screencastify or Screencast-O-Matic.

So this is what worked for me. If you've struggled to get good stories from your students, try some or all of these techniques next time. I think you'll find that all of your students have some pretty interesting stories to tell. Helping them tell their stories well is a gift that will serve them for many years after they leave your classroom. ♦

Want this unit ready-made?

If you're a writing teacher in grades 7-12 and you'd like a classroom-ready unit like the one described above, including slideshow mini-lessons on 14 areas of narrative craft, a sample narrative piece, editable rubrics, and other supplemental materials to guide students through every stage of the process, take a look at my Narrative Writing unit. Just click on the image below and you'll be taken to a page where you can read more and see a detailed preview of what's included.

Come back for more.
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A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Narrative Writing

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The ability to tell a good story is one of the things that makes human beings extraordinary. Here's the process I used to teach my own students how to do it.

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You wrote recently that it was a good idea to teach comprehension skills, but our school district says we shouldn't, that it's prior knowledge that matters. Do you know the baseball study? Have you read Natalie Wexler's research? It is really difficult to trust research when everyone tells us something different.
Shanahan response:

I feel your pain.

There are research results and there are interpretations of research results. What research has been done, what these studies have found, and whether these studies were any good shouldn't be points of disagreement. But interpretations of what a study means or what actions you should take based on it are going to lead to different claims and I'm sure that is confusing.

That's why I go to great pains to distinguish whether I'm reporting research findings or making claims based upon them. When I do the latter, I try to explain my reasoning so readers can determine whether they think my position is sound.

A few of my own rules for research interpretation:

(1) Always distinguish research results and opinions.

(2) Don't make claims on the basis of a few studies (it's okay to use a study as an example as long as it's an example of more than itself).

(3) Don't prescribe instruction unless research has found it has benefited learners (no matter how tantalizing the theories and correlations may be, don't trust them until they have been tried).

So, what I can tell you about prior knowledge? Prior knowledge refers to the knowledge readers have in their heads prior to reading a text. There is a substantial and extensive body of research going back to Bartlett's 1932 study that reveals that readers use their knowledge to understand text. Case closed on that (and that is not an opinion).

But what does this mean for reading instruction? That's where interpretation begins to intrude.

One conclusion that many of us draw from the research is that it's a good idea for kids to know a lot. The more knowledge and experience they can bring to texts (or life) the better. Instructional practices consistent with this would include providing high quality teaching in social studies, science, and the arts. Some schools - in their efforts to improve reading neglect those subjects and I think this body of research suggests that to not be a good idea.

Another conclusion that seems consistent is that we should make sure the texts we use to teach reading are meaty. Why waste time? If kids are reading, why not expose them to high quality literature and informational texts. Following up later on these readings to ensure that this valuable content is retained seems like a good idea (and this makes sense for the earlier mentioned social studies and science texts as well).

Media is another potential avenue to knowledge, and that means encouraging Carmen Sandiego and Bill Nye the Science Guy rather than Angry Birds.

Yep, there are a lot of things one could do to increase kids' knowledge, and that, presumably, in the long run could help to make kids better readers. Not many arguments there.

But then we get to the baseball study that you mention. This is a cool study (Recht & Leslie, 1988), that was nicely done. The researchers had 7 th and 8 th graders read a text about a baseball game. They divided the students into four groups: good readers who were high or low in baseball knowledge, and poor readers who were high or low in baseball knowledge. They found that reading ability contributed less to comprehension success than the students' levels of knowledge about baseball. Good readers with high prior knowledge did no better than poor readers with high prior knowledge when it came to reading comprehension. But it doesn't prove what a lot of people seem to think it does.

It's a provocative study alright. But it's a one off. There aren't other studies with this kind of finding (lots of studies show the importance of knowledge, but no other one pits reading up against knowledge in this way - interesting that this has not been replicated in more than 30 years). Not only is it the solitary study on this, it was conducted with only a single text and that one designed to be used in a research study. Kind of hard to generalize very far from that in my opinion, though obviously there are people who think this is the definitive empirical evidence on this issue (such as whoever is making policy in your district).

Would I stop teaching reading or reduce the amount of reading instruction or end reading strategy instruction because of the baseball study? Nope, I wouldn't, but if there were an accumulation of such findings, I could be so persuaded. (Recht and Leslie themselves didn't draw this conclusion either, though in what amounts to an afterword they speculated on what it might say about the value of comprehension strategy instruction-which, of course, they didn't actually study--it was speculation, not a finding).

One interesting thing about this study that isn't discussed is that the students weren't grouped on the basis of comprehension strategy use but on reading ability. If the study results can be interpreted (and this part is entirely interpretation) to mean that comprehension strategies shouldn't be taught, then likewise this study should lead us to reject any other kind of reading instruction (such as decoding, vocabulary, increased amounts of reading, etc.). I'm not willing to go there myself.

Knowing the importance of prior knowledge, I'd likely do what Recht and Leslie actually recommended in their study - instigating students to use their knowledge when reading. Though I would do this in a science or social studies class where I'm trying to maximize their knowledge.

Respectfully, that isn't what I'd do in a reading class.

Here my goal isn't to ensure immediate comprehension of today's text, but to make kids successful independent readers. That's where strategies come in. If I'm always providing kids with the appropriate background knowledge to understand each text used for instruction, then how do students ever learn to take on a text on their own? And, what can they do to take on texts for which they don't already have a bunch of relevant knowledge?

I'm not satisfied with the claim (and this is a claim, not a research finding) that readers can't understand texts unless they have a lot of background knowledge. If that were true, we could never negotiate cultural boundaries or go beyond our very limited life experiences.

Cyndie and I have spent the past couple of years reading classical works of physics, biology, economics, philosophy of science, communications, political science, philosophy and history - works that we clearly have insufficient background for. But you know what? We're able to make sense of them, albeit not as easily as we can take on a crime noir story of Dashiell Hammett or Anne Tyler's latest novel.

That's where strategies come in. They let readers in on the secret that if you are intentional and strategic you can make sense of texts, even if you lack the background for them. That's why some smart people embrace reading as a "vaccine against populism, racism, and nationalism" (Mario Vargas Llosa, 2010); reading is more than finding information in texts that agrees with what we think we already know. It allows us to break the bonds of experience, superceding what we know.

There are literally hundreds of studies showing that teaching certain strategies improves reading comprehension, so, despite any claims to the contrary, I do encourage the teaching of such strategies. However, for the most part these studies are brief. They show the value of strategies, but they don't make the case that strategy instruction alone is the way to go or that we should invest lots of time in strategy teaching.

Given the great emphasis on knowledge as the source of reading comprehension, there is one strategy I'd really like to see emphasized more.

That is teaching students not to believe too deeply in their prior knowledge. You see, research not only shows that knowledge contributes to comprehension, but to miscomprehension as well (a research result, not an opinion). Readers need to be more open to what authors have to say without allowing current "knowledge" to dominate the process.

Show me a reader (or listener) who views communication and learning as being mainly about applying one's knowledge, and I'll show you unbridled egotism and unnecessary misinterpretation. Self-skeptical reading is the opposite of knowledge-dominated reading and we ought to make certain that kids both know a lot and that they are not entirely self-satisfied in their knowledge.

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Prior Knowledge and Reading Comprehension | Shanahan on Literacy

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This blog entry explores what is known about the role of prior knowledge in reading comprehension and what teachers can do to help kids to benefit from this. It specifically reviews the famous baseball study, revealing that it doesn’t show that reading comprehension strategies aren’t a bad idea.

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For Students Who Are Not Yet Fluent, Silent Reading Is Not the Best Use of Classroom Time

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Teachers do their best to improve students’ fluency, but sometimes the information they have to work with is incomplete and, therefore, leads them down the wrong path. For example, silent reading or ‘Round Robin’ reading seem like good ways to improve fluency. But, in fact, increasing fluency requir…

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Fluency Oriented Reading Instruction _FORI_

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Guidelines for instruction

Provide children with opportunities to read and reread a range of stories and informational texts by reading on their own, partner reading, or choral reading.

Introduce new or difficult words to children, and provide practice reading these words before they read on their own.

Include opportunities for children to hear a range of texts read fluently and with expression.

Suggest ideas for building home-school connections that encourage families to become involved actively in children's reading development.

Encourage periodic timing of children's oral reading and recording of information about individual children's reading rate and accuracy.

Model fluent reading, then have students reread the text on their own.

What students should read

Fluency develops as a result of many opportunities to practice reading with a high degree of success. Therefore, your students should practice rereading aloud texts that are reasonably easy for them – that is, texts containing mostly words that they know or can decode easily. In other words, the texts should be at the students' independent reading level.

A text is at students' independent reading level if they can read it with about 95% accuracy. If the text is more difficult, students will focus on word recognition and will not have an opportunity to develop fluency.

The text your students practice rereading orally should also be relatively short – probably 50-200 words, depending on the age of the students. You should also use a variety of reading materials, including stories, nonfiction, and poetry. Poetry is especially well suited to fluency practice because poems for children are often short and they contain rhythm, rhyme, and meaning, making practice easy, fun, and rewarding.

Model fluent reading

By listening to good models of fluent reading, students learn how a reader's voice can help written text make sense. Read aloud daily to your students. By reading effortlessly and with expression, you are modeling for your students how a fluent reader sounds during reading.

Repeated reading

After you model how to read the text, you must have the students reread it. By doing this, the students are engaging in repeated reading. Usually, having students read a text four times is sufficient to improve fluency. Remember, however, that instructional time is limited, and it is the actual time that students are actively engaged in reading that produces reading gains.

Have other adults read aloud to students. Encourage parents or other family members to read aloud to their children at home. The more models of fluent reading the children hear, the better. Of course, hearing a model of fluent reading is not the only benefit of reading aloud to children. Reading to children also increases their knowledge of the world, their vocabulary, their familiarity with written language ("book language"), and their interest in reading.

Activities for students to increase fluency

There are several ways that your students can practice orally rereading text, including student-adult reading, choral (or unison) reading, tape-assisted reading, partner reading, and readers' theatre.

Student-adult reading

In student-adult reading, the student reads one-on-one with an adult. The adult can be you, a parent, a classroom aide, or a tutor. The adult reads the text first, providing the students with a model of fluent reading. Then the student reads the same passage to the adult with the adult providing assistance and encouragement. The student rereads the passage until the reading is quite fluent. This should take approximately three to four rereadings.

Choral reading

In choral, or unison, reading, students read along as a group with you (or another fluent adult reader). Of course, to do so, students must be able to see the same text that you are reading. They might follow along as you read from a big book, or they might read from their own copy of the book you are reading. For choral reading, choose a book that is not too long and that you think is at the independent reading level of most students. Patterned or predictable books are particularly useful for choral reading, because their repetitious style invites students to join in. Begin by reading the book aloud as you model fluent reading.

Then reread the book and invite students to join in as they recognize the words you are reading. Continue rereading the book, encouraging students to read along as they are able. Students should read the book with you three to five times total (though not necessarily on the same day). At this time, students should be able to read the text independently.

Tape-assisted reading

In tape-assisted reading, students read along in their books as they hear a fluent reader read the book on an audiotape. For tape-assisted reading, you need a book at a student's independent reading level and a tape recording of the book read by a fluent reader at about 80-100 words per minute. The tape should not have sound effects or music. For the first reading, the student should follow along with the tape, pointing to each word in her or his book as the reader reads it. Next, the student should try to read aloud along with the tape. Reading along with the tape should continue until the student is able to read the book independently, without the support of the tape.

Partner reading

In partner reading, paired students take turns reading aloud to each other. For partner reading, more fluent readers can be paired with less fluent readers. The stronger reader reads a paragraph or page first, providing a model of fluent reading. Then the less fluent reader reads the same text aloud. The stronger student gives help with word recognition and provides feedback and encouragement to the less fluent partner. The less fluent partner rereads the passage until he or she can read it independently. Partner reading need not be done with a more and less fluent reader. In another form of partner reading, children who read at the same level are paired to reread a story that they have received instruction on during a teacher-guided part of the lesson. Two readers of equal ability can practice rereading after hearing the teacher read the passage.

Readers' theatre

In readers' theatre, students rehearse and perform a play for peers or others. They read from scripts that have been derived from books that are rich in dialogue. Students play characters who speak lines or a narrator who shares necessary background information. Readers' theatre provides readers with a legitimate reason to reread text and to practice fluency. Readers' theatre also promotes cooperative interaction with peers and makes the reading task appealing.

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Fluency: Instructional Guidelines and Student Activities

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The best strategy for developing reading fluency is to provide your students with many opportunities to read the same passage orally several times. To do this, you should first know what to have your students read. Second, you should know how to have your students read aloud repeatedly.

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What should fluency instruction look like? And, what can teachers do to help students whose fluency is far behind their peers'? This article can help practitioners effectively use fluency-based assessments and select instructional practices.

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Screening, diagnosing, and progress monitoring are essential to making sure that all students become fluent readers - and the words-correct per-minute (WCPM) procedure can work for all three. The only aspect of the procedure that has to change is the difficulty level of the text.

For screening, passages are selected from text at the student's grade level. For diagnosing, passages are selected at the student's instructional level (which may be lower than her grade level). In this context, instructional level text is challenging but manageable, with the reader making errors on no more than one in 10 words (i.e., the reader is successful with 90 percent of the text) (Partnership for Reading, 2001). For progress monitoring, passages are selected at a student's individually determined goal level. For example, if an 8th-grade student's instructional level is at the 5th-grade level, the teacher may conduct the progress monitoring assessments using passages at the 6th-grade level.

Screening

Because empirical research clearly indicates the urgent need to provide high quality, intensive instructional interventions to students at risk of reading difficulty as soon as possible (Snow, Burns, and Griffin, 1998), schools should administer screening measures to every student through the 5th grade.

First-graders should be screened in the winter and the spring; second- through fifth-graders should be screened in the fall, winter, and spring. To determine if students are at the expected levels in their reading fluency, my colleague Gerald Tindal and I (2006) suggest comparing students' WCPM scores to the 50th percentile score on the norms table (below), given the students' grade placement and the approximate time of year in which the assessment was conducted.

A score falling more than 10 words below the 50th percentile should raise a concern; the student may need additional assistance, and further assessments may be needed to diagnose the source of the below-average performance. Depending on the age of the student and any concerns about reading performance noted by the teacher or parents, such additional testing might include assessments of oral language development, phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding, and/or comprehension.

Diagnosing

If a student scores poorly on a fluency screening, or if the teacher has some other cause for concern such as poor performance in class or on another assessment, the teacher should take a more careful look at the student's strengths and needs. The student could be deficient in a variety of reading skills or in related areas like vocabulary and background knowledge, so administering some informal diagnostic assessments would be helpful for designing effective instruction, providing evidence of the need for a reading specialist, or referring the student for further evaluation.

Typically, if a student's fluency level is low, but word reading accuracy in grade-level texts is adequate, a teacher can place the student in an intervention focused just on improving fluency. But if diagnostic assessments indicate other areas of weakness, a more comprehensive intervention may need to be developed. ( See example below)

Monitoring student progress

If a student's diagnostic assessment reveals concerns about one or more areas of reading, additional, targeted instruction should begin right away. WCPM procedures can be used to monitor the student's progress. Many educators have found WCPM to be a better tool for monitoring students' progress than traditional standardized measures that typically are time-consuming, expensive, only administered infrequently, and of limited instructional utility (Good, Simmons, and Kame'enui, 2001; Tindal and Marston, 1990).

For students reading six to 12 months below grade level, progress monitoring should be done frequently, perhaps once or twice monthly for as long as students require supplemental instruction. Progress monitoring should be done as often as once per week for students who are reading more than one year below level and receiving intensive intervention services, including special education. This regular monitoring assures that if the intervention is not working well, it can be modified.

When monitoring the progress of these struggling readers, the standard procedures are expanded by graphing the student's WCPM scores. A progress monitoring graph, for perhaps a grading period or a trimester, is created for each student. Teachers can use the average weekly improvement (AWI) data in the norms table to select an ambitious, yet reasonable, instructional goal; for example, a fourth-grader's goal could be to improve by 15 WCPM over 10 weeks of intensive instruction. An aim line is placed on the graph to represent the progress a student must make to achieve a preset fluency goal. Each time the student is assessed, that score is added to the graph. If three or more consecutive scores fall below the aim line, the teacher must consider adjusting the instructional program (Hasbrouck et al., 1999).

Teachers should also consider having the students record their own WCPM scores on their graphs - it increases their motivation and investment in their reading progress (Shinn, 1998).

These procedures for screening, diagnosing, and progress monitoring have been available for many years, but have not been widely used in schools (Hasbrouck, et al., 1999). This situation will likely change as educators become more aware of the importance of preventing reading difficulties and providing intensive intervention as soon as a concern is noted.

Using fluency norms to set appropriate goals for student improvement and to measure progress toward those goals can be a powerful and efficient tool to help educators make well-informed and timely decisions about the instructional needs of their students, particularly the lowest performing, struggling readers.

Examples of a diagnosis

Andrew (a pseudonym), is an eighth-grader who recently moved to a different town where he entered a new school in March. It soon became evident to his teachers that Andrew was having difficulty with his academic work.

At a weekly meeting during which teachers discuss any concerns about their students, several teachers brought samples of Andrew's work to share. The teachers agreed that the school's reading specialist should determine if reading problems were contributing to Andrew's struggle with his assignments in several classes.

The reading specialist conducted an IRI (informal reading inventory) and planned to follow up with additional assessments if Andrew's performance on the IRI indicated possible deficits in phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding, vocabulary, and/or comprehension. The specialist built a fluency assessment into the initial IRI by using a stopwatch to determine how many words Andrew could read in the first 60 seconds of each IRI passage.

The reading specialist began the IRI using a sixth-grade passage, two years below Andrew's grade. The passage was at a frustration level for him: He had difficulty with decoding, phrasing, and expression, and was only able to correctly answer four of the eight comprehension questions. Because the passage was at Andrew's frustration level, the WCPM score was not calculated. The specialist then repeated the assessment using a fifth-grade passage; Andrew was able to read it with 94 percent accuracy and correctly answer six of the eight comprehension questions.

The specialist calculated Andrew's WCPM score for this passage and compared his score, 131 WCPM, to the norms for fifth-graders in the spring (Hasbrouck and Tindal, 2006). The 50th percentile in the spring of fifth grade is 139 WCPM. Because Andrew's score fell less than 10 words below it, his fluency is within the expected range for fifthgrade readers in the spring.

The reading specialist's conclusion was that Andrew appears to be reading approximately three years below grade level, but that his fluency skill level appears to be appropriate for his overall reading level. Before designing Andrew's reading program, the specialist plans to administer a diagnosticassessment focused on phonics and decoding, and a more comprehensive assessment of vocabulary and comprehension.

She suspects there may be some underlying weaknesses in Andrew's decoding skills contributing to his delay in overall reading development. His intervention will likely include fluency instruction and practice to keep him on track, and may also include decoding and comprehension instruction, depending on the results of the other diagnostic assessments.

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Screening, Diagnosing, and Progress Monitoring for Fluency: The Details

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Screening, diagnosing, and progress monitoring are essential to making sure that all students become fluent readers - and the words-correct per-minute (WCPM) procedure can work for all three. Here's how teachers can use it to make well-informed and timely decisions about the instructional needs of their students.

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References

Click the "References" link above to hide these references.

Daane, M.C., Campbell, J.R., Grigg, W.S., Goodman, M.J., and Oranje, A. (2005). Fourth-Grade Students Reading Aloud: NAEP 2002 Special Study of Oral Reading (NCES 2006-469). U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, D.C.:Government Printing Office.

Fuchs, L.S., Fuchs, D., Hosp, M. K., and Jenkins, J.R. (2001). Oral reading fluency as an indicator of reading competence: A theoretical, empirical, and historical analysis. Scientific Studies of Reading, 5(3), 239-256.

Good, III, R.H. and Kaminski, R.A. (Eds.) (2002). Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), 6th Ed. Institute for the Development of Educational Achievement. Eugene, Ore.:University of Oregon.

Hasbrouck, J. and Tindal, G.A. (2006, April). ORF norms: A valuable assessment tool for reading teachers. The Reading Teacher, 59(7), 636-644.

