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Teach with each decoding strategy

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Rebecca, the words change, danger, manger, strange, grange, range, and angel show the effect of the Great Vowel Shift. All came into Middle English from French; Chaucer uses spellings like "chaunge" and "daunger", indicating a long vowel that would have sounded sort of like a nasal version of the vowel that stereotypical Bostonians use in "park" or "Harvard". The same vowel, minus the nasalization, was in "make" and "tale", and what happened to that vowel is that its pronunciation changed but its spelling didn't (well, except that the u got dropped). I can think of only three words with -ange- where the vowel is pronounced short - phalange, evangelist, and flange; the first two are later borrowings, and I'm not sure what happened with flange.

As for father, it had the same vowel - and no one is quite sure why its vowel didn't also turn into long A in most dialects of English - though, interestingly, one does encounter a long-A pronunciation (rhyming with "bather") in some forms of Irish English. But father is syllabified as fa.ther, not fath.er, because, however it's pronounced, that A is long, and treating the first syllable as an open syllable makes sense. In contrast, the first vowel of mother is undeniably short, so it makes sense to have its first syllable closed: moth.er, not mo.ther.

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Rebecca, the words change, danger, manger, strange, grange, range, and angel show the effect of the Great Vowel Shift. All came into Middle English from French; Chaucer uses spellings like "chaunge" and "daunger", indicating a long vowel that would have sounded sort of like a nasal version of the vowel that stereotypical Bostonians use in "park" or "Harvard".

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Fifth grade has turned into a difficult year for Jonah. He is a bright student, but he has difficulty reading. Although he can accurately sound out the words he encounters, he plods along word-by-word, often hesitating at challenging vocabulary. His oral reading shows little attention to punctuation and phrasing, and it lacks expression and enthusiasm. Jonah can, however, understand material read to him. His difficulty seems to lie somewhere on the path from decoding to comprehension-in reading fluency.

Since the publication of the National Reading Panel report (2000) and other recent scholarly reviews of scientific research (Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002; Kuhn & Stahl, 2000; Rasinski & Hoffman, 2003), reading fluency has taken a front seat in discussions about student reading success and effective instruction in reading. Yet programs and materials addressing reading instruction and teacher training seldom tackle reading fluency (Rasinski & Zutell, 1996). This lack may be due to the fact that fluency has long been associated with oral reading, a form of reading traditionally viewed as having little importance in learning to read (Gibson & Levin, 1975; Smith, 2002).

Three Dimensions of Reading Fluency

Defining reading fluency may help clarify the issue. Successful reading requires readers to process the text (the surface level of reading) and comprehend the text (the deeper meaning). Reading fluency refers to the reader's ability to develop control over surface-level text processing so that he or she can focus on understanding the deeper levels of meaning embedded in the text.

Reading fluency has three important dimensions that build a bridge to comprehension. The first dimension is accuracy in word decoding. Readers must be able to sound out the words in a text with minimal errors. In terms of skills, this dimension refers to phonics and other strategies for decoding words. The second dimension is automatic processing. Readers need to expend as little mental effort as possible in the decoding aspect of reading so that they can use their finite cognitive resources for meaning making (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974). The third dimension is what linguists call prosodic reading (Schreiber, 1980, 1991; Schreiber & Read, 1980). The reader must parse the text into syntactically and semantically appropriate units. If readers read quickly and accurately but with no expression in their voices, if they place equal emphasis on every word and have no sense of phrasing, and if they ignore most punctuation, blowing through periods and other markers that indicate pauses, then it is unlikely that they will fully understand the text.

Assessing Reading Fluency

Teachers can easily assess each of the three dimensions of reading fluency. To determine proficiency in decoding connected text, calculate the percentage of words a reader can accurately decode on grade-level material. An accuracy level of 90-95 percent is usually considered adequate. Thus, a 3rd grader who is progressing normally in decoding accuracy should be able to read a 100-word text written at a 3rd grade level with no more than 10 uncorrected decoding errors. More than 10 uncorrected errors per 100 words indicates that decoding is a concern, one that requires additional instruction and practice.

Teachers can normally assess automaticity in decoding by looking at the student's reading rate. Reading rates increase as students mature, so the target reading rate increases as students move through school. An easy method for determining reading rate, and thus automaticity, involves having students orally read a grade-level passage for 60 seconds and then calculating the number of words read correctly (corrected errors count as words read correctly) (Deno, 1985). Compare students' scores with target rates (oral fluency norms) for each grade level (Rasinski, 2003). Readers who fall 20-30 percent below the target rate will normally require additional instruction.

The best way to assess prosodic reading is to listen to a student read a grade-level passage and to then judge the quality of the reading using a rubric that scores a student on the elements of expression and volume, phrasing, smoothness, and pace (see fig. 1, p. 49). Students who score poorly may be considered at risk in this dimension of reading fluency.
Figure 1. Multidimensional Fluency Scale
Figure 1. Multidimensional Fluency Scale

By having students read one or two grade-level passages for one minute each, teachers can get a quick sense of their students' level of decoding accuracy, automaticity, and prosodic reading. Although such quick assessments may not be definitive, they do provide teachers and school administrators with a method for screening new students, tracking students' ongoing progress in the various dimensions of reading fluency, and identifying the students who may require additional assessment and instruction.

Teaching Reading Fluency

Instruction in reading fluency depends on the area in which students require the most help. Students with difficulties in accuracy require instruction in learning how to decode words. Although teachers are familiar with this kind of instruction, which develops skills in phonics and decoding, they may not be as familiar with methods for developing students' strength in automaticity and prosodic reading.

In my own instructional efforts to develop automaticity and prosodic reading, I use assisted readings and repeated readings, two methods that research has shown to improve reading fluency (Kuhn & Stahl, 2000; National Reading Panel, 2000; Rasinski & Hoffman, 2003). Students need to hear what fluent reading sounds like and how fluent readers interpret text with their voices.

