what the research says

Reading non-fiction to pre-reading children

…a small but growing body of research raises the possibility that young children are able to interact successfully with expository forms of text.

…these results suggest that reading aloud may be an effective vehicle for exposing young children to expository books in early childhood settings.

Duke, N., & Kays, J. (1998). “Can I say ‘Once Upon a Time’?” Kindergarten Children Developing Knowledge of Information Book Language. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 13, no. 2 p. 295–318

Time for more informational, non-narrative read-alouds in Kindergarten?

Unsurprising finding about onset-rime

Early analogy research (e.g., Goswami, 1986, 1988) compared 6-year old children’s analogies between words like beak and new words like bean (which shares the initial 3 letters with beak) and peak (which shares the final 3 letters with beak). Two strong findings emerged from this research. The first was that analogies between the ends of words (beak-peak) were much easier for young children to draw than analogies between the beginnings of words (beak-bean). The second was that end analogies (beak-peak) emerged first developmentally.

Goswami, U. (1995). Phonological development and reading by analogy: what is analogy, and what is it not? Journal of Research in Reading, 18, 2 p. 139-145.

One way to use this finding: If your students can handle beak-peak, try teaching them beak-bean since that's more likely to enhance their existing phonological awareness skills.

The case for teaching vocabulary explicitly

…the probability of acquiring an unknown word incidentally through reading is only about 15% (Swanborn & de Glopper, 1999), which means the word would need to be encountered eight times to be learned with high probability. The probability of learning any word at a first encounter is lower for younger readers, for more difficult texts, and probably for students who have had no training in deriving meanings for unknown words (Fukkink & de Glopper, 1998; Kuhn & Stahl, 1998). Thus, incidental vocabulary learning is not a reliable procedure for promoting vocabulary growth.

Carlo, M., August,D., McLauglin, B., Snow, C., Dressler, C., Lippman, D., Lively, T., & White, C. (2004). C losing the gap: Addressing the vocabulary needs of English -language learners in bilingual and main stream classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 39, no 2 p. 188 – 215

In other words, don't just assume wide reading will engender vocabulary learning. On the other hand, even if you teach three words a day explicitly, that's only 600 a year, far too few for a student with weak vocabulary to catch up. So the best currently known approach is to do both: explicit instruction and frequent encounters with new words during reading. With vocabulary, once you are behind, it is simply very difficult to catch up.

On practice (opinion)

Ogden Lindsley (1992) contrasted the emphasis on practice in American sports with the neglect for practice in American schools. Whereas fluency researchers have suggested that at least 70% of instructional time be devoted to skill practice, the pressure on teachers to move rapidly through a curriculum results in children receiving only brief exposure to a wide variety of skills, few of which are practiced to mastery (Binder, 1996).

Daly, E., Marten, B., Barnett, D., Witt, J., Olson, S. (2007). Varying Intervention Delivery in Response to Intervention: Confronting and Resolving Challenges with Measurement, Instruction and Intensity. School Psychology Review, 36 (4), p. 562-581

Building comprehension skills through distributed discussion

…the message of this study is not that any discussion that occurs during reading will likely be effective. Rather, the results of this study indicate that discussions of text that focus on meaning, are collaborative, and are under teacher guidance seem more effective if discussion occurs in a distributed manner.

Sandora, C., Beck, I., McKeown, M. (1999) A Comparison of Two Discussion Strategies on Students’ Comprehension and Interpretation of Complex Literature.Reading Psychology, 20:3, 177-212

By distributed the authors of this study mean stopping during the reading of a passage and discussing. The technique is often called "Questioning the Author". They propose two types of question that the teacher can use to instigate discussion:

Two kinds of probes, Initiating Queries and Follow-up Queries, have been conceptualized to assist teachers in handling discussion. Teachers use Initiating Queries, such as ‘‘What is the author trying to say?’’ and ‘‘What do you think the author means by that?’’ to begin a discussion. These Queries provide opportunities to make text content public so that discussion can ensue. Followup Queries, such as ‘‘Why do you think the author is telling us that?’’ and ‘‘How does that information connect to what the author discussed earlier?’’ were developed to assist the teacher in extending students’ responses and move discussion to deeper levels of engagement. Throughout discussion, students and teachers work collaboratively to construct meaning, as well as offer various interpretations of texts.

The study compared this type of discussion with the more typical format: teacher-led discussion after a text has been read.

The results of this study indicate that distributed discussion can facilitate students’ comprehension and interpretation of complex literature. Dealing with a complex narrative during the course of reading may be particularly effective for lower-achieving students. It can scaffold students’ comprehension processes by providing opportunities for students to re ect on events and ideas as they are encountered and to examine connections that accumulate. Often, students who have had less success in reading are not offered challenging pieces of literature in their language arts classes. Yet it is clear from this study that, at least when discussion occurs during the course of the reading, such students are well able to comprehend and interpret complex literature selections.

The problem with basals (opinion)

…commercially available instructional materials are often dressed up to improve their market value but contain irrelevant stimuli that can distract the student from the critical stimuli upon which appropriate discriminations are formed. Too few opportunities to practice the skills are presented... Other times the instructional examples contain too much information and do not require the student to go through the appropriate steps to get the right answer (Vargas, 1984). Too many strategies are frequently suggested by basal reading series to guide the teacher in exactly how to instruct a diverse body of students (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).

Daly, E., Marten, B., Barnett, D., Witt, J., Olson, S. (2007). Varying Intervention Delivery in Response to Intervention: Confronting and Resolving Challenges with Measurement, Instruction and Intensity. School Psychology Review, 36 (4), p. 562-581

A colleague met a teacher at a conference in England. She was surprised at the high (and high-cost) production values of American reading basals. "To me," she said, "it looks like a clown exploded on every page."

What works in PD, II

Noell et al. (2005), for example, evaluated the effectiveness of different consultant support strategies on the implementation integrity of classroom-based interventions. Specifically, they tested three different strategies (brief weekly interviews between the consultant and consultee, interviews with a focus on commitment to implementation, and performance feedback) across 45 consultation cases for elementary students with academic and/or behavioral difficulties. Results indicated that performance feedback (briefly meeting on a regular schedule, examining permanent products resulting from the intervention, graphing and reviewing both student outcome and implementation integrity data) yielded higher integrity than either of the other two conditions.

Glover, T., & Di Perna, J. (2007). Service Delivery for Response to Intervention: Core Components and Directions for Future Research. School Psychology Review, 36 (4), p.526-540

What works in PD, I

Sterling-Turner, Watson, Wildmon, and Watkins (2001) investigated the relationship between training methods and treatment integrity. Participants were ran¬domly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: didactic (verbal explanation of the intervention), modeling (implementation of intervention demonstrated for interventionist before use), or rehearsal or feedback training. Direct training procedures (i.e., modeling and rehearsal or feedback training) produced higher levels of treatment integrity than didactic methods.

Glover, T., & Di Perna, J. (2007). Service Delivery for Response to Intervention: Core Components and Directions for Future Research. School Psychology Review, 36 (4), p.526-540

Start early

The results of this synthesis further suggest that interventions provided early, beginning in first grade, are associated with higher effects than interventions beginning in second or third grade.

Wanzek, J., & Vaughn, S. (2007). Research-Based Implications From Extensive Early Interventions. School Psychology Review, 36 (4), p.526-540

Identifying learning goals is difficult

One striking factor was that teachers, no matter the level of experience with content, consistently muddled learning goals with the context for how the learning would be achieved.

Heritage, M. (in press). Learning Progressions: Supporting Instruction and Formative Assessment.