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The feedback on the survey will help guide future related PD and book studies. (The survey link will be shared in the last book chat session, and link will be in final email if you weren't able to attend the session.)

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The Arizona Department of Education's Move On When Reading committee is c ontinuously reviewing literacy core, intervention and support programs used with Arizona's K-3 students. We are committed to vetting reading curricula used in Arizona to ensure that the list provided to LEAs on our website complies with all MOWR updates. Currently, the core program list will undergo review in January 2024 to make certain that all programs have efficacy studies that meet ESSA Tiers of Evidence 1, 2, or 3. As curricula is vetted, the program will change from grey to green on our website.

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ADE K-12 ELA Updates - Upcoming PD and more! July 2024 by Lauren Spenceley M.Ed. - ADE | This newsletter was created with Smore, an online tool for creating beautiful newsletters for educators, businesses and more

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Chapter 4 Highlights: Building Automatic Word Recognition with Aliyah

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Chapter 4 Highlights: Building Automatic Word Recognition with Aliyah

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Using data to inform Aliyah's intervention plan for automatic word recognition

Effective interventions for automatic word recognition

Understanding syllable types and morphology - commitment as educators

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Lauren Spenceley, M.Ed.

Secondary ELA Specialist

Arizona Department of Education

📧 lauren.spenceley@azed.gov

☎ 602-364-2267

💻 ADE Secondary ELA Webpage

Thank you for joining us for this amazing book study! So excited to collaborate with you all!

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Feel free to print and use during our book study to keep track of dates and chapters!

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Literacy Interventions in Middle Grades Bookmark

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Literacy Intervention in the Middle Grades: Word Learning, Comprehension, and Strategy Instruction, Grades 4-8

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No two students in grades 4–8 are identical, and many struggle with literacy for different reasons. Using a teacher-friendly, hands-on approach, this eminently practical book walks educators through the nuts and bolts of literacy intervention in the middle grades. Highlights include “North Star” principles to orient instruction, an assessment flowchart, and extended case studies of three middle-grades learners.

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The Arizona Department of Education is focused on the importance of teaching children to read. It is important to continue this focus into the secondary classroom, including middle school and high school. In short, literacy instruction remains every bit as important in the older grades, as it is in grades K-3. The resources provided here are meant to assist secondary (6th-12th) ELA educators and parents in providing the best instruction for all Arizona students.

ELA Standards Grades 6-12

The Arizona English Language Arts Standards define the knowledge, understanding, and skills that need to be effectively taught and learned for all students to be ready to succeed in credit-bearing, college-entry courses, in the workplace, and/or in military service. The standards present a vision of what it means to be a literate person in the twenty-first century.

Grade-specific K-12 standards in Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language translate the broad aims of The Arizona English Language Arts Anchor Standards into age- and attainment-appropriate terms. These standards allow for an integrated approach to literacy to help guide instruction.
You can access the Grade 6-12 ELA Standards, as well as the Vertical Articulation of Standards, Glossary, and other guidance materials on the Standards: English Language Arts webpage.
Interventions for Secondary/Adolescent Readers

This resource section is under construction, but a great place to start is:

IES Practice Guides - Institute of Education Sciences has provided a set of recommendations for evidence-based best practices to address challenges in classrooms and schools that serve the secondary grades.

Reading | Literature Resources

Achieve the Core - Text Complexity Toolkit

All About Adolescent Literacy - AdLit.org is a national multimedia project offering information and resources to the parents and educators of struggling adolescent readers and writers.

AdLit Classroom Strategies - Before, During, and After Reading

CEEDAR - Disciplinary Literacy Course Enhancement Module

EdWeek - Spotlight on Adolescent Reading

GELN - Essential Instructional Practices for Disciplinary Literacy in the Secondary Classroom

IES Practice Guides - Institute of Education Sciences has provided a set of recommendations for evidence-based best practices to address challenges in classrooms and schools that serve the secondary grades.

Keys to Literacy Adolescent Literacy Resources - Joan Sedita of Keys to Literacy provides resources focused on adolescent literacy. Adolescent literacy encompasses the skills that must be taught to all students so they can meet increasingly challenging reading and writing demands as they move through the upper grades, as well as what needs to be done for those students who fall behind who may need intervention instruction in foundational literacy skills.

Meadows Center, Partner Reading Teachers' Guide - The purpose of this guide is to provide teachers a feasible partner reading procedure that can be used in middle school classrooms.

NCTE Bookstore, Adventurous Thinking: Fostering Students' Rights to Read and Write in Secondary ELA

NCTE Students' Right to Read - Plethora of resources for engaging students in literature.

ReadWriteThink - Powered by NCTE. ReadWriteThink is a teaching and learning community for English Language Arts teachers from K-12th grade with resources providing free access to the highest quality standards-based practices, lesson plans, videos, activities, and apps.

WestEd Publications, Reading for Understanding: How Reading Apprenticeship Improves Disciplinary Learning in Secondary and College Classrooms

WestEd Reading Apprenticeship - What if instead of teaching around the text, lecturing, or summarizing for students, teachers engaged students in actually grappling with text - reading and talking about what it means and how they figured it out? WestEd has provided resources and materials to teach reading in a metacognitive way.

Writing | Grammar Resources
Writing Contests
JFK Profile in Courage Essay Contest - The Profile in Courage Essay Contest opens for submissions in the Fall of each year.

National Novel Writing Month Young Writers' Program - National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) takes place in November. The Young Writers' Program supports under-18 writers and K-12 educators as they participate in the November event, and take part in smaller writing challenges year-round.

Pulitzer Center - Local Letters for Global Change: A Pulitzer Center Writing Contest, deadline is November 13, 2021
Grammar Resources
Heinemann Publishing, The Grammar Planbook

NCTE Bookstore, Grammar to Get Things Done: A Practical Guide for Teachers Anchored in Real-World Usage

Stenhouse Publishers, Revision Decisions: Talking Through Sentences and Beyond

Stenhouse Publishers, Everyday Editing: Inviting Students to Develop Skill and Craft in Writer's Workshop
Writing
Keys to Literacy, Keys to Content Writing Resources

IES Guide, Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively

Parent Resources

AdLit.org, "Organizations that Promote Adolescent Literacy" - From lesson plans and classroom tools to free books and opportunities to publish students' work, nonprofit organizations have a lot to offer parents, teachers, and struggling readers themselves. Learn about some nonprofits with a commitment to helping young people become better readers and writers.

AdLit.org, "Parent Engagement in Transitions to Middle and High School" - Using the 3A framework (Attendance, Achievement, and Attainment) for dropout prevention developed by the America's Promise Alliance and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, this article highlights specific knowledge that parents need to support students' success, as well as ways that schools can engage parents as partners.

AdLit.org, "Engaging Parents to Support Academic Achievement" - Academic achievement is a strong predictor of high school graduation and is critical to long-term success in college, work, and life. A sixth grader who fails math or English, has unsatisfactory behavior, or poor attendance has a 75% likelihood of dropping out. Freshmen in Chicago public schools who earn a B average or better have an 80% chance of finishing high school with at least a 3.0 GPA.

IES, "Literacy Tips for Parents of Adolescents" - Based on common instructional elements , these are activities that parents can initiate at home to help ensure successful literacy outcomes for their adolescent students.

Meadows Center, "How Can I Help My Middle Schooler Read Multisyllabic Words? Five Helpful Steps" - This resource describes a simple strategy you and your child can use to help decode long words.

Scholastic, "17 Ways to Keep Your Middle Schooler Turning Pages" - As your kids get older, they may put reading on the back burner. Learn the best ways to keep them turning the pages with these helpful tips.

Assessment

ADE Assessment - Educator resources for the new Arizona state assessments. [ AASA (3rd-8th), ACT Aspire (9th), ACT (11th)]

Including:

Performance Level Descriptors and Item Specifications (AASA)

Arizona State Standards Alignment Guide (ACT and ACT Aspire)

Graduation Supports

High School Graduation - Information and Requirements

PostSecondary Resources - Resources and Events

OELAS Guidance - High School Credit for Integrated and Targeted ELD (August 2022) | Townhall Presentation 8.17.22 | OELAS Homepage

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

Current Opportunities
Secondary ELA Quarterly Office Hours
Secondary ELA Quarterly Office Hours is a virtual opportunity to collaborate, share, and learn about secondary reading and literacy information from the AZ Department of Education with secondary ELA literacy educators and leaders from around the state. Register for the July 13, 2023 meeting!

Past Meetings:

Earn PD credit and collaborate with other secondary ELA teachers! A variety of topics including: reading comprehension, writing, secondary MTSS, collaboration with Social Studies, and more! - use search term "secondary ELA"

Register - use search term "secondary ela" to narrow down your search
ALL ELA Professional Learning Opportunities
Current PD from the whole ELA Team:

K-12 Literacy Office Hours once a month - come join us to hear the latest ELA news!

Arizona Reading Fundamentals OnDemand Academy - This academy offers schools a variety of free knowledge blocks on demand. Each knowledge block includes several different sessions. Each session includes three recorded presentations and pre- and post- activities. Districts and schools are encouraged to utilize these resources as a part of a comprehensive professional learning plan that is data-driven, sustained, intensive, collaborative, job-embedded and instructionally focused.