Hearing fluent reading, however, is not the same as being a fluent reader. Fortunately, assisted readings can help. After reading a passage aloud to students, I ask them to follow along with me, first silently and then aloud, as a group. Sometimes I ask students to orally read a passage with a partner who is at the same reading level. At other times, I ask more fluent readers to read with students who are having difficulty with reading (Eldredge & Quinn, 1988; Topping, 1987a, 1987b, 1995) or I have students silently read while listening to a fluent rendering of the passage on tape (Carbo, 1978; Pluck, 1995). Such practices constitute a powerful strategy for improving fluency and comprehension.

Developing fluency in reading requires practice; this is where the method of repeated readings comes in (Samuels, 1979). Research indicates that repeated readings lead not only to improvement in reading the passage but also to improvement in decoding, reading rate, prosodic reading, and comprehension of passages that the reader has not previously seen (Dowhower, 1994; Koskinen & Blum, 1986; Kuhn & Stahl, 2000; National Reading Panel, 2000).

Passages meant to be read aloud as a performance-poetry, for example, or scripts, speeches, monologues, dialogues, jokes, and riddles-are perfect texts for developing fluency. I see many teachers converting their classrooms into poetry cafés and readers' theater festivals on Friday afternoons to give students the opportunity to perform the assigned texts that they have diligently practiced during the week.

The teacher plays a key role in developing prosodic reading skills by modeling prosodic reading in classroom read-aloud sessions and then discussing the specific oral interpretation that he or she chose. Coaching provides another opportunity for developing these skills by making students aware of their own interpretation of the text and moving readers toward deeper levels of interpretation and meaning.

Here are some comments I have heard teachers make while coaching students in oral interpretation.

"You got all the words right, Thomas, but you read too fast. It was hard for me to follow what you were trying to tell me."

"Eliza, the way you made each character sound different in this dialogue was fantastic. It was easy and fun to listen to these characters arguing."

"I really like how you paused between sentences. This gave me a chance to think about the author's message. Now think about finding places to pause for just a second more inside longer sentences."

"I loved how you made your voice strong and loud in this section. It really told me that this section of the passage was important."

"Try slowing down here and making your voice a bit softer. Remember, you're trying to tell me about something mysterious. Tell the story with your voice as well as with the words."

As assisted and repeated reading, coupled with coaching, become part of the classroom routine, teachers can track changes in students' accuracy, reading rate, and prosodic reading. Jonah, our struggling 5th grade reader, originally read a 4th grade-level passage at 60 words correct per minute and a 5th grade-level passage at 52 words correct per minute. A 5th grader, however, should be reading approximately 100-125 words correct per minute during the first half of the school year. After just two months of working in small groups with a reading teacher for three 40-minute sessions each week, Jonah's reading rate on 5th grade-level passages increased to 84 words correct per minute. His accuracy, prosodic reading, and comprehension improved as well.

Several instructional routines for developing reading fluency show promise for improving reading in all readers. Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (Stahl & Heubach, in press) has students engage in modeled, repeated, and assisted reading of passages from basal readers. The Fluency Development Lesson (Rasinski, Padak, Linek, & Sturtevant, 1994) uses poetry, monologues, dialogues, speeches, and other performance texts to promote reading fluency. Fast Start (Rasinski, 1995; Stevenson, 2002) promotes early reading fluency through parental involvement.

Confusing Fast with Fluent

The new focus on reading fluency has great potential for improving the reading achievement of all students, particularly those who have not met with great success in reading. I am, however, concerned about how some schools define reading fluency and how some teachers teach it. In some schools, where improvement of the reading rate has become the chief goal of fluency instruction, teachers admonish students to "pick up the pace," regularly time them on their reading to encourage them to beat their previous scores, and engage students in daily reading exercises that emphasize speed over meaning.

This is a corruption of the concept of reading fluency. If we emphasize speed at the expense of prosodic and meaningful reading, we will end up with fast readers who understand little of what they have read. Fluency instruction leads to impressive gains when it provides regular opportunities for expressive reading through assisted and repeated readings coupled with coaching; it doesn't require explicit reference to reading for speed. Students' reading rates will improve as they become naturally more efficient and confident in their ability to decode words.

Fluency Into the Future

Research (Pinnell et al., 1995) suggests that reading fluency is a crucial factor among 4th grade students, but it can also be an important issue beyond the elementary grades. I recently worked with a group of colleagues from Kent State University to examine the fluency of high school students in an urban setting. We found that variations in the reading fluency of these students accounted for approximately 30 percent of the variance in their performance on Ohio's High School Graduation Test. Clearly, this finding suggests that fluency may be an issue that goes well into the high school years, especially among students from less advantaged backgrounds.

If teachers and school leaders are truly committed to leaving no child behind in reading, then they must actively pursue the goal of reading fluency in elementary and middle school classrooms. Existing scientific research on reading fluency indicates that it is an important factor in reading education and thus should be part of any comprehensive and effective reading curriculum.

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Fifth grade has turned into a difficult year for Jonah. He is a bright student, but he has difficulty reading. Although he can accurately sound out the words he encounters, he plods along word-by-word, often hesitating at challenging vocabulary. His oral reading shows little attention to punctuation

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Decoding is the ability to correctly decipher and identify a word from a string of letters. Students who struggle with decoding are at a disadvantage, but explicit instruction can help them learn this skill.

Decoding or word identification refers to the ability to correctly decipher a particular word out of a group of letters. Two of the skills involved in decoding or word identification are phonemic awareness and phonics. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken words are made up of individual units of sound. These units of sound are called phonemes. ¹

Adolescents who are phonemically aware, for example, understand that three phonemes, /k/, /a/, and /t/, form the word cat. Students understand that the word fish also has three phonemes because s and h together make the distinct sound, /sh/. Phonemic awareness also includes the ability to identify and manipulate these individual units of sound. ² For example, phonemically aware students can make a new word out of weather by removing and replacing the first consonant sound with another consonant sound (e.g., feather).