Hintze, J.M. and Christ, T.J. (2004). An examination of variability as a function of passage variance in CBM progress monitoring. School Psychology Review, 33(2), 204-217.

Hudson, R.F., Lane, H.B., and Pullen, P.C. (2005, May). Reading fluency assessment and instruction: What, why, and how? The Reading Teacher, 58(8), 702-714.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. NIH Publication No. 00-4769. Washington, D.C.:U.S. Government Printing Office.

Read Naturally (2002). Reading fluency monitor. Minneapolis: Author.

Shinn, M.R. (1989). Identifying and defining academic problems: CBM Screening and eligibility procedures. In M. R. Shinn (Ed.). Curriculum-based measurement: Assessing special children, 90-129. N.Y.:Guilford.

Stecker, S.K., Roser, N.L., and Martinez, M.G. (1998). Understanding oral reading fluency. In T. Shanahan and F.V. Rodriguez-Brown (Eds.), 47th yearbook of the National Reading Conference, pp. 295-310. Chicago:National Reading Conference.

Wolf, M. and Katzir-Cohen, T. (2001). Reading fluency and its intervention. Scientific Studies of Reading, 5(3), 211-239.

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national assessment of educational progress fluency scale

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dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills

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Click the "References" link above to hide these references. Daane, M.C., Campbell, J.R., Grigg, W.S., Goodman, M.J., and Oranje, A. (2005). Fourth-Grade Students Reading Aloud: NAEP 2002 Special Study of Oral Reading (NCES 2006-469). U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, D.C.:Government Printing Office.

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Video 29: Decodable Words in Isolation and in Text (REL Southeast)

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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Multisensory Instruction | A Dyslexia Awareness Video

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ReadSource is a non-profit launched by The Schenck School as a means for sharing the reading expertise of the School with other struggling readers. Our mission is to empower communities to serve all students who are learning to read, especially those who struggle. This is accomplished through our teacher training offerings, direct reading remediation services, and partnerships with other schools and non-profits.

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ReadSource is a non-profit launched by The Schenck School to share the School's reading expertise with struggling readers.

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Dr. Nancy Nelson, Research Assistant Professor at the Center on Teaching and Learning at the University of Oregon, discusses myths and misconceptions around RTI, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), and universal screening in reading instruction.

Quotes:

"Relying on data allows us to engage in a systematic process to implement systems to meet the needs of all kids."

Resources:

DIBELS® at the University of Oregon

Want to discuss the episode? Join our Facebook group Science of Reading: The Community.

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S1-10. Myths and misconceptions about universal screening: Nancy Nelson - Science of Reading: The Podcast

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Dr. Nancy Nelson, Research Assistant Professor at the Center on Teaching and Learning at the University of Oregon, discusses myths and misconceptions around RTI, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), and universal screening in reading instruction.Quotes:"Relying on data allows us to engage in...

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In education, there seems to be an acronym for everything. Response to intervention (RTI) and Multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) are two of the most commonly used acronyms, with mentions thrown into practically every department meeting, professional development seminar, and district conference. Though often discussed together, the two are not the same.

It is important to understand the differences between RTI and MTSS in order to properly utilize both in creating successful interventions and paths to success.
What is RTI?
RTI is a structured, multi-tiered approach to help identify and support struggling students. It focuses on providing high-quality instruction and interventions, typically at three different levels (i.e. tiers). All students must receive high-quality classroom instruction and screening within Tier 1, and approximately 80 percent of students are expected to reach targeted goals under Tier 1 instruction. Students identified as struggling in this early stage are then provided with targeted interventions that increase in intensity in Tier 2 and Tier 3. Typically, around 15 percent receive small-group and supplemental instruction in Tier 2, while the remaining 5 percent require more intensive and individualized interventions in Tier 3.

There are four main components of RTI:

Multi-tiered system

Universal screening to identify students

Frequent progress-monitoring of student performance

Data-driven decision-making to guide the selection of evidence-based interventions

RTI's primary purpose is to support students academically, using a combination of approaches for interventions.
What is MTSS?
MTSS is a school model that uses data-driven problem-solving and incorporates system-level change to address both the academic and non-academic needs of all students. This model provides a comprehensive framework for how and when to administer support, and allows for the tools and time to implement such strategies. MTSS generally uses a four-step problem-solving process for making team-based decisions.

MTSS is similar to RTI in the following ways:

Features a continuum of multiple supports for students based on their level of documented need

Delivers interventions and services in a multi-tiered support structure, which utilizes increasingly intensive interventions and supports in Tier 2 and Tier 3

Emphasizes high-quality instruction at all levels

While RTI and MTSS have many similarities-for instance, both models require frequent progress-monitoring and data-driven instruction-there are some key differences that should be noted to explain the difference between these two models.
Major differences between RTI and MTSS
Whereas RTI is a model for identifying and addressing the specific academic needs of struggling students, MTSS has a much broader scope. MTSS addresses academic as well as social and emotional areas (non-academic), including behavior and other topics such as attendance. It also incorporates school culture, teacher professional development, and family and community engagement.

MTSS provides for both academic and behavioral considerations, recognizing the integration of the two for student success in school. It can be thought of as an umbrella that covers many different approaches and interventions, including:

Curriculum design

Positive behavior intervention and supports (PBIS)

Teacher learning and collaboration

Collaboration between school and family in problem-solving

Both RTI and MTSS are a change from previous approaches that require the intentional redesign of programs and supports to address needs. Particularly within the broad scope of MTSS, this may include school-wide and district-wide (systematic) changes as needed, making leadership, widespread communication, and cooperative effort essential to its success.
The future of MTSS
As MTSS becomes the new standard for pursuing educational excellence, state educational offices and districts are in the process of developing their own methods for implementing MTSS strategies. By using a four-step problem-solving process within the MTSS framework, all members of an educational team-from administration to teachers and support staff-will be seeking to not only deliver high-quality individualized instruction, but to use data-driven decision-making to select and implement research-based interventions for struggling students. MTSS gives educators a means to address the academic and non-academic needs of students, both of which are critical components for student growth and achievement.

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RTI and MTSS: Do You Know the Difference Between These Support Systems?

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In education, there seems to be an acronym for everything. Response to intervention (RTI) and Multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) are two of the most commonly used acronyms, with mentions thrown into practically every department meeting, professional development seminar, and district conference. Though often discussed together, the two are not the same.

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MTSS is a framework many schools use to provide targeted support to struggling students.

The goal of MTSS is to intervene early so students can catch up with their peers.

It screens all students and aims to address academic and behavior challenges.

MTSS stands for multi-tiered system of supports. It's a framework many schools use to give targeted support to struggling students. You may also hear it called the MTSS framework, the MTSS process, or the MTSS model.

MTSS is designed to help schools identify struggling students early and intervene quickly. It focuses on the "whole child." That means it supports academic growth, but many other areas, too. These include behavior, social and emotional needs, and absenteeism (not attending school).

The tiers of support are a huge part of MTSS. They get more intense from one level to the next. For example, a child getting small group interventions may need to "move up" to one-on-one help.

MTSS supports the adults at the school, too. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) - the main education law for public schools - cites MTSS as a way to increase teacher effectiveness. ESSA gives states funding that can be used for professional development to help teachers use MTSS.

MTSS isn't the same thing as response to intervention (RTI). MTSS is more comprehensive. But it may include the three tiers of RTI.

Dive deeper

MTSS isn't a specific curriculum. It's a proactive approach that has key elements:

Universal screening for all students early in each school year

Increasing levels of targeted support for those who are struggling

Integrated plans that address students' academic, behavioral, social, and emotional needs

A schoolwide approach to student support, with teachers, counselors, psychologists, and other specialists working as a team to assess students and plan interventions.

Professional development so staff can provide interventions and monitor progress effectively

Family involvement so parents and caregivers can understand the interventions and give support at home

Frequent monitoring of students' progress to help decide if they need more interventions

The use of evidence-based strategies at every tier of support

Learn more about:

Some school districts use a system with four tiers of support. But it's more common for districts to use three tiers. Here's a basic outline of how a three-tiered system works.

Tier 1: The whole class. All students in the general education classroom are in this tier. Teachers use instruction that's proven to work. Students may work in small groups based on their strengths and areas of need. The school monitors all kids' progress. A student who is struggling may move to Tier 2.

Tier 2: Small group interventions. Students in Tier 2 still attend Tier 1 lessons with the rest of the class. But they get more targeted support through small group lessons. It can also mean special teaching, called interventions . A student who isn't making progress may stay in Tier 2 or move to Tier 3.

Tier 3: Intensive individualized support. This tier can mean small group work or individual lessons. Most kids in Tier 3 still spend a lot of the day in the general education classroom. But they may spend more time in a resource room than before.

If your school uses RTI, learn about the three tiers of RTI support .

MTSS is an "umbrella" term. It includes some multi-tiered systems of support you may know already:

Response to intervention (RTI) helps students who are struggling with academics. It provides increasing levels of support to help them catch up. Learn more about RTI .

Positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) is an approach schools use to promote school safety and good behavior. All students are taught how they're expected to behave. These expectations are described in a positive way. ("Be respectful" instead of "Don't talk back.") Learn more about PBIS .

The goal of MTSS is to screen early and to give support quickly. It can also help schools tell the difference between kids who haven't had good instruction in the past and those who truly need special education .

A special education evaluation is usually the next step if students don't make enough progress in Tier 3. Students reach this point with lots of documentation. This data can be helpful when developing an IEP .

Parents and caregivers don't have to wait for kids to go through all phases of MTSS before requesting an evaluation, though. They can ask for an evaluation at any point.

Parents and caregivers: Learn how to request an evaluation and your legal rights during the evaluation process .

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MTSS is a framework many schools use to provide targeted support to struggling students. The goal of MTSS is to intervene early so students can catch up with their peers. It screens all students and aims to address academic and behavior challenges. MTSS stands for multi-tiered system of supports.

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Gersten, R., Compton, D., Connor, C.M., Dimino, J., Santoro, L., Linan-Thompson, S., and Tilly, W.D. (2008). Assisting students struggling with reading: Response to Intervention and multi-tier intervention for reading in the primary grades. A practice guide. (NCEE 2009-4045). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications/practiceguides/.

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Checklist for Using RTI to Promote Reading Achievement

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This is a checklist to help educators carry out the five recommendations made in the What Works Clearninghouse report Assisting Students Struggling with Reading: Response to Intervention (RTI) and Multi-Tier Intervention in the Primary Grades.

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Response to Intervention (RTI) is a multi-tier approach to the early identification and support of students with learning and behavior needs. The RTI process begins with high-quality instruction and universal screening of all children in the general education classroom. Struggling learners are provided with interventions at increasing levels of intensity to accelerate their rate of learning. These services may be provided by a variety of personnel, including general education teachers, special educators, and specialists. Progress is closely monitored to assess both the learning rate and level of performance of individual students. Educational decisions about the intensity and duration of interventions are based on individual student response to instruction. RTI is designed for use when making decisions in both general education and special education, creating a well-integrated system of instruction and intervention guided by child outcome data.

For RTI implementation to work well, the following essential components must be implemented with fidelity and in a rigorous manner:

High-quality, scientifically based classroom instruction. All students receive high-quality, research-based instruction in the general education classroom.

Ongoing student assessment. Universal screening and progress monitoring provide information about a student's learning rate and level of achievement, both individually and in comparison with the peer group. These data are then used when determining which students need closer monitoring or intervention. Throughout the RTI process, student progress is monitored frequently to examine student achievement and gauge the effectiveness of the curriculum. Decisions made regarding students' instructional needs are based on multiple data points taken in context over time.

Tiered instruction. A multi-tier approach is used to efficiently differentiate instruction for all students. The model incorporates increasing intensities of instruction offering specific, research-based interventions matched to student needs.

Parent involvement. Schools implementing RTI provide parents information about their child's progress, the instruction and interventions used, the staff who are delivering the instruction, and the academic or behavioral goals for their child.

Each of these essential components is addressed in the "Include Essential Components" section of this Web site.

Though there is no single, thoroughly researched and widely practiced "model" of the RTI process, it is generally defined as a three-tier (or three-step) model of school supports that uses research-based academic and/or behavioral interventions. The Three-Tier Model is described below.

Tier 1: High-Quality Classroom Instruction, Screening, and Group Interventions

Within Tier 1, all students receive high-quality, scientifically based instruction provided by qualified personnel to ensure that their difficulties are not due to inadequate instruction. All students are screened on a periodic basis to establish an academic and behavioral baseline and to identify struggling learners who need additional support. Students identified as being "at risk" through universal screenings and/or results on state- or districtwide tests receive supplemental instruction during the school day in the regular classroom. The length of time for this step can vary, but it generally should not exceed 8 weeks. During that time, student progress is closely monitored using a validated screening system such as curriculum-based measurement. At the end of this period, students showing significant progress are generally returned to the regular classroom program. Students not showing adequate progress are moved to Tier 2.

The online drug ordering system provides for checking the availability of a prescription, this is done so that teenagers cannot buy cheap generic Viagra and abuse the dosage of the drug.

Tier 2: Targeted Interventions

Students not making adequate progress in the regular classroom in Tier 1 are provided with increasingly intensive instruction matched to their needs on the basis of levels of performance and rates of progress. Intensity varies across group size, frequency and duration of intervention, and level of training of the professionals providing instruction or intervention. These services and interventions are provided in small-group settings in addition to instruction in the general curriculum. In the early grades (kindergarten through 3rd grade), interventions are usually in the areas of reading and math. A longer period of time may be required for this tier, but it should generally not exceed a grading period. Students who continue to show too little progress at this level of intervention are then considered for more intensive interventions as part of Tier 3.

Tier 3: Intensive Interventions and Comprehensive Evaluation

At this level, students receive individualized, intensive interventions that target the students' skill deficits. Students who do not achieve the desired level of progress in response to these targeted interventions are then referred for a comprehensive evaluation and considered for eligibility for special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004). The data collected during Tiers 1, 2, and 3 are included and used to make the eligibility decision.

It should be noted that at any point in an RTI process, IDEA 2004 allows parents to request a formal evaluation to determine eligibility for special education. An RTI process cannot be used to deny or delay a formal evaluation for special education.

In addition to variations in the tiers used to deliver RTI services, schools use different approaches in implementation, such as problem-solving, functional assessment, standard protocol, and hybrid approaches. Although there are many formats for how a school might implement RTI to best serve the needs of its students, in every case RTI can be a school-wide framework for efficiently allocating resources to improve student outcomes.

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Learn more about how Response to Intervention (RTI) helps students succeed.

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ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT
Reading comprehension is a complex task which depends on a range of cognitive and linguistic processes. According to the Simple View of Reading, this complexity can be captured as the product of two sets of skills: decoding and linguistic comprehension. The Simple View explains variance in reading comprehension and provides a good framework to guide the classification of reading disorders. This paper discusses how weaknesses in either or both of components of the Simple View are implicated in children's reading comprehension difficulties. It concludes with reflections on the strengths and limitations of the Simple View as a theoretical and practical framework to guide our understanding of reading comprehension and its development.

The ultimate goal of reading is comprehension: for the reader to reconstruct the mental world of the writer. As skilled readers, this usually feels pretty effortless and comprehension flows naturally as we read along. This sense of ease is misleading, however, as it belies the complexity of what we do as we read, even when a text is simple and straightforward. A whole range of cognitive and linguistic operations are at play, from identifying individual words through to making inferences about situations that are not fully described in the text (Castles, Rastle, & Nation, 2018). This complexity means that finding a simple answer to questions like "how does reading comprehension develop" and "why does it sometimes fail" quickly becomes an impossible task.

I begin by introducing the Simple View of reading and outlining some of the evidence that supports it. Part II will consider reading comprehension in children who struggle to read words. In Part III, attention turns to poor comprehenders-children who read words adequately but nevertheless have reading comprehension difficulties. Finally, in Part IV, I offer some reflections on the Simple View of reading and consider its many strengths, as well as some limitations.

Part I: introducing the Simple View of reading

What is the Simple View?

Imagine yourself a fluent speaker of a foreign language but with no knowledge of its written form. Reading comprehension would fail as you would have no ability to access meaning from print. If the text was read to you, however, understanding would follow, via listening. An alternative scenario is equally easy to imagine. It would be quite possible for you to learn to assign acceptable pronunciations to words printed in a foreign language, but this would not mean that you were able to comprehend what had been written in that language.

The Simple View of reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough, 1990) elegantly captures the essence of these scenarios by stating that reading comprehension is the product of two sets of skills, decoding and linguistic comprehension (RC = D x LC, illustrated in Figure 1). We will return to definitions shortly but for present purposes, decoding can be defined as the ability to identify words in print and linguistic comprehension as the ability to understand spoken language. The logical case for the Simple View is clear and compelling: both decoding and linguistic comprehension are necessary for reading comprehension and neither alone is sufficient. Like a fluent speaker of a foreign language who has never seen it written down, if a child cannot decipher words from print they have no facility to understand written language, no matter how sophisticated their understanding in the oral domain might be. Similarly, being able to decipher words brings no guarantee that a child will understand what it is they have read. The Simple View assumes that once written input is decoded,

reading comprehension is achieved via exactly the same processes used to understand spoken language. If those processes are absent or not working well, reading comprehension will also fail, even if the material has been decoded perfectly. The Simple View also states that the relative contributions of decoding and linguistic comprehension to reading comprehension should change over time. Early on, reading comprehension is highly constrained by limitations in decoding. As children get older and decoding skills increase, the correlation between linguistic comprehension and reading comprehension strengthens. This reflects the fact that once a level of decoding mastery has been achieved, reading comprehension is ultimately constrained by how well an individual understands spoken language.

It is hard to argue with the underlying principles of the Simple View, or with the evidence base that now supports it. For example, Lervag, Hulme, and Melby-Lervag ( 2018) followed nearly 200 Norwegian children as they learned to read. They measured decoding and linguistic comprehension in multiple ways to form latent variables to capture each construct. Nearly all of the variation in reading comprehension at 7.5 years was captured by the two constructs, decoding and linguistic comprehension. Other studies taking a similar approach have found the same (e.g., Language and Reading Research Consortium [LARRC] & Chui, 2018; Hjetland et al., 2019; Lonigan, Burgess, & Schatschneider, 2018) and findings are robust across alphabetic (Florit & Cain, 2011) and non-alphabetic writing systems (Ho, Chow, Wong, Waye, & Bishop, 2012). There is also evidence to support the changing pattern of associations between decoding, linguistic comprehension and reading comprehension over time, with the correlation between linguistic comprehension and reading comprehension strengthening, as children's decoding skills increase (Catts, Adlof, Hogan, & Weismer, 2005; García & Cain, 2014; LARRC, 2015). Taken together, this evidence base provides overwhelming support for the Simple View, including the principle that it "does not deny the complexity of reading, but asserts that such complexities are restricted to either of the two components" (Hoover & Gough, 1990, p. 150).

Defining decoding and linguistic comprehension

What exactly is meant by "decoding" and "linguistic comprehension"? Starting with decoding, this has been operationalised in different ways in different studies. Some experiments have compared words and nonwords while others have investigated whether fluency is a better index than accuracy (e.g., Adlof, Catts, & Little, 2006; LARRC, 2015). Going back to the original article, it is clear that Gough and Tunmer ( 1986) themselves grappled with how best to define decoding. They explained that it can refer to the overt "sounding-out" of a word (sometimes termed phonological decoding or alphabetic decoding), perhaps as measured by nonword reading. But, they argued, this is not what good reading comprehension demands. Instead, comprehension in skilled readers depends on high quality input from a word recognition system that identifies words quickly and precisely (Perfetti, 2008). For the Simple View to adequately describe skilled reading, "decoding" needs to be defined and measured by something that captures this fluency and expertise. At the same time however, this definition does not work for children at the outset of learning to read as their word recognition system is not yet in place and reading is far from fluent and expert. What needs to be captured by the term "decoding" is dependent on the reading level of the individual.