Register - use search term "k12-AS-ELA" to narrow down your search

APLD Support:
For questions regarding registration, certificates, accessing courses, etc. please refer to our: APLD FAQs
Sign up for ELA Listserv:
To stay on top of the latest Arizona ELA news, join our listserv!

Secondary ELA Book Study

Fall 2023

Join the ADE English Language Arts Team for a FREE Secondary ELA Focused 8-week book study. Thursdays from 4:30-5:30 MST (9/7 through 10/26). Everyone is welcome!
Text: Reading for Understanding: How Reading Apprenticeship Improves Disciplinary Learning in Secondary and College Classrooms, 3rd Edition by Cynthia Greenleaf, Ruth Schoenbach, Linda Friedrich, Lynn Murphy, and Nika Hogan
To order: Wiley Publishers

Improve student outcomes in reading and literacy with the latest edition of this bestselling text! The newly revised Third Edition of Reading for Understanding: How Reading Apprenticeship Improves Disciplinary Learning in Secondary and College Classrooms is the latest iteration of the best-selling, landmark book in the field of adolescent literacy. The book contains strategies for boosting the reading independence of middle, secondary, and college students. Research conducted by NSF, IES, and OII has validated the model taught in Reading for Understanding, demonstrating its effectiveness in raising students' reading achievement levels. The authors teach a clear and concise instructional framework for students at all learning levels, from those with special learning needs to those taking honors and Advanced Placement courses. The book also includes:

A direct correlation to disciplinary literacy, making the book an even more valuable resource in a wide range of classrooms

Explanation of the social and personal dimensions for building a foundation for engaged learning

Discussions of the value of setting aside dedicated class time for independent, silent reading

With collaboration tips that go beyond the classroom and advice on building a cognitive "reading toolbox," Reading for Understanding is an indispensable resource for teachers at the Grade 6 and up, literacy coaches, reading teachers, community college instructors, and other school leaders.
Dates/Chapters:

9/7 Chapter 1 "Engaged Academic Literacy for All"

9/14 Chapter 2 "The Reading Apprenticeship Framework"

9/21 Chapter 3 "The Social and Personal Dimensions"

9/28 Chapter 4 "Metacognitive Conversation"

10/5 Chapter 5 "Extensive Academic Reading"

10/12 Chapter 6 "The Cognitive Dimension"

10/19 Chapter 7 "The Knowledge-Building Dimension"

10/26 Chapter 8 "Disciplinary Inquiry" and Epilogue

General Info for our book studies:

Virtual book chats take place via Zoom.

All participants must register in the APLD system to receive credit - each session is offered individually.

All participants who register in APLD, read their chapter(s), and attend the book study will be given 2-hours PD credit.

Please share with your colleagues!

Register - use search term "secondary ela book study" to narrow down your search

Archived Book Studies:

March-May 2023 Thinking Reading: What Every Secondary Teacher Needs to Know About Reading - Visit the Padlet!

January - March 2023 Effective Instruction for Middle School Students with Reading Difficulties - Visit the Padlet!

Fall 2022 Disciplinary Literacy Inquiry & Instruction - Visit the Padlet!

Summer 2022 The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades - Visit the Padlet!

April-May 2022 Reading for Understanding: How Reading Apprenticeship Improves Disciplinary Learning in Secondary and College Classrooms, 2nd Edition - Visit the Padlet!

Early Spring 2022 Fundamentals of Literacy Instruction and Assessment, Grades 6-12 - Visit the Padlet!

Fall 2021 Effective Instruction for Middle School Students with Reading Difficulties

Spring 2021 Reading for Understanding: How Reading Apprenticeship Improves Disciplinary Learning in Secondary and College Classrooms, 2nd Edition

Writing Professional Learning

FALL 2023

Arizona's 6-12th Grade Writing Standards: Model, Practice, Reflect, Assess - register for upcoming offerings on:

Previous Presentations - all materials archived here

11/9/22 Special Presentation - Arizona's 6-12th Grade Writing Standards: Model, Practice, Reflect, Assess - all materials archived here
Types of Writing Standards - Grades 6-12 Professional Learning Webinars
All materials from the webinars have been archived here:

Types of Writing Standards Grades 6-12: Argument Writing | Padlet

Types of Writing Standards Grades 6-12: Informative/Explanatory Writing | Padlet

Types of Writing Standards Grades 6-12: Narrative Writing | Padlet

Summer 2022
Thank you to all who joined in the Secondary ELA Summer of Writing Professional Learning Series!
All materials from the Summer Series have been archived here:

The Writing Revolution Book Study | Padlet

Types of Writing Grades 6-12: Argument Writing | Padlet

Types of Writing Grades 6-12: Informative/Explanatory Writing | Padlet

Types of Writing Grades 6-12: Narrative Writing | Padlet

Empowering Students through Grammar Instruction | Recording | Slide Deck

Writing for College, Career, and Beyond | Recording | Slide Deck

Reading Apprenticeship
Reading Apprenticeship from WestEd - ADE Cohort - SY23-24
Reading Apprenticeship is an evidence-based professional learning experience focused on disciplinary literacy in grades 6-12. Educators are engaged in a process to discover the tools and perspective to "apprentice" their students in any subject area. This assets-based approach helps teachers develop students' comprehension skills while also building subject-area knowledge, reader-identity, collaboration, and persistence. As part of a State Tutoring grant opportunity, ADE will be offering the opportunity for Arizona teachers to participate in an ADE cohort of the Reading Apprenticeship essentials course with little to no cost. Share this flyer with colleagues!

Informational Webinars: Register for an informational session to learn more about this ADE cohort opportunity!

Book Study: Access the materials from the Spring 2022 Professional Learning Book Study on the Reading Apprenticeship core text.

Updated Core Text: Third Edition - I will be offering a Professional Learning Book Study on this updated edition in Fall 2023! See book study blue bar above.

Recordings/Archived

Webinars

Special Presentation - "A Face Like Mine: Connecting Classic Literature to Modern YA Books" - On 2/11/21, a panel of high school librarians discussed ways to incorporate modern YA books in with teaching classic literature in the classroom. Click here to view the presentation

Building Background in the Virtual Secondary ELA Classroom - Building schema and background knowledge is one of the best ways to raise reading comprehension for our students. In this webinar, we explored some easy and fun ways to do this in the virtual/distance learning secondary ELA classroom. A better understanding of how building background and surfacing schema will help your students become better readers. Visit the Padlet with resources and slide deck.

Summer Series - Spotlight on Media Literacy and Sourcing - In collaboration with our ADE Social Studies team - Join trainers from ADE, and master teachers from around the state to a webinar to teach and engage with media literacy at all grade levels. Recorded presentation

"What is Media Literacy and How Do I Teach It?" - This webinar will examine what media literacy means, how do we teach students to be responsible consumers and producers of media and examine some methods and lessons you can use in your classroom. Recorded presentation

Integrating Secondary Social Studies and ELA - In collaboration with our ADE Social Studies team - How do you integrate Social Studies and English Language Arts in a secondary setting? What are the benefits of collaboration between English and Social Studies educators? This webinar demonstrated best practices to integrate Social Studies and ELA efficiently and easily. This webinar also used texts with multiple perspectives to address new ways to create cross-curricular projects and lessons. Slide Deck

Professional Organizations

Contact Information: Lauren Spenceley, Secondary ELA Specialist, 602-364-2267
Visit the English Language Arts YouTube playlist!
**The views and opinions expressed in any third-party resource do not necessarily reflect those of the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) and do not imply an endorsement by ADE.

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Secondary Literacy (Middle and High School) Secondary Logo 2023.png The Arizona Department of Education is focused on the importance of teaching children to read. It is important to continue this focus into the secondary classroom, including middle school and high school.

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Use search term "secondary ELA" or "ELA" to narrow down your search.

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If you are a new user, you should start by creating your account.

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ELA Office Hours - Join the ADE ELA Team and literacy leaders from around the state in an opportunity to collaborate, share and learn about reading and literacy information.

Anchor Standards, Introduction, Glossary

Vertical Articulation of the K-12 ELA Standards

Vertical Articulation of the K-12 ELA Standards - The Vertical Articulation document shows the progression of each standard over the course of the K-12 continuum. It is important to have an understanding of how a skill/standard develops over time.

English Language Arts Crosswalks

The ELA and Social Studies Crosswalks show the purposeful connections between the Social Studies standards, the ELP (English Language Proficiency) standards, and the ELA (English Language Arts) standards.

Please contact Lauren Spenceley for an accessible version of the Social Studies Crosswalks.

ELA and Assessment

Arizona Assessments - AASA (Arizona's Academic Standards Assessment) is the statewide achievement test for Arizona students in Grades 3-8. All Arizona public school students in Grades 3 - 8 will take the grade level AASA assessments in English Language Arts and Mathematics. Grades 9 and Grade 11 students will take the ACT Aspire assessment. Cohort 2023 (typically grade 11) students will take the ACT assessment.