According to the National Reading Panel report ³, direct instruction in phonemic awareness is most beneficial when offered to young children. Kamil (2003) ⁴ arrived at similar conclusions in his review of the literature, stating that phonemic awareness instruction is most effective in supporting reading improvement if it is provided in kindergarten and first grade. In fact, most children gather some level of awareness of phonemes before their adolescent years. If this awareness has not been fully developed and exercised, however, middle and high school students may experience difficulty with phonemic awareness when they encounter words that are unfamiliar to them. Research has found that instruction in decoding, word recognition, and spelling help improve phonemic awareness for students who have difficulty understanding how to blend sounds to articulate unfamiliar words. ⁵

Phonics is the understanding of the relationship between the letters in written words and the sounds of these words when spoken. ⁶ Students use this understanding as the basis for learning to read and write. Phonics helps students to recognize familiar words and decode new ones, providing these students a predictable, rules-based system for reading. ⁷

What do good readers do?

Good readers have a conscious understanding of the individual sounds, or phonemes, within spoken words and how these sounds are manipulated to form words. ⁸ In a spoken word, phonemes are the smallest parts of sound that make a difference in meaning. For example, changing the first phoneme in the word map from /m/ to /k/ changes the word from map to cap. Successful readers manipulate the blending and segmentation of phonemes used in speech and use this knowledge to support their ability to read new words and to learn to spell words. Adolescent readers make many of these sound connections at the syllable level and decode new sounds using word chunks or syllables, such as re-, pro-, -tion, -ment, that are already familiar to them. ⁹

Readers with strong phonics skills are able to use their knowledge of letters and their sounds to pronounce unknown words. This ability allows readers to listen to the pronunciation of an unknown word and match the pronounced word to one that they recognize in their receptive (listening) and productive (speaking) vocabularies. Readers with strong phonics skills rely on these skills to decode quickly unknown words that they encounter while reading. ¹⁰

What challenges do adolescent readers face regarding decoding?

Content-area teachers need to be aware of the literacy challenges faced by adolescent readers with decoding problems. These struggling readers need more intensive intervention in order to remediate their reading difficulties. To provide some perspective on the scope of the problem, some researchers estimate that approximately 10% of adolescents struggle with word identification skills. ¹¹ Although this percentage may not seem that large on the surface, it is important to realize that this estimate is for the population of all adolescents and that when talking specifically about struggling readers this estimate is likely to be much higher ¹²; with this in mind, reading or literacy specialists, together with others in their schools, serve as an important resource to more systematically address the needs of these students. This section aims to provide some useful background for content-area teachers regarding the challenges faced by adolescent readers struggling with decoding skills.

Based on their research, Shaywitz et al. (1999) ¹³ asserted that students who are unsuccessful in reading words that are unfamiliar to them may also struggle with poor phonemic awareness skills. This is especially problematic for adolescent readers with dyslexia and those who encounter many words that are new to them as they read content-area texts. Studies involving adolescents with dyslexia have revealed that an individual's lack of phonemic awareness represents the specific cognitive deficit responsible for dyslexia. ¹⁴ Without sufficient awareness of the sounds that make these new words, adolescent readers are unable to move to other levels of literacy, such as phonics or fluency. More simply put, phonemic awareness has been found to mediate word identification in all readers; therefore, this phonological skill deserves the attention of educators in middle and high schools.

Struggling with phonics negatively affects students' reading comprehension skills, vocabulary knowledge, and reading fluency. Adolescents with weak phonics skills lack effective strategies for decoding unknown multi-syllabic words. Even words used by students when conversing with others can be the same words these students are unable to sound out when presented with the words in print. As a result, these words remain unknown to them in print. ¹⁵ At grade five and beyond, students encounter 10,000 or more new words a year in their grade-level and content-area texts, and most of these words are multi-syllabic. ¹⁶ Not surprisingly, the inability to decode multi-syllabic words negatively influences readers' comprehension. Readers whose poor phonics skills prevent them from reading grade-level text independently cannot build their reading vocabularies at the same rate as their peers.

How can instruction help adolescent students with decoding?

Adolescents with decoding difficulties need more intensive practice and instructional time to develop their reading skills more thoroughly. Specifically decoding instruction should emphasize syllable patterns and morphology. This instruction would be, in general, most appropriately delivered by a reading specialist, and content-area instructors should focus on referring adolescent students with difficulties in phonemic awareness and/or phonics to a reading specialist for formal assessment of their reading skills. The following section focuses on instructional approaches that can strengthen phonics and phonemic awareness skills and provides examples on how they can be incorporated into classroom instruction.

For struggling adolescent students with decoding difficulties, the reading specialist should integrate phonemic awareness and phonics instruction as a support to the classroom lessons and texts that are assigned. Although there is little research on adolescents and phonemic awareness, recommendations for instructing adolescent students who struggle with phonemic awareness and phonics can be derived from research involving students with dyslexia ¹⁷ and adult beginning readers. ¹⁸

Both phonics and phonemic awareness instruction should occur within the context of an integrated approach to developing students' comprehension and use of academic language (that is, the language used in educational settings) and should focus on only one or two skills or strategies at a time. ¹⁹ Important components of academic language are the vocabulary used to communicate concepts within a particular discipline (specialized academic vocabulary such as osmosis and perimeter) and the vocabulary used across disciplines to express precisely ideas and information (non-specialized academic vocabulary such as examine and cause). Academic vocabulary is distinguished from the "everyday" vocabulary that is used to communicate on a less formal level outside of the classroom. ²⁰ For example, the non-specialized academic vocabulary words examine and cause contrast with the everyday vocabulary words look at and make.

The following research-based recommendations provide context for how phonemic awareness and phonics instruction can be directly taught to explicitly build these skills or primarily aimed at strengthening these skills by incorporating them into activities that also build other literacy components such as vocabulary. It is not envisioned that content-area instructors will focus on these phonemic awareness and phonics skills during their instruction but it may help instructors gain a clearer sense of where struggling readers might have difficulties.

