what the research says

Comprehension may not be as simple as the 'Simple View' suggests

Approximately two decades ago Gough and Tunmer (1986) proposed the Simple View of Reading (SVR) according to which reading comprehension (RC) is equal to the product of two separate components; decoding (D) and linguistic comprehension (C), thus RC=D x C

Georgiou, G.K., Das, J.P., Hayward, D. (2008). Revisiting the "Simple View of Reading" in a Group of Children with Poor Reading Comprehension. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 42 p.76-84.

Consistent with previous studies (e.g., Das et al., 2007; Janzen, 2000), the participants performed below grade level in reading comprehension (Grade Equivalent = 2.5, M[ean] standard score = 87.86, SD [standard deviation] = 8.29), but within grade level in decoding (Grade Equivalent= 3.9, M standard score = 98.16, SD = 8.29) and listening comprehension (Grade Equivalent = 3.9, M standard score = 100.62, SD = 7.99). If both decoding and listening comprehension are within grade level, then their product (D x C) should be within grade level. However, reading comprehension was well below grade level.

Georgiou, G.K., Das, J.P., Hayward, D. (2008). Revisiting the "Simple View of Reading" in a Group of Children with Poor Reading Comprehension. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 42 p.76-84.

The authors do not speculate on what, for these students, might be needed in addition to decoding and listening comprehension.

Explicit spelling instruction transfers to authentic contexts

…our results show that following explicit instruction in spelling, students do transfer spelling knowledge into independent composing, but the transfer is not instantaneous. It takes time to consolidate learning and make the necessary progress within and across school years in the journey toward skilled writing. The widely held belief that explicit spelling instruction (based on alphabetic principle from phoneme to grapheme and other strategies for making connections between units of written and spoken words) does not transfer to spelling in authentic contexts has been debunked.

Amtmann, D., Abbott, R.D., & Berninger, V.W. (2008). Identifying and Predicting Classes of Response to Explicit Phonological Spelling Instruction During Independent Composing. Journal of Learning Disabilities 41 (3), pp. 218 – 234.

Students have a 15% chance of learning new words from context alone

Educators will be interested to know that the average probability to learn unknown words from context is about 15 percent. Under natural reading circumstances students will spontaneously derive and learn the meaning of about 15 words of every 100 unknown words they encounter.

Swanborn, M. S. L., & de Glopper, K. (1999). Incidental word learning while reading: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 69, 262-286.

Teacher-led small-group beats peer tutoring

…a best-evidence synthesis of research on the efficacy of peer tutoring for students with high-incidence disabilities (Mathes & Fuchs, 1994) [concluded that] peer tutoring was more effective than typical reading instruction, but it was less effective than one-to-one teacher tutoring or teacher-led small-group instruction.

Al Otaiba, S., & Fuchs, D., (2006). Who are the Young Children for Whom Best Practices in Reading Are Ineffective?: An Experimental and Longitudinal Study. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 39 (5), p. 414 – 431.

First graders use multiple, overlapping strategies to spell

Sharp et al used a microgenetic study (i.e., capturing detailed information on a small sample of subjects) to show that students use multiple strategies at the same time in spelling. This is in contrast to the more usual stage model in which students progress from one stage in their spelling ability to another. Reality, apparently, is messier than that:

…the use of a variety of strategies occurred not only all along the developmental continuum but across 89% of the individual spelling trials. [Strategies include:]

Complete retrieval  = Accessing spelling features from memory to correctly spell words

Partial retrieval = Accessing partial spelling features from memory to spell words incompletely

Guessing = Choosing a string of letters with no phonological or morphological logic

Sounding out = Using phoneme to grapheme matching

Rule use = Applying orthographic rules to help spell words

Analogy = Using another word to help spell a current word

Visual checking = Perceptually checking a word to see if it looks right

Copying = Visually consulting a visible source

Chunking = Using common letter patterns to help spell unfamiliar words

Sharp, A.C., Sinatra, G.M., & Reynolds, R.E. (2008). The Development of Children’s Orthographic Knowledge: A Microgenetic Perspective. Reading Research Quarterly, 43 (3), p. 206 -226.

Findings also suggested that strategies improve along with phonics knowledge:

…we interpret the results of the feature error analysis as indicating that knowledge of orthographic understanding supported an increase in more sophisticated strategy use, and more sophisticated use allowed feature knowledge to become more efficient.

Sharp, A.C., Sinatra, G.M., & Reynolds, R.E. (2008). The Development of Children’s Orthographic Knowledge: A Microgenetic Perspective. Reading Research Quarterly, 43 (3), p. 206 -226.

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.