- AZELLA (Arizona's English Language Learner Assessment) is a Standards-Based Assessment that measures a student's English language proficiency based on the Arizona English Language Proficiency Standards.

NAEP - NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) is a national assessment of academic content outlined in the NAEP Academic Frameworks. The assessments are given to a sample of students in Grades 4, 8, and 12.

** ELA and Assessment - Would you like to learn more about the new Arizona assessments? Visit Assessment for lots of helpful information and resources, including their Friday Focus Webinars!

ELA Professional Learning
Literacy Professional Learning
For questions regarding registration, certificates, accessing courses, etc. please refer to our APLD Participant Guide: APLD FAQ Page

ELA Resources
ELA Resources
Summary of Changes for the Arizona English Language Arts Standards (Adopted December 2016)
The ADE ELA Team:
**The views and opinions expressed in any third-party resource do not necessarily reflect those of the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) and do not imply an endorsement by ADE.

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Arizona English Language Arts Standards Updates icon.png ELA Updates PD icon.png ELA Professional Development Email icon.png Sign up for ADE ELA Updates ELA Office Hours - Join the ADE ELA Team and literacy leaders from around the state in an opportunity to collaborate, share and learn about reading and literacy information.Anchor Standards, Introduction, GlossaryIntroduction PDF | Word Standards Glossary PDF | Word Anchor Standards PDF | Word Grades K-5K-5 STANDARDSK-5 STANDARDS PLACEMATSKindergarten (Revised 7/17) PDF | WordKindergarten (Revised 7/17) PDF | WordFirst Gr

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**The views and opinions expressed in any third-party resource do not necessarily reflect those of the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) and do not imply an endorsement by ADE.

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Chapter 1 Highlights: Middle-Grades Readers: Introducing Three Case Studies and Debunking Common Myths

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Chapter 1 Highlights: Middle-Grades Readers: Introducing Three Case Studies and Debunking Common Myths

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Introduction to the text and the 10-week book study format

Case study approach - intro to the students

Dispelling myths about adolescent literacy/middle grade readers

Golden Lines Strategy

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to use with your own students... feel free to share!

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Dr. Kevin Flanigan - https://www.guilford.com/author/Kevin-Flanigan

Dr. Latisha Hayes - https://www.guilford.com/author/Latisha-Hayes

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9/19/2024

As secondary educators, we are increasingly aware of the significance of the science of reading and the nationwide implementation of K-3 legislation. However, we must consider how reading research applies to older students.

Secondary educators have been trained to primarily focus on teaching literature as content-area educators, with less emphasis on teaching reading during our undergraduate or professional learning. Despite our focus on standards and summative assessments, many students need help reading grade-level content and demonstrating proficiency in performance tasks. This raises the question: Why are so many of our adolescent students facing challenges in reading?

Numerous misconceptions exist regarding the reading process and its impact on reading proficiency in secondary classrooms. To improve reading outcomes, it is imperative we understand how the brain learns to read and acknowledge that our belief systems and myths about reading could hinder our efforts to improve literacy outcomes for all students. Let's thoroughly explore the beliefs we hold onto.

Belief No. 1: Good Readers Rely Heavily on Context Clues

In 1964, Dr. Kenneth Goodman, professor emeritus of Language, Reading, and Culture at the University of Arizona, conducted a study titled " A Linguistic Study of Cues and Miscues in Reading," which examined the reading abilities of 100 first, second, and third grade children. The study evaluated their ability to read a decontextualized word list and retell a passage using contextual cues. Dr. Goodman concluded that students could read more words in a contextualized text than in a word list, demonstrating their reliance on syntax and semantics cues. This led to the formulation of the three-cueing theory. Despite four decades of reading research, many educators still believe children rely heavily on using context clues in reading.

To comprehend how a child learns to read, insights from the research on eye-tracking by the late Dr. Keith Rayner, a distinguished cognitive psychologist at the University of Massachusetts, are beneficial. Dr. Rayner's 1998 article in the American Psychological Association Journal, " Eye Movements in Reading and Information Processing: 20 Years of Research," elucidates specific characteristics of eye movements, information integration, and individual variances during reading. His focus on cognitive processes in reading involved the study of eye movements, with direct recordings indicating the eyes fixate on each word and exhibit prolonged fixation on complex words.

His work demonstrated that the complexity of phoneme-grapheme correspondences influences the duration of fixation on each word. According to eye-tracking research, the reading brain does not excessively rely on context clues, as theorized by Dr. Goodman. Educators must recognize that fluent reading depends on the brain's capacity to decode words on the page. When a child encounters too many unfamiliar words, they may resort to context clues as their only available strategy. It is conceivable that Dr. Goodman observed what less-skilled readers do when confronted with an unfamiliar word-they guess or utilize strong oral language skills to bridge the gaps. As educators in secondary education, our priority should be to ensure students possess strong decoding skills, enabling them to derive meaning from the text in front of them.

The research conducted by Stanislas Dehaene, a cognitive neuroscientist, has revealed that the reading process occurs in the brain's left hemisphere. There are two primary regions where neural networks must be developed to enable the decoding of words on a page. The brain contains a visual word form area in the occipital lobe dedicated to processing words, and at the base of the frontal lobe, there exists a language processing system tailored for language comprehension. For a child to read written words, it is necessary to establish neural pathways that bridge the brain's language and visual word form areas.

FRONTAL TEMPORAL PARIETAL OCCIPITAL

Phoneme Analysis

Phoneme-Grapheme Association

Pronunciation

Articulation

To improve outcomes for secondary school students, prioritizing decoding is essential. In 1998, Philip Gough and William Tunmer formulated a framework known as the Simple View of Reading, which shows the reading process. The Simple View of Reading posits that reading comprehension results from decoding, word recognition, and language comprehension. If a student cannot decode the words in a text, it will impede their comprehension. As stated by David Kilpatrick in " Equipped for Reading Success," "The most direct route to good reading comprehension is to make the word recognition process automatic so the student can focus all his or her mental energy on reading."

Belief No. 2: If Students Haven't Learned To Read Before They Reach Secondary School, It's Too Late

As students transition to fourth grade, reading instruction typically shifts from learning to read to reading to learn. The Common Core State Standards' scope and sequence of foundational skills further reinforce this instructional shift. According to the standards, by second grade, students are expected to master long and short vowels in one- and two-syllable words. Third grade focuses on reading multisyllabic words with morphology as part of the foundational skills. The foundational skills progression culminates in fourth grade with a focus on knowing and applying grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.

However, the limited emphasis on phonics beyond the fourth grade and the greater focus on reading and understanding complex informative and narrative texts in the upper grades may lead secondary teachers to assume that students have already mastered foundational skills from lower grades. Contrary to this belief, it is essential to acknowledge there is always time to teach foundational skills, even in middle or high school.

In their article " Identifying and Teaching Students with Significant Reading Problems," Sharon Vaughn and Jack Fletcher highlight ample evidence to suggest educational systems can be developed so that nearly 95% of students can become reasonably successful readers. The remaining 5% who do not make adequate progress are likely to be truly reading disabled due to persistent reading difficulties. This underscores the responsibility of educators to provide explicit, systematic phonics instruction with a focus on building neural networks to teach all children to read.

In transitioning to this approach, leaders and educators must recognize that despite the shift in focus toward reading comprehension, students must possess the ability to decode text for effective language comprehension. The Simple View of Reading framework, developed by Philip Gough and William Tunmer in 1986, outlines the reading process, establishing that reading comprehension is a product of decoding, word recognition, and language comprehension.

It is important to note that older children who struggle in reading often face challenges in decoding vocabulary or both. Their deficits may not be apparent when reading one-syllable words, but they do struggle with multisyllabic words. While the Common Core State Standards emphasize the language component, educators should understand students can only derive meaning from text if they can read the words on the written page.

To ensure the vast majority of students attain basic literacy skills before graduating from high school, a shift in beliefs about content and approach to Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) is imperative. The National Center for Improving Literacy provides valuable guidance to school leaders about building a robust MTSS system, emphasizing establishing a leadership team as the initial step. The leadership team should be formed based on shared values and a strong focus on the literacy vision and mission.

This team should include members from different areas of literacy, such as school principals, reading coaches, reading specialists, and content-area teachers. Regularly scheduled meetings should focus on Response to Instruction (RtI) using progress-monitoring data, as well as formative and summative assessments. These meetings should take place at various levels of leadership, including grade level, content level, and building level. It is crucial to ensure the roles and responsibilities of each member are clear so the group can work together toward the shared vision and mission of improving literacy outcomes.

If secondary schools are committed to ensuring all students graduate with basic literacy skills, it is fundamental to invest in a strong leadership team dedicated to improving literacy rates. This team should evaluate district literacy performance data to comprehensively understand the existing reality.

Subsequently, the leadership team can prioritize areas that require the most attention to support instructional efforts. There should be a concerted focus on addressing decoding skills as an intervention and within content-area classes. The What Works Clearinghouse practice guide, " Providing Reading Intervention for Grades 4-9," offers evidence-based instructional techniques to support the development of all learners' reading skills. Following the prioritization, the leadership team should devise an action plan to be implemented during the year, supported by coaches and leaders.