Modeling phonemic awareness skills when introducing new vocabulary

Phonemic awareness skills can be strengthened through instruction when introducing new vocabulary. To develop these skills, the reading specialist should provide instruction with a focus on identification of rhyming words, blending of isolated sounds to form words, and segmentation of a word into its individual sounds. ²¹ While this instruction is not intended to be delivered in the content-area classroom, it could be appropriate in the English language arts class. For example, when teaching the conventions of poetry, English language arts teachers can read aloud poems that rhyme and draw students' attention to the rhyming words. They can also ask students to identify the particular syllable or syllables within the words that are responsible for the rhyme.

Instruction can also emphasize specialized academic vocabulary for words that change meaning when one phoneme is substituted for another and emphasize these changes when introducing new vocabulary. For example, a teacher can demonstrate how deleting the phoneme /r/ from the word revolution results in the word evolution and likewise demonstrate how adding the phoneme/r/ to the word evolution results in the word revolution. Segmenting words into their phoneme units helps develop students' awareness of the relationship between sound and meaning. Follow-up discussion of the phonological and semantic similarities and differences between words such as revolution and evolution will help students not only develop phonological awareness but also extend their vocabulary knowledge. ²²

Providing instruction in phonics strategies helps students articulate and identify multi-syllabic words

Research on phonics indicates that certain phonics instructional strategies improve the reading abilities of both younger and older readers. ²³ Although research has suggested that phonics instruction is useful for all students ²⁴, those with weak phonological skills tend to benefit most from this type of instruction. ²⁵

Multi-syllabic words are especially important, as these words encompass most of the new vocabulary encountered by adolescents in their reading. Multi-syllabic words also provide much of the new information in content-area texts. ²⁶ Teaching word analysis strategies for decoding multi-syllabic words helps adolescent readers decode other unknown words, build a sight-word vocabulary, and learn how to spell words. ²⁷

When selecting vocabulary words to teach, teachers should focus on multi-syllabic, high frequency, specialized and non-specialized academic words and on sound patterns that are difficult for struggling readers. Examples of multi-syllabic words found in content-area reading are circumference, geographical, parameter, imperative, and simultaneous.

As mentioned earlier, for those students who continue to struggle with phonics and phonemic awareness skills, more focused instruction should primarily be delivered by reading specialists after the reading skills of these struggling students have been formally assessed and their areas of difficulties identified. Listed below are some suggested guidelines for how phonics instruction could be delivered for difficult academic vocabulary and sound patterns:

Take time before lessons to determine the content-area words with which students may struggle.

When introducing these words, articulate each syllable slowly (e.g., e-co-sys-tem), pausing slightly between the syllables. ²⁸ Repeat this articulation several times.

Point out patterns in the pronunciation and spelling of prefixes, suffixes, and vowels in selected words (e.g., rac-ism, sex-ism, age-ism, etc.).²⁹

Point out similarities and differences among words that belong to "word families" (e.g., define, definitely, definition).³⁰

Model using new or difficult words in different contexts.³¹

Provide opportunities for students to practice using new or difficult words and reinforce correct pronunciation and usage.³²

Ask open-ended questions that require students to respond using the new or difficult words (e.g., Do you think racism, sexism, or ageism is more prevalent in our society? Why?).³³

Use direct, explicit, and systematic instruction to teach phonemic awareness and phonics skills

Scientific research supports the use of direct, explicit, and systematic instruction for teaching phonemic awareness and phonics. ³⁴ Examples of steps that could be used by teachers are listed below; however, note that for adolescent students this instruction is most appropriately delivered by a reading specialist rather than a content-area instructor:

1. Explain, demonstrate, and model the skill or strategy with content-area words and within the context of the subject matter students are currently learning.

2. Guide students to practice the skill or strategy and provide corrective feedback (or informing the student of their incorrect practice and giving them the correct information).³⁵

3. Provide time for independent or peer-collaborative practice of the skill or strategy.

4. Repeat these instructional steps until students are able to apply the skill or strategy independently in their reading and writing.³⁶

As you may have noticed, teachers could take advantage of some of the suggestions above to introduce new vocabulary that their students may encounter in the content-area classes they teach. When introducing new vocabulary words that have common prefixes, suffixes, or roots, teachers can instruct students in the meanings of these word parts and how to use this knowledge to decipher new words. Teachers can begin with vocabulary that they are currently teaching and then extend instruction to non-specialized academic vocabulary and specialized vocabulary from other disciplines. For example, teachers can teach students the meaning of the prefix poly when teaching the words polygon and polyhedron. At the same time, they can teach students how to apply knowledge of these prefixes to decipher the meanings of other words that begin with the prefix (e.g., polytheism, polygraph, polygamy, etc.). ³⁷

Provide extra time for phonemic awareness and phonics instruction and opportunities for students to practice using new skills when reading

Adolescent readers who struggle with decoding need extra time to decode each word and to apply their higher order thinking skills to comprehend fully the text that they read. ³⁸ These students will need extra time for reading in the classroom and outside of class. For adolescent students who struggle with decoding, they should be referred to the reading specialist on staff to more intensively address their reading needs. As an aid, content-area teachers may consider taping instructional lessons and passing on these tapes to struggling readers to review at their own pace. ³⁹

What do we still need to know?

Much more research needs to be conducted with adolescent students in the areas of phonemic awareness and phonics. Investigation of students' phonological skills has typically occurred in the primary and elementary grades. With both young children and adolescents, however, there are still many questions that need to be answered. For example, research is needed to study whether or not small group settings are the most effective teaching environment for phonemic awareness for older students. In addition, researchers have paid little attention to the possible connections between phonics instruction and motivation. It is important to better understand how adolescents' levels of motivation influence their reading ability. ⁴⁰ Finally, additional research is needed to determine how decoding and fluency skills relate to reading difficulties faced by some older students.

