There are many things that I have learned during this course that will help me become a better Language Arts and reading teacher. I never knew how reading worked as a mental process, and to be honest, I never really thought about it. I now understand how many systems work together to form a very complex reading process. I find it all fascinating. I teach sixth grade children who mostly have comprehension and reading rate issues. When I encounter students that have other reading issues I do not know what is wrong or how to fix the problem, nor do I have the time to address their problems individually. I am trying to teach them how to move from “learning to read” to “reading to learn”. And those that have serious reading issues are beginning to learn how to compensate. After reading numerous research articles, I have found ways to determine areas of weakness and can begin to help my struggling readers.
One article which influenced my thinking and inspired many connections was Marilyn Jager Adams’s Reading System Model.This model compares the reading process to the mechanics of a car. There are four processors in her model- orthographic, phonological, meaning, and context. These components work simultaneously to help a student read the words in the text;similarly, a car cannot run without all parts working together.The orthographic processor examines printed letters on the page and recognizes each symbol as a letter, then processes the letter order, and breaks the word into syllables. The phonological processor takes the printed word and turns it into a sound through oral speech. The function of the meaning processor is so the reader can obtain new word meanings through context, use derivational meanings and affixes to expand vocabulary, and use direct vocabulary instruction to acquire meanings of new words. The context processor uses the context of the whole sentence to understand words that are unfamiliar to readers. Adams’s theorymaintains if one part breaks then the whole process becomes slow and hampered, much like the functions of an automobile. If the brain is spending too much active attention with one processor, then reading fluency slows and comprehension is compromised. When the four processors work together reading becomes fluent and comprehension is established. The processors are simultaneously transferring information to and from all subcomponents. Vocabulary and fluency improvement comes when children read on their instructional reading level, which is crucial when teaching children who are below grade level. As educators, we must adjust our instruction to ensure reading success for each student. If we are teaching them above their reading level, they are only frustrated and not progressing.
According to Ehri’s Word Identity Amalgamation Theory, readers must learn how to take what they know through speech and partner it with printed form. Like Adams, Ehri believes that word recognition is a process involving multiple components- phonological identities, syntactic identities, and semantic identities. She believes that when these separate identities are combined, or amalgamated, they form one unit in a reader’s memory.
According to Ehri, “the major problem facing beginning readers is not phonemic awarenessbut grapho-phonemic awareness – that is, how to match up graphemes in the spellings of words to phonemes in their pronunciations.” I think her research in this area and the subsequent findings are on target. She proposes that readers form connections between the spellings of individual words and their pronunciations. The connections are formed out of readers’ knowledgeof grapheme-phoneme correspondences. The idea is that readers remember how to read a specific word by interpreting graphemes they see in its spelling as symbols for phonemes they detect in its pronunciation. Connections are formed between the two, are stored in memory, and are accessed to read the word the next time it is seen. The key point is that general grapheme-phoneme knowledge provides readers with a powerful mnemonic system that bonds the spellings of individual words to their pronunciations in memory.
Charles Perfetti also has a verbal efficiency theory, which he believes like Adams and Ehri that reading involves an interconnected system of processes- orthographic, phonological, and semantic-syntactic components. He feels that the more automatic or efficient that lower level processes occur, then more active attention is allocated to higher order process like construction of sentences and meanings of words in context. Perfetti believes readers who suffer from poor comprehension fail to construct meaning from what they are reading because they are not skilled in the basic linguistic abilities such as word identification. However, good reading comprehenders, those who have developed good word decoding skills, are able to quickly and fluently read texts.
Fluency is a problem with many of my students. I loved doing Timed Repeated Readings during the summer practicum, and my student liked seeing how the graph changed over time. I think I could easily replicate this process in my classroom as a partner activity. I could pass out leveled reading to the students, put a stopwatch on the SMARTboard, and have the kids listen to each other read. They could then graph their progress and switch. This would not take a lot of time and be easy to manage in a whole group. There are many other techniques I can use to build fluency in my class. Students could partner read, echo read, or we can share the reading.