If research indicates students must possess decoding skills to comprehend text and that the vast majority of students can learn to read at any age, it is incumbent upon school leaders to realign their focus and enhance their approach to teaching reading.

Establish a Multi-tiered System of Support in Reading (MTSS-R) Leadership Team

School Principal (team leader)

Reading Coach

Reading Specialists

One Classroom Teacher from Each Grade

One Parent or Family Member

Other members, as appropriate (special education teacher, school psychologist, etc.)

Meet monthly (every other month, at a minimum)

After fall, winter, and spring screenings
Focus: universal screening data

Months between screenings
focus: instructional planning and implementation

End of the year
focus: data and planning for next year

Team Responsibilities

Evaluate and support MTSS-R implementation

Use data to oversee the systematic improvement of MTSS-R implementation and student reading outcomes

Support teachers and staff implementing MTSS-R

The research reported here is funded by a grant to the National Center on Improving Literacy from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, in partnership with the Office of Special Education Program (Award #S2B3D160003). The opinions or policies expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of OESE, OSEP, or the U.S. Department of Education. You should not assume endorsement by the Federal government. Copyright © 2019 National Center on Improving Literacy.

Belief No. 3: If a Student Is Taught in Their Preferred Learning Style, They Will Learn Better.

Educators' first exposure to learning styles typically occurs as students in the classroom and later in their undergraduate studies. At the school level, many secondary teachers strive to address students' challenges in grasping grade-level texts by tailoring their lessons to accommodate various learning styles. They often kick off the academic year with student surveys and meticulously design their curriculum around their students' individual ways of comprehending and processing information. Although learning styles gained popularity in the 1970s and continue to be discussed in educational circles today, there is no substantial evidence to support their existence.

According to Adam Grant in his book, " Hidden Potential," around 89% of teachers worldwide believe in matching their instruction to students' learning styles. While it's widely acknowledged that interest and motivation vary among students, leading to the assumption children have distinct learning styles, there is no credible evidence to support this idea.

In their 2012 article " Learning Styles: Where is the Evidence," Doug Rohrer and Harold Pashler found the results from 20 studies were mostly negative. Although three studies showed positive results, they were not particularly convincing. Therefore, there is limited empirical support for tailoring instruction to students' supposedly different learning styles. As educators, it's important to acknowledge that while students may have preferences, there is insufficient evidence to support customizing instruction to accommodate individual learning styles.

The concept of learning styles is centered around the idea that individuals learn best through visual, auditory, or kinesthetic means. However, in reality, learning styles are more about preferences than inherent abilities. As Daniel Willingham highlights in his article, " The Myths of Learning Styles," a preferred mode of presentation often reflects a preference for tasks in which one excels and feels successful. If a student demonstrates proficiency when information is presented visually, it may be the result of their preference rather than a specific learning style. Educators noticing the student's success may be inclined to believe that continuing to present information in the same way will lead to continued success. In reality, this pattern is more a result of confirmation bias than a validation of learning styles.

We have a tendency to seek out information that supports our beliefs, so when we witness student success, we are more likely to attribute it to learning style than to critically consider alternative explanations. We know children do have differences; they are all unique individuals. However, when we consider how one child is proficient in a standard, we must consider the task they are asked to complete. We know reading comprehension is a product of decoding and language comprehension. Then, if a student needs to meet grade-level expectations, we must understand the lack of success is not due to a learning style but a learning difference in the reading brain.

Dr. Hollis Scarbrough, a leading researcher at Haskins Lab, and creator of the Reading Rope, shows that skilled reading is a fluent execution of word recognition and comprehension. She created the visual metaphor for reading in 1992 based on the studies of reading and reading disabilities in the 1970s-1980s. The main purpose of the Reading Rope was to support parents and educators in understanding the subskills of reading and to encourage discussions about the complexity of reading. So, if a child needs help attaining a grade-level proficiency mark, we must consider the individual subskills of reading, not a preferred learning style.

We also know many other factors play into reading achievement, such as attention, working memory, self-monitoring, social-emotional competencies, processing, and other executive functioning skills. So, as educators, yes, we want to look at the "whole" child, but we also need to understand that matching a learning outcome with a learning style will reap little reward. Instead, we need to support our students in creating a classroom culture that values all children and recognizes the intrinsic factors that affect learning, as well as teaching all areas of literacy with an evidence-based, research-backed curriculum and using principles of instruction that support explicit teaching that will support all students.

"Education isn't truly successful until all children, regardless of their background and resources, have the opportunity to reach their potential. Creating schools where students achieve greater things isn't about focusing on a select few and pushing them to excel. It's about fostering a culture that allows all students to grow intellectually and thrive emotionally."
Adam Grant, Hidden Potential

Educators often operate within long-held beliefs dating back to the beginnings of public education. By understanding and letting go of these belief systems surrounding literacy in secondary schools, we can open ourselves up to learning and growth as educators. This will allow us to create a classroom environment where all students can reach their hidden potential.

It's important to challenge beliefs such as the reliance on context clues for good readers, the idea that it's too late to teach a child to read if foundational skills weren't learned in elementary school, and the notion that learning styles support learning. These beliefs hinder our progress toward better literacy outcomes. According to Grant in his book " Think Again," educators should think like scientists. Instead of immediately sticking to an opinion, we should treat our emerging view as a hunch or a hypothesis and test it using data.

Reading is a complex process involving many cognitive and linguistic processes that are influenced by instruction and practice opportunities. As educators, we must be committed to understanding the sciences of reading, learning, and teaching to improve literacy outcomes for all.

About the Author

For more than three decades, Jeanne Schopf, M.Ed., NBCT, C-SLDI, has devoted herself to enriching the lives of children as an educator and a prominent figure in state and national literacy. With a wealth of experience as a K-9 teacher, literacy coach, reading specialist, and certified dyslexia interventionist, she has made a tangible difference in both primary and secondary education. Schopf wholeheartedly dedicates herself to education and literacy leadership. Her extensive expertise and understanding of literacy, leadership, and systemic change bring immense value to the teachers she mentors and the school leaders she guides as they work toward transforming their schools. As a certified John Maxwell speaker, trainer, and coach, Schopf is committed to empowering individuals by recognizing their potential, forging connections, and igniting lasting change. Her mission is to assist all educators and leaders in establishing Pathways Towards Literacy in their schools. Schopf is an independent contractor for the Transformative Reading Teacher Group, CORE Learning, and 95 Percent Group.

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Discover the myths that could be holding your older students back. Explore the science of reading and how it applies to secondary education, challenging outdated beliefs to improve literacy outcomes for all students.

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What do Upper-Level Students Need When They Are Struggling to Read?

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What do Upper-Level Students Need When They Are Struggling to Read?

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Our guest authors are Sue Pimentel, co-founder of StandardsWork, and David Liben, and Meredith Liben founders and directors of Reading Done Right.
In American middle schools, it's not enough to merely know how to read. Students are expected to understand, analyze, and make meaning from grade-level complex texts, which is only possible if they have the skills and knowledge to read well-fluently and with ease.

Yet nearly one in three U.S. eighth-graders reads below a basic level, including almost half of Black and Hispanic students. Most often, these students blame themselves for weak literacy skills and assume they just aren't as bright or talented as their classmates. Extra help that uses materials from elementary school does little to dispel the notion. And it denies students access to the sophisticated grade-level vocabulary and content that can help them catch up, a vicious cycle where students are forever left behind.

American educators need a better playbook to coach upper-level students up to grade level-one that seamlessly integrates within a mainstream classroom while exposing all students to appropriately rigorous content and ideas. It's never too late to learn how to read well, and it need not come at the expense of learning the knowledge and vocabulary they are expected to know by graduation.

Explicit strategies exist to improve the reading of upper-level students who are reading below grade level. We're not talking about remedial or pull-out programs, or placing students in lower-level courses or with lower-level texts. We're talking about strategies that can accelerate their learning and support them in benefitting from grade-level instruction alongside their peers, including tactics that use grade-level texts to teach foundational skills in individual or small-group extra-help sessions that are tightly integrated and overlap with tier-one content as the source of the extra student practice.

First, all effective literacy instruction should be embedded in a content-rich academic program that stimulates and sparks learning for all students. They maximize engagement, honor the intellect and maturity of older adolescent students, and allow for student choice and individualization. Then, within such a program, there are two evidence-based strategies that can accelerate development and build confidence so students not only read, but read well:

Strengthen decoding skills through grade-level instruction and texts

Promote fluency through interactive activities, including read-alouds and other oral extension activities

Use grade-level content to teach and practice decoding to achieve automatic word recognition
When a student first learns how to decode words in early elementary school, instruction in foundational skills is central and explicit and, over time, develops their ability to recognize words automatically, without effort. Upper-level students who haven't yet achieved automatic word recognition work harder than the typical student and progress more slowly through texts. Their brains are focused on decoding the words instead of interpreting their meaning. Comprehension is nearly impossible. They need additional explicit instruction to develop automatic word recognition, especially through decoding the multisyllabic words they'll frequently encounter in grade-level texts. It's where they most often stumble. Students need lots of practice breaking apart, blending, and accurately sounding out those complex words. But they also need that instruction incorporated into their ongoing grade-level learning where they remain in the classroom with their same-age peers, to gain and protect a sense of self as reader and learner.