More key literacy components
References
References

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Archer, A., M. Gleason, and V. Vachon, Decoding and fluency: Foundation skills for struggling older readers. Learning Disability Quarterly, 2003. 26: p. 89-101.

Bailey, A.L. and F.A. Butler, An evidentiary framework for operationalizing academic language for broad application to K-12 education: A design document. 2003, CRESST/University of California, Los Angeles: Los Angeles.

Bertelson, P., et al., Metaphonological abilities of adult illiterates: New evidence of heterogeneity. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 1989. 1(3): p. 239-250.

Bhattarya, A. and L. Ehri, Graphosyllabic analysis helps adolescent struggling readers read and spell words. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2004. 37: p. 331-348.

Blevins, W., Teaching phonics and word study in the intermediate grades. 2001, New York: Scholastic.

Curtis, M.E., Adolescents who struggle with word identification: Research and practice, in Adolescent literacy research and practice, T.L. Jetton and J.A. Dole, Editors. 2004, The Guilford Press: New York. p. 119-134.

Curtis, M.E. and A.M. Longo, When adolescents can�t read: Methods and materials that work. 1999, Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books.

Curtis, M.E. and L. McCart, Fun ways to promote poor readers� word recognition. Journal of Reading, 1992. 35: p. 398-399.

Curtis, M.E. and M.B. Chmelka, Modifying the Laubauch way to reading program for use with adolescents with LDs. Learning Disabilities: Research and Practice, 1994. 9: p. 38-43.

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References

Archer, A., M. Gleason, and V. Vachon, Decoding and fluency: Foundation skills for struggling older readers. Learning Disability Quarterly, 2003. 26: p. 89-101.

Bailey, A.L. and F.A. Butler, An evidentiary framework for operationalizing academic language for broad application to K-12 education: A design document. 2003, CRESST/University of California, Los Angeles: Los Angeles.

Bertelson, P., et al., Metaphonological abilities of adult illiterates: New evidence of heterogeneity. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 1989. 1(3): p. 239-250.

Bhattarya, A. and L. Ehri, Graphosyllabic analysis helps adolescent struggling readers read and spell words. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2004. 37: p. 331-348.

Blevins, W., Teaching phonics and word study in the intermediate grades. 2001, New York: Scholastic.

Curtis, M.E., Adolescents who struggle with word identification: Research and practice, in Adolescent literacy research and practice, T.L. Jetton and J.A. Dole, Editors. 2004, The Guilford Press: New York. p. 119-134.

Curtis, M.E. and A.M. Longo, When adolescents can�t read: Methods and materials that work. 1999, Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books.

Curtis, M.E. and L. McCart, Fun ways to promote poor readers� word recognition. Journal of Reading, 1992. 35: p. 398-399.

Curtis, M.E. and M.B. Chmelka, Modifying the Laubauch way to reading program for use with adolescents with LDs. Learning Disabilities: Research and Practice, 1994. 9: p. 38-43.

Foorman, B.R., et al., The role of instruction in learning to read: Preventing reading failure in at-risk children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1998. 90: p. 37-55.

Graham, S., K.R. Harris, and C. Loynachan, The basic spelling vocabulary list. Journal of Educational Research, 1993. 86: p. 363-368.

Greenberg, D., L.C. Ehri, and D. Perin, Are word-reading processes the same or different in adult literacy students and third-fifth graders matched for reading level? Journal of Educational Psychology, 1997. 89(2): p. 262-275.

Hoover, W.A., The importance of phonemic awareness in learning to read. SEDL Letter, 2002. 14(3): p. 9-12.

Juel, C. and C. Minden-Cupp, Learning to read words: Linguistic units and instructional strategies. Reading Research Quarterly, 2000. 35: p. 458-492.

Kamil, M., Adolescents and literacy: Reading for the 21st century. 2003, Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Leach, J., H. Scarborough, and L. Rescorla, Late-emerging reading disabilities. Journal of Educational Psychology, 2003. 95: p. 211-224.

Liberman, I.Y. and D. Shankweiler, Phonology and beginning to read: A tutorial, in Learning to read: basic research and its implications, L. Rieben and C.A. Perfetti, Editors. 1991, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ.

Moats, L.C., When older kids can�t read. Educational Leadership, 2001. 58(6): p. 36-40.

Moore, D.W., et al., Adolescent literacy: A position statement for the Commission on Adolescent Literacy of the International Reading Association. 1999, Newark, DE: International Reading Association. 3.

Mory, E., Feedback research, in Handbook of research for educational communications and technology, D.H. Jonassen, Editor. 1996, Simon and Schuster MacMillan: New York. p. 919-956.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 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. 2004, Government Printing Office: Washington, DC. http://www.nationalreadingpanel.org.

Nokes, J.D. and J.A. Dole, Helping adolescent readers through explicit strategy instruction, in Adolescent literacy research and practice, T.L. Jetton and J.A. Dole, Editors. 2004, The Guilford Press: New York. p. 162-182.

Partnership for Reading, Put reading first: The research building blocks of reading instruction (2nd ed). 2003, Retrieved May 1, 2005, from http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/publications/PFRbooklet.pdf.

Schleppegrell, M., Linguistic features of the language of schooling. Linguistics and Education, 2001. 12(4): p. 431-459.

Scliar-Cabral, L., et al., The awareness of phonemes: So close-so far away. International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 1997. 13(38): p. 211-240.

Shaywitz, S.E., Dyslexia. Scientific American, 1996. 275: p. 98-104.

Shaywitz, S.E., et al., Persistence of dyslexia: The Connecticut longitudinal study at adolescence. Pediatrics, 1999. 104: p. 1351-1359.

Snow, C.E., M.S. Burns, and P. Griffin, eds. Preventing reading difficulties in young children. 1998, National Academies Press: Washington, DC.

Torgesen, J., Lessons learned from research on interventions for students who have difficulty learning to read, in The voice of evidence in reading research, P. McCardle and V. Chhabra, Editors. 2004, Paul H. Brookes Publishing: Baltimore, MD.

