what the research says

Why automaticity (aka 'fluency') is important in learning to read (opinion)

Driving an automobile effortlessly through traffic is one example of automaticity. However, it was not always so easy. Recall your first ventures behind the wheel, when considerable attentional energy was consciously applied to mechanical aspects of driving such as avoiding accidents and shifting gears. For the beginning driver, so much attention is focused on the mechanical aspects of driving that holding a conversation with a passenger while driving is impossible. But with practice, the mechanical aspects of driving become less demanding, and the skilled driver can simultaneously listen to the radio, hold a conversation, and appreciate the scenery. Skills practiced and learned to the point where they are considered ‘automatic’ demand less cognitive and attentional energy; thus the person with expertise is capable of performing multiple complex tasks at the same time.

Another example of automaticity may be found in a high school student reading a social studies text. If the student is a skilled reader, multiple tasks are being performed at the same time, such as decoding the words, comprehending the information, relating the information to prior knowledge of the subject matter, making inferences, and evaluating the information's usefulness to a report he or she is writing. These examples highlight one benefit of developing a skill to an automatic level—namely, the ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. This ‘multi-task functioning’ is possible due to the reduced attentional demands needed to perform the automatized task, thus freeing up attentional energy for other functions. The ability to perform several complex tasks at the same time—whereas at the beginning of training one could only perform one task—is an important characteristic of expertise. Dual-task performance in reading, such as the ability to decode and comprehend simultaneously, is an important indicator that the decoding is automatic.

Samuels, S. J., & Flor, R.F. (1997). The Importance of Automaticity for Developing Expertise in Reading. Reading & Writing Quarterly 13 (2) p. 107 — 121.

On teaching inference as a comprehension strategy

This is a little long, but gets to some important insights into inferences and how to teach comprehension:

Consider the following short section of a story:

Janet's dog Brutus slammed into the table in his enthusiasm. Later she surveyed the broken shards of her rare vase.

There are many inferences that could be made when reading this passage. First, inferences connect anaphors to their referents. Anaphors are those terms that refer to a character or object in a new way. For example, in the first sentence, readers infer that Brutus is the enthusiastic male referred to by the pronoun ‘his'.

A second category of inferences that are important to make while reading are those that are logically required for maintaining causal coherence; that is, establishing the causal relations among events.In this short passage, readers must infer that the vase was on the table that was bumped, and that the vase was caused to fall and subsequently break when the table moved.

Third, there are a number of likely inferences whose generation would be subject to individual differences. For instance, many readers would infer that the shards were located on the floor, but they could just as easily be thought of as being on the table.

Finally, there are many inferences that could add to the richness of a reader's understanding of the passage, which would not be related to maintaining coherence. For example, a reader could infer that Janet was upset or that Brutus would now be spending more time outdoors

Thurlow, R., & van den Broek, P.(1997). Automaticity and Inference Generation During Reading Comprehension, Reading & Writing Quarterly 13 (2) p.165-181.

So what does research say about these four types of inference?

These four classes of potential inferences can be broken into two distinct categories (Long, Seely, Oppy, & Golding, 1996; McKoon & Ratcliff, 1992; Vonk & Noordman, 1990). The first two, anaphoric and causal, are inferences that are required for maintaining coherence. The others, likely and enriching, are inferences that elaborate on the meaning of the text.

…the inferences described earlier as required for coherence are made automatically during the reading process, at least by more skilled readers. Research into the inferences we described as elaborative shows weaker and sometimes contradictory evidence as to whether they occur during reading.

In light of such studies, researchers are coming closer to agreeing on a "minimalist" view regarding which inferences are made automatically during reading (McKoon & Ratcliff, 1992). In this view, only those inferences that are required to maintain coherence are seen as being automatic.

Thurlow, R., & van den Broek, P.(1997). Automaticity and Inference Generation During Reading Comprehension, Reading & Writing Quarterly 13 (2) p.165-181.

And that leads to two specific instructional recommendations for teaching inference as a comprehension strategy:

First, it is apparent that skilled readers do have a goal of constructing a coherent memory representation. They make, at least, a minimum number of automatic inferences that help integrate new material with the previous text. If integration is difficult, they will take time to work out the difficulty with elaborations. A recommendation for reading instruction is to make sure developing readers are aware that the pieces of a text are meant to go together and that they, the readers, have a task to find out how the pieces fit.

Second, skilled readers have strategies and criteria for repairing coherence breaks. They re-read difficult passages; they look back in the text for more information; they even make up their own explanations that make sense. These are all teachable skills…

Thurlow, R., & van den Broek, P.(1997). Automaticity and Inference Generation During Reading Comprehension, Reading & Writing Quarterly 13 (2) p.165-181.