Students can thrive when foundational skills instruction is incorporated into ongoing grade-level learning. While the instructional content needed for automatic word recognition is generally the same for upper-level and younger students, the instructional delivery methods, texts, and content should be adjusted to reflect students' maturity and the demands of secondary school. Evidence from the What Works Clearinghouse and a solid base of research point the way:

Teach simple and more advanced letter-sound combinations, building on what students already know and using words encountered in the core classroom materials. This work can be embedded seamlessly into any fluency or close reading activities.

Engage in regular morphology study, including but not limited to having students:

Read aloud a list of high-frequency prefixes and suffixes in unison, or by taking turns; optimally, these words should be selected from the core classroom readings

Underline prefixes and suffixes in a word list and then read them aloud in unison, or by taking turns

Circle root words and then read them aloud, slowly emphasizing each syllable in unison or by taking turns; then, blend the syllables and read normally in unison, or by taking turns

Write new words by adding a prefix and/or a suffix to base words

Embed spelling and vocabulary instruction in lessons to solidify students' understanding of letter-sound combinations that form words, including but not limited to having students:

Spell targeted prefixes and suffixes or sounds in dictated words, which should emerge from classroom readings

Spell multisyllabic words containing targeted spelling patterns and morphemes to review and reinforce learning, using words from content instruction as often as possible

Provide students with a research-based routine for decoding multisyllabic words, which should be from classroom materials whenever possible. This could include, but is not limited to, having students who need it:

Practice vowel combinations in multisyllabic words they encounter in a text or vocabulary list

Read aloud a list of words drawn from a lesson to a partner, noting any multisyllabic words they have difficulty reading; then, read the list to the partner a second time

Read aloud a list of up to 20 multisyllabic words drawn from the lesson in unison, or by taking turns (alternatively, the teacher can read first and then ask students to read next)

Using the same words as above, ask students to time themselves to see how they improve with repetition, making sure instructions call for students to alternate reading top to bottom and bottom to top to avoid memorization

Read aloud sentences containing multisyllabic words in unison or by taking turns (alternatively, the teacher reads first, and then students read next)

Build fluency with grade-level texts
Research shows dysfluency causes as much as 40 percent of the variance in students who pass tests versus those who fail in every testing grade through grade 12. Fluent readers can read sophisticated texts accurately and with expression relevant to their purpose. The expression and pace that work for informational texts are different from narratives. The tone and meaning of, for example, a historical document like the United States Constitution is different from Esperanza Rising or A Raisin in the Sun -all of which are commonly assigned in secondary school.

Upper-level students benefit from purposeful fluency-building activities using grade-level texts connected to the topics students are learning that build and depend on automatic word recognition. Teachers should build in flexible opportunities to repeat such activities. Students benefit from 15 to 20 minutes of reading practice daily to avoid dysfluency. The first read should be read for initial comprehension before they are used for fluency. Students also learn and master words and grow their fluency through repeated exposures to vocabulary and texts over time. Repetition also enhances another benefit of fluency work, by making core texts available to all students, irrespective of their current ability to access them independently. Research supports these strategies:

Engage in repeated readings of familiar grade-level text under timed conditions. This can improve students' fluency and, in the long run, their comprehension. Texts should not require great prosody (e.g., use informational texts on what a coastline is or a comparison between two planets). Make this a game-based learning exercise, such as class reading competitions and group challenges with points, badges, and prizes.

Repeat oral readings of the same text every day, but in a different way and for different purposes over several days. This reinforces proper pronunciation and phrasing, increases students' automaticity with words and phrases, and allows them to demonstrate their growing comprehension of the text. In addition, ask students to read the passage containing the words they are learning with a different emphasis (e.g., read for expression, read in voices).

Utilize repeated oral reading fluency protocols that successively provide more support for students, such as:

Whole-class choral reading - all students read the same text aloud with the teacher. Texts are drawn directly from the curriculum. This allows students to hear a model of prosodic reading from the teacher and receive immediate assistance pronouncing unfamiliar words and phrases. It also provides safe cover for readers who struggle, as individual students are not singled out.

Echo reading - the teacher reads a section of the text aloud, stops, and then students take turns reading the same section aloud. Echo reading is especially beneficial for insecure readers because it chunks passages for fluency practice.

Buddy reading - students take turns reading the text to each other and follow an established protocol for taking turns, proceeding when a student doesn't know a word, and supporting one another with positive feedback. It works best when less fluent readers are paired with more fluent classmates.

Establish Reader's Theatre, where students and the teacher "perform" a script as they read it aloud. This is a common instructional move in elementary grades, though less common in secondary. Readers' Theatre, by its nature, simultaneously develops comprehension, offers access for all, and is respectful and collaborative. Students do not need to memorize the script, though they should reread it to build familiarity with the language and attain proper expression and complete fluency.

No research can tell us how much repetition any one student needs, so teachers must determine what's appropriate. High-quality curricula can support them in doing this. The Knowledge Matters Campaign has recently added 6-8 exemplars to its Curriculum Directory, which includes a discussion of how these knowledge-rich programs support upper-level students when they are learning to read.
Serve as coach and cheerleader
To these well-established recommendations, we add one more suggestion: nurture students' efficacy and self-worth since spending years as dysfluent readers can be soul-crushing. Studies show that as early as 5th grade, struggling readers are "more likely to consider themselves angry, distractible, sad, lonely, and unpopular."

Teachers can help unwind these negative assumptions by articulating and reinforcing two big ideas:

First, students' cognitive capacities are not the reason they struggle to read; prior ineffective instructional approaches during their early years of schooling are to blame. Teaching students about the science of reading can help them understand why this is the case.

Second, ineffective instruction is why upper-level texts feel hard. Students who were denied the opportunity to master reading skills at a young age currently have smaller banks of vocabulary and knowledge to call on to understand texts. The work they are being asked to do can get them where they can and should be.

The activities and approaches outlined above are only a sample of the successful approaches research has shown to be effective with upper-level students who are struggling to read. To gain a sense of the full range of these activities, why they are effective, and which ones would fit best into your instructional context, we recommend consulting the many studies linked.

Learning to read well is not easy, and too many students have been poorly supported in their efforts for too long. But with candor, encouragement, and evidence-based instruction, educators can accelerate all students to realize their potential.

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No Statute of Limitations on Learning to Read Well: What do Upper-Level Students Need When They Are Struggling to Read?

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With candor, encouragement, and evidence-based instruction, educators can help all students realize their potential.

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Useful set of ground rules for discussing a text in a collaborative space.

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The Strategy:

Golden lines are an opportunity for each reader to share their learning from the text. It allows readers to collaborate and share their own learning and knowledge.

A golden line can be a line from the text that:

•raises questions for you

•confirms what you already believe

•makes you say aha

•conflicts with your beliefs

•causes you to reconsider prior assumptions

We will use this strategy at the beginning of every book study session moving forward - sometimes we will do breakout rooms like we did this evening, sometimes we will use chat.

So come ready with 2 golden lines from the chapter each week!

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Use this padlet each week to share your golden lines - feel free to add them before the session and throughout the week! Make sure to include page numbers so your colleagues can find them. By the end of the book study, we will have a valuable collection of important lines!

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Make sure you register for ALL of the sessions!

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Make sure you register for ALL of the sessions!

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Each session is worth 2 hours of PD. Make sure you register for each session to get the credit.

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Arizona Professional Learning and Development

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Chapter 2 Highlights: Middle Grades Literacy Intervention, "North Star Principles"

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Chapter 2 Highlights: Middle Grades Literacy Intervention, "North Star Principles"

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North Star Principles

McKenna, Stahl, Flanigan Cognitive Model - when to teach the "what"

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literacy interventions north star guiding principles

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Pg. 15

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adolescent reading theoretical model (2)

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"For adolescents, literacy is more than reading and writing. It involves purposeful social and cognitive processes. It helps individuals discover ideas and make meaning." - National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)

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Adolescent Literacy Resources Compiled by the Reading League

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Adolescent Literacy Resources Compiled by the Reading League

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Discover resources and information for a schoolwide approach to instruction and intervention for older readers.

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Routinely use a set of comprehension-building practices to help students make sense of the text

Part 3A. Build students' world and word knowledge so they can make sense of the text

Part 3B. Consistently provide students with opportunities to ask and answer questions to better understand the text they read

Part 3C. Teach students a routine for determining the gist of a short section of text

Part 3D. Teach students to monitor their comprehension as they read

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reading intervention; reading instruction; literacy; reading difficulties; reading disabilities; comprehension; fluency; decoding; comprehension monitoring; world knowledge; word knowledge; vocabulary; stretch text; grade 4; grade 5; grade 6; grade 7; grade 8; grade 9

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WWC | Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4-9

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Routinely use a set of comprehension-building practices to help students make sense of the text Part 3A. Build students' world and word knowledge so they can make sense of the text Part 3B. Consistently provide students with opportunities to ask and answer questions to better understand the text they read Part 3C.