At the heart of this issue is the need to consider learning and development. The beauty of the Simple View is that it explains variation in a way that is timeless: the equation RC = D x LC works for beginning readers as it does skilled readers, assuming the constructs have been measured appropriately. Critically however, the Simple View does not, on its own, explain how development happens-how children move from overt and laborious phonological decoding to reading words effortlessly and fluently. For that, we need focussed and precise cognitive models that are developmentally informed. There is consensus that phonological decoding provides the initial foundation for learning to read words in English (e.g., Ehri, 2005; Share, 1995). From this starting point, children gradually accumulate orthographic knowledge via reading experience. This is a slow process of building expertise through which children harness their powers of perception, memory and language to learn and to generalise (see Castles et al., 2018). The Simple View does not explain in detail how any of this is achieved. Nor does it intend to. Instead it provides a theoretical framework to help us understand variation in reading comprehension across individuals at any particular time-point. How "decoding" is defined and measured needs to reflect the appropriate developmental time-point, and also familiarity with the words being read. Learning is likely to proceed in an item-based fashion, so that at any point in time a person may be reading some words slowly and only with great effort, while other words are read rapidly and efficiently with less reliance on phonological decoding (Castles & Nation, 2006; Share, 1995).

Let us now turn to the other component of the Simple View, linguistic comprehension. This was defined by Hoover and Gough ( 1990, p. 131) as "the ability to take lexical information (i.e., semantic information at the word level) and derive sentence and discourse interpretations". At a descriptive level this captures exactly what has to happen for reading (and language) comprehension to be successful. But how should linguistic comprehension be measured? A common approach has been to use listening comprehension, typically measured using a reading comprehension test but one that has been adapted so that children listen to the text rather than read it themselves. Some studies have argued that another factor, be it vocabulary, inference-making or working memory, makes a direct contribution to reading comprehension (e.g., Oakhill & Cain, 2012; Ouellette & Beers, 2010; Tunmer & Chapman, 2012). A different approach has been to construct a latent variable that taps linguistic comprehension in a broad sense, drawing on multiple indicators. For example, Hjetland et al. ( 2019) formed a single factor from measures of vocabulary, grammar, listening comprehension and verbal working memory. In line with the central tenet of the Simple View, variations in performance on this latent factor, in combination with variations in decoding, predicted almost all of the variation in children's reading comprehension at 7 years of age. There is also good evidence that variation in listening comprehension is itself a consequence of variation in underlying oral language. Lervåg et al. ( 2018) assessed 7.5 year-olds' vocabulary, grammar, verbal working memory and inference making skills. Together, these abilities predicted the children's listening comprehension.

Drawing across these studies, a strong case can be made that linguistic comprehension is broadly captured by listening comprehension, that listening comprehension itself subsumes children's vocabulary, grammar and language processing abilities and that these abilities (along with decoding) predict reading comprehension (LARRC & Chui, 2018; Foorman, Petscher, & Herrera, 2018; Hjetland et al., 2019; Lonigan et al., 2018). As per our discussion of decoding, however, this does not explain how reading comprehension happens, nor how it develops. Comprehension is not typically a verbatim record of what's been read, replicating its form and structure. Instead, as people read or listen, they build a mental model, sometimes called a situation model, culminating in a rich interpretation of the text that goes beyond what is explicitly stated. The text is the substrate that allows the reader to pull in relevant information, including, for example, the meanings of words, rules of syntax, background knowledge and an appreciation of how the world works. This information is then processed to make connections, draw inferences and construct intended meaning. The Simple View does not tell us how any of this achieved. For that, once again we need to look to detailed cognitive models. An important lesson from the extensive literature on reading comprehension is that it is not one thing that can be measured by a single indicator. Instead, reading comprehension is the product of a complex set of cognitive and linguistic factors operating across a text (for discussion, see Castles et al., 2018; Perfetti & Stafura, 2014), in interaction with the nature of the text and the purpose of the reading situation.

This discussion of definitional issues is not to say that the Simple View is false or limited as a framework to help us understand variation in reading comprehension. On the contrary, the Simple View is extraordinarily successful in this regard. When measured comprehensively and reliably, variations in decoding and linguistic comprehension capture individual differences in reading comprehension almost perfectly (Hjetland et al., 2019); this means that the terms decoding and linguistic comprehension have utility, if we accept that they denote complex constructs rather than explaining a particular cognitive process. At the same time, however, to move us beyond capturing variance to understand how cognitive and linguistic processes happen-and why they might go awry in children with poor reading and language - we need to attend to finer level definitions. In keeping with the principles of the Simple View, I use the terms decoding and linguistic comprehension in a neutral way throughout this paper as labels to note "things to do with identifying words" and "things to do with understanding spoken language" respectively.

Varieties of reading disorder within the Simple View

Gough and Tunmer ( 1986) used the Simple View to classify different types of reading problems. To illustrate, Figure 2 shows decoding and linguistic comprehension plotted orthogonally. Individuals can be placed into this multidimensional space according to their abilities on tasks that tap each of the two constructs.

For children falling in quadrant A, reading comprehension is constrained by poor decoding, whereas poor linguistic comprehension constrains those in quadrant D. Quadrant C captures children who are poor at both decoding and linguistic comprehension. The logic of the Simple View is that all three varieties of reading disorder-termed dyslexia, hyperlexia and garden-variety poor reader in the original paper-result in poor reading comprehension but for different reasons. Nomenclature may vary, but there's plenty of evidence for these distinct reading profiles. It's rare to see mention of "garden-variety" poor readers in the more recent literature, but children with co-occurring dyslexia and language impairment are typically plotted in quadrant C (Bishop & Snowling, 2004; Catts et al., 2005). This quadrant is discussed in the next section, along with quadrant A ("classic" dyslexia). Turning to quadrant D, there are complexities with the term hyperlexia (Nation, 1999). That is not to say that a quadrant D reading profile does not exist. These children are more typically described as poor (or less skilled) comprehenders. We will return to discuss quadrant D in Part III.

Part II: reading comprehension in children with poor decoding

Reading comprehension tends to be low in children and young people with dyslexia (e.g., Ferrer et al., 2015; Shaywitz et al., 1999). This is considered a direct consequence of poor decoding, and dyslexia is usually associated with quadrant A in the Simple View (e.g., Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Stanovich & Siegal, 1994). Rather surprisingly, however, few studies have investigated the nature of reading comprehension in dyslexia in much detail. Bruck ( 1990) assessed reading comprehension in a group of adults who had a history of developmental dyslexia. Although the mean performance of the group was low-average (centile score of 41), there was huge variability in performance, with centile scores varying from 6 to 97. This shows that some children with dyslexia go on to make excellent progress in reading comprehension while others do not. Comparing those adults with good vs. poor reading comprehension, Bruck ( 1990) found no differences in word or nonword reading. However, the two groups did differ in vocabulary: poor reading comprehension was associated with vocabulary deficits whereas good reading comprehension was not. This finding can be accommodated within the Simple View, on the assumption that while all of the participants had poor decoding, only a subset (those with low vocabulary) also had poor linguistic comprehension. Arguably, as decoding skills strengthened through development, adults with good vocabulary (quadrant A) were able to make gains in reading comprehension whereas those with low vocabulary (quadrant C) did not.

Bruck's study tells us that some people with a diagnosis of dyslexia also have broader language problems. These problems are not unusual, with weaknesses in vocabulary, grammar and discourse-level processing being seen in many studies (e.g., Catts, Fey, Tomblin, & Zhang, 2002; McArthur, Hogben, Edwards, Heath, & Mengler, 2000). There has been a tendency to consider these broader language problems as a consequence of the deficit in phonological processing that underpins dyslexia, or of reading failure itself. For example, rather than a genuine problem with grammar, poor performance on a test of complex syntax might be a consequence of a phonological processing bottleneck disrupting working memory (e.g., Shankweiler et al., 1995). Or, if dyslexic children read less, they have less opportunity to build vocabulary via reading, such that vocabulary deficits emerge over time (Stanovich, 1986). Although these factors are likely to be at play, it is now abundantly clear that they are not the whole story. First, in adults with a history of developmental dyslexia, oral language accounts for direct variance in reading comprehension, even when decoding and phonological skills are controlled (e.g., Ransby & Swanson, 2003). Stronger evidence comes from family risk studies. These have consistently found that children who go on to receive a diagnosis of dyslexia in mid-childhood show language difficulties as infants and toddlers, well before reading failure could exert its influence (for meta-analysis across 21 independent studies and 95 articles, see Snowling & Melby-Lervåg, 2016). These findings confirm poor language as a precursor; they also add to the growing evidence base that sees low language as an important factor within a complex multiple risk model of the disorder (Snowling & Melby-Lervåg, 2016; Pennington, 2006). Such evidence also forces us to consider the overlap between dyslexia and spoken language difficulties, and how best to characterise the two types of difficulty. While a full discussion of this is beyond the scope of this paper (for further detailed discussion, see Adlof & Hogan, 2018; Bishop & Snowling; 2004; Catts et al., 2005; Nash, Hulme, Gooch, & Snowling, 2013; Ramus, Marshall, Rosen, & van der Lely, 2013), it is important to touch on some of this literature where it relates to reading comprehension outcomes in children with dyslexia.

Some studies following at-risk children have now traced the path from pre-school language to school-aged reading comprehension. Broadly, these findings sit comfortably with the Simple View. Hulme, Nash, Gooch, Lervåg and Snowling ( 2015) analysed data from the Wellcome Reading and Language project. This longitudinal study recruited pre-school children at high risk for poor reading (they had a diagnosis of developmental language disorder, or were at family risk for dyslexia) and followed them through the primary school years. Hulme et al. ( 2015) found that language skills (linguistic comprehension) at 3.5 years made a direct contribution to reading comprehension at 8.5 years, and an indirect contribution via their effect on decoding at 5.5 years, which also influenced reading comprehension at 8.5 years. Similar findings were reported by Van Settern et al. ( 2018) who found that vocabulary in Grade 3 explained a substantial amount of variance in Grade 6 in the Dutch Dyslexia Program, a longitudinal study following Dutch children at family risk for dyslexia. Snowling, Hayiou-Thomas, Nash & Hulme ( in preparation). categorised children from the Wellcome project into four groups, based on their decoding and oral language profile at 8 years: pure dyslexia (quadrant A), pure developmental language disorder (DLD; quadrant D), co-morbid dyslexia+DLD (quadrant C) or unimpaired (quadrant B). As predicted by the Simple View, all three impaired groups showed poor reading comprehension at 8 years. Interestingly, when re-assessed 12 months later, the pure dyslexia group had improved in reading comprehension, relative to both the DLD and the combined group, although they were still impaired relative to their typically-developing peers. Finally, the combined group showed the most severe deficits in reading comprehension at both time points, reflecting underlying weaknesses in both decoding and oral language.

Drawing across these at-risk studies, there is clear evidence in line with Gough and Tunmer's view that "there is a common denominator in every case of dyslexia, a deficit which could stand well as the proximal cause of the disorder. This is an inability to decode" ( 1986, p. 8). This exerts a direct influence on reading comprehension. Whether there are additional negative influences on reading comprehension from linguistic comprehension depends on the status of a child's oral language. Rather striking is the proportion of children with dyslexia who have language weaknesses, placing them into quadrant C rather than the traditional home of dyslexia, quadrant A. For example, of the 50 poor decoders identified by Snowling, Nash, Gooch, Hayiou-Thomas, and Hulme ( 2019) at 8 years, only 21 had "pure" dyslexia; the other 29 also showed significant levels of language impairment. One might argue that this high figure reflects the nature of the at-risk sample. However, it chimes with other work showing that approximately 50% of children with a diagnosis of dyslexia have language weaknesses measured concurrently in a sample not recruited for family risk (e.g., McArthur et al., 2000). It seems that when researchers measure oral language in children identified on the basis of a diagnosis of dyslexia, it is not at all unusual to find high levels of poor oral language (see also Adlof & Hogan, 2018).

Given the lack of research investigating reading comprehension in children with poor decoding, especially from studies that have not recruited on the basis of family risk, I took the opportunity to look into one of my own longitudinal datasets charting reading development from pre-school through the school years. The primary aim of the original project was to identify poor comprehenders and chart their reading and language development (Nation, Cocksey, Taylor, & Bishop, 2010; see Part III). However, this rich dataset also provided an opportunity to explore patterns of reading comprehension in children identified on the basis of poor decoding.

The learning to read longitudinal dataset

This study recruited a large and unselected sample of children on school entry shortly before their 5 th birthday, and followed their reading and language development through the primary school years. Seventeen primary schools serving a socially mixed range of neighbourhoods in Oxfordshire took part in the study. All children beginning these schools at the start of the study were invited to participate. Informed consent from parents was received for 242 children (141 girls and 108 boys). The children were first assessed within 3 months of starting school, corresponding to a mean age of approximately 4 years and 10 months.

Our primary focus here is with data from two time points: when the children first entered school (Reception class, M age = 4.83 years, SD = 0.34, N = 242) and three years later (Year 2 in school, M age = 7.23 years, SD = 0.35; N = 202). To compare profiles across language and literacy tests that had been standardised on different populations, raw scores on these tests were converted to z-scores, using the mean and standard deviation of the entire sample assessed at each time point; for ease of reference, z-scores were transformed to standard scores ( M = 100, SD = 15).

Reading skills at 7 years across the entire sample

At this time point, the children completed both the word ( Word Reading Efficiency) and nonword ( Phonemic Decoding) component of the Test for Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1999). This requires children to read aloud as many words (or nonwords) as possible in 45 s and the number read correctly is converted to a measure of word (or nonword) reading fluency. The Neale Analysis of Reading Ability-II (NARA-II; Neale, 1997) provided an assessment of text reading. In this test, children read aloud short passages of text (reading accuracy) and are then asked questions to assess literal and inferential understanding (reading comprehension). Finally, the British Ability Scales Word Reading subtest (Elliot, Smith, & McCullouch, 1996) provided an assessment of word reading. This is an untimed test in which children are presented with single words and asked to read each aloud. As is clear from the data summarised in Table 1, the correlation between performance across the different measures of reading was high.

Levels of reading comprehension in poor decoders at 7 years

Next we turn to those children who were poor at decoding. As discussed earlier, decoding is defined and measured in different ways in different studies. Here, children were identified on the basis of poor performance (standard score below 83) on the TOWRE, averaging across the two subtests. Thirty-four children were identified; from now on, I refer to these children as having a reading disorder (RD). Their performance across all reading assessments is detailed in Table 2. While there is some variation, it is notable that performance is low across the board, including in reading comprehension. It is also important to note that only 22 of the 34 RD children were able to complete the Neale Analysis: the other 12 struggled with reading individual words to the extent that testing was abandoned. This means that the text accuracy and comprehension scores reported in Table 2 underestimate the difficulties experienced by the RD children; nevertheless, reading comprehension was very poor with every child scoring below population average.

Oral language skills in children with RD at 7 years

Table 3 summarises the performance of the 34 children on five different measures of oral language. Expressive vocabulary was measured using the vocabulary subtest from the Wechsler Abbreviated Intelligence Scales (WASI, Wechsler, 1999). Children were asked to provide definitions for words supplied by the experimenter. Sentence comprehension was measured using the Comprehension subtest from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC, Wechsler, 2003), a test which requires children to answer orally-presented socially-relevant comprehension questions. Two subtests from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF-3 UK; Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2000) provided an estimate of expressive and receptive language skills. Recalling Sentences requires children to repeat sentences of increasing length and grammatical complexity; Sentence Structure assesses acquisition of structural rules at the sentence level by asking children to select a picture that matches the target sentence. Finally, in the Bus Story (Renfrew, 1991) children listen to a narrative describing events in a picture book. They then re-tell the story and their responses are analysed. Scores here reflect the information content of their re-tells.

Averaging across the five tests produced a mean standard score of 88, right at the end bottom end of normal range. However, this average hides a substantial amount of variability. For each test, performance varied from extremely poor to good.

Comparison of "pure" RD and RD with poor language at 7 years

It is clear that some children with RD at 7 years of age also perform poorly on tasks tapping oral language: in Simple View terms, they have poor linguistic comprehension alongside poor decoding. To investigate further, I used Bishop et al.'s ( 2009) methodology to classify a child as language impaired if they obtained at least two standard scores more than 1.33SD below the population mean on the five oral language measures described above. Of the 34 children with RD, 13 also met this criterion for language impairment. The results of this classification exercise are summarised in upper part of Table 4. For children with reading disorder only, scores were at the population average. As to be expected, those classified as language impaired obtained scores well below the normal range.

Despite large differences in oral language characterising the two subgroups, they showed an identical pattern of reading achievement across the all the reading tests, including reading comprehension (see Figure 3).

Table 4 also shows the performance of the two subgroups on three assessments of phonological ability, namely two assessments of nonword repetition (the Children's Nonword Repetition Test, Gathercole et al., 1996 and from the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing [CTOPP]; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999) and one measure of phoneme deletion (also from the CTOPP). Both groups performed below average on these tests, and there was no difference in profile or severity across the two groups.

In summary, children selected as having RD at 7 years of age, defined in terms of poor performance on word and nonword reading fluency, also showed significant impairments in reading comprehension (and phonological skills). Over a third of the group could be classified as having a language impairment, placing them in quadrant C rather than quadrant A. Interestingly, having a concomitant language impairment was not associated with more severe reading comprehension difficulties. Despite relative strengths in oral language, reading comprehension was as poor in the RD-only group as the RD+LI group.

Having identified children with RD at 7 years and classified them on the basis of oral language at that time point, we now turn to look back at the data from the two subgroups at school entry. Of interest is the children's oral language at this time, before the onset of reading.

Looking backwards in time: oral language, phonological skills and emergent literacy at school entry

The 34 children identified as RD at 7 years were 4.88 years old ( SD = 0.37) at the first assessment. Oral language was measured using three different tests. Expressive vocabulary was assessed using the vocabulary subtest from the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI, Wechsler, 2002). Initial items require children to name pictures but most items involve the child providing definitions for words supplied by the assessor. Children also completed the Test for Reception of Grammar-2 (TROG-2, Bishop, 2003). This measures children's comprehension of sentences, with grammatical complexity increasing over the test. Sentence comprehension was assessed using the comprehension subtest from the WISC, as administered at 7 years. Performance is plotted in Figure 4 for the 34 children identified as RD at 7 years, separated by language status at 7 years.

Consistent with their later classification, children in the RD+LI group showed substantially lower levels of oral language at school entry than children in the RD group. As the children were pre-readers, these language weaknesses cannot be attributed to lack of language learning via reading. It is notable that the RD-only children obtained mean language scores of 95, 93 and 93 for vocabulary, receptive grammar and sentence comprehension respectively. While there was variation within the group, this generally places the children within normal range, in contrast to those in the RD+LI group (recall that standard scores were calculated from the entire sample of children who were assessed at this time point, N = 242). Overall, these findings point to stability in language skills, with profiles at school entry mirroring those seen three years later.

Five tests provided an assessment of the children's phonological skills at school entry. Phonological awareness was measured using two subtests from the CTOPP (Wagner et al., 1999): Phoneme Elision, in which children delete an initial or final phoneme from orally presented words, and Sound Matching, where children hear three words and are asked to select which one starts (or ends) with the same sound as a target item. We also administered Rime Judgement, a task developed by Bird, Bishop, and Freeman ( 1995) to measure phonological awareness in young children. Children selected from an array of four pictures the one that rhymed with a target item. Nonword repetition was assessed using the Children's Test of Nonword Repetition (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1996) and the Nonword Repetition subtest from the CTOPP.

As shown in Figure 5, the two subgroups did not differ in terms of phonological awareness. It is important to note that performance across the entire sample was quite low in terms of phoneme deletion and sound-matching, as to be expected given the age of the children at this time point. As a consequence, the data must be interpreted cautiously. On the rime task (where performance was stronger across the entire cohort), the RD-only children scored within normal range, and performed better than the children in the RD+LI group. This pattern was also evident across both measures of nonword repetition. It is interesting to note that the RD-only children performed quite well across all measures of phonological processing at school entry, yet by 7 years of age, they were below normal range, and performed as poorly as the RD+LI children. This might reflect a pattern of phonological skills becoming more impaired over time, as children with RD benefit less from reciprocal links with reading and alphabetic knowledge (see Nation and Hulme ( 2011) for a detailed investigation of this within the same dataset).

Turning to reading, most of the children in the entire sample were unable to read at the start of the study. There was however a good amount of variation in letter knowledge. Tellingly, given their future difficulties with word reading, letter knowledge was low for the children who were later classified as RD-only and RD+LI (standard scores of 84 and 83 respectively).