Wagner, R.K. and J. Torgesen, The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. Psychological Bulletin, 1987. 101: p. 192-212.

Endnotes

Click the "Endnotes" link above to hide these endnotes.

1. Kamil (2003); Hoover (2002)

2. Kamil (2003); Hoover (2002)

3. NICHD (2004)

4. Kamil (2003)

5. NICHD (2004); Kamil (2003); Hoover (2002)

6. NICHD (2004)

7. NICHD (2004); Kamil (2003); Torgesen (2004)

8. Hoover (2002)

9. Bhattarya and Ehri (2004)

10. Kamil (2003); Torgesen (2004); Bhattarya and Ehri (2004)

11. Curtis (2004); Curtis and Chmelka (1994); Moats (2001)

12. Leach, Scarborough, and Rescorla (2003)

13. Shaywitz et al. (1999)

14. Torgesen (2004); Liberman and Shankweiler (1991); Shaywitz (1996); Wagner and Torgesen (1987)

15. Kamil (2003); Torgesen (2004); Curtis (2004); Moats (2001)

16. Archer, Gleason, and Vachon (2003)

17. Torgesen (2004); Shaywitz et al. (1999); Liberman and Shankweiler (1991); Shaywitz (1996); Wagner and Torgesen (1987)

18. Bertelson et al. (1989); Greenberg, Ehri, and Perin (1997); Scliar-Cabral et al. (1997)

19. NICHD (2004)

20. Bailey and Butler (2003); Schleppegrell (2001)

21. Moore et al. (1999); Shaywitz et al. (1999)

22. Moore et al. (1999); Shaywitz et al. (1999)

23. Curtis (2004); Blevins (2001); Curtis and Longo (1999)

24. Snow, Burns, and Griffin (1998)

25. Moats (2001); Foorman et al. (1998); Juel and Minden-Cupp (2000)

26. Kamil (2003); Curtis (2004); Archer, Gleason, and Vachon (2003)

27. Torgesen (2004); Moats (2001); Curtis and Longo (1999)

28. Curtis (2004); Curtis and Chmelka (1994); Curtis and McCart (1992)

29. Bhattarya and Ehri (2004); Archer, Gleason, and Vachon (2003)

30. Moats (2004)

31. Curtis (2004); Blevins (2001); Graham, Harris, and Loynachan (1993)

32. Curtis (2004); Blevins (2001); Graham, Harris, and Loynachan (1993)

33. Curtis (2004); Blevins (2001); Graham, Harris, and Loynachan (1993)

34. Kamil (2003); Shaywitz et al. (1999); Curtis (2004); Archer, Gleason, and Vachon (2003); NAS (2003); Nokes and Dole (2004); Partnership for Reading (2005)

35. Mory (1996)

36. Moats (2001); Foorman et al. (1998); Juel and Minden-Cupp (2000)

37. Archer, Gleason, and Vachon (2003)

38. Wagner and Torgesen (1987)

39. Shaywitz et al. (1999)

40. NICHD (2004); Hoover (2002); Blevins (2001)

Endnotes

1. Kamil (2003); Hoover (2002)

2. Kamil (2003); Hoover (2002)

3. NICHD (2004)

4. Kamil (2003)

5. NICHD (2004); Kamil (2003); Hoover (2002)

6. NICHD (2004)

7. NICHD (2004); Kamil (2003); Torgesen (2004)

8. Hoover (2002)

9. Bhattarya and Ehri (2004)

10. Kamil (2003); Torgesen (2004); Bhattarya and Ehri (2004)

11. Curtis (2004); Curtis and Chmelka (1994); Moats (2001)

12. Leach, Scarborough, and Rescorla (2003)

13. Shaywitz et al. (1999)

14. Torgesen (2004); Liberman and Shankweiler (1991); Shaywitz (1996); Wagner and Torgesen (1987)

15. Kamil (2003); Torgesen (2004); Curtis (2004); Moats (2001)

16. Archer, Gleason, and Vachon (2003)

17. Torgesen (2004); Shaywitz et al. (1999); Liberman and Shankweiler (1991); Shaywitz (1996); Wagner and Torgesen (1987)

18. Bertelson et al. (1989); Greenberg, Ehri, and Perin (1997); Scliar-Cabral et al. (1997)

19. NICHD (2004)

20. Bailey and Butler (2003); Schleppegrell (2001)

21. Moore et al. (1999); Shaywitz et al. (1999)

22. Moore et al. (1999); Shaywitz et al. (1999)

23. Curtis (2004); Blevins (2001); Curtis and Longo (1999)

24. Snow, Burns, and Griffin (1998)

25. Moats (2001); Foorman et al. (1998); Juel and Minden-Cupp (2000)

26. Kamil (2003); Curtis (2004); Archer, Gleason, and Vachon (2003)

27. Torgesen (2004); Moats (2001); Curtis and Longo (1999)

28. Curtis (2004); Curtis and Chmelka (1994); Curtis and McCart (1992)

29. Bhattarya and Ehri (2004); Archer, Gleason, and Vachon (2003)

30. Moats (2004)

31. Curtis (2004); Blevins (2001); Graham, Harris, and Loynachan (1993)

32. Curtis (2004); Blevins (2001); Graham, Harris, and Loynachan (1993)

33. Curtis (2004); Blevins (2001); Graham, Harris, and Loynachan (1993)

34. Kamil (2003); Shaywitz et al. (1999); Curtis (2004); Archer, Gleason, and Vachon (2003); NAS (2003); Nokes and Dole (2004); Partnership for Reading (2005)

35. Mory (1996)

36. Moats (2001); Foorman et al. (1998); Juel and Minden-Cupp (2000)

37. Archer, Gleason, and Vachon (2003)

38. Wagner and Torgesen (1987)

39. Shaywitz et al. (1999)

40. NICHD (2004); Hoover (2002); Blevins (2001)

National Institute for Literacy. (2007). Adapted from What Content-Area Teachers Should Know About Adolescent Literacy. Retrieved from http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/publications/adolescent_literacy07.pdf

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Decoding is the ability to correctly decipher and identify a word from a string of letters. Students who struggle with decoding are at a disadvantage, but explicit instruction can help them learn this skill. Decoding or word identification refers to the ability to correctly decipher a particular word out of a group of letters.