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Secondary Striving Readers: Diagnose and Intervene

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Secondary Striving Readers: Diagnose and Intervene

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This session will be offered virtually throughout the SY24-25 School Year. Visit APLD and use search term "secondary ela" to find the latest offering.

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Chapter 3 Highlights: Start with Assessments

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Chapter 3 Highlights: Start with Assessments

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Matching assessment to purpose

Assessment flowchart

Selecting a pathway

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Breakout Rooms: Thinking About Your School’s Assessment Cycle

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Breakout Rooms: Thinking About Your School’s Assessment Cycle

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Helpful infographic - assessment types in reading (REL SE)

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Helpful infographic - assessment types in reading (REL SE)

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Adolescent Literacy Tips for Screening and Assessment (FCRR)

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Adolescent Literacy Tips for Screening and Assessment (FCRR)

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A TON of Screening and Diagnostic Resources from my "Secondary Diagnose and Intervene" session

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A TON of Screening and Diagnostic Resources from my "Secondary Diagnose and Intervene" session

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Multisyllabic Word Routines from IES guide

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Multisyllabic Word Routines from IES guide

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Refer to Decoding Column

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Can Scarborough's Reading Rope Transform the Approach to Literacy Instruction?

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Can Scarborough's Reading Rope Transform the Approach to Literacy Instruction?

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The Upper Strands

Background Knowledge

Background knowledge is an essential component in learning because it helps us make sense of new ideas and experiences. Readers rely on background knowledge to attend to and make sense of what they are reading. This is especially important for readers who are still relying heavily on word decoding rather than rapid word recognition. Having knowledge about a variety of subjects, topics, and ideas makes it more likely that they will be able to make sense of what they are reading and more likely that they will add to their body of knowledge.

Vocabulary

An extensive and rich vocabulary enables readers to make sense of what they are reading. A reader with rich auditory and oral vocabularies will find it easier to read through texts that contain words they have not seen in print before. If the student can use their growing decoding skills and match their result with a word they already know the meaning of, they will be more confident in their abilities and will spend less overall effort on reading a text.

Language Structures

Syntax - The arrangement of words in a phrase or sentence. The English language has patterns and rules for the way we order our words. It also has some flexibility and variety in acceptable patterns, and even then, speakers and writers are allowed some leeway with these patterns.

Semantics - In linguistics, semantics is the study of the meanings of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences. Knowledge of the meaning of a text is essential to reading.

Verbal Reasoning

Inference - a conclusion one can draw from known facts or evidence.

Metaphor - a word or phrase used to say that something is another thing in order to suggest that they are similar.

Literary Knowledge

Print Concepts - letters vs. words, 1:1 correspondence, reading left-to-right and top-to-bottom, spaces between written words, letter order matters, etc.

Genres of Literature - different types of books or stories defined by special characteristics.

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Can Scarborough's Reading Rope Transform the Approach to Literacy Instruction?

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The Science of Reading uncovers the intricate ways that our brains learn to read. Scarborough's Reading Rope is one of the most approachable ways to better understand the complex processes of what is happening in our brains as we are learning to read.

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Article from The Reading League: "Navigating Literacy Landscapes Within One District: Tailoring Word Recognition Instruction for Secondary Settings"

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Article from The Reading League: "Navigating Literacy Landscapes Within One District: Tailoring Word Recognition Instruction for Secondary Settings"

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Keys to Literacy - Morphology to Teach Vocabulary

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Keys to Literacy - Morphology to Teach Vocabulary

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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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Adolescents who lack advanced word-level skills often have difficulty decoding multisyllabic and unusual words, difficulty reading and writing words that have irregular spellings, and less developed vocabulary knowledge. Luckily, targeted instruction can help!

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Familiarity with Greek and Latin roots, as well as prefixes and suffixes, can help students understand the meaning of new words. This article includes many of the most common examples.

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Chapter 5 Highlights: Building Fluency with Aliyah

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Chapter 5 Highlights: Building Fluency with Aliyah

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Using data to inform Aliyah's intervention plan for fluency

Effective interventions for fluency instruction

Repeated reading, prosody instruction, partner reading, whisper reading

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Refer to Fluency Column

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Whisper Reading: What It Is and How It Works

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Lean in close and learn how whisper reading and whisper phones can help your child build reading skills. See how to make a DIY whisper phone.

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Webinar: Foundational Skills for Adolescent Readers

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Webinar: Foundational Skills for Adolescent Readers

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Teaching Foundational Skills to Adolescent Readers

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Storytelling as Instruction: Using Read-Alouds and Discussion Structures to Build Comprehension

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Storytelling as Instruction: Using Read-Alouds and Discussion Structures to Build Comprehension

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Chapter 6 Highlights: Building Vocabulary with Zach

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Chapter 6 Highlights: Building Vocabulary with Zach

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Using data to inform Zach's intervention plan for vocabulary building

How/Why Vocabulary Affects Comprehension

7 Principles of Effective Vocabulary Instruction

More about Morphology

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Support for Language Comprehension Strands:

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Support for Language Comprehension Strands:

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Refer to Word and World Knowledge column

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Effective Vocabulary Instruction by Joan Sedita

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Effective Vocabulary Instruction by Joan Sedita

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This activity is called a Dale Scale.

Some words to try it with: https://leverageedu.com/blog/50-difficult-words-with-meanings/

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Teaching vocabulary is complex. What words are important for a child to know and in what context? In this excerpt from Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, the authors consider what principles might be used for selecting which words to explicitly teach.

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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English | LDOCE

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Longman English Dictionary - the leading dictionary for learners of English of all levels: definitions, idioms, examples and more.

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This was taken from Dr. Averil Coxhead's work on Vocabulary at the following link: Vocabulary Tiers and Samples Common Core Vocabul...

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Creating a Word Conscious Classroom - Keys to Literacy

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Want to motivate students to read and build their vocabulary? Ignite word learning in your classroom.

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Developing a Love of Words — Literacy Junkie

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Education has over 100 years of studies showing students having difficulties with word knowledge and word relationships beginning with Thorndike (1917) and Davis (1944). In 1950, Kottmyer wrote about teachers having “vexing problems” with vocabulary instruction.

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Familiarity with Greek and Latin roots, as well as prefixes and suffixes, can help students understand the meaning of new words. This article includes many of the most common examples.

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Check out the Social Studies Standards Guidance documents here: https://www.azed.gov/standards-practices/k-12standards/standards-social-studies

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Chapter 7 Highlights: Building Comprehension with Zach

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Chapter 7 Highlights: Building Comprehension with Zach

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Using data to inform Zach's intervention plan for comprehension building

What Research Says about Comprehension Instruction

Before, During, & After Framework

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Support for Language Comprehension Strands:

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Support for Language Comprehension Strands:

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Research: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB8024.html

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What Is Background Knowledge, and How Does It Fit Into the Science of Reading?

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What Is Background Knowledge, and How Does It Fit Into the Science of Reading?

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What Is Background Knowledge, and How Does It Fit Into the Science of Reading?

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What a greater focus on content could mean for reading instruction.

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Comprehension Strategy Key Element -Shanahan

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Comprehension Strategy Key Element -Shanahan

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I was observing writing instruction in an 8 th grade suburban classroom. The experienced teacher was quite skilled and he both managed his classroom well and was sophisticated in his ability to interpret literary text and to engage students in reading that penetrated deeply into the meaning of the text.

On this day his lesson focused providing students with tools that would overcome writing blocks. His students often struggled to figure out what to write about; they agonized when given a writing assignment. He demonstrated his strategy and directed the students to give it a try.

One especially bright young man towards the back of the room was being a pain and I was trying to get him engaged. He was refusing to do as the teacher asked and was being confrontational about it.

But as I listened to his complaint, I came to see he was right. He knew what he was talking about. The day's lesson plan wasn't terrible, it had just missed the mark in an important way.

As I thought about it, it became clear to me that strategy lessons were often ruined by the same omission. Although this lesson was on writing, it could have easily been reading comprehension strategy instruction. No wonder so few kids actually use the strategies we teach.

What is a strategy?

According to the International Literacy Association, a strategy is a "systematic plan, consciously adopted, adapted, and monitored, to improve one's performance in learning." That's pretty good. Their notion of metacognition, a related idea, also seems to be on point: "Awareness and knowledge of one's mental processes that allow one to monitor, regulate, and direct self to a desired end."

One key part of these definitions is the idea that strategies are always goal directed. That's what the "improve one's learning performance" or "desired end" are about. If we are trying to understand something or trying to communicate something and we want to succeed, we should take steps towards those goals. Strategies are goal directed efforts.

Sometimes that goal-directed bit is where strategy instruction goes bust - though that was not the problem raised by my obstreperous middle schooler.

Students may blow them off strategy use because they either aren't goal directed or they simply have different goals. The student's real goal might be something like, "I want to get this assignment done as fast as possible." If higher comprehension isn't their goal, then they won't use strategies aimed at slowing them down and making them think.