Looking forward in time: reading accuracy and reading comprehension at 8 and 10 years

While it is possible to classify children as RD and RD+LI at 7 years, this is a young age to be measuring reading comprehension, especially in children with manifestly poor reading at the word level. We had the opportunity to assess reading skills later in time, when the children were 8 years of age ( N = 20 RD and 11 RD+LI) and once again at 10 years of age ( N = 12 RD and 7 RD+LI). Performance on both the reading accuracy and reading comprehension components of the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability from these two timepoints are plotted in Figure 6, along with data from 7 years. At no time point is there any difference in reading skills between the RD-only and RD+LI subgroups; at 10 years of age, it is clear that the RD-only children are still poor at reading comprehension, despite their strengths in oral language. Figure 6 indicates some improvements over time in both groups, but note that this upward trajectory reflects only small differences in terms of standard score.

Summary and discussion

This exploration of the Learning to Read dataset shows that 7-year-olds with poor decoding also show impairments in reading comprehension, in line with the principles of the Simple View. It would be a mistake, however, to infer that reading comprehension is compromised by poor decoding alone. Approximately one third of the sample showed poor oral language at 7 years, and these difficulties were evident earlier in time, at school entry. These findings align with data from family risk studies (Snowling & Melby-Lervåg , 2016) and reinforce the need to consider children's language skills as well as their decoding ability.

A number of implications follow for both research and educational practice. For research, there is a pressing need to look beyond standardised scores on an off-the-shelf test of reading comprehension to consider the nature of reading comprehension in children with poor decoding. It is surprising that few studies have looked at reading comprehension itself in dyslexia. It would be interesting to vary question type, or use methods such as eye tracking to investigate factors such as inference-making while reading. Such experiments could address whether there are systematic differences in RD children with and without concomitant oral language weaknesses. Longitudinal data are also needed to help us to understand which children make progress in reading comprehension, and how.

The consistent finding that a substantial proportion of children identified on the basis of poor decoding have co-occurring language problems highlights the need to assess broader language skills in poor readers, and for intervention approaches to target language as well as decoding. Duff, Fieldsend, Bowyer-Crane, Hulme, Smith, Gibbs and Snowling ( 2008) identified a subgroup of poor readers who had not responded to an intensive intervention programme targeting reading and phonology. As a group, these children showed low language. Their expressive vocabulary was at the 5 th centile, and their performance on tests of grammatical skill corresponded to the 5.5 year old level-yet they were nearly 8 years old. In contrast, poor decoders who had responded well to the reading and phonology programme in previous studies achieved normal-for-age vocabulary scores. These observations suggest that co-occurring language difficulties place children at risk of being "treatment resistors", meaning more intensive and specialist provision is required, extending to rich oral language intervention as well as instruction in decoding (see Duff et al., 2014; Fricke, Bowyer-Crane, Haley, Hulme, & Snowling, 2013). Extending these research findings to educational practice can be facilitated by collaborations between teachers and speech and language pathologists (Adlof & Hogan, 2018; Snow, 2019).

Part III: poor comprehenders

Having reviewed poor decoding as a source of reading comprehension difficulty, we now turn our attention to quadrant D. Poor comprehenders were first described in the scientific literature by Oakhill ( 1982; 1983; 1984) who used the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability to identify children who appear to have circumscribed difficulties with reading comprehension. In this test, children read aloud short passages of text (generating a score for reading accuracy) and then answer questions to assess their literal and inferential understanding of the text, generating a score for reading comprehension. Oakhill ( 1982) identified 7-8 year olds who were disproportionality poor at reading comprehension, despite age-appropriate reading accuracy. Looking across the experimental literature since Oakhill's original work, studies have used different selection criteria. This makes precise prevalence hard to estimate. Perhaps the most reliable estimates come from nationally representative and large samples in the UK, extracted from the data used in the standardisation of the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (Snowling et al., 2009; Stothard, Hulme, Clarke, Barmby, & Snowling, 2010). In the primary school sample, 5.3% of children with age-appropriate levels of word reading ability obtained reading comprehension standard scores below 77.5 (equating to more than 1.5 SD s below average for their age); in the secondary school sample, the figure was 5%. Thus, poor comprehenders of this severity exist and this profile of reading difficulty is not rare.

As reviewed earlier, according to the Simple View, reading comprehension is the product of decoding and linguistic comprehension. It follows from this that children identified as poor comprehenders must have deficits either in decoding, linguistic comprehension, or both. This logic forces the conclusion that reading comprehension deficits cannot be specific, but instead must be related to weaknesses in one or both of its component parts. For the children described above as having "specific" reading comprehension impairments, which component is at fault?

As is to be anticipated given the selection methods used to identify poor comprehenders, weak decoding is an unlikely explanation for the patterns of poor reading comprehension identified by Oakhill in her early studies. Subsequent research has bolstered this conclusion. It is not the case that poor comprehenders have accurate-but-slow reading, indicative of subtle decoding problems that cause a bottleneck and disrupt reading comprehension: it is perfectly possible to identify poor comprehenders who have good reading fluency alongside good reading accuracy. For example, Ricketts, Bishop and Nation ( 2007) used assessments of word and nonword reading fluency (provided by the TOWRE, Wagner et al., 1999) to identify and match poor comprehenders with control children. These children were 8-10 years old. This leaves open the possibility that they might have had poor decoding earlier in development and this has somehow left a lasting legacy of less than optimal decoding, which in turn hampers reading comprehension. But this does not seem to be the case. Reporting on data from the Learning to Read project introduced in Part II, Nation et al. ( 2010) identified poor comprehenders in mid-childhood. They then looked back in the dataset to chart reading development from its initial stages onwards. Those children who went on to show a poor comprehender profile at 8 years showed all the hallmarks of good decoding from the outset. They started school with normal levels of letter knowledge, and throughout development they showed age-appropriate reading fluency for words and nonwords, and text reading too. For children identified as poor comprehenders then, weaknesses in decoding cannot explain why reading comprehension is compromised.

Turning to the other component of the Simple View, there is plenty of evidence demonstrating that poor comprehenders show impairments on tasks that tap linguistic comprehension. Using a version of the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability where the children listened to the stories rather than read them, Nation and Snowling ( 1997) found that poor comprehenders performed less well than control children. As discussed earlier, listening comprehension is a broad construct: like reading comprehension itself, there are many reasons why a child might find it difficult. Nation et al. ( 2004) made a thorough investigation of 8-9 year-old poor comprehenders' oral language skills using a range of standardised assessments that tapped phonological skills as well as vocabulary, morphosyntax and the understanding of non-literal language. Consistent with evidence from earlier experiments (Cain, Oakhill, & Bryant, 2000; Nation & Snowling, 1998; Stothard & Hulme, 1995), the poor comprehenders performed as well as their peers on the phonological tasks. However, on all other tests they performed less well than the control children as a group, leading Nation et al. to conclude that low language characterises many (but not all) poor comprehenders. Furthermore, a substantial minority of the sample showed significant language difficulties and met criteria for specific language impairment (now known as developmental language disorder: Bishop, Snowling, Thompson, Greenhalgh, 2016).

The Learning to Read Project provided an opportunity to test this hypothesis directly. Nation et al. ( 2010) selected poor comprehenders on the basis of their reading profile at 8 years. Tracing back in the dataset to when the children started school, the children who went on to be identified as poor comprehenders at 8 years on the basis of their reading profile showed low oral language at 4.5 years and throughout the primary school years. Despite these language weaknesses, the poor comprehenders showed age-appropriate phonological skills, consistent with the view that relative strengths in phonological ability supported the development of word reading, but relative weaknesses in other aspects of language contributed to the children's difficulties with reading comprehension. Similar findings have been reported in other retrospective longitudinal studies (Catts, Adlof, & Weismer, 2006; Elwér, Keenan, Olson, Byrne & Samuelsson, 2013; Petscher, Justice, & Hogan, in press). Together, these findings show that oral language weaknesses precede reading development in poor comprehenders, meaning that difficulties observed later in development are not a straightforward consequence of lack of reading-although of course, reciprocal influences are to be expected.

Why does reading comprehension go wrong for poor comprehenders?

The Simple View is helpful in reminding us that reading comprehension has its bases in language comprehension. Once children can read words adequately, variation in reading comprehension is strongly associated with variation in language comprehension more generally. Beyond this truism, however, the Simple View does not provide further specification as to why comprehension might fail. Reading comprehension is not "one thing"; like language comprehension more generally, it is a complex construct, drawing on a range of cognitive and linguistic capacities (for review, see Castles et al., 2018; Perfetti & Stafura, 2014). Is it possible to further specify where in this complex set of processes comprehension breaks down for poor comprehenders?

To address this question, experiments have compared poor comprehenders and a control group on tasks hypothesised to be relevant to reading comprehension. These experiments have found that poor comprehenders are less able to make inferences (Cain & Oakhill, 1999), understand words or activate their meanings in context (Nation & Snowling, 1998, 1999), connect ideas in text (Ehrlich & Remond, 1997), remember verbal information (Hua & Keenan, 2014) and monitor their comprehension (Oakhill, Hartt, & Samols, 2005). They are also less skilled at learning and remembering new words and adding to their knowledge (Cain, Oakhill & Elbro, 2003; Ricketts, Bishop, & Nation, 2008). It is hard to derive conclusions across different experiments, not least because of methodological limitations such as sample size, and variations in age and the methods used to define samples. Nevertheless, two observations are noteworthy. First, there is no "magic profile" that captures all children and totally "explains" their poor comprehension. This reflects both the complexity of comprehension and the difficulty of separating one component of comprehension cleanly. As Castles et al. ( 2018) discuss in detail, comprehension is not only multifaceted with factors interacting in multiple ways during the process of reading, it is also complex developmentally, as factors interact and change over time. Second, common to most of the experiments that find a poor comprehender difference is that the task is within the verbal domain. For example, Pimperton and Nation ( 2010) found that poor comprehenders showed more interference in working memory, but only for verbal materials; when the task switched to the visuo-spatial domain, the poor comprehenders were indistinguishable from their peers. This is consistent with underlying language weaknesses influencing performance on any task that places demands on those linguistic resources-including, of course, reading comprehension. Further research is needed to unpack global constructs such as "reading comprehension" and "linguistic comprehension", not least in order to guide effective teaching and intervention in the classroom.

Assessment and intervention for poor comprehenders

The Simple View has been influential in highlighting the existence of the poor comprehender profile, and the need to identify appropriate approaches to assessment and intervention. It is clear that the ability to read words accurately and fluently-while critical for adequate comprehension-is no guarantee that adequate reading comprehension will follow. In turn, this means that a thorough assessment of reading should also include a measure of text comprehension. This is not, however, a straightforward matter. Reading comprehension tests vary. Some are heavily dependent on a child's word reading; others are so dependent on background knowledge that the questions can be answered quite well without actually reading the passage (Keenan & Meenan, 2014). The same test can also tap different component skills, depending on the performance level achieved by a child (Hua & Keenan, 2017). Knowledge effects are impossible to avoid-comprehension is a reflection of our knowledge and for all of us, reading comprehension is more difficult when topic knowledge is low. The message here is that we need to be mindful of the nature of the test being used, and appreciate that test performance depends not only on the child's knowledge and abilities, but also the features of the text (a point that holds for all children, not just poor comprehenders). The poor comprehender literature also has implications for the need to assess children's oral language (beyond phonological skills) as part of any thorough assessment of reading.

One approach to intervention is to address a particular component of reading comprehension, for example, vocabulary, inference making, or comprehension monitoring. Such intervention studies have generally been with poor decoders, or children who find both word reading and comprehension difficult, rather than with poor comprehenders specifically. While gains are made on what has been taught, transfer effects to non-trained components or on standardised measures of reading comprehension are small (Elleman, 2017; Elleman, Lindo, Morphy, & Compton, 2009). This is perhaps not surprising, given the complex nature of reading comprehension, and its dependence on strong content knowledge. That said, there are excellent examples of promising approaches to teaching reading comprehension (for review, see Oakhill, Cain, & Elbro, 2014) that could be developed and trialled for children identified as poor comprehenders.

A different approach is to consider the fundamental role of oral language (or linguistic comprehension, in terms of the Simple View) in reading comprehension and aim intensive intervention there. Working from the finding that poor comprehenders have impairments in linguistic comprehension, Clarke, Snowling, Truelove, and Hulme ( 2010) developed a language intervention that directly and explicitly worked on 8-9 year-olds' oral language with direct instruction tapping vocabulary, grammar and narrative. Using a randomised controlled design, they compared this 20-week intervention with one focussing on text comprehension itself, and a combined approach targeting both oral language and text comprehension. Intervention was delivered in small groups by trained teaching assistants, with three 30-minute sessions per week. Pleasingly, all three groups improved in reading comprehension relative to a waiting list control group. Those receiving oral language training showed most improvement in reading comprehension 11 months later, and improvements in reading comprehension were predicted by improvements in vocabulary. Fricke et al. ( 2013) used a similar approach but with materials designed for much younger children. They identified children with low language at around the time of school entry. Those who received an intensive language intervention showed improvements in oral language, and got off to a better start with reading comprehension than children in the control group. These findings are encouraging, and support the rationale for improving children's oral language as the basis for bringing about improvements in reading comprehension. Note however these interventions are intensive, and are designed to be delivered by teaching assistants who have been specifically trained-quick fixes are not to be expected.

Part IV: reflections on the Simple View

In the 30-plus years since the Simple View was first articulated by Gough and Tunmer ( 1986), its elegance and force in describing the essence of reading comprehension has become clear. By setting out decoding and linguistic comprehension as separate but interacting components, it reminds us that reading comprehension requires both the ability to identify individual words, and the ability to construct meaning from text. When assessed reliably using comprehensive measures, how good children are at decoding and linguistic comprehension predicts how good they are at reading comprehension extraordinarily well. The Simple View provides a framework for classifying reading difficulties, and it has done much to promote our understanding of the relationship between spoken language and reading development. It is not just children with "classic dyslexia" who need extra support in the classroom: research conducted within the Simple View framework has shown that a large proportion of children with low word reading also show poor oral language, as do children with reading comprehension impairments. These research findings have important implications for assessment and intervention and it is a positive development to see materials written for practitioners framed within the Simple View (e.g. Stuart & Stainthorp, 2015).

Despite these strengths, the Simple View has led to some false impressions. As noted earlier, the Simple View "does not deny the complexity of reading, but asserts that such complexities are restricted to either of the two components", linguistic comprehension and decoding (Hoover & Gough, 1990, p. 150). Nevertheless, Catts ( 2018) discusses how visualisations of the Simple View-diagrams like Figure 1, with the two components appearing to be the same size-have inadvertently camouflaged the complexity of reading comprehension and in doing, created false impressions about its malleability, and the extent to which it can be captured by a score on an omnibus test. These concerns intersect with some of our earlier discussion-that the Simple View is not a model of what needs to develop to bring about change in either of the two components. In terms of partitioning and explaining variance, it is clear that the relative weighting of the two constructs changes over time, with linguistic comprehension becoming more closely associated with reading comprehension as decoding skills strengthen (e.g., Language and Reading Research Consortium, 2015). Early on, the decoding component predominates, but beyond the early stages of learning to read, the linguistic comprehension oval in diagrams like Figure 1 needs to be much bigger, and have more indicators feeding into it, reflecting its multifaceted nature.

Another false impression is that the two components are entirely separable. A good deal of variation in reading comprehension is shared between the two components. Lonigan et al. ( 2018) suggested that this common variance might be related to some underlying general cognitive linguistic ability, and in their analyses, shared variance predicted differences in reading comprehension beyond the unique variance associated with each component. Consistent with this, longitudinal data have shown that some factors predict multiple components of reading. As noted earlier for example, Hulme et al. ( 2015) found that language skills at 3.5 years contributed to decoding at 5.5 years as well as reading comprehension at 8.5 years. Similarly, there is no doubt that oral vocabulary is a vital component of linguistic comprehension, nor that it is closely associated with reading comprehension. This does not mean it is irrelevant for word reading. On the contrary, vocabulary is also associated with word reading, both in typical development and atypical development (e.g., Nation & Snowling, 1998; Taylor, Duff, Woollams, Monaghan, & Ricketts, 2015). Consider too the importance of morphology. Numerous studies have found associations between children's reading comprehension and their knowledge and appreciation of morphology (e.g., Levesque, Kieffer, & Deacon, 2019; Tong, Deacon, Kirby, Cain, & Parrila, 2011), consistent with morphology being a critical component of linguistic comprehension. At the same time, however, skilled word recognition is highly sensitive to morphological regularities that are marked in the orthography, reminding us that English is a morphophonemic in nature (Rastle, 2019; Venezky, 1999). As reading develops, the word recognition system comes to embody this structure and this is reflected in how single words are read and processed (e.g., Dawson, Rastle, & Ricketts, 2018; Kearns & Al Ghanem, in press). Thus, morphological knowledge is not only part of linguistic comprehension. It is also core to word recognition and its development-that is, what is captured within the Simple View as "decoding".

What are the implications of these findings for the Simple View? To take development on board, it might be that our visual representation needs to be more complex, with some underlying language factor feeding into both components, and/or bi-directional connections between decoding and linguistic comprehension, as shown in Figure 7.

This figure also shows feedback arrows from reading comprehension into language. This is to remind us of the importance of reading experience. It is the substrate from which basic decoding skills develop and automatise (see Castles et al., 2018). It also provides rich and varied opportunities for language learning, as children encounter new vocabulary and new syntactic structures via reading (Montag & MacDonald, 2015; Montag, Jones, & Smith, 2015). The implication of this for children with reading difficulties is neatly captured by Stanovich's ( 1986) description of the Matthew effect-the richer get richer and the poor get poorer. Low levels of spoken language set the scene for reading difficulties, which in turn lead to greater differences in spoken language, relative to peers who read well. Or, in the words of Snow ( 2016), "language is literacy is language".

The Simple View provides a useful framework for thinking about reading comprehension and its development. It positions decoding as central to learning to read and reminds us that no amount of oral language prowess can bring about successful reading, if a child has not learned the principles of how their writing system works. This is what learning to read is about, and what needs to be taught at the outset. Getting better at reading words, and developing all that is needed to serve reading comprehension in all its infinite varieties, obviously demands more than decent decoding: the knowledge and processing skills nested within linguistic comprehension are fundamental. There is no doubt that the Simple View explains variance in reading comprehension. But we also need to look beyond the Simple View, if we are to understand more about how subcomponent processes work and develop, and how they can be optimised in the classroom and the clinic by well-designed reading and language instruction.

Word Fluency

Nonword Fluency

Word Reading

Text Accuracy

Text Comprehension

Word Fluency*a

Nonword Fluency*b

Word Readingc

Text Accuracyd

Text Comprehensiond

Expressive Vocabularya

Recalling Sentencesb

Sentence Structureb

Narrative Contentc

Sentence Comprehensiond

RD (N = 21)

RD+LI (N = 13)

M

SD

M

SD

Language classification tests

Phonological Skills

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Learning Difficulties Australia for the opportunity to discuss some of the work described in this paper in person. Its content has been shaped by the many interesting and lively discussions that ensued. Particular thanks to Anne Castles, Robyn Wheldall, Kevin Wheldall and Bartek Rajkowski for their wisdom and generous hospitality, and to Pye Twaddell, Tanya Serry and members of the LDA Committee for making it all possible. Thanks too to my collaborators on the Learning to Read Project: Dorothy Bishop, Joanne Cocksey, Jo Taylor and Philip Angell, to Anne Castles, Nicola Dawson, Tiffany Hogan, Tanya Serry and Maggie Snowling for constructive feedback, and Alexander Wilson for editorial assistance. This research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, grants ES/M009998/1 and RES-000-23-0581.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, grants ES/M009998/1 and RES-000-23-0581.

References

Castles, A. , & Nation, K. (2006). How does orthographic learning happen? In S. Andrews (Ed.), From inkmarks to ideas: Challenges and controversies about word recognition and reading (pp. 151-179). New York: Psychology Press.

Elwér, s., Keenan, J. M., Olson, R.K., Byrne, B. & Samuelsson, S. (2013). Longitudinal stability and predictors of poor oral comprehenders and poor decoders. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 115, 497-516.