Daneman and Carpenter also looked at what good readers do versus poor readers in relation to working memory. Daneman and Carpenter believe that the more efficient and quick the reading processes are the better a reader is to retain previously read material. They found that good readers require fewer processors than poor readers. The good readers are able to do things, like break words into syllable and use context to determine meaning, without thought unlike poor readers. Better readers are also faster at processing information because they have free attention to devote to understanding the text. In their study they looked at working memory and discourse level processors. Their study had students reading passages where they had to determine the antecedent of a pronoun where the pronoun and antecedent were separated by extraneous sentences. Their findings revealed that readers with larger working memories performed better than readers with smaller working spans. All readers did better when there were fewer sentences that separated the antecedent and the pronoun.
I love using Reader’s Theater in my class. The kids seem to like it too. I’ve had students transform fables into RT scripts and perform for the class. I think I can carry this into other forms of text as well. They like to read their own writings for the class, so I’m sure I could get them to perform poetry, drama, and other works of literature. By allowing students to read the same selection multiple times, they are learning to process information more quickly and using their working memory to store information for subsequent readings.
Comprehension is a big problem for many students. I find that they get stuck on small ideas and fail to see the big picture or make connections. To improve comprehension I love whole group and small group discussion with guiding questions. DRTA is a good example of how to come up with questions that guide the student through the reading. Once you take the time to make one, all you have to do is tweak it and reuse it year after year. It is a manageable amount of work that would yield big outcomes. I think by using this type of questioning technique, rather than basic recall questions, students begin to think more about the text and that transfers to their own free reading. They are learning to ask their own questions while reading, a compensatory mechanism to help struggling readers. They learn that reading is not just looking at words on a page, but stories that can take them on journeys.
Joshi has completed several studies which lead him to believe that fluency needs to be a component added to his Simple View model of reading. For years researchers have proposed that decoding and comprehension are crucial to reading and work together in order for reading to occur. Joshi finds vocabulary has an important role to play in reading as well. He believes that vocabulary is a subcomponent of comprehension.Research shows that not understanding vocabulary in the text can deeply impact the comprehension of the reading. Students who are reading more and at higher grade levels tend to have a more developed vocabulary because of the rich language they are exposed to in the books that they are reading as well as conversations with others. However, poor readers who read on their level are not exposed to that rich vocabulary, but instead a more simple vocabulary which does not allow them to expand their word knowledge. This relates back to Stanovich’s Matthew Effect in which the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer. Because the good readers are developing their vocabularies at a quick rate due to the material they are reading, they are becoming better readers. Poorer readers struggle with difficult and advanced vocabulary because they can’t glean meaning form the context and they become confused which slows comprehension and fluency.
There are two sixth grade Language Arts teachers at my school, and the biggest obstacle for me is trying to get the other teacher on board with my ideas. We use Wordly Wise for vocabulary instruction during the school year. I like this program because it involves many useful elements: a non-fiction passage with comprehension questions, roots and affixes, synonyms, antonyms, and using words in context for example. As I’ve used word sorts for older students, however, I begin to question the use of Wordly Wise and isolated vocabulary instruction. The issue I am now having is with the vocabulary words. We use these words for a weekly spelling test as well. But they are random words with no identifiable patterns. So why couldn’t I do a spelling assessment and use workable and meaningful word sorts for the spelling portion of my instruction? I think I can. By using my own word sorts I could show the students that there are patterns in our language. They can learn roots and affixes which will help them decode unfamiliar words they meet in text. It would be a lot of work, but I could create the same type of lesson with my own words as there is in the Wordly Wise book. The students could work with word cards, play games, quiz each other, and take a spelling test on Friday.