Compare student data to state (not local) norms

…in conceptualizing the cut score against which a given student’s performance should be compared, it can be argued that the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (2006) gives clear direction:

"The child does not achieve adequately for the child’s age or to meet state-approved grade-level standards in one or more of the following areas, when provided with learning experiences and instruction appropriate for the child’s age or State-approved grade-level standards…. (§300.309[a][1])"

This provision indicates that the benchmark against which a student’s deficiency is determined should be the student’s performance in relation to the state (not local) standards.

Kovaleski, J. (2007). Response to Intervention: Considerations for Research and Systems Change. School Psychology Review, 36 (4), p.638-646.

Non-word reading fluency predicts reading difficulty for ELL students and native English speakers equally well

The correlation analyses [in this study] expand upon other studies by demonstrating that the large correlation of NWF [Nonsense Word Fluency] with real-word reading (Swanson et al., 2003) occurs with ELL students as well as with native English-speaking students

Vanderwood, M., Linklater, D., & Healy, K. (2008). Predictive Accuracy of Nonsense Word Fluency for English Language Learners. School Psychology Review, 37 (1) p. 5-17.

So you don't need a different test to identify ELL students as at-risk for reading.

In general, current findings concur with the DIBELS criterion that a score of 50 or better on NWF at the end of first grade indicates low risk for future reading problems (Good & Kaminski, 2002). These data suggest educators can use NWF in first grade to identify ELL students who need additional reading instruction regardless of the student’s English language proficiency.

Vanderwood, M., Linklater, D., & Healy, K. (2008). Predictive Accuracy of Nonsense Word Fluency for English Language Learners. School Psychology Review, 37 (1) p. 5-17.

Phonemic awareness exists in Spanish ELL readers

There is a widely held belief that phonemes are not relevant to Spanish-speaking students; only syllables are. That view does not appear to be supported by the research:

…we can confirm in the study reported here the existence of intrasyllabic awareness among Spanish children, because they have more difficulty isolating the first consonant when it belongs to a cluster [e.g., preso] than when it does not [e.g., puro].

Jiménez González, J.E., Haro García, C.R. (1995). Effects of Word Linguistic Properties on Phonological Awareness in Spanish Children. Journal of Educational Psychology 87 (2), p. 193 -201.

Differentiated Instruction: Fine, but what to do with the rest of the class?

…use of reading groups creates a problem; when the teacher is working with one reading group, the other students in the class must be occupied with activities they can complete with minimal teacher direction. Research on these follow-up activities, or unsupervised seatwork, indicates that they are often of poor quality, are rarely taken seriously by teachers or students, and are poorly integrated with other reading activities (e.g., Beck, McKeown, McCaslin, & Burkes, 1979; Osborn, 1984), and that student time on-task during follow-up periods is typically low (e.g., Anderson, Brubaker, Alleman-Brooks, & Duffy, 1985). Yet in a class with three reading groups, as much as two thirds of the reading period is spent on follow-up activities.

Stevens, R.J., Madden, N.A, Slavin, R.E, & Farnish, A.M. (1987). Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition: Two Field Experiments. Reading Research Quarterly. 22 (4) p. 433-454.

Interventions: small groups, 15-30 minutes-a-day is optimal

Although not conclusive for making individual student-level decisions, there is compelling research indicating that instruction provided to groups of 3 to 5 students is as effective as 1-to-1 instruction, even for the most at-risk students (Elbaum, Vaughn, Hughes, & Moody, 2000).

Harn,B.A., Linan-Thompson, S., Roberts, G. (2008). Intensifying Instruction: Does Additional Instructional Time Make a Difference for the Most At-Risk First Graders? Journal of Learning Disabilities, 41 (2) p.115-125.

And later in the same piece:

In a meta-analysis examining the role of time (both frequency and duration) on the effectiveness of kindergarten interventions, Cavanaugh et al. (2004) documented the great variability of intensity of time in effective interventions. In terms of intensity of time implementation, three of the five interventions that were implemented for fewer than 15 minutes per instructional session resulted in large effect sizes, 1.0 or higher. The majority of interventions were implemented from 15 to 29 minutes (n = 17) and had moderate to large effect sizes. The authors concluded that interventions delivered in small-group formats either two to three times per week or daily for a minimum of 15 to 30 minutes produced the greatest effects.

Harn,B.A., Linan-Thompson, S., Roberts, G. (2008). Intensifying Instruction: Does Additional Instructional Time Make a Difference for the Most At-Risk First Graders? Journal of Learning Disabilities, 41 (2) p.115-125.

When to use repeated reading as an intervention

Vadasy and Sanders ran a study that shows at-risk second and third graders benefit from repeated reading:

These findings suggest when particular types of repeated reading will beneficial. For students performing within the emergent stage of reading fluency, like the second and third graders in the study, there were benefits from rereading the same texts chosen at an instructional level of difficulty. Repeated reading was assisted by trained tutors who provided both a model of fluent reading during two of the rereadings, as well as corrections and feedback during three of the readings

Vadasy, P.F., & Sanders, E.A. (2008). Repeated Reading Intervention: Outcomes and Interactions With Reader Skills and Classroom Instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100 (2), pp. 272-290.