Gathercole, S. E. , & Baddeley, A. (1996). Children's test of nonword repetition. London, UK: Pearson.

Kearns, D. , & Al Ghanem, R. (in press). The role of semantic information in children's word reading: Does meaning affect readers' ability to say polysyllabic words aloud? Journal of Educational Psychology. doi:10.1037/edu0000316

Language and Reading Research Consortium. (2015). Learning to Read: Should we keep things simple? Reading Research Quarterly, 50(2), 151-169.

Language and Reading Research Consortium. (2017). Oral language and listening comprehension: Same or different constructs? Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 60(5), 1273-1284.

Perfetti, C. (2008). Reading ability: Lexical quality to comprehension (vol 11, pg 357, 2007). Scientific Studies of Reading, 12(1), 130.

Rastle, K . (2018). The place of morphology in learning to read in english. Cortex, 1-10. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.02.008

Rastle, K. (2019). Writing systems, reading, and language. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Advanced online publication. doi: 10.1177/1747021819829696

Rose, J. (2006). http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/5551/2/report.pdf Independent review of the teaching of early reading final report. U.K. Department for Education and Skills. Retrieved from

Share, D. L. (1995). Phonological recoding and self-teaching: Cognition, 55(2), Sine qua non of reading acquisition. 151-218.

Snow, P. (2019). Why do speech-language pathologists work in literacy? Retrived from http://pamelasnow.blogspot.com/2019/01/why-do-speech-language-pathologists.html.

Snowling, M. J. , Hayiou-Thomas, E., Nash, H. M., & Hulme, C. (in preparation). Dyslexia and developmental language disorder: Comorbid disorders with distinct effects on reading comprehension. University of Oxford.

Snowling, M. J. , Stothard, S. E. , Clarke, P. , Bowyer-Crane, C. , Harrington, A. , Truelove, E. , Nation, K., ... Hulme, C. (2009). York assessment of reading for comprehension. London, UK: GL Assessment.

Stothard, S. E. , Hulme, C. , Clarke, P. , Barmby, P. , & Snowling, M. J. (2010). York assessment of reading for comprehension. Secondary test. London, UK: GL Assessment.

Stuart, M. , & Stainthorp, R. (2015). Reading development and teaching. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Venezky, R. L. (1999). The American way of spelling: The structure and origins of America English. New York, NY: Guildford Press.

Wechsler, D. (2002). Wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence (3rd ed.). London: The Psychological Corporation.

Wechsler, D. (2003). The wechsler intelligence scale for children (4th ed.). London: The Psychological Corporation.

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Children's reading difficulties, language, and reflections on the simple view of reading

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ABSTRACT ABSTRACT Reading comprehension is a complex task which depends on a range of cognitive and linguistic processes. According to the Simple View of Reading, this complexity can be captured as the product of two sets of skills: decoding and linguistic comprehension.

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Effective and Efficient Teaching

By Anita L. Archer and Charles A. Hughes

Explicit instruction is systematic, direct, engaging, and success oriented-and has been shown to promote achievement for all students. This highly practical and accessible resource gives special and general education teachers the tools to implement explicit instruction in any grade level or content area. The authors are leading experts who provide clear guidelines for identifying key concepts, strategies, skills, and routines to teach; designing and delivering effective lessons; and giving students opportunities to practice and master new material. Sample lesson plans, lively examples, and reproducible checklists and teacher worksheets enhance the utility of the volume.

This title is part of the What Works for Special-Needs Learners Series, edited by Karen R. Harris and Steve Graham.

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Explicit Instructions | Effective and Efficient Teaching

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By Anita L. Archer and Charles A. Hughes Explicit instruction is systematic, direct, engaging, and success oriented-and has been shown to promote achievement for all students. This highly practical and accessible resource gives special and general education teachers the tools to implement explicit instruction in any grade level or content area.

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Orthographic Mapping: What it Is and Why It's So Important

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Tool 3 Part 3 Topic 9 - Daily Routines 3

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Tool 3 Part 3 Topic 6 - Phoneme Segmentation using Head Waist Toes

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Phocus on Phonology

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In all honesty, the life lessons I remember most deeply originate with mistakes.

Try to watch a fun movie? I turn the movie on by 10 p.m. and promptly fall asleep.

Try to eat healthy? I inevitably leave the house forgetting my packed lunch, accidently ending up at The Cheesecake Factory.

Plan to be on time for an important event? Neglect to switch my favorite outfit out of the washer and into the dryer.

Although these may not sound like life-shattering mistakes, here's one that was:

On a particularly difficult school day, one my favorite students (all my students were my favorites, by the way), ran into the classroom, shouting:

"Mrs. Tolman, I am so fustated!"

To which I calmly replied:

"Chris, the word is frustrated."

"That's what I SAID: FUSTATED!" Chris shrieked.

Oops! So much for my stellar teaching skills. It was obvious I was adding to his "fustation."

Teacher knowledge is key: We can't teach what we don't know.
To better help Chris, and get him "unfustated," I needed the invaluable information gleaned from years of scientific research. For example, how do our brains store individual speech sounds (phonemes)? Why do some students mispronounce, misread, and/or misspell words? What could I do instructionally to improve Chris' skills? Here's what I've come to understand:

Listening to a student's speech is a window into their understanding of phonemes.
We store speech sounds by place and manner of articulation. This means that "how" we physically make sounds matters. The word " place" refers to whether a sound is made toward the front, middle, or back of our mouth, considering where we put our tongue when we say a sound. The " manner " refers to what happens with your air flow and voicing; some sounds are produced with a lengthy breath of air (/sh/, /m/). (When you see these slash marks, or virgules, I am referring to sounds, not letters.)

In comparison, some phonemes are produced with a quick burst of air (/b/ /k/); linguists refer to these as "stop" sounds. The term "voicing" refers to what's happening in our throat when we make a sound. As you say /sh/, put your hand flat on your throat. You should feel no vibration.

In comparison, say /m/ while feeling your throat. That's a very different feeling! It was not that Chris could not "see" the letter 'r' in the word frustration as he spoke; rather, he could not accurately hear nor feel the way his mouth was supposed to move to represent that particular sound.

Asking Chris to look at how my mouth puckered when I said the /r/ in isolation, and then in the blends 'fr' and 'tr,' talking about what my lips look like, asking him to make his mouth look like mine, and using a mirror would have helped bring this sound to his conscious awareness. The current push for classroom sound walls instead of word walls, replete with mouth pictures, is an example of how to reinforce and deepen students' awareness of creating and manipulating the 44 English phonemes.

If you cannot say a word, you likely will struggle to read and write it.
When writing a word, strong spellers automatically reference numerous connections to what they already know about that word: how it sounds; what letters are used to represent each sound; what morphemes, or smallest meaningful units, are embedded within the word; what that word means; what part of speech it takes in a sentence; and, how that word is used in speech and writing.

Weak spellers may have difficulty in one or more of these layers of language. In Chris' case, I don't believe he ever used the word "frustration" in his writing, choosing a simpler word to spell, such as "mad" or "upset." Weak spellers, especially those with underlying phonological confusions, often write shorter sentences with simpler words, avoiding words they struggle to spell.

I remember Chris trying to write his address for me one day. He struggled writing "avenue," "avnoo," "avin'...then crossed it all out and wrote: "street."

If Chris were to come upon the word "frustration" in his reading, he'd typically look at its beginning letters, identify the first sound, and guess the rest based on pictures or meanings of nearby words. His reading, overall, was slow, labored, and inaccurate, leading to his "fustation."

That same process of using sounds to anchor spellings is used, in reverse, when we read. Good readers process every letter, space, and punctuation mark, automatically activate the corresponding sounds represented by these letters and letter patterns and use their knowledge of sound-spelling patterns to decode unfamiliar words.

Phonemic awareness is an essential foundational skill for unlocking the alphabetic principle to read words. It follows that weak phonemic awareness negatively impacts a student's ability to readily blend words, leading to weak comprehension; we cannot understand what we cannot read.

Join me in an EDVIEW 360 webinar in May, when I will examine what teachers need to know about phonemic awareness through the lens of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Keep your eye on the EDVIEW 360 page for the exact date and registration link.

Until then, I'll likely turn on a chick flick, enjoy a piece of cheesecake, and promptly fall asleep while my clothes gather mildew in the washer. And you know that "fustation" experience with Chris? Perhaps I should have started by asking him why he was so "fustated." I never did find out.

Carol A. Tolman, Ed.D., has a doctorate in educational psychology and has been a consultant at the state, district, and school levels for more than 15 years. Dr. Tolman also has more than 25 years of experience in public schools and the juvenile justice system, spending 12 years designing and implementing an innovative reading clinic for academically challenged high school students.

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Speaking, Listening, Reading, and Writing: What Teachers Need to Know About Phonemic Awareness

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Phonemic awareness is an essential foundational skill for unlocking the alphabetic principle to read words. It follows that weak phonemic awareness negatively impacts a student's ability to readily blend words, leading to weak comprehension; we cannot understand what we cannot read.

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Phonological skill develops in a predictable progression. This concept is important, as it provides the basis for sequencing teaching tasks from easy to more difficult. Table 1 outlines the relative difficulty of phonological awareness tasks. Table 2 is a more specific synthesis of several research reviews and summaries (Adams et al., 1998; Gillon, 2004; Goswami, 2000; Paulson, 2004; Rath, 2001) that ties specific ages to the typical accomplishment of those phonological awareness tasks.

Prerequisite to phonological awareness is basic listening skill; the acquisition of a several-thousand word vocabulary; the ability to imitate and produce basic sentence structures; and the use of language to express needs, react to others, comment on experience, and understand what others intend.

Table 1. Phonological skills, from most basic to advanced

Word awareness

Tracking the words in sentences.

Note: This semantic language skill is much less directly predictive of reading than the skills that follow and less important to teach directly (Gillon, 2004). It is not so much a phonological skill as a semantic (meaning-based) language skill.

Responsiveness to rhyme and alliteration during word play

Enjoying and reciting learned rhyming words or alliterative phrases in familiar storybooks or nursery rhymes.

Syllable awareness

Counting, tapping, blending, or segmenting a word into syllables.

Onset and rime manipulation

The ability to produce a rhyming word depends on understanding that rhyming words have the same rime. Recognizing a rhyme is much easier than producing a rhyme.

Phoneme awareness

Identify and match the initial sounds in words, then the final and middle sounds (e.g., "Which picture begins with /m/?"; "Find another picture that ends in /r/").

Segment and produce the initial sound, then the final and middle sounds (e.g., "What sound does zoo start with?"; "Say the last sound in milk"; "Say the vowel sound in rope ").

Blend sounds into words (e.g., "Listen: /f/ /ē/ /t/. Say it fast").

Segment the phonemes in two- or three-sound words, moving to four- and five- sound words as the student becomes proficient (e.g., "The word is eyes. Stretch and say the sounds: /ī/ /z/").

Manipulate phonemes by removing, adding, or substituting sounds (e.g., "Say smoke without the /m/").

Table 2. Ages at which 80-90 percent of typical students have achieved a phonological skill

4

Rote imitation and enjoyment of rhyme and alliteration

pool, drool, tool
"Seven silly snakes sang songs seriously."

5

Rhyme recognition, odd word out

"Which two words rhyme:
stair, steel, chair?"

Recognition of phonemic changes in words

" Hickory Dickory Clock. That's not right!"

Clapping, counting syllables

5½

Distinguishing and remembering separate phonemes in a series

Show sequences of single phonemes with colored blocks: /s/ /s/ /f/; /z/ /sh/ /z/.

Producing a rhyme

"Tell me a word that rhymes with car." ( star)

Matching initial sounds; isolating an initial sound

"Say the first sound in ride (/r/); sock (/s/); love (/l/)."

6

Compound word deletion

"Say cowboy. Say it again, but don't say cow."

Syllable deletion

"Say parsnip. Say it again, but don't say par."

Phoneme segmentation of words that have simple syllables with two or three phonemes (no blends)

"Say the word as you move a chip for each sound."

6½

Phoneme segmentation of words that have up to three or four phonemes (include blends)

"Say the word slowly while you tap the sounds."

Phoneme substitution to build new words that have simple syllables (no blends)

"Change the /j/ in cage to /n/.
Change the /ā/ in cane to /ō/."

7

Sound deletion (initial and final positions)

"Say meat. Say it again, without the /m/."
"Say safe. Say it again, without the /f/."

8

Sound deletion (initial position, include blends)

"Say prank. Say it again, without the /p/."

9

Sound deletion (medial and final blend positions)

"Say snail. Say it again, without the /n/."
"Say fork. Say it again, without the /k/."

Paulson (2004) confirmed the hierarchy of phonological skill acquisition in 5-year-olds entering kindergarten. Only 7 percent of 5-year-olds who had not yet had kindergarten could segment phonemes in spoken words. The production of rhymes was more difficult for 5-year-olds than commonly assumed, as only 61 percent could give a rhyming word for a stimulus. Only 29 percent could blend single phonemes into whole words. Although some young students will pick up these skills with relative ease during the kindergarten year - especially if the curriculum includes explicit activities - other students must be taught these metalinguistic skills directly and systematically.

Moats, L, & Tolman, C (2009). Excerpted from Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS): The Speech Sounds of English: Phonetics, Phonology, and Phoneme Awareness (Module 2). Boston: Sopris West.

For more information on Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) visit Voyager Sopris .

For any reprint requests, please contact the author or publisher listed.

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Basic listening skills and "word awareness" are critical precursors to phonological awareness. Learn the milestones for acquiring phonological skills.

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Improving Morphemic Awareness Using Latin Roots & Greek Combining Forms, 2nd Edition - William Van Cleave

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Helps students recognize and manipulate roots and affixes in 5-7 minute lessons.

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The Structure of the English Language: A Conversation with William Van Cleave

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Writing Matters: Developing Sentence Skills in Students of All Ages - William Van Cleave

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A recent blog post by Tim Shanahan titled "What should morphology instruction look like?" reminded me how important it is to teach students about word parts (i.e., roots, prefixes, suffixes) as a useful tool for determining the meaning of unfamiliar words and growing academic vocabularies.

One of the five components of our Key Vocabulary Routine is Teach Word Learning Strategies, which includes how to look for clues outside the word (use of context) and inside the word (use of word parts) when encountering an unknown word while reading. Outside clues include rereading the sentences before and after the word and using the context of the text. Inside clues come from recognizing meaningful parts of the word, i.e., using morphological knowledge.
Morphemes and Morphological Awareness
Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in a language. The dictionary defines a morpheme as "a word or part of a word that has a meaning and that contains no smaller part that has a meaning." Morphemes include base words and roots, prefixes, and suffixes. They can be combined in different ways to express particular meaning or to fill grammatical roles. Some morphemes are free - they can stand alone (e.g., cat, walk, govern). Other morphemes are bound - they cannot stand alone and must be attached to another morpheme (e.g., re-, un-, geo, phon, -ed, -ment). Here are some examples:

The word cat contains one free morpheme

The word cats contains one free morpheme (cat) and one bound morphemes (s)

The compound word sandbox contains two free morphemes (sand, box)

The word unfit contains one bound morpheme (un) and one free morpheme (fit)

The word transportable contains three bound morphemes (trans, port, able)

Morphology means the study of word parts, and morphological awareness refers to the ability to recognize the presence of morphemes in words. Research suggests that students can be taught various morphemic elements as a way to determine the meaning of new words (Edwards et al., 2004). Carlisle (2010) analyzed 16 studies about the relation of morphological awareness instruction to key components of literacy development. The findings showed that instruction about word parts was associated with improvements in word reading and spelling, and in determining the meaning of unfamiliar words.
Academic, School Morphemes
Academic vocabulary that must be learned beyond grade three often consists of words that combine a root, prefix, and suffix (e.g., poly + nom + ial = polynomial; manu + script = manuscript). In the upper elementary grades and higher, there are many opportunities to find words in content reading that contain Greek and Latin morphemes. Children in primary grades can begin to learn how morphemes combine by adding common prefixes and suffixes to short Anglo-Saxon words and also compounding them. For example:

jump, jumps, jumped, jumping, jumper

read, reread, reader, nonreader, reading

sunshine, schoolhouse, upstream

There are some limitations to morphemic analysis. Although it is useful, teachers must also make students aware that it doesn't always work. This is because some prefixes are not consistent in meaning (e.g., in- means both not and in). It is also because the meaning of many Greek and Latin roots have changed substantially over hundreds of years, so they no longer lend themselves to literal translation. For example, the literal translation of circumspect should be look around ( circum means around, spect means look), while the real meaning is to be cautious, careful.
Introducing Morphology
One way to introduce word analysis skills is to teach students how words are made up of word parts, and how words can be related in word families, such as the word family below for the Latin root port (to carry).

Keys to Literacy trainers often see examples of teachers using word families when we visit classrooms. Here are some examples:

Another instructional strategy is to have students build word families by providing a main root and then prefixes and suffixes that can be combined with the root to generate words. Word Matrix boxes such as the examples below can be used for this purpose. For more examples, visit Peter Bowers' website
convoy, envoy, convoys, envoys, convoying, convoyed, voyage, voyages, voyaging, voyaged, voyager, voyagers retake, retakes, retaken, retaking, untaken, mistake, mistakes, mistakable, mistakably, mistaken, mistakenly, mistaking, intake, intakes, overtake, overtakes, overtaken, overtaking, undertake, undertakes, undertaker, undertaken, undertaking, undertakings, uptake, uptakes, breathtaking, caretaker, caretaking, takes, taker, taken, taking, takeaway, takeover Teaching Morphology
Here are two additional suggestions from our Key Vocabulary Routine professional development program:

Find opportunistic moments: Often, unplanned moments come up during content instruction to provide examples of word analysis. Words from content vocabulary lists may include common word parts, or an opportunity to make a connection between the root of a new word and a word previously covered in class may arise. Content teachers in particular are in a position to point out examples of words that contain roots, prefixes, and suffixes from content reading material.

School-wide focus: Most of the general academic words that students need to learn are derived words with word parts. A school-wide approach to teaching academic vocabulary involves teachers from different grades and subjects agreeing to focus on a few root words and their associated word families each week or two.

A 2015 piece posted by the Institute for Multi-Sensory Education's blog suggests these strategies for teaching morphology in the classroom based on research by Dr. Nonie Lesaux:

1. Morphology should be taught as a distinct component of a vocabulary improvement program throughout the upper elementary years.

2. Morphology should be taught as a cognitive strategy to be learned. In order to break a word down into morphemes, students must complete the following four steps:

Recognize that they don't know the word.

Analyze the word for recognizable morphemes, both in the roots and suffixes.

Think of a possible meaning based upon the parts of the word.

Check the meaning of the word against the context.

Students also need to understand the use of prefixes, suffixes, and roots, and how words get transformed.
Lists of Roots, Prefixes, Suffixes
There is a significant body of research indicating that instruction of prefixes is beneficial, and many vocabulary researchers recommend instruction of the most common prefixes as the first and best component of word analysis (Graves, 2004; Carlisle, 2007). White, Sowell, and Yanagihara (1989) found that 20 prefixes account for almost 97% of the 2,959 prefixed words that most frequently appear in school reading materials. Given how often these 20 prefixes occur, it makes sense to teach their meaning and use. To access a free list of these prefixes, visit the Keys to Literacy free resources page at our website, and go to the Vocabulary section. You will also find free lists of the following:

Common Numerical Prefixes

Common and Useful Suffixes

Common Greek and Latin Roots

References:
Carlisle, J.F. (2010). Effects of instruction on morphological awareness on literacy achievement: An integrative review. Reading Research Quarterly, 45 (4) 464-487.

Carlisle, J.F. (2007). Fostering morphological processing, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension. In R.K. Wagner, A.E., Muse, & K.R. Tannenbaum (Eds.). Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension. New York: Guilford Press.

Edwards, C.E., Font, G., Baumann, J.F., & Boland, E. (2004). Unlocking word meanings: Strategies and guidelines for teaching morphemic and contextual analysis. In James, R. Baumann & Edward J. Kame/ennui (Eds.). Vocabulary instruction: Research to practice. New York: Guilford Press.

Graves, M.F. (2004). Teaching prefixes: As good as it gets? In James, R. Baumann & Edward J. Kame/ennui (Eds.). Vocabulary instruction: Research to practice. New York: Guilford Press.