Another key feature of strategies is their intentional quality ("consciously adopted," "awareness and knowledge of one's mental processes"). Strategies aren't automatic. We have a goal we want to accomplish, so we come up a plan for accomplishing it. There is a plethora of strategies, so strategy use requires intentional choice.

In this middle school class, the teacher had the kids identify a couple of words (I came up with "hair" and "lake"). Then they were to brainstorm ideas that were connected to each word and to do this until they saw a connection between the two original words. I ended up remembering an event in my life where I had to shampoo my hair in Lake Michigan (brrrrr!). Another possibility that I often use when I'm stuck is not to write the piece I'm trying to write, but to write a letter to someone that explains what I'm trying to write. Hemingway was known to engage in non-stop writing, just doing a brain dump on paper until he found his way.

You want to write something, and you can't get going, any those strategies can be quite successful... and yetl Mr. I'm Not Going to Do It wouldn't play along.

Why not?

Because he didn't need the strategy.

Remember, strategies are about intentionally trying to accomplish goals.

If you can accomplish your goal satisfactorily without a strategy, then why bother?

That was what that middle-schooler explained to me: "I think about what I want to write about. Then I make up two words. I brainstorm other words for a few minutes until I connect them so I can write about what I already decided to write about."

Strategies help us to surmount barriers. He was a prolific youngster and had no problem coming up with a writing idea. Pretending to have a problem so he could practice solving it seemed dumb to him and he didn't want to do that. He wanted to write.

You might think that is a rare circumstance, but it isn't.

Most reading programs recommend placing students in texts that they can read with 75-89% comprehension - a level of success good enough for most circumstances (including for showing the teacher that you understood the text by answering her questions). The students - by design - are able to read these texts with comprehension. But these are what are used for strategy teaching.

Most kids won't buck the order of the day by refusing to pretend to use the strategies.

They'll go through the motions, doing the required activity, but it won't be connected to accomplishing any goal - since the strategy wasn't actually necessary.

Strategy use only makes sense when success isn't certain.

Teaching students to use strategies with relatively easy texts neither lets them see how to use the strategy nor reveals to them the power that it can provide.

Many times, I've heard P. David Pearson talk about starting strategy off with an easy text that students can already read well... it allows the teacher to demonstrate the steps of the strategy clearly. I have no problem with that. At that point, strategy lessons should focus not on texts that students can read well, but on texts that they can't.

Strategy instruction is one of those scaffolds that we teach to enable students to read complex text. Let's stop pretending, and place students in reading situations in which strategies can really help.

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Comprehension Strategy Key Element | Shanahan on Literacy

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I was observing writing instruction in an 8 th grade suburban classroom. The experienced teacher was quite skilled and he both managed his classroom well and was sophisticated in his ability to interpret literary text and to engage students in reading that penetrated deeply into the meaning of the text.

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Will, Thrill, and Skill of Comprehension - Fisher and Frey

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Will, Thrill, and Skill of Comprehension - Fisher and Frey

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Helping students make meaning from texts is critical to their success, and reading comprehension is one of the oldest lines of inquiry in education. Way back in the early 20th century, Thorndike noted that comprehension requires "a cooperation of many forces" (1917, p. 232). Following a thorough review of research, Snow (2002) later clarified those forces and noted that comprehension is dependent on four variables: (1) reader variables (age, ability, affect, knowledge base, and motivation); (2) text variables (genre, format, features, and considerateness); (3) educational-context variables (environment, task, social grouping, and purpose); and (4) teacher variables (knowledge, experience, attitude, and pedagogical approach).

Unfortunately, however, models for helping teachers develop students' comprehension have not kept pace with the knowledge about what comprehension is. While there are strategies, such as modeling or reciprocal teaching, a unifying framework for reading comprehension instruction remains elusive. The education field needs a structured approach to comprehension instruction.

Hattie and Donoghue (2016) suggested instructional strategies could be organized along a continuum of skill, will, and thrill, which sparked our thinking about reading. These three phases also apply to students' improved reading comprehension. When students do all of these, they come to see the instructional experiences their teachers provide them as purposeful. Importantly, they begin to accept responsibility for their learning and understand that struggle is a natural part of the process.

In this first phase of instruction, teachers focus on the component parts of reading-oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and fluency. These components are formulated according to the age and needs of students, with the need fading for some skills instruction as students master them. However, neglecting any one of these processes will very likely result in compromised comprehension. If a student is laboring over individual words, whether because she can't decode them or because she doesn't know what they mean, meaning making is harder and sometimes impossible. When students read laboriously, they rarely pay attention to the meaning and often forget what they read at the start of the sentence or paragraph. Comprehension suffers.

We want students to evolve from strategic readers to skilled ones. As Afflerbach, Pearson, and Paris (2008) note, "Reading skills operate without the reader's deliberate control or conscious awareness ... [t]his has important, positive consequences for each reader's limited working memory" (p. 368).

Strategies, on the other hand, are "effortful and deliberate" and occur during initial learning, and when the text becomes more difficult for the reader to understand (p. 369). At the skill level, specific comprehension strategies can be introduced, such as monitoring, predicting, summarizing, questioning, and inferring. Noticing when meaning is lost is a useful skill, especially when the reader has fix-up strategies such as rereading, revisiting the purpose for reading, using context clues, talking with others, or formulating questions. Similarly, summarizing information in a text, asking questions during reading, and making inferences will likely improve a reader's comprehension of a text.

Notably, comprehension strategies cannot compensate for lack of background knowledge or vocabulary. Imagine trying to predict or visualize while reading the following sentence from a physics textbook: "Plane potential flow supplemented by the inclusion of circulation is of considerable practical importance" (Joos, 1986, p. 207). You can probably decode all the words and read it fluently. You likely even know the general meaning of the vocabulary. But without the knowledge of the discipline, true meaning is elusive, and not even a whole host of comprehension strategies will help.

Two effective instructional approaches that can help with this background knowledge and vocabulary issue are direct instruction and teacher modeling. Despite some negative perceptions about direct instruction, there is evidence of its influence on learning (Hattie, 2012). Direct instruction is not simply telling students what to do or think but rather is an explicit approach to guiding student thinking. For example, the teacher might directly teach the meaning of key vocabulary terms and have students practice those word meanings. The technique requires that teachers provide students with input and then guide their practice, check for understanding, and have students practice independently.

Teacher modeling using a think-aloud process is another effective instructional approach for developing students' skills (Fisher, Frey, & Lapp, 2011). Teachers verbalize their expert thinking such that students can imitate similar cognitive and metacognitive actions. It is an apprenticeship technique in which students learn to approximate the actions of another more skilled person. For example, a teacher might say:

I've noticed that I'm not really understanding this paragraph. I think that I'll go back to reread because it might be that I lost focus and wasn't paying attention. If that doesn't work, then I think I'll focus on the words that are confusing to me.

The teacher then proceeds to demonstrate exactly that. In turn, students apply the same strategies to a similarly complex text to support their own understanding.

Unfortunately, many students are left at the skill level of learning. Reading comprehension appears to them as a set of skills they must mobilize to understand a text. However, we argue that the skills alone are insufficient. To develop strong readers who choose to read and learn from texts, skill must be coupled with will.

The will level of reading comprehension focuses on students' mind-sets about reading. These approaches invite students to engage more fully with texts and attempt to create the mental attitude, inclination, habit, or disposition that predetermines their willingness to engage in reading. In other words, the will of comprehension relates to student engagement and motivation to read and understand.

Far too often, students abandon reading when the text is complex. A common misconception is that reading should always be easy, and struggle must be avoided. In fact, productive failure is widely understood as a necessary component of the problem-solving process. And reading is problem solving. There are times when we grapple with ideas and persevere to make sense. That is not to say that 1st graders should be reading War and Peace, but rather that struggle should be seen as natural, and that sometimes the texts we read are challenging. Overcoming appropriately challenging tasks fuels a sense of pride and accomplishment, important ingredients in motivation.

Challenge is crucial for goal setting, which is itself a powerful influence on learning. But all goals are not created equally. Mastery goals are focused on increasing competence ("I want to learn to speak Mandarin"), whereas performance goals are focused on the grade for the assessment ("I want to get an A in my Mandarin course"). Performance goals are much less motivating, whereas helping students establish mastery goals can positively impact their will. For example, getting a good grade on an essay (a performance goal) is not likely to increase a student's will to read, but writing a clear and coherent essay that persuades others might serve to increase motivation and engagement (it is also likely to result in a good grade). We have seen students set mastery goals to understand an Emily Brontë novel ("My goal is to understand the ways the author uses the unreliable narrator device in Wuthering Heights") and with science texts ("My goal is to use the information in the main part of the article with what's listed in the diagrams"). But students don't independently generate mastery goals like these-they are the product of success criteria developed by the teacher. Mastery goals that illustrate the criteria for success in the lesson illuminate the incremental progress students are making in their learning.