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1. Circle the prefixes

2. Circle the suffixes.

3. Underline the vowels.

4. If needed, divide remaining syllables.

5. Pronounce the word parts.

6. Make it sound like a word.

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1.  Find the vowels.

2. Look for word parts you know.

3. Divide the word into syllables.

3. Read each word part.

4. Read the parts quickly.

5. Make it sound like a real word.

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Problem formulation

Data Collection

Data Analysis

Reporting of Results

Action Planning

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Decoding Strategy

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Possibly:

Two classrooms

Small groups within one classroom

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Problems and Solutions

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Decoding is the ability to apply your knowledge of letter-sound relationships, including knowledge of letter patterns, to correctly pronounce written words. Understanding these relationships gives children the ability to recognize familiar words quickly and to figure out words they haven't seen before.

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Bader Reading and Language Inventory

Pre and Post Assessment

*Bader Recognition Word List

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Description
Examiners gain flexibility in obtaining information for ensuring a reader's growth, assessing the effectiveness of specific reading approaches, and diagnosing a wide range of literacy needs.
Teachers, reading specialists, and clinicians turn to this comprehensive reading and language inventory to carry out every aspect of effective reading and learning assessment-from a quick screening through a comprehensive reading assessment. The design of the inventory allows examiners the flexibility to obtain information for measuring a reader's growth, assessing the effectiveness of specific reading approaches, and diagnosing a wide range of literacy needs. The assessment model includes personal interviews and student reflection, observations, informal and formal tests, and diagnostic teaching, plus valuable research-based tools and guides that complement the assessment model and provide a balance of assessment practice that doesn't over-test students. The materials in the Bader Reading and Language Inventory can be used to assess students at a wide range of ages, from preschool children through adults.

The new Seventh Edition features important updates and revisions to the graded passages, including two sets of passages, an elementary set and a secondary/adult set; a second form of graded passages offering greater range from which the evaluator can choose; revisions to the subtests and graded word list test; updating for relevance for use with ELL children and adults; and an updated DVD and instructor forms.

Features

Teachers and evaluators are armed with a vast array of assessment tools to use with students including interest inventories and checklists; English Language screening; word recognition lists; graded reading passages; phonics and structural analysis tests; spelling tests; visual and auditory discrimination tests; preliteracy and emerging literacy tests; cloze tests; instructions for evaluating oral and written language expression, oral language reception, and handwriting; and instructions for open book reading assessments. The variety of tools offers a great deal of flexibility to determine readers' literacy levels, plan instruction, or make referrals.

Examiners learn the appropriate testing sequence for Quick Screening through flowcharts illustrating Adult literacy tests and diagnostic testing.

Readers learn from the examples of thousands who have been tested using the validity and reliability data included in Part IV of the book.

Teachers have opportunities to create their own student booklets or use individual word lists or pages with the Readers' Passages included in the back of the book.

New to this Edition

This new Seventh Edition of the Bader Reading and Language Inventory features some important updates and revisions to the graded passages, including two sets of passages, an elementary set and a secondary/adult set; a second form of graded passages offering greater range from which the evaluator can choose; revisions to the subtests and graded word list test; updating for relevance for use with ELL children and adults; and an updated DVD and instructor forms.

More accurate assessment and quicker screening of readers is made possible through the revised Graded Word List Test.

Pre- and post-testing of students in the elementary grades-plus alternative choices of passages in cases where retesting is required-is accomplished through an added Form B for the Elementary set of Graded Reader Passages.

Pre- and post-testing of secondary and adult learners-plus alternative choices of passages in cases where retesting is required-is accomplished through an added Form B for the Secondary/Adult set of Graded Reader Passages.

Teachers have access to more appropriate reading material for elementary aged students-and thereby more accurate assessment of students and more accurate placement in reading materials-through the inclusion of new fiction and non-fiction passages in the Elementary set of Graded Reader Passages.

Assessment information can now be kept in one location, instead of with each individual passage, with the new reading evaluation sheets for oral and silent reading.

More accurate assessment of silent reading is made possible through the new and updated silent reading rates for elementary students.

Examiners have a wider range of examples to show students using the revised DVD that includes new and updated silent reading rates for elementary students.

Examiners have a wider range of examples to show teachers of secondary level students and adult learners using the revised DVD that includes new and updated silent reading rates for secondary and adult students.

Examiners have improved access to the necessary forms, which they can run off on a printer connected to a computer, using the forms included on the revised DVD.

Table of Contents
Part ONE USING THE BADER READING AND LANGUAGE
INVENTORY 1

BADER READING AND LANGUAGE INVENTORY 3

Introduction

Assessment Model

Content of the Inventory

Administering the Inventory

Preparation for Using the Inventory 5

Testing Sequences: Flowcharts

Getting Optimum Results from Testing

Summarizing the Assessment Data

Part TWO TEST BATTERY 9
STUDENT PRIORITIES AND INTERESTS ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING GRADED WORD RECOGNITION LISTS
Purpose