White, T.G., Sowell, J., & Yanagihara, A. (1989). Teaching elementary students to use word-part clues. The Reading Teacher, 42.

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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Using Morphology to Teach Vocabulary - Keys to Literacy

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Suggestions for teaching vocabulary by analyzing word parts.

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Ohio Department of Education and Workforce

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ODE: World Smarts Using Morphology Bases & Affixes to Develop Vocabulary Skills

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Etymonline - Online Etymology Dictionary

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The online etymology dictionary (etymonline) is the internet’s go-to source for quick and reliable accounts of the origin and history of English words, phrases, and idioms. It is professional enough to satisfy academic standards, but accessible enough to be used by anyone.

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Breaking Down Words to Build Meaning Kiefer and Lasaux.pdf

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Oral vocabulary refers to words that we use in speaking or comprehend in listening. Reading vocabulary refers to words we comprehend or use in print. In the Simple View of Reading, which describes reading as having two basic components - word recognition and comprehension - vocabulary falls under language comprehension.

Letter of completion

After completing this module and successfully answering the post-test questions, you'll be able to download a Letter of Completion.

Vocabulary plays an important part in learning to read. Beginning readers must use the words they hear orally to make sense of the words they see in print.

Consider, for example, what happens when a beginning reader comes to the word dig in a book. As she begins to figure out the sounds represented by the letters d, i, and g, the reader recognizes that the sounds make up a very familiar word that she has heard and said many times. It is harder for a beginning reader to figure out words that are not already part of her speaking (oral) vocabulary.

Furthermore, as children advance to reading longer, more complex types of words, many English words have more than one plausible phonetic pronunciation. For example, canopy could be cuh-NOP-ee instead of CAN-up-ee; timid could be pronounced with a long i in the first syllable (like time - id) instead of with a short i. If children already have these words in their oral vocabularies, it will be easier for them to read the words correctly.

Vocabulary is also very important to reading comprehension. Readers cannot understand what they are reading without knowing what most of the words mean. As children learn to read more advanced texts, they must learn the meaning of new words that are not part of their oral vocabulary.

There are four types of vocabulary:

Listening vocabulary: the words we need to know to understand what we hear

Speaking vocabulary: the words we use when we speak

Reading vocabulary: the words we can read and understand

Writing vocabulary: the words we use in writing

In assessment of vocabulary in beginning or struggling readers, use of an oral measure (listening and/or speaking vocabulary) is very important. A written measure of vocabulary will confound vocabulary knowledge with reading skills.

For instance, if a student who struggles with decoding gets a low score on a vocabulary measure that requires reading, it will be difficult to know whether the low score actually reflects vocabulary limitations or merely the fact that the child could not decode the words on the test.

Adapted from: Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read, Kindergarten Through Grade 3, a publication of The Partnership for Reading.

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Oral vocabulary refers to words that we use in speaking or comprehend in listening. Reading vocabulary refers to words we comprehend or use in print. In the Simple View of Reading, which describes reading as having two basic components - word recognition and comprehension - vocabulary falls under language comprehension.

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I've worked with hundreds of struggling readers ages 5 to 81. Almost all students I meet who have decoding weaknesses share a common behavior. Can you guess what it is? They look up from the page before they finish reading a word or sentence.

Many just glance at the word and guess what it is as they look at me for approval. Others may look at the word more carefully, yet they still look at me for approval after they say what they think the word is. A few look at the word before staring at the ceiling or somewhere in space while they try to figure out what the word is. Every elementary school teacher and every reading interventionist I meet recognizes these behaviors and can associate them with specific students.

Teachers often ask how to help their struggling readers. My first response is, "Make sure all students keep their eyes on the words the entire time they read." I also suggest that teachers avoid saying things like "good job" or "nice work" when the student looks up for approval. The only time a student should look up from the page when reading is to say, "I need help with that word." In that case, the teacher either helps the student sound out the word or gives the word if it is too difficult for the student to decode.

Many teachers tell us they need to give students, especially struggling readers, positive feedback for the student's self-esteem and confidence. At first blush that seems reasonable because beginning and struggling readers want to know if they read correctly, and teachers want students to feel good about reading. In reality, teachers are training students to rely on them for affirmation rather than helping students develop confidence in their emerging skills. Instead of saying "good job" or "nice work" when a student looks up, the teacher can reinforce the importance of looking at the words by saying, "Remember to keep your eyes on the words when you read. I'll let you know when I need to help you."

Recently I was in a school to work with students, and the reading coach was with me all day. I started with four students in a low second-grade reading group who were working on phonics at the silent "e" level. These students had scored between 28 and 42 words-correct-per-minute on mid-year DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency (benchmark is 68). Their accuracy ranged from 76 to 91 percent. They were reading decodable text focusing on words with silent "e." All four students had the habit of looking up for approval at the end of each sentence. And, not surprisingly, all four often misread the final words in the sentence. I had them practice keeping their eyes on the words for all four or five sentences that were on the page. Their habit of looking up was not easy to change. By the end of 25 minutes, albeit with conscious effort on the students' part, all four were keeping their heads down and their eyes on the words while they read. Just this small change in behavior noticeably increased their accuracy.

The reading coach and I spent the afternoon working one-on-one with four third-grade and fourth-grade students who had the lowest reading scores in their grade. They were all receiving decoding intervention. We assessed the students' decoding skills by having them read words in isolation. None of the students did more than glance at words and look up before saying the word, and none read more than 18 of 30 decodable and high-frequency words accurately. It was apparent that these students weren't looking at the words long enough to apply any decoding strategies. We worked with each student for about 20 minutes, reviewing the short vowel sounds and encouraging them to keep their eyes on the words. After this short time, they were all able to read with greater accuracy and more confidence. None had fully overcome their habit of taking their eyes off the words before finishing reading, but all were catching themselves every time they did look up.

Early in the day, the reading coach remarked that she was surprised at my "fixation" on teaching students to look at the words until they finished reading. At the end of the day, she told me she fully understood why I was such a zealot about insisting students keep their eyes on the page. Yes, I am fixated on having students look at the words when they read because we can read only when we look at the words.

I implore all kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade teachers - as well as reading interventionists - to teach students to keep their eyes on the words so that they do not have to later struggle with breaking a habit that hampers effective, efficient reading. After all, the first step good readers take is to look at the words they are reading. In my experience, many struggling readers have difficulties partly because they never mastered this first step.

About the author

Linda Farrell is a founding partner at Readsters, an Alexandria, VA-based firm that helps schools implement research-based reading instruction. She is committed to effective early reading instruction in, to helping struggling readers become strong readers, and to ensuring that strong readers achieve their full potential. Linda works in schools throughout the U.S. training and coaching teachers and modeling effective reading instruction. She also has designed curricula in Niger and Senegal for children to learn to read in their local languages. Linda is a former English teacher. She was a National LETRS trainer for seven years. She has co-authored assessments and curricula for teaching reading, as well as several other published works. Linda can be reached at linda@readsters.com.

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First Rule of Reading: Keep Your Eyes on the Words

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All kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade teachers - as well as reading interventionists - should teach students to keep their eyes on the words on the page so that they do not have to later struggle with breaking a habit that hampers effective, efficient reading.

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Hollis Scarborough-creator of the famous Reading Rope and senior scientist at Haskins Laboratories-is a leading researcher of early language development and its connection to later literacy.

Dr. Scarborough's association with the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) goes back to 1994 when she served as associate editor of the Annals of Dyslexia until 2002. In 2009, she received IDA's highest honor, the Samuel Torrey Orton Award. Dr. Scarborough continues her IDA affiliation as a member of both IDA's Council of Advisors and IDA's Scientific Advisory Board. Her contributions on a national level (e.g., the Research Council, Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, and the Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children) have positively influenced the reading instruction in the United States.

The genesis of the Reading Rope dates back to Scarborough's lectures for parents on the complexities involved in learning to read. Originally, she spoke of skilled reading as resembling the "strands" of a rope, using pipe cleaners to illustrate the interconnectedness and interdependence of all the components.

The Reading Rope consists of lower and upper strands. The word-recognition strands (phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition of familiar words) work together as the reader becomes accurate, fluent, and increasingly automatic with repetition and practice. Concurrently, the language-comprehension strands (background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge) reinforce one another and then weave together with the word-recognition strands to produce a skilled reader. This does not happen overnight; it requires instruction and practice over time.

For many children, learning to read is a challenging undertaking. The Reading Rope, created by Dr. Hollis Scarborough, captures the essence of this task.
Copyright © 2018 International Dyslexia Association (IDA). Opinions expressed in The Examiner and/or via links do not necessarily reflect those of IDA. We encourage sharing of Examiner articles. If portions are cited, please make appropriate reference. Articles may not be printed for the purpose of resale. Permissionto republish this artilce is available from info@dyslexiaida.org.

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Scarborough's Reading Rope: A Groundbreaking Infographic - International Dyslexia Association

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Hollis Scarborough-creator of the famous Reading Rope and senior scientist at Haskins Laboratories-is a leading researcher of early language development and

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Establish a foundation for reading, spelling, and handwriting in Tier 1 and Tier 2.

Fundations ® utilizes a structured literacy approach grounded in the science of reading to make learning to read fun while laying the groundwork for lifelong literacy. The program's research-based approach and extensive materials allow K-3 teachers to confidently present a carefully structured reading, spelling, and handwriting curriculum using engaging, multisensory techniques. Fundations is aligned with the science of reading and guides teachers to provide effective instructional practices.

WEBINAR RECORDiNG AVAILABLE

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Explore What's New With Fundations®

Explore FUN HUB ® and our new Fundations Student Workbooks for Levels 1 and 2. Learn how these easy-to-use resources and materials enhance learning.

A Structured Literacy Approach Grounded in the Science of Reading

Teach the foundational skills that at-risk readers need and all students benefit from.

A structured literacy approach to foundational skills grounded in the Science of Reading contains the instructional topics and principles critical for foundational reading and writing success. Fundations' unique and multisensory approach to instruction makes learning efficient and effective while maximizing valuable classroom time. Instruction and practice occur in a systematic, cumulative, explicit, diagnostic, and integrated manner, allowing students to experience greater gains in the skills required for independent reading and spelling.

Student focus

Tier 1/Prevention: All K-3 students;
Tier 2/Early intervention: All struggling or at-risk K-3 readers in the lowest 30th percentile.

Professional learning & support

●Wilson Academy ®/Fundations Learning Community (online)

●Program Workshops

●Virtual Implementation Support

●Facilitator and Presenter Certifications

●Sustainability Plans

●Demonstration Sites with On-Site Coaching

Critical Fundational Skills Instruction

Fundationsstudents receive a systematic program in critical foundational skills emphasizing:

Print concepts

Letter formation

Phonological and phonemic awareness

Sound mastery

Phonics, word study, and advanced word study

Trick word (high frequency word) instruction

Vocabulary

Accuracy, Automaticity, and Fluency

Comprehension strategies

Handwriting

Spelling

The Pre-K Activity Set introduces Fundations activities for learning letter-keyword-sound, alphabetic order, and letter-formation skills.

Instruction and Intervention Within an MTSS/RTI Framework

Fundations serves as a foundational prevention program to help reduce reading and spelling failure. It is integral to an MTSS or RTI framework, providing research-based instruction in Tier 1 as well as Tier 2 for students at risk for reading difficulties. To support the implementation of an MTSS or RTI framework, progress monitoring is built into Fundations. This allows students requiring a more intensive program to be identified early.

Find the Right Instruction

In Grades 2 or 3, some students may not make sufficient progress in early intervention or require more intensive instruction due to a language-based learning disability. In these instances, instruction with the more comprehensive Wilson Reading System® (WRS) by a WRS Certified teacher would be appropriate.

As a teacher, I want my students to have a toolbox of strategies they can use to decode words. I don't want them to look at an unknown word and feel overwhelmed. Fundations has given my first graders the confidence to look at a multisyllabic word, break it into its parts, and then look for recognizable chunks like blends, glued sounds, and v-e patterns.
Lindsay Ciccone, First Grade Teacher, Madison, CT

Fundations Curriculum

Familiarize yourself with the skills and concepts taught in each of Fundations' four levels.

Fundations Implementation

Use in your general education classroom with all students and incorporate the intervention component as needed.

Fundations Materials

Comprehensive program materials allow K-3 teachers to confidently present a carefully structured foundational skills program using engaging, multisensory techniques.

Implemented Across the Country

Impact and efficacy studies of thousands of kindergarten and first grade students, including English learners, have demonstrated that Fundations students make greater gains in foundational literacy skills compared with students using other programs.

See what states have recognized Fundations

Fundations® Learning Community

With Fundations, you gain access to this membership-based companion site, which supports individuals teaching Wilson's programs. Gain access to reference and instructional materials, expert tips, and more.

FUN HUB® + Fundations Are Better Together

Strengthen Your Fundations Implementation with Exciting New FUN HUB Features

Unit Test Tracker

Say goodbye to managing spreadsheets!

Enhanced Digital Manual

Direct access to a dynamic PDF that allows for annotations.

Enhanced Search

Quickly find resources and materials when you need them!

Not an administrator? Your school or district may purchase a FUN HUB license for you. We encourage you to contact your school administrator, curriculum director, or the person responsible for digital purchases to find out how you can get access.

Ways to Subscribe

Qualifying Fundations materials purchased after January 5, 2023, include an individual license for an annual recurring subscription to FUN HUB.

Classroom Set (any Level)
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Teacher's Manual (any Level)
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WinPrin Seat

Individual licenses to FUN HUB can be purchased for $95/year per user. Click on the button below to submit a purchase order. If you're paying with a credit card, please call Customer Support at 800.899.8454.

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Fundations - Wilson Language Training Corporation

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WEBINAR RECORDiNG AVAILABLE More Fun in 2023! Explore What's New With Fundations® Explore FUN HUB® and our new Fundations Student Workbooks for Levels 1 and 2. Learn how these easy-to-use resources and materials enhance learning.

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Science-based, tech-enabled foundational reading program to help all students reach reading proficiency by the end of third grade.

Newly Expanded Reading Horizons Discovery ®

Our foundational reading program is based on a simple and effective method to help all students develop decoding and spelling proficiency. The program includes instructional materials, interactive digital lessons, decodable books, and ongoing professional learning.

Aligned to the Science of Reading

Reading Horizons Discovery® was created by Charlotte Lockhart, a former classroom teacher, school principal, knowledgeable and informed educator. Our method has been aligned with research from its inception and has remained aligned to the science that informs reading development. Our high-quality materials and training are consistently refined in response to convergent research findings on how the brain learns to read and the science of implementation.

Integrates With Any Core Literacy Program

The newly expanded Reading Horizons Discovery® solidly addresses all reading standards related to the lower strands of Scarborough's Reading Rope; phonemic awareness, phonics, and sight word reading and includes decodable text to help students increase their fluency and automaticity. Additional resources are included to support teachers as they work to improve their students' language and reading comprehension.

Tailored to Student Needs, From Beginner to Advanced

Direct instruction and software work together to assess and enhance students' learning at all stages of reading development. Teacher manuals are designed to help teachers deliver engaging and practical instruction for all students, whether in a small group or a whole class setting. The digital software amplifies and differentiates instruction while allowing students to work independently during center time or in remote learning situations.

Guides Teachers With Ongoing Support

The newly expanded Reading Horizons Discovery ® is backed by our supportive partner guarantee that includes live, virtual, and on-demand professional learning and support. We want to assure educators that we are with them, shoulder to shoulder, to help ensure a solid foundation for lifelong reading for all of their students.

COMPREHENSIVE INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS

Facilitate whole-class and small-group instruction with an engaging approach, so all students learn and practice reading, spelling, writing, and decoding skills. Newly expanded to include daily lessons to support phonemic awareness.

ENGAGING DIGITAL SUITE

Aligned interactive lessons for students to practice phonological awareness and decodable texts to apply phonics skills to the point of automatic word recognition. Real-time assessment suite to support students' progress and inform instruction. Newly expanded to include a: Digital Sound Wall to help students learn each of the 44 phonemes in the English language and the associated graphemes.

FOCUSED PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

Ongoing professional learning to help guide and align instructional practices with reading science. This includes in-person or virtual training and coaching, on-demand resources, and a digital library.

Get more great foundational reading resources by signing up!

The Reading Horizons Discovery ® Phonemic Awareness Curriculum addresses phonological and phonemic awareness for students in grades K-2. It includes five-minute teacher-led lessons that can be used for review at the beginning of each daily phonics lesson. Embedded assessment tools are used to identify gaps in phonological awareness and to monitor student progress on skills.

Follows the gradual release of responsibility model including scaffolded instruction for students who need extra support.

Lessons focus on two tasks at a time to build accuracy and automaticity.

Is sequenced in a systematic and explicit manner, starting with larger phonological units and progressing to more sophisticated phoneme patterns (e.g. CV, VC, CVC, CVCC, etc.).

Provides skill assessments, review activities, and games to ensure student mastery, retention, and engagement.

Reading Horizons Discovery ® Sound City

Reading Horizons Discovery® Sound City facilitates student mastery of the 44 phonemes in the English language and their associated graphemes. These skills promote proper sound articulation and lay the foundation for deeper phonemic awareness, phonics, and spelling instruction.

Teacher's Manual with 44 direct-instruction lessons; one for each phoneme in the English language

A portable sound wall for each student

Classroom sound wall posters (Vowel Valley and Consonant Corner)

Phoneme Cards for use during instruction and review

Digital sound wall software

Reading Horizons Discovery ® provides scripted lesson manuals for teachers that help them know how to model and adjust a research-based approach for teaching reading. The materials also increase student engagement, facilitating the transfer of skills from decoding into fluent reading by providing additional activities to create an engaging experience.

Aligns instruction with reading science & structured literacy

Allows for whole-class differentiation

Provides multisensory practice & instruction

Reinforces instruction with decodable text

Connects phonics and spelling instruction

Builds teacher confidence

Assessment and Progress Monitoring

Reading Horizons Discovery ® uses a series of assessments and skill checks to establish benchmarks, measure growth, ensure mastery, and to accurately differentiate instruction. All lesson and assessment data can be reviewed by teachers and administrators through the administration system.

Phonemic Awareness Assessment

Most Common Words Assessment

Spelling/Word Recognition Assessment

Reading Assessment (created in partnership with MetaMetrics® using the Lexile® Framework for Reading-software add-on)

Chapter Tests

Lesson Skill Checks and Check-Ups

From Decoding to Fluent Reading

Decoding skills are crucial for fluent reading, but they are not the end goal of reading instruction. To help students transfer these skills to reading fluency and comprehension, Reading Horizons Discovery ® includes additional tools and activities to encourage the transfer of these skills to higher-level reading tasks.

Spelling

Take your spelling instruction beyond a memorized list. The Reading Horizons Discovery ® Spelling Supplement provides teachers with an explicit guide for teaching students in grades 1-3 how to encode words and prove they are spelled correctly.

Interested? Take the next step.

For more information about the Reading Horizons Discovery® program,
schedule a call with your representative today.

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Reading Horizons Discovery - Reading Horizons

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Science-based, tech-enabled foundational reading program to help all students reach reading proficiency by the end of third grade. Newly Expanded Reading Horizons Discovery ® Our foundational reading program is based on a simple and effective method to help all students develop decoding and spelling proficiency.

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Complimentary Beginning and Advanced Diagnostic Decoding Surveys

Our complimentary Diagnostic Decoding Surveys are an easy and efficient way to detect when students are having word-level reading difficulties, and pinpoint their specific decoding weaknesses.

Our two most popular surveys are the Beginning and Advanced Decoding Surveys:

The Beginning Decoding Survey assesses how well students are reading words they should have mastered by the end of first grade:

High frequency words

Single syllable words with short vowels, digraphs, and two-sound blends

The Advanced Decoding Survey assesses the decoding skills students should have mastered by the end of third grade:

Single syllable words with short vowels and more advanced phonics patterns (e.g. trigraphs, three-sound blends)

Single syllable words with advanced vowel patterns

Multisyllable words (real and nonsense)

The complimentary packet contains everything you'll need for initial assessment of an unlimited number of students. The packet also provides an explanation of how the survey results can be used to group students, and it offers guidance on how to plan effective and efficient instruction.
Download now

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Diagnostic Decoding Surveys - Beginning and Advanced

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row][oneHalf][/oneHalf][oneHalf]Complimentary Beginning and Advanced Diagnostic Decoding SurveysOur complimentary Diagnostic Decoding Surveys are an easy and efficient way to detect when students are having word-level reading difficulties, and pinpoint their specific decoding weaknesses.Our two most popular surveys are the Beginning and Advanced Decoding Surveys:The Beginning

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As two literacy/dyslexia specialists, we've come together to talk about literacy, dyslexia, and the connection to the social-emotional impact it has on our students, their families, and the educators who serve them.