Another dimension of will in reading comprehension is providing choice. There is nothing wrong with studying particular texts in class, but if you can increase students' choice about which texts to read, you will increase the number of students who actually do the reading. Instead of sending students home to read the whole-class novel, focus on a genre, topic, or theme and create a list of 10 titles that will allow students to master the standards. Then have them select the one they are most interested in. Book clubs and literature circles also work well. Students can choose from a list of possible titles and meet regularly in small groups with fellow readers to discuss their selected book. Students are more likely to engage in the reading if they know that they will have opportunities to talk with peers during class about the text.

Finally, to increase will, ensure that students' learning is relevant. When students understand why they are reading something (and accept the challenge of learning), they are more likely to put forth the effort. Teachers should make connections between the content and the ways that students will use the information inside and outside the classroom. For example, the students in Brandy Ziegler's middle school science class knew that they would use the information they were reading in in their English class to write letters to elected officials about water pollution. In addition, teachers can increase relevance by ensuring that the texts they select honor the range of life experiences, interests, and aspirations of students.

The final phase of our framework focuses on the excitement that students should experience when they comprehend a text. Thrill in this context refers to the ways that students can use the information or the experience of reading and comprehending in service of something else. We discovered this phase when we started asking students, "What does the text inspire you to do?"

Consider the group of kindergarten students who read The Day the Crayons Quit (Daywalt, 2013) with their teacher. This picture book follows the perspectives of different characters, all crayons. Following several readings of the text over the week, the teacher asked the students what they were inspired to do or what they were curious about after finishing the book. One group of students decided to search the internet to figure out the correct color of the Sun (the picture book includes a debate about this). Another group wanted to know if the author had written other books (he had not at the time) and went on a search for additional books about crayons specifically and art in general. Still another group decided to write their own books about what their crayons would say. And one student wrote a book about what her shoes might argue about. Each student was inspired, but not in the same way as their peers. This served to reinforce the idea that reading allows you to do something with the ideas that you gain from the experience.

Students need to experience the thrill of comprehension if they are to accept the challenge of developing their skills and putting forth the will to understand. Richard Anderson, a pioneer in reading research, recently argued that we needed new metaphors for the purpose, or thrill, of reading. He said that students should be speaking, thinking, and taking action and argued that the new roles might be of storyteller, explainer, or arguer.

Imagine the power of writing reviews rather than book reports. Or the impact of presenting information to others and seeing something change. Or debating ideas or engaging in a Socratic seminar. There are many ways that students can be invited into the thrill of comprehension. But all of them involve students becoming producers and sharing their thinking with others.

Simply comprehending a text is not the point of comprehension instruction. Too often, educators seem to be stuck at the skill level, working very hard to develop students' strengths in this area and forgetting to introduce joy, curiosity, and purpose into the experience. A more comprehensive framework for comprehension instruction recognizes that skills are not enough. Ultimately, we must show students that reading, and reading comprehension, are not passive experiences. The point of this work is to do something with the information. When the skill, will, and thrill of reading are all developed together, educators can radically change students' learning from texts.

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The Skill, Will, and Thrill of Reading Comprehension

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A three-pronged framework can help students not only learn meaning of texts, but also gain motivation and purpose from them.

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There's been a lot of concern about phonics instruction in recent months, sparked by an illuminating new audio documentary. But there's another aspect of reading-comprehension-that is equally crucial, and teacher training in that area is even more problematic.

As the documentary details, many teachers-and professors of education-are unfamiliar with the overwhelming evidence that systematic phonics is the most effective way to teach children how to decode written language. While there's been some pushback, quite a few teachers who have listened to the documentary or an accompanying piece on NPR-or read the New York Times op-ed by the documentary's producer, Emily Hanford- have expressed dismay that they were never given this information as part of their training.

But there's been little discussion of the even more widespread problems with training in comprehension instruction. True, compared to phonics, teacher-education programs are more likely to say they cover reading comprehension. But what prospective teachers learn about comprehension in those courses is dangerously inaccurate.

One reason is the influential 2001 report of the National Reading Panel. The report endorsed five "pillars" of reading instruction, including phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, and vocabulary. The fifth pillar was instruction in strategies designed to boost comprehension, such as learning to summarize or make a graphic representation of a text. While many educators challenged the report's findings on phonics, they embraced its endorsement of comprehension strategies. In 2006, only 15% of teacher-training programs taught comprehension. Ten years later that figure to 75%. In contrast, only 62% said they covered phonics, and only 37% appear to cover all five "pillars."

What the report failed to mention was the strong evidence showing that the most important factor in comprehension isn't mastering strategies: it's how much knowledge a reader has of the topic. In one widely replicated experiment, students who scored poorly on a reading test but knew a lot about baseball outperformed "good readers" who knew little about baseball-when the reading passage was about baseball. In fact, the comprehension strategies endorsed by the panel all rely on activating prior knowledge-which means they only work if a reader has enough background knowledge to understand the text in the first place. But that's one of many things prospective teachers never learn.

In a typical comprehension lesson, a teacher focuses on a supposed skill or strategy, like making inferences or determining an author's purpose. But most of the things teachers spend hours on every week were never endorsed by the National Reading Panel and have little or no data behind them. As reading expert Tim Shanahan has observed, teaching such "skills" is like pushing the elevator button twice: it might make you feel better, but it won't make the elevator come any faster.

Even when teachers focus on a strategy that is backed by evidence, they don't implement it in the way supported by research. Rather than putting a difficult text in the foreground and modeling whatever strategies might help students extract its meaning, teachers put a strategy in the foreground and choose simple texts that lend themselves to demonstrating it, without regard to their topics. And they teach comprehension day after day, year after year-sometimes through high school. But studies have shown that after only two weeks of strategy instruction, students stop getting benefits.

After the teacher explains a comprehension "skill," students go off to practice it on books at their supposed individual reading levels-easy enough for them to read on their own or with minimal help. But there's no evidence that this system of leveled reading boosts comprehension, and studies have found that kids can learn more from a text above their supposed level-if a teacher helps them understand it. Plus, leveled reading does little to build knowledge, a process that generally requires staying on the same topic for at least a couple of weeks. As with the texts teachers use to model "skills," the books children use to practice them aren't organized by topic.

Another pervasive and dangerous misconception is the belief that students need to learn to read before they can "read to learn"-that is, before they can start acquiring knowledge of the world, through their own reading. As a result of this assumption, the elementary curriculum has long been heavily weighted toward reading. That has become even more true in recent decades, due to the advent of high-stakes testing in reading and math. Especially in schools where test scores are low, subjects like history, science, and the arts have been squeezed out of the curriculum, sometimes through middle school.

But the idea that kids don't need to acquire knowledge until after they've learned to read ignores the fact that gaining knowledge is part of learning to read-or learning to understand what you read. Even while they're learning to decode, children need to listen to adults reading aloud from sophisticated, knowledge-rich text. Otherwise, they'll lack the knowledge and vocabulary that will equip them to understand that kind of text once they're able to decode it themselves. As any parent knows, children can take in far more sophisticated concepts and language through listening than through their own reading. That remains true, on average, through middle school. And the longer we wait to start building kids' knowledge, the harder it becomes to close gaps between those lucky enough to acquire knowledge outside school and their less fortunate peers.

In most places, the advent of the Common Core State Standards has only made things worse. Previously, elementary students got a steady diet of fiction. In an effort to build knowledge, the standards have called for at least 50% of their reading to be nonfiction. Most teachers, however, have continued to focus on skills, adding new "nonfiction skills" like identifying different "text structures." But nonfiction assumes more background knowledge than fiction. It's one thing to make an inference about a fictional character's thoughts, based on your knowledge of human nature. It's quite another to make an inference about, say, Brazil if you've never even heard of the place.

Still, there are signs things are changing. Just a few years ago, there were no elementary literacy curricula designed to build students' knowledge. Now there are several-and two large urban districts, and , have each started implementing one, while the state of Louisiana has been encouraging their adoption.

Ideally, prospective teachers will start getting accurate information about reading comprehension during their training. But that may not happen anytime soon. Education schools have historically been disconnected from scientific research on the learning process; their lack of interest in or familiarity with phonics is only one example. The good news is that even once they're on the job, teachers can learn how to provide students not only with the skills they need to decode words but also with the knowledge that can unlock their meaning.

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Why We're Teaching Reading Comprehension In A Way That Doesn't Work

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There's been a lot of concern about phonics instruction in recent months, sparked by an illuminating new audio documentary. But there's another aspect of reading-comprehension-that is equally crucial, and teacher training in that area is even more problematic.

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Shanahan - https://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/comprehension-instruction-that-really-helps-teaching-cohesion

Wexler's response -

https://nataliewexler.substack.com/p/no-teacher-dont-have-to-choose-between

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How are two or more concepts or words connected? Concept maps make the web of connections between words and ideas come into focus by visually representing their relationship with one another. Better yet, they are easy to use across disciplines as a way to organizing students' growing knowledge.

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Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA)

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The Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) is a strategy that guides students in asking questions about a text, making predictions, and then reading to confirm or refute their predictions. The DRTA process encourages students to be active and thoughtful readers, enhancing their comprehension.