Administration

USING EXPERIMENTAL WORD LISTS 25

Adult Thematic Lists
USING GRADED READER'S PASSAGES
Graded Reader's Passages

Reading and Listening Levels

Determining a Starting Point

Oral Reading

Qualitative Analysis

Qualitative Analysis and Instruction 34

Silent Reading and Listening Comprehension

Interpreting and Summarizing the Results of the Graded Passages

Example of Testing for Instructional Level

Differences in Word List and Passages Performance

Determining Instructional Levels

Graded Reader Passages Reader Record Sheets

Oral Reading: Prepared

Oral Reading: Unprepared

Oral Reading Miscues

Silent Reading/Comprehension

PHONEMIC AWARENESS 78

Rhyme Recognition 78

Initial Phoneme Recognition 78

Ending Phoneme Recognition 78

Phonemic Manipulation 79

Blending 79

Segmenting 79

Letter Knowledge 81

Hearing Letter Names in Words 84

PHONICS AND STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS TESTS 86

Phonics 86

Structural Analysis 96

SPELLING TESTS 103

Administration 103

Interpretation 103

Summarizing Student Spelling Performance 104

Cognitive Development as a Basis for Selecting a Remedial Reading Approach 104

References 106

Diagnostic Spelling Tests 107

VISUAL AND AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION 111

Visual Discrimination Tests 111

Auditory Discrimination Tests 114

PRELITERACY AND EMERGINNG LITERACY ASSESSMENT 116

Literacy Awareness: Assessment of Beginning Concepts about Print 116

CLOZE TEST 121
ORAL LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT
Evaluation of Expression

Evaluation of Oral Language Reception

WRITING EVALUATION 134

Handwriting: Writing Letters 134

Handwriting: Writing Words in Sentences 134

Near- and Far-Point Copying 134

Writing from Dictation 134

Expressing Ideas in Writing 134

ARITHETIC TEST 137

Purpose 137

Administration 137

Scoring and Interpretation
CURRICULUM BASED ASSESSMENT
Description 140

Purposes 140

Construction 140

Administration 143

Scoring 143

Analysis 144
PART THREE RECORDING, SUMMARIZING, INTERPRETING 145 INSTRUCTOR'S RECORDS: K-12 CASE STUDY: JACKIE 156 153
Getting Started 156

Home and Family Resources 156

Ruling Out Problems and Developing a Diagnostic Plan 156

Analyzing Reading Abilities 157

Finding Specific Needs 157

Summarizing the Findings; Making Recommendations 158
Part FOUR DEVELOPMENT OF THE INVENTORY: VALIDITY AND REALIBILITY DEVELOPING AND VALIDATING THE INVENTORY
Case Analysis 158

Referrals: Case Excerpts 159

The Graded Word Lists

Validity of the Graded Word Lists

The Graded Reader's passages

Recall and Question Construction

Assessing Text Structure

Reliability

Validity

Fluency and Rate

Instructional Level

Other Inventory Subtests and Checklists

Emergent Literacy

Phonemic Awareness and Manipulation

Curriculum Based Assessment
Part Five DIRECTIONS FOR THE DVD
English Language Assessment

References and Suggested Readings

Getting Started

Using the DVD
Part Six READER'S PASSAGES
Scored Examiners Sheets from the DVD
Bader Reading & Language Inventory, 7/e
Examiner Forms for the 7th edition

Back Cover

Lois A. Bader and Daniel L. Pearce

The Bader Reading and Language Inventory presents a much-needed, highly-authoritative model for ensuring K-12 readers' growth, assessing the effectiveness of specific reading approaches, and diagnosing a wide range of literacy needs. In it, teachers, teachers of adult students, reading specialists, and clinicians get a flexible approach to carrying out every aspect of effective reading and learning assessment-from a quick screening through a comprehensive reading assessment. Included are personal interviews and student reflection, observations, informal and formal tests, and diagnostic teaching, plus valuable research-based tools and guides that complement the assessment model and provide a balance of assessment practice that doesn't over-test students.

Lois A. Bader, Michigan State University Professor Emeritus, continues her extensive consultation and research in literacy. As Executive Director of the Capital Area Literacy Coalition (CALC) in Lansing, Michigan, she involves university students and community volunteers to extend clinical and remedial services to a wide range of clients. CALC's ELL, GED, workplace, K-12, and adult programs are ongoing. Dr. Bader's awards include CASE Professor of the Year, ALER Research and Scholarship Award, and Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.

Daniel L. Pearce is Professor of Literacy Education at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He is Chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and Director of the PhD programs in literacy and general education. He has won awards for teaching, service, and scholarship. His interests lie in reading diagnosis, working with problem readers, reading comprehension, and school improvement projects.

Author

Lois A. Bader, Michigan State University Professor Emeritus, continues her extensive consultation and research in literacy. As Executive Director of the Capital Area Literacy Coalition (CALC) in Lansing, Michigan, she involves university students and community volunteers to extend clinical and remedial services to a wide range of clients. CALC's ELL, GED, workplace, K-12, and adult programs are ongoing. Dr. Bader's awards include CASE Professor of the Year, ALER Research and Scholarship Award, and Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.

Daniel L. Pearce is Professor of Literacy Education at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He is Chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and Director of the PhD programs in literacy and general education. He has won awards for teaching, service, and scholarship. His interests lie in reading diagnosis, working with problem readers, reading comprehension, and school improvement projects.

Reader Review(s)

The Basic Reading Inventory is an easy-to-use, individually administrated informal reading assessment which identifies students' strengths and weaknesses in reading. It is an all-in one package which includes all of the tools needed for students to assess, interpret, and develop responsive reading instruction for administering, scoring, and interpreting the BRI.

Although Assessment drives reading instruction, my students need to learn how to teach reading before they can assess and evaluate. Kudos to Bader & Pearce for putting together an impressive collection of informal assessments for teachers! Inventory provides a step by step process on how to evaluate various reading/language components for students.

- Joyce R. Jeewek, Professor, Benedictine University, College of Education, Lisle, IL

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Examiners gain flexibility in obtaining information for ensuring a reader's growth, assessing the effectiveness of specific reading approaches, and diagnosing a wide range of literacy needs. Teachers, reading specialists, and clinicians turn to this comprehensive reading and language inventory to carry out every aspect of effective reading and learning assessment-from a quick screening through a comprehensive reading assessment.

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Which decoding strategy is more effective

for struggling readers?

The Overt Strategy or The Multisyllabic Strategy