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As two literacy/dyslexia specialists, we've come together to talk about literacy, dyslexia, and the connection to the social-emotional impact it has on our students, their families, and the educators who serve them.

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IDA Dyslexia Handbook: What Every Family Should Know - International Dyslexia Association

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In addition to offering valuable information about dyslexia and its characteristics, this handbook provides information on assessments, effective teaching

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We would love your TESTIMONIAL!
Has your child or student benefited from the Reading Bear program?
We would love to hear from you!
As our way of saying "Thank You" for taking the time to send us a testimonial,

we would like to send you our collection of PDF printable exercises linked to each of the 50 Reading Bear modules (two per module).

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Reading Bear is a collection of free, well-made, multimedia phonics presentations. Your child can learn to read with Reading Bear.

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Easy to prepare and play at home! Literacy game instructions for all students and parents.

What you are going to learn

Literacy Games to Play at Home

These games are designed to be easy to prepare and play at home with parents or siblings! Each game has the written and video instructions available. Strengthen core literacy skills through these fun and engaging games!

Dr. Christy Jones

Curriculum and Training Specialist,
Logic of English

When I was a high school English teacher, I had students in my class who could not read, and I did not know how to help them. To try to help them, I was inspired to pursue my doctorate in reading and literacy. Along the way I discovered Logic of English. I taught LOE in the classroom, summer camps, and intervention with all ages. Now that I am a member of the LOE team, I am excited to share what I have learned with teachers and parents across the country.

Combining the Science of Reading
with the Joy of Learning

Copyright © 2021 Logic of English. All rights reserved.

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Easy to prepare and play at home! Literacy game instructions for all students and parents. What you are going to learn These games are designed to be easy to prepare and play at home with parents or siblings! Each game has the written and video instructions available.

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Really Great Reading Letter Tile Freeplay

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© 2022 Really Great Reading All Rights Reserved

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The Alphabet Arc: Helping Struggling Students Learn Their Letters and Sounds

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Free English uppercase and lowercase interactive alphabet arc to help students learn letter names, order, and shape.

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Explore reading basics as well as the key role of background knowledge and motivation in becoming a lifelong reader and learner. Watch our PBS Launching Young Readers series and try our self-paced Reading 101 course to deepen your understanding.

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Overview of suggested restructuring

Teach 10-15 "sight words" before phonics instruction begins

Flash Words and Heart Words defined

Flash Words with advanced vowels to teach with early phonics instruction

Flash Words with two and three syllables

Implementing the new model

You are welcome to print copies for non-commercial use, or a limited number for educational purposes, as long as credit is given to Reading Rockets and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact the author or publisher listed.

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A New Model for Teaching High-Frequency Words

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Integrating high-frequency words into phonics lessons allows students to make sense of spelling patterns for these words. To do this, high-frequency words need to be categorized according to whether they are spelled entirely regularly or not. This article describes how to "rethink" teaching of high-frequency words.

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Phonics-Based

Young Beginning Readers

Dandelion Launchers Set 1

Constructed for beginner readers ages 5 through 8, these books focus on combining letter sounds to form CVC words. The first books have words using the sounds s, a, t, i, and m. Later books use these sounds and gradually introduce new ones. By the end of book 7, all of the initial sounds of the alphabet will have been introduced. Each book contains fewer than 50 words.

Book 1A: s, a, t, i, m

Book 1B: s, a, t, i, m

Book 2A: n, o, p

Book 2B: n, o, p

Book 3A: b, c, g, h

Book 3B: b, c, g, h

Book 4A: d, e, f, v

Book 4B: d, e, f, v

Book 5A: k, l, r, u

Book 5B: k, l, r, u

Book 6A: j, w, z

Book 6B: j, w, z

Book 7A: x, y, ff, ll, ss, zz

Book 7B: x, y, ff, ll, ss, zz

How to use these books
Dandelion Launchers follow a structured sequence to ensure incremental progression when learning to read. Each unit introduces new phonic knowledge and skills while reinforcing those learned in previous units.

Before reading, check that the child knows the target sounds in this book and their corresponding letters. Readers should then be encouraged to use their phonic knowledge to read the word by blending the sounds together from left to right throughout the word (e.g. 'c' 'a' 't'---cat). Always encourage the reader to use pure sounds. These are the sounds of consonants without the added 'uh' sound (e.g. 'c' 'a' 't' not 'cuh' 'a' 'tuh'). Praise the child when they use their developing phonic knowledge to read new words.

Dandelion Launchers Set 1 Workbook
This spiral-bound, photocopiable workbook includes 7 chapters referencing the 7 stages in the Dandelion Launchers Set 1 books. Each lesson starts with an overview of each new sound. The activities include word-building cards, fill in the missing sounds, word trail cards, matching lower to upper case, fishing game, sentence dictation, retelling the story, stepping stones game, and dice game. The chapters end with a reading certificate and a spelling assessment.
166 pp., spiral-bound.

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letter sounds cvc words beginning readers include_atpphonics_soundskills phonemes sound awareness word recognition skills letter combinations sight words kindergartners phonics for preschoolers kindergarten reading books books for kindergartners books for preschoolers early readers beginning readers k-1 books k-1 phonic books beginning phonics for preschoolers beginning phonics for kindergartners phonics early reader decodable phonic books decodable readers decodable books cvc   high interest

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Designed to appeal to young beginner readers at the very early stage of reading. These books focus on blending letter sounds together to form CVC words. High Noon Books publishes materials in the field of learning disabilities and special education, parent and teacher resources, hi/lo and low level readers, graphic novels, common core reading workbooks.

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Designed for older students, these books can be used to either teach or reinforce new and already learned decoding skills. All seven progressive phonics series feature action-packed stories divided into books with short word counts, with the conclusion of the story in each set's final book.

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The Best Decodable Books and Decodable Passage Resources - The Literacy Nest

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Finding quality decodable books for your students can sometimes be challenging. Use this list to help find books and passages with decodable text.

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West Virginia Reading First Explicit Phonics Lessons

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At the Dyslexia Training Institute our mission is to provide education about dyslexia, interventions for dyslexia (Orton-Gillingham and Structured Word Inquiry) as well as how to navigate the educational system by understanding Special Education Law. Our courses were created for parents, teachers, educational professionals and anyone interested in the topic. We believe information about dyslexia should not be limited by geography and we have created an online space where everyone has access to this information. Our instruction is provided by highly-qualified and very experienced instructors in an interactive online environment.

Trouble playing? Visit
our BlogTalkRadio page to listen.

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At the Dyslexia Training Institute our mission is to provide education about dyslexia, interventions for dyslexia (Orton-Gillingham and Structured Word Inquiry) as well as how to navigate the educational system by understanding Special Education Law. Our courses were created for parents, teachers, educational professionals and anyone interested in the topic.

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Introducing the "Cat-Kite" Rule | IMSE Orton-Gillingham

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'b' and 'd' confusion...WHY does it happen and WHAT can you do to help?

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b, d, p, q, g reversals, and how to help

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Transcript

Learning 'b' and 'd' and Reading Short Vowel Words with Aiko, Second Grader
Linda Farrell: Okay. We're gonna have a lesson. And we are gonna have some fun ... Today reading expert Linda Farrell will be working with Aiko, a second grader here at Windy Hill Elementary in Calvert County, Maryland. Ms. Farrell will help Aiko with telling the difference between the letters 'b' and 'd,' keeping her eyes on the text rather than looking up to think of words, and reading words with short vowels. Linda Farrell: Do you ever get your 'b's and 'd's mixed up? Linda Farrell: Sometimes? Well, let's see if we can't fix that.
Linda Farrell: Aiko confuses 'b's and 'd's. She's in the second grade. And it's going to get in the way of her reading. So we have to fix that problem. Lots of children confuse 'b's and 'd's. They look alike. It's a ball and a stick. So we know we have to straighten that out, because that's going to hurt your reading because there are lots of words with 'b's and 'd's.
Linda Farrell: We're gonna work on fixing that. So we're gonna learn about our 'b' hand. Have you ever used your 'b' hand?
Linda Farrell: They have a 'b' hand. Their 'b' hand, it looks like a 'b.' Here's the circle. Here's the line. And we teach them to not guess and to slow down and compare your hand to the letter.
Linda Farrell: This is your 'b' hand, okay? So I'm gonna put this little rubber band on you, so you can remember which one's your 'b' hand. So which one's your 'b' hand? Aiko: This one. Linda Farrell: Okay.
Linda Farrell: I don't tell a kindergartener, a first grader, or a second grader, "It's your left hand," because they don't know which one is their left hand. Sometimes I don't even know which one's my left hand. When we first teach it, we put something on their hand. We might put a sticker. I put a rubber band on Aiko's hand so that when I say, "Where's your 'b' hand?" she's got something that reminds her. Three lessons she won't need the rubber band anymore. She'll know what it is. Some kids get it right away.
Linda Farrell: Would you put your 'b' hand up like this ... and make a fist. And then put your finger out. Okay? That is your 'b' hand. And I'm gonna show you why it's your 'b' hand. Go like this. We put this down here. And this letter is a 'b.' And your hand looks like this letter. Can you see that? We have the circle right here. Where's the circle on the letter? Point to the circle on the letter. And where's the circle on your hand? Yeah. Right there. Where's the stick on the letter? Show me a stick on your finger. This is your 'b' hand because the stick is on the same side of the circle as your finger. So your finger and your, and the stick are on the same side of the circle.
Linda Farrell: Lots of kids get 'b's and 'd's mixed up - kindergarten, first and second grade. It does not mean that they have dyslexia. Students who have dyslexia have phonological processing issues. They do not differentiate sounds easily. Their problems are primarily related to phonological awareness. 'B/d' is about shapes. That is not about sounds.
Linda Farrell: Will you put your 'b' hand by the 'b'? Yep. And is your finger on the same side of the circle as the stick or on a different side of the circle? Aiko: Same side. Linda Farrell: The same side. Yeah. Let's go down here. Is this a 'b' or a 'd'? Linda Farrell: Okay. And when you answer, I want you to look down here and compare it. Here's what you did. You went [looking upward]. Well, you're not gonna figure it out unless you look and you compare. Okay. So you have to look and say, "Ooh, I can tell." So is that a 'b' or a 'd'? Ms. Farrell's explicit lesson about recognizing the shape of the letter 'b' will take some time to sink in for Aiko. And there's a common habit she'll need to deal with. When Aiko is working on identifying a letter, she often looks up to think, looking away from the letter.
Linda Farrell: The answer to what is an incorrect letter or an incorrect word is in the print. And we have to teach Aiko to keep her eyes on the print, on the words, when she's reading, or the letters. I've worked with many kids that have this same difficulty. And I'll say, "Keep your eyes on the words," and they can't do it, because their habit is so strong that they can't try to do what I'm asking them to do and remember to keep their eyes down. So we just practice keeping your eyes down.
Linda Farrell: We're gonna practice looking down here, okay? So I'm gonna ask you a question, and you can't look up until I go like this [pounds fist], okay? So you keep looking down. Don't look up. Look down. Look down. Look down. Look down. [pounds fist] Now you can look up. Okay. Let's try it again. Look down. Look down. Look down. [pounds fist] Eventually, Aiko will need to have images of words stored in her brain. This is critical to the immediate word recognition necessary for fluent reading. When students say a word without looking at it, they miss opportunities to develop those images. Linda Farrell: So hold your hand up here. So I'm gonna go 'a,' cause I don't need my 'b' hand. But do I need my 'b' hand for that letter? Linda Farrell: Yes, I do, cause that's a 'b' or a 'd.' So I have to put my 'b' hand and ... let me see. Is that a 'b' or a 'd'? Which one do you think? Ohp. Where are you gonna look? Linda Farrell: Yes. Okay. Is that a 'b' or a 'd'? Linda Farrell: Let's try that. Put your 'b' hand next to that. Okay. Is your finger on the same or a different side? Aiko: Different. Linda Farrell: Different. So is that a 'b' or a 'd'? Linda Farrell: Yes. And we're gonna keep looking down. Remember? You don't get to look up until I stomp. Okay? So now, I want you ... we're gonna go just right to here. Okay? So watch me. 'a, d, s, b.' You do it. Okay. Put your hand up here for the 'a.' Okay. Do it. Aiko: 'a, d, s, b'? Linda Farrell: Okay. Now. See how far away your hand is? You gotta go like this. And you know where you looked when you read? You looked at me. But where are you supposed to be looking? Linda Farrell: Yep. At the letter. So. Okay. So we did those four. You do these four.
Linda Farrell: And this is isolated practice. I see lots of teachers who use a 'b' and 'd' hand or a 'b' hand. But they only do it when the kid misses a word. So, "Oh, you read 'bog' as 'dog.' Use your 'b' hand." You don't have to use your 'b' hand. If it's not "bog," it's "dog." We've gotta have isolated practice to rewire the brain ... to stop guessing and start looking. And that's what we did with Aiko. Aiko has pretty significant 'b/d' issues. With this kind of practice, she could solve her 'b/d' issues, I believe, in three to four weeks if we did this every day.
Linda Farrell: You got it. Do you think you can do 10 in a row? Linda Farrell: I think you can. Let's try it. Okay. Aiko: 'x, b, d, a' Linda Farrell: [whispering] Hand down. Is your finger on the same side or a different side? Aiko: Different, so it's a 'd.' Linda Farrell: Yes. Okay. Aiko: 'o, b, c, d, j' Linda Farrell: Ten out of 10! That's ... After a little more practice with 'b' and 'd,' Ms. Farrell will help Aiko work on another skill ... reading short vowel words without sounding them out aloud first. And Aiko will need to lean on her new skills ... distinguishing between 'b' and 'd' using her 'b' hand, and concentrating on looking down at the words while she thinks. Linda Farrell: Can you just read these words right here? Linda Farrell: Could you read these words right here please? Linda Farrell: Could you check and see if that's a 'b' or a 'd'? Use your 'b' hand. Is that a 'b' or a 'd'? Linda Farrell: It is a 'd.' So what's ...
Aiko: 'd' ... did
Linda Farrell: Okay. Linda Farrell: What's the word? Linda Farrell: Look down. Always keep your eyes on the words. Linda Farrell: Okay. You got five words right. Can you touch and say that word?
Linda Farrell: It is hug. Read them all again.

Linda Farrell: Okay. You got six out of six right. When you read this word, you went /k - i - t/. Did you hear yourself do that? Okay. It's okay. I want you to do that in your head. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna close our mouth until we're ready to read the word. It goes like this. [pause] Did. [pause] Ad. I have to think those sounds in my head. So can you do that? Let's read these.
Linda Farrell: [whispering] Mouth closed. Linda Farrell: Okay. Now. Two things: you got five right. Can you? What's that word?
Linda Farrell: It is kip. And the other thing is, you looked up. So we're gonna practice looking down. Okay. You're gonna look down, look down here until I stomp, okay? [pounds fist] You can look up. Okay? Do it again. [pounds fist] Now you're gonna read, and you can't look up until I stomp, okay? So remember, you're not gonna look up until I stomp, so I'll hold this, okay? So start reading.
Linda Farrell: [pounds fist] That was perfect. You kept your eyes down the whole time. Can you check and see if that's a 'b' or a 'd'? Use your hand. Use your 'b' hand. Linda Farrell: Yeah. So what's the word? Linda Farrell: It is. We're gonna go over here ... and again, don't look up until I stomp. So read those. Linda Farrell: You can use your 'b' hand, right there. In one short lesson, Aiko has made a lot of progress. She's learning to keep her head down as she reads, focusing on the letters. She's using her 'b' hand to help her identify her 'b's and 'd's more accurately. And she's reading words as a whole rather than sound by sound. As she practices and works toward mastery of these skills, her reading will get better and better.
Linda Farrell: Mud. You kept your eyes down and you got 'em all right! Six out of six! Yes!
We'd like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read. Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary ... and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public Schools. We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project.
Produced by Noel Gunther

Edited by Christian Lindstrom

Graphic Design: Tina Chovanec

Camera: Richard Chisolm

Audio: Dwayne Dell
For more information about teaching reading, please visit www.ReadingRockets.org
Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.

© 2019, WETA, Washington, D.C.

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Learning 'b' and 'd' and Reading Short Vowel Words with Aiko, Second Grader

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Linda Farrell: Okay. We're gonna have a lesson. And we are gonna have some fun ... Today reading expert Linda Farrell will be working with Aiko, a second grader here at Windy Hill Elementary in Calvert County, Maryland.

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How to Use Sound Walls to Transform Reading Instruction

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Edview 360 podcast: a conversation with Drs. Mary Dahlgren and Antonio Fierro discussing the best ways to integrate sound walls into your classroom

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The b and d Reversal Confusion Song Video- Dyslexia Help,  Handwriting Help, Early Reading, Phonics

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Looking for decodable books for your beginning reader? Here you’ll find a list of over 25 titles to teach short a.

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This Wakelet includes prompts to support decoding that aligns with science of reading and the orthographic mapping process. Decoding bookmarks and other related resources (posters , etc..) have been created by a number of literacy experts who have generously shared them and allowed them to be offered at no cost. In addition, you will find professional learning resources related to building knowledge about the most effective ways to instruct children when they come to an unfamiliar word they must decode. This Wakelet will have ongoing updates. You may also access every Wakelet from the Kastner Collection at this link: https://wke.lt/w/s/mcU0bZ

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SoR-What I Should Have Learned in College

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The need to explicitly teach letter-sound relationships in U.S. classrooms is settled science. ¹ However, too often such instruction is not provided in the most efficient or effective way. These instructional missteps mean that fewer children will develop strong word-reading skills. In addition, ineffective phonics instruction is likely to require more class time and/or later compensatory intervention, taking time away from the growth of other important contributors to literacy development. We have encountered many dozens, if not hundreds, of phonics faux pas. In this article, we focus on seven in early reading instruction that deserve our serious attention.

1. Spending Too Little or Too Much Time on Phonics Instruction

Our field has long had a problem with teachers devoting an inadequate amount of time to phonics instruction. Although some children will pick up word reading with little instructional effort, many require considerable instruction to master the complex task of looking at a series of lines and curves to ascertain the spoken word they represent. In languages in which there is a relatively simple relationship between letters and sounds, such as Finnish and Spanish, by the middle of first grade, children are able to read real words and pseudo-words in the language accurately almost 100 percent of the time.* In languages in which the relationships are somewhat more complex, such as Danish and French, children are about 70 percent accurate by that time point. In English, in which the relationship between letters and sounds is extremely complex, children are about 40 percent accurate at that point. ² Put another way, English word reading requires a lot more effort to teach and learn than many other languages.

On the other hand, there is such a thing as too much phonics instruction. We have seen prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms in which the better part of the day is focused on letter-sound instruction (and often in a manner inconsistent with what research would recommend). This is problematic because it leaves insufficient time for many other important areas of development. For example, vocabulary and concept knowledge, which are strong predictors of long-term reading and writing success, also need attention. In fact, vocabulary knowledge affects word-reading development. We sometimes cannot even know whether we have read a word accurately unless we already have the word in our vocabulary. Is the word lemic pronounced with a short e, like lemon, or a long e, like lemur? Unless you already know this word, you aren't sure. For children trying to learn to read words with low vocabulary knowledge, such uncertainty is common.

Likely the question on your mind is, "How much is enough and not too much?" Unfortunately, research does not offer a decisive answer to this fundamental question. Typically, recommendations range from 30 to 60 minutes per day in grades K-2, with that time including a number of different activities we discuss below.