Students at benchmark and above on word reading do not benefit:

… if students enter second or third grade with average or higher word reading skills, a repeated reading interventions is not recommended to boost word reading accuracy or comprehension skills in particular. Students with lower word reading skills at onset, however, will likely benefit from this type of intervention on reading accuracy and fluency rate gains

Vadasy, P.F., & Sanders, E.A. (2008). Repeated Reading Intervention: Outcomes and Interactions With Reader Skills and Classroom Instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100 (2), pp. 272-290.

How kids learn to summarize text

Researchers Brown and Day examined the developmental sequence of six strategies students use to summarize text (my emphasis):

Two of the six rules involve deletion of unnecessary material. One should obviously delete material that is trivial, and even grade school children are quite adept at this if the form and content of the material is familiar (Brown, Day, & Jones, in press; Johnson, 1978). One should also delete material that, although it is important, is also redundant. Kintsch and van Dijk’s system also includes these two deletion rules. Two of the rules of summarization involve the substitution of a superordinate term or event for a list of items or actions. For example, if a text contains a list such as: cats, dogs, goldfish, gerbils, and parrots, one can substitute the term pets. This is Kintsch and van Dijk’s generalization rule. Similarly, one can substitute a superordinate action for a list of subcomponents of that action, i.e., John went to London, for: John left the house, John went to the train station, John bought a ticket, etc., etc. This is roughly comparable to Kintsch and van Dijk’s (1978) integration rule. The two remaining rules have to do with providing a summary of main constituent unit of text, the paragraph. The first rule is – select a topic sentence, if any, for this is the author’s summary of the paragraph. The final rule is – if there is no topic sentence, invent your own.

Brown, A.L., & Day, J.D. (1983). Macrorules for Summarizing Texts: The Development of Expertise. Center for the Study of Reading, Illinois University

What they found may help teachers identify the developmental stage a student is at:

“…a clear developmental pattern was found, with deletion rules emerging first followed by superordination [substitution] and then selection. Invention, the most difficult rule, was late developing. We believe that the five rules differ in their ease of application because they demand different degrees of text manipulation on the part of the learner, and perhaps because they depart to a greater or lesser extent from the already existing strategy favored by the younger participants. This has been called the copy-delete strategy (Brown, 1981; Brown, Day, & Jones, in press) because fifth and seventh grade and junior college students summarize texts primarily by deleting, or copying near verbatim the words actually present in the text

Brown, A.L., & Day, J.D. (1983). Macrorules for Summarizing Texts: The Development of Expertise. Center for the Study of Reading, Illinois University

Intriguingly, they suggest that an earlier, over-simple strategy may need to be actively unlearned in order to progress to the later strategies:

““…there is evidence that partially adequate strategies such as copy-delete are not just way-stations on the road to expert strategies; they may actually impede progress...We would like to argue that partially adequate strategies such as copy-delete and knowledge-telling are maintained by inexperienced writers because they do result in intermittent reinforcement and are recognizable attempts to get the job done. The process of development is not just one of acquiring increasingly more refined and sophisticated strategies; development involves the systematic consolidation of mature strategies, combined with the rejection of plausible but less efficient habits

Brown, A.L., & Day, J.D. (1983). Macrorules for Summarizing Texts: The Development of Expertise. Center for the Study of Reading, Illinois University

Sound + vision (phonology and orthography)

A great deal of research shows that average reading ability and below-average reading ability are best predicted by the somewhat independent effects of phonologically based decoding and rapid naming (Compton, DeFries, & Olsen, 2001; Cornwall, 192; Kirby, Parrila, & Pfeiffer, 2003; Savage et al., 2005; Strattman & Hodson, 205; Wolf & Bowers, 1999; Wolf & O’Brien, 2001).

Savage, R., Pillay, V., & Melidona, S. (2008). Rapid Serial Naming is a Unique Predictor of Spelling in Children. Identifying and Predicting Classes of Response to Explicit Phonological Spelling Instruction During Independent Composing. Journal of Learning Disabilities 41 (3), pp. 235 -250

The neuroscience suggests that "storing the picture" of a word and "processing the sounds" in it are two somewhat-independent pathways. A student could have a deficit in either or both, making diagnosis more complicated and adding weight to the idea that you have to be "firing on all cylinders" to read and comprehend successfully.

In current models, RAN [Rapid Automatized Naming] is seen as a measure of an underlying structure or timing congruence in the central nervous system that underlies the capacity to accurately and efficiently store detailed orthographic information about words. This structure is seen as being somewhat independent of the structures used for phonological processing (e.g., Wolf, Bowers, & Biddle, 2000).

Savage, R., Pillay, V., & Melidona, S. (2008). Rapid Serial Naming is a Unique Predictor of Spelling in Children. Identifying and Predicting Classes of Response to Explicit Phonological Spelling Instruction During Independent Composing. Journal of Learning Disabilities 41 (3), pp. 235 -250