As a middle school teacher I found Walczyk’s article on compensatory mechanisms very helpful. Compensatory mechanisms are tools readers use to deal with inefficiencies while reading. These tools could be reading slower, rereading specific sections for understanding, or pausing to reflect or ask questions to construct meaning. Adams and Walczykhave similar thoughts on the reading process. Adams believes several processors are at work simultaneously to read words, construct meaning, and comprehend text. Walczykhas similar ideas in that compensatory mechanisms are at work during the reading process. Readers unintentionally use these mechanisms to read words, construct meaning, and comprehend text. Both theories involve multi-components working together simultaneously.
Dr. Morris’s article, Building Reading Fluency in a Disabled Middle-School Reader, also offered a lot of insight into reading development and how to help struggling readers as they get older. In the article, the student was fortunate to have one on one tutoring for an entire year. His lesson had four basic components: tape recorder readings, guided reading, repeated reading, and read aloud. Each of these components was leveled for instruction and attacked his need to build fluency. He listened to taped readings, paused the tape, and read the selection himself. Guided reading material was selected on his level and involved fluency and comprehension. Repeated readings were strictly a fluency building tool. And by listening to the tutor read aloud, he was hearing what fluent reading sounded like. Eventually word sorts were introduced in the lesson in an effort to improve word knowledge and decoding skills.
Many of my sixth grade students read on a second or third grade reading level. I have had many discussions with our exceptional children teacher and curriculum specialist about these students. I hate to ask the question, “When do we give up trying to teach them to read and move to teaching them how to compensate?” but it is something that we need to address as students enter middle and high school. Our discussions have led me to believe I need to teach my struggling readers how to interact with the text in order to make sense of it for them. I’m not saying it is time to give up, but it is time to move to a different approach as they get older. Unfortunately the resources are not available in middle and high school to tutor students one on one as Dr. Morris suggests.
So how do all of these readings tie together to help me be a better teacher? There is such a wide range of reading levels in my classroom; I’ve always found it difficult to meet the needs of all of my students. Many of our class readings were geared toward the younger readers, those learning to read, so I’ve had to adapt my thinking to my middle schoolers. Students come to me already knowing how to read, but at least a third of them are reading below grade level. Now that I understand that reading is a multi-step process in the brain, and that we must develop skills simultaneously in order to become proficient readers, I can help students in their weak areas so they progress overall. We cannot isolate instruction because reading effectively encompasses decoding, fluency, and comprehension. I have to find a balance between teaching the more proficient readers how to “read to learn” and the struggling readers to do both – learn to read and read to learn. Reading is a machine that works together and if one component is sluggish, then the whole system is skewed. I’m excited about teaching school. It saddens me that students think reading is such a bore and hard work. With a new outlook on things, I think I can bring some excitement into their studies and perhaps get them to like reading a little bit.
Bibliography
Adams, M. J. (2004).Modeling the connections between word recognition and reading.Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading, 1219 – 1243.
Cunningham. A. & Stanovich, K. (1993). Children’s literacy environments and early word recognition subskills.Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 5, 193 – 204.
Daneman, M. and Carpenter, P. A. (1980).Individual differences in working memory and reading.Journalof Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 450-456.
Ehri, L. & Wilce, L. (1979).The mnemonic value of orthography among beginning readers.Journal of Educational Psychology, 71, 1, 26 – 40.
Joshi, R. M. (2005). Vocabulary: a critical component of comprehension.Reading and Writing Quarterly, 21, 3, 209 – 219.
Morris, D. & Gaffney, M (in press).Building reading fluency in a disabled middle-school reader. 1-30.
Perfetti, C. and Hogaboam, T. (1975).Relationship between single word decoding and reading comprehension skill.Journal of Educational Psychology, 67, 4, 461-469.
Schreiber, P. A. (1980). On the acquisition of reading fluency.Journal of Reading Behavior, 12, 177-186.
Walczyk, J. (1994). The development of verbal efficiency, metacognitive strategies, and their interplay.Educational Psychology Review, 6, 2, 173-189.