However, we suggest that the answer also varies by child and should be informed by simple diagnostic assessments. Some children are able to develop letter-sound knowledge more quickly and efficiently than others. This is one reason why differentiated phonics instruction is so well advised. Some instruction is provided to the whole class, but then it is reinforced and gaps are filled in as needed in a small-group context. Research has shown that reading achievement is supported when instruction is differentiated. ³ A number of researchers have developed systems by which assessments determine which letter-sound relationships each child has learned and not yet learned, and a systematic series of lessons are provided accordingly. ⁴ An important direction for our field is to work toward determining the most time-efficient approaches to ensuring each child in a class meets grade-level expectations in word reading each year.

2. Neglecting the Alphabetic Principle, Concept of Word in Print, and Other Concepts of Print

Imagine going to work for a shipbuilding company. You go to work the first day and are schooled in all the different types of bolts, screws, and nails. You learn their names, the different sizes, and the different types, but you never learn that their purpose is to join pieces of metal and that those pieces of metal are used to build ships! Although this situation is clearly ridiculous, it is actually analogous to what we see in some prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms. Children are being taught to name letters or even identify the sounds that the letters represent, but they are unclear about why they are learning it. Letter-sound knowledge is being learned in a vacuum; the child has no context for how to use the information, no "big picture."

To understand the big picture, children must understand the alphabetic principle-how our English system of writing works. The alphabetic principle is simply that visual symbols (letters) represent speech sounds (phonemes). To write the spoken word "dog," you use alphabetic symbols to represent the speech sounds. We can combine and recombine letter symbols to form words. As odd as it may sound, children can learn letters and even letter sounds in very rote ways without understanding the alphabetic system. When children do not understand the alphabetic principle, they may do the following:

Write something but not know how to read it back because they are not using letter sounds.

Copy words but not be able to read them back.

Write letters without any match to sounds (e.g., I went to the store = bmlssmii).

Use letters they know to write all words, regardless of sounds.

Look to the teacher when they can't read a word.

Say the name of a letter when asked to read a word (e.g., no = "en").

To understand the big picture, children must understand other concepts of print as well. Concepts of print are the many understandings about how print works, including that print serves specific purposes (e.g., to help us remember or to entertain us); that print is language written down; and that, in English, we read from left to right and from the top of the page to the bottom. All of these and other "mechanics" about how print works are important to learn alongside letters and sounds.

In order to have a true understanding of the purpose and function of letters and letter sounds, children must understand how words are represented in print, or concept of word. ⁵ This means they know that words are collections of letters that represent a series of speech sounds that collectively represent a unit of meaning. They need to understand that each new word is signified by a space that does not contain any letters. They need to understand that you can see a word as well as say a word.

To understand concept of word in print, children need to watch others reading print and pointing to words. ⁶ In classrooms, this may be a teacher reading charts or big books to children and pointing to the words as they read. Teachers may also use pointers and sometimes ask children to point to words. In addition to watching others, children need to practice pointing to words themselves. A great way to do this is to allow children to point to words in a memorized line of print, in a dictated story of their own words, or in a simple book with short, repetitive sentences. Although it sounds like a really simple task, it is not. In fact, there are actually stages that occur as children learn to point to print. Specifically, they must gain control of multisyllabic words and show understanding that a word like elephant, with three syllables, is actually one unified word. When children cannot handle multisyllabic words, they will point to new words for each syllable in a word (e.g., if the text said "kittens cry," the child would point at the word "kittens" for the syllable kit and then point at the word "cry" for the syllable tens).

Essentially, whenever phonics is taught, there should be a very print-rich environment, with teachers and children interacting with print to acquire the alphabetic principle, concept of word, and other concepts of print. Without these instructional nonnegotiables, letter-sound knowledge will remain inert information.

3. Teaching Letter Names without Letter Sounds

From the alphabet song to children's toys, much of the messaging that young children receive about letters is focused on the names of letters. Although research does suggest the importance of teaching and learning letter names, also vitally important is teaching the sounds associated with the letters. A common faux pas is neglecting instruction in those sounds throughout prekindergarten and sometimes well into kindergarten.

Some people think that teaching letter names is essentially teaching their sounds, but unfortunately that is not the case in English. Some letter names don't have a sound commonly associated with the letter at all. Neither Hh, Ww, nor Yy has its commonly associated sound in its name (e.g., there is no /h/, as in happy, in the name of the letter Hh ("aych")). Knowing these letters' names definitely does not lead children to know their associated sounds. Some other letters' names contain one of the sounds commonly associated with the name but not the other. For example, Cc has one of its common sounds in its name (/s/) but not the other (/k/).

The primary vowels are like this as well. We would have been much better off if they were named by their short sounds (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/, as in pat, pet, pit, pot, and putt), because those are more common in the words read by beginning readers than their long vowel sounds (the letters' names)-but no such luck. Letter names are also challenging for young readers because they aren't consistent in whether the commonly associated sound is at the beginning or end of the name. For example, in Mm/"em," the letter's target sound is at the end of the letter name, but in Jj/"jay," the target sound is at the beginning. That means for letter names to help children, they must memorize whether the target sound is at the beginning or end of the name.

The complexities of letter names in English might lead you to think we should not teach letter names at all, but research suggests that teaching letter names is still worthwhile ⁷-it just needs to be accompanied by lots of attention to the sound or sounds commonly associated with each letter and by a thorough understanding of the challenges posed by English letter names. A teacher with such knowledge would understand, for example, why a young child might spell the word daisy as WAZ. Why? Sometimes children write "W" for the /d/ sound because the letter name for Ww-"double-u"-begins with the /d/ sound. The next sound we hear in daisy is the letter name for Aa (the long a sound), and the third and fourth sounds in daisy are the name of the letter Zz ("zee").

A final point about letter-name knowledge: it is often noted that letter-name knowledge in preschool and kindergarten is a strong predictor of children's later literacy achievement. This is true, but it is not because letter-name knowledge is an even-close-to-sufficient contributor to actual reading or writing. It is helpful, but some children learn to read knowing only letter sounds-no letter names. The predictive power of letter names lies largely in the fact that it is a proxy for other things. Children who know letter names early are more likely to have experienced a substantial emphasis on print literacy in the home and to have attended a strong preschool, for example, which in turn increase the likelihood of higher later reading and writing achievement. Naming letters is only one facet of letter knowledge, and probably not even the most important one. It is the application of letter-sound knowledge that advances children's reading and spelling.

4. Using Inappropriate Alphabet Key Words

A common tool for teaching the alphabet is alphabet key words, such as Aa is for apple, Bb is for ball, and so on. The idea is to make alphabet learning easier by creating meaningful associations between the letter and a word that begins with that letter. Unfortunately, too often, alphabet key words are problematic, creating more confusion than clarity for young children. Good alphabet key words need to begin with one of the sounds commonly associated with that letter. For example, Oo is for octopus works-the first sound in octopus is the short o sound. However, Oo is for orange does not work. The o in orange is what we call an r-controlled vowel. It does not make its typical short or long vowel sound. Similarly, Tt is for thumb does not work because there is no /t/ sound in thumb-there is a th digraph (two letters representing one sound). Another pitfall to watch out for is an alphabet key word that begins with a letter name, which can be really confusing to children. For example, Ee is for elephant is confusing because it begins the letter name for Ll ("el"), and Cc is for cake is problematic because it begins with the letter name for Kk ("kay").

Alphabet key words also need to be depicted clearly in a photo or drawing, not easily confused with other items, and they should be words that are known to or can be readily learned by children. We recommend two alphabet key words for the letters c, g, a, e, i, o, and u-one for each of their two common sounds. Caution should be exercised in using children's names as key words, as some do not make a sound typically associated with the letter in English (e.g., Juan). In these cases, we suggest using the child's name to show the shape and name of the letter but to focus on a different alphabet key word for the sound.

For key words to do their job, children must be able to separate the first sound in the word from the rest of the word (e.g., to separate the /b/ from the /all/ in ball). Ideally, children develop this skill, called initial phoneme segmentation, during or before the prekindergarten year. However, not all children meet this expectation. Fortunately, you can work on this skill while teaching the alphabet, including alphabet key words. Research strongly suggests that phonemic awareness (conscious awareness of the individual sounds in spoken words-for example, recognizing that sheep has three sounds: /sh/, /ee/, and /p/), although an entirely oral skill, is actually best developed with accompanying letters. This initial phoneme segmentation issue is also why you should be judicious about using alphabet key words that begin with blends (two consonant letters pronounced in succession in a syllable, such as dr in drum); it is especially difficult for young children to separate the initial phoneme in a blend.

5. Lacking a Scope and Sequence

You can teach phonics in many different ways. You can use word or picture cards, magnetic letters, letter tiles, games, or even more traditional methods. However, if you want phonics instruction to be effective, you need to know the content (e.g., consonants, short vowels, digraphs) that you are teaching and the order in which children typically learn, and thus that you will teach, that content. We call this a scope and sequence. ⁸ Across decades, evidence has accumulated to suggest that systematic phonics instruction with a scope and sequence will produce better outcomes than instruction that does not follow a scope and sequence. ⁹

Historically, a range of less systematic approaches have been popular. Typically, these approaches do not have a clear scope or follow a sequence but instead address letter sounds only as they arise incidentally in interactions with children or are needed to read words within a specific text. So, if a teacher is reading the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, she will teach the ee sound because it is found in the word see. The problem with this kind of serendipitous approach as the driver of phonics instruction is that information is not presented logically to the child and information gets missed. Of course, children should read connected text as they are learning phonics, and teachers should point out words they are reading that match taught patterns. But the scope and sequence of phonics instruction should not be based primarily on opportune moments in text reading.

Scope and sequence is also important because it helps children to organize information into cognitive categories, or "file folders," that support better cognitive storage and retrieval of information. For example, if one teaches information without a scope and sequence, one might move from teaching the short a sound in a consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) pattern (e.g., bag), to teaching the vowel digraph oa (e.g., boat), to teaching ch (e.g., chip), to teaching i_e (e.g., bike). It would be a lot easier to remember these patterns if they were taught in groups: for example, teaching all the short vowel sounds ( a, e, i, o, and u), consonant digraphs that represent unique sounds ( th, sh, ch), all the CVC- e (silent e) patterns ( mate, Pete, bike, note, cute), and then both of the spelling patterns that represent the /oi/ sound (called a diphthong; oy and oi). If instruction follows a scope and sequence, the variations don't seem random but rather work to form a category (e.g., "Oh this th is kind of like the ch, two letters that make a new consonant sound").

6. Using a Problematic Approach to Teaching Sight Words

Often, even teachers who do devote considerable time to phonics instruction do not apply that instruction to teaching "sight words." Instead, they teach children to memorize sight words visually rather than to decode them. Research suggests that's the wrong approach. ¹⁰

Let's back up and talk about terminology. A sight word actually refers to any word that can be read by sight. Differentiation is a sight word for us-we recognize it essentially instantly when we see it. What many teachers call sight words are actually high-frequency words. Because a small number of high-frequency words have less regular patterns (e.g., was, the), some people call all high-frequency words sight words and think that they must be learned visually and holistically by sight.

In point of fact, letter-sound information amalgamates the word's units into memory better than any other process. When we teach high-frequency words, we need to fully analyze the letter-sound relationships within them, whether the word is comprised of expected letter-sound relationships, as in can (/k/, /a/, and /n/, just as we would expect); some expected and some unexpected letter-sound relationships, as in said (/s/ and /d/ are as expected, /ai/ would normally represent the long a, not the short e, sound); or entirely unexpected letter-sound relationships, such as of (/uv/). Nearly two-thirds of high-frequency words are actually very regular (e.g., at, in, it), but even with those that are not, we need to fully analyze the letter-sound relationships as well as read them accurately many times. We suggest studying each letter's association with each sound, relating the word to other words with the same letter-sound patterns when possible (e.g., no, go, so), and teaching high-frequency words alongside meaningful words (e.g., like with bike).

7. Missing Essential Elements of Phonics Instruction

We often observe phonics instruction that has some strengths but also some gaps. Effective phonics instruction is multifaceted. You've likely already heard about the need for explicit instruction. Explicit instruction is direct, precise, and unambiguous (e.g., telling children what sound the letters sh represent together, rather than making the connection indirectly or asking them to figure it out themselves). You probably also realize the need to apply general learning principles (e.g., specific feedback). Some other facets that must be present are:

Specific, Applicable Generalizations

Simplistic, broad generalizations or "rules" do not work. For example, if we say that silent e signals a long vowel sound all the time, then we have a lot of issues. But if the generalization is made more specific, it is more applicable. For example, the silent e pattern is consistent more than 75 percent of the time in a_e, i_e, o_e, and u_e, but only consistent 16 percent of the time with e_e.

Active Construction and Deconstruction of Words

Just explicitly teaching letter-sound relationships is not enough. If it were, we could just tell infants what each letter-sound relationship is and then they could read. Children need opportunities to move letter tiles to build and change words, listen to words and spell them by sound, and so on.

Opportunities for Application

The evidence is clear that young children benefit from opportunities to read text that emphasizes letter-sound relationships they have learned to date. ¹¹ This reinforces the value of their hard work and of using decoding to read words. Children's reading opportunities should not be restricted to decodable texts, or those with only letter sounds they have been taught, but such texts should be a regular part of the reading diet. TextProject.org is a great resource for texts, and information about texts, that support beginning readers to learn to decode, without being as boring or unnatural as some decodable texts are.

Responsiveness

Phonics instruction must be informed by our ongoing observation and assessment of children's phonics knowledge and word-reading skills. We should respond when we notice that a child is confused, is insecure with a particular skill, or has had a major breakthrough. If we are not responsive to our students, some students are likely to be left behind in their word-reading development.

For too long, much discourse around beginning reading instruction has focused on whether to teach phonics. It is time for greater attention to how-and how not-to do so. Universally high-quality phonics instruction-that avoids common missteps-should be our collective focus.
Nell K. Duke is a professor of language, literacy, and culture, and a professor in the combined program in education and psychology, at the University of Michigan. Her work focuses on early literacy development, particularly among children living in poverty. Heidi Anne E. Mesmer is a professor of literacy in the School of Education at Virginia Tech. A former third-grade teacher, her work focuses on beginning reading materials and text difficulty.
*Pseudo-words are words with letter-sound relationships that are plausible in a language but do not actually form a real word. ( back to article)

Endnotes

1. See, for example, Barbara Foorman et al., Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade, What Works Clearinghouse, NCEE 2016-4008 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 2016).

2. Philip H. K. Seymour, Mikko Aro, and Jane M. Erskine, in collaboration with COST Action A8, "Foundation Literacy Acquisition in European Orthographies," British Journal of Psychology 94, no. 2 (May 2003): 143-174.

3. See, for example, Carol McDonald Connor, Frederick J. Morrison, and Leslie E. Katch, "Beyond the Reading Wars: Exploring the Effect of Child-Instruction Interactions on Growth in Early Reading," Scientific Studies of Reading 8, no. 4 (2004): 305-336.

4. See, for example, Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, Letter Lessons and First Words (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, forthcoming); Donald R. Bear et al., Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction (New York: Pearson, 2015); and Sharon Walpole and Michael C. McKenna, How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction (New York: Guilford Press, 2017).

5. Darrell Morris et al., "Developmental Steps in Learning to Read: A Longitudinal Study in Kindergarten and First Grade," Reading Research Quarterly 38, no. 3 (2003): 302-328.

6. See, for example, Laura M. Justice et al., "Print-Focused Read-Alouds in Preschool Classrooms: Intervention Effectiveness and Moderators of Child Outcomes," Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 41 (2010): 504-520.

7. Shayne B. Piasta, David J. Purpura, and Richard K. Wagner, "Fostering Alphabet Knowledge Development: A Comparison of Two Instructional Approaches," Reading & Writing Quarterly 23 (2010): 607-626.

8. Heidi Anne E. Mesmer and Priscilla L. Griffith, "Everybody's Selling It-but Just What Is Explicit, Systematic Phonics Instruction?," The Reading Teacher 59, no. 4 (2005): 366-376.

9. Sebastian P. Suggate, "A Meta-Analysis of the Long-Term Effects of Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, and Reading Comprehension Interventions," Journal of Learning Disabilities 49, no. 1 (2016): 77-96.

10. Linnea C. Ehri, Eric Satlow, and Irene Gaskins, "Grapho-Phonemic Enrichment Strengthens Keyword Analogy Instruction for Struggling Young Readers," Reading & Writing Quarterly 25, no. 2-3 (2009): 162-191; and Linnea C. Ehri, "Learning to Read Words: Theory, Findings, and Issues," Scientific Studies of Reading 9, no. 2 (2005): 167-188.

11. Jennifer P. Cheatham and Jill H. Allor, "The Influence of Decodability in Early Reading Text on Reading Achievement: A Review of the Evidence," Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal 25, no. 9 (2012): 2223-2246.

American Educator, Winter 2018-2019

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The need to explicitly teach letter-sound relationships in U.S. classrooms is settled science. 1 However, too often such instruction is not provided in the most efficient or effective way. These instructional missteps mean that fewer children will develop strong word-reading skills.

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5 Secrets for Teaching Beginning Readers to Blend Sounds

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Cumulative Blending Tutorial for Parents

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The Spel-Lang Tree: A Word Study Program developed by: Grace Vyduna-Haskins, Ed.D Contact the Author: gshask@gmail.com

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Decoding Instruction Kindergarten

Grade Level: Kindergarten

School: Kihei Elementary School

Location: Maui, Hawaii

Videographer: Dima Yaremenko
Elapsed Time: 12:39
Introduction: While the goal of reading instruction is always comprehension, systematic decoding instruction must occur in the primary grades to form the foundation for comprehension. We must always remember that decoding is necessary, though not sufficient, for comprehension (Students also need sufficient vocabulary and background knowledge and language skills.) There is no comprehension strategy powerful enough to compensate for the fact you can't read the words.

Focus: As you watch this video,
1) Feedback: 1) Note any good instructional practices. Note any good instructional practices.
o When introducing the initial set of words, the teacher used the following steps with each word.

§ (Writing first letter.) "What sound?"

§ (Writing second letter.) "What sound?"

§ (Running finger under two letters.) "Blend it."

§ (Writing third letter.) "What sound?"

§ (Running finger under three letters.) "Blend it."

o When rereading the list of words, the teacher again used an instructional routine so that all "cognitive energy" could be placed on the words not the task.

§ (Pointing to word.) "Sound out this word. Put your thumb up when you know the word."

§ "Whisper that word to your partner." (Teacher monitors individuals.)

§ (Tapping on word.) "What word?"

§ (Erasing word.) "Gone word."

Reread and sentences to increase automaticity on the words.

Stressed meaning even as words are being read

Modeled "curiosity". "I wonder...."

Gained responses from students (choral responses, partner responses, thumbs up, acting out).

Supported the English Language Learners through clear language, repetition, gestures, and demonstrations.

Maintained a positive climate.

o Smiled and nodded at students.

o Verbally acknowledged them.

o Reinforced them with "Gone Word" game and Special Clap.

Put the back row of children in chairs so that they could see the instruction.

Delivered the instruction in an engaging manner.

Conveyed the joy of teaching and learning.

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Explicit Instructions | Effective and Efficient Teaching

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Grade Level: Kindergarten School: Kihei Elementary School Location: Maui, Hawaii Videographer: Dima Yaremenko Elapsed Time: 12:39 Introduction: While the goal of reading instruction is always comprehension, systematic decoding instruction must occur in the primary grades to form the foundation for comprehension.

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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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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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You are welcome to print copies for non-commercial use, or a limited number for educational purposes, as long as credit is given to Reading Rockets and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact the author or publisher listed.

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An Example of the 90 Minute Reading Block

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Research shows that students need at least 90 minutes of uninterrupted reading instruction each day to become strong readers, and that this instruction must be systematic, explicit, scaffolded, and differentiated across the classroom.

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S2-05: The Right to Read Project on nurturing automatic readers: Margaret Goldberg and Alanna Mednick - Science of Reading: The Podcast

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Join Margaret Goldberg and Alanna Mednick from the Right to Read Project as they address the science of reading and its translation into easy practice for educators. They break down the Seidenberg and McClelland Four-Part Processing Model and expl...

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Pathways to Literacy Leadership - AIM Pathways Online Literacy Training

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The AIM Institute for Learning & Research’s online professional learning course education leaders and administrators interested in best practices in reading instruction and seeking to introduce a culture of literacy to their school or district.