reading – Page 2 – Education & Teacher Conferences

Andrew Watson

February 25, 2020

How to Help Struggling Readers?

Reading interventions can suffer from two lamentable problems.

First, they can — paradoxically — benefit strong readers without helping weak ones. Here we see the dreaded “Matthew Effect,” where the rich get richer — in this case, the strong readers get even stronger.

Second, they can require lots of training in complex theories and pedagogical strategies.

We would, of course, like a strategy that benefits everyone — especially the weaker readers. And, one that can be implemented without lots of time-consuming, pricey training.

If that sounds good to you, keep reading…

It’s So Simple, It Just Might Work…

Researchers in Great Britain wanted to test a remarkably simple proposal. What would happen if classrooms stopped teaching “leveled” short reading passages, and simply read two long, challenging books?

To answer this question, they worked with ~350 12-13 year-olds, and 20 teachers, in 10 schools. Teachers chose long novels that they deemed challenging; often, they chose books typically reserved for “higher ability” students: Frankenstein, for instance, or Now Is the Time for Running.

The researchers insisted that the teachers move at a fast pace. The classes had only 12 weeks to get through both challenging books. In fact, some participating teachers worried that the combination of challenging book + fast pace would be too much.

As long as they moved briskly, teachers had lots of freedom. Most read the books aloud for long stretches of time. Others used audio-book recordings, or had students take turns reading in circles. Many would stop to ask or answer questions. Basically they used their teaching skills in whatever way they deemed fit.

So, what happened? Were the teachers right to worry about the challenging book and the fast pace?

Dramatic Results

To measure the effect of this strategy, the researchers used a test of “reading age.” Students in these classes took that test before and after their 12-week reading adventure.

Students in all the groups they measured improved, including the average readers and the advanced readers.

But, what about the struggling readers? That is: what about those who were more that a grade level behind in their reading?

Their “reading age” score improved by 16 months. Three months of this strategy produced almost a year-and-a-half worth of gain.

That’s astonishing.

I should note: those struggling readers remained well behind their peers. But, gosh, they were a lot less behind than before. In other words, this intervention produced a reverse-Matthew Effect: everybody got richer, but the poor started to catch up.

A Hidden Surprise

Part of this research finding, by the way, surprised the researchers.

Half of the teachers in the study simply relied on their experience to make this strategy work. The others got a day-and-a-half of training in…

cognitive reading processes […], and pedagogic strategies including reading the text aloud in class at a fast pace, inference-making, guided group reading and the use of graphic organisers.

How much difference did that additional training make? Um. None. Students who had “untrained” teachers made as much progress as those who had “trained” teachers.

It was the strategy, not the training, that helped. (To be clear, the training led to some statistically significant differences, but not in the ultimate measure: who learned more?)

So, as far as we can tell from this research, we don’t need fancy training to make this strategy work. Our own teacherly experience is — on average — enough.

Boundary Conditions

First: this research was done with 12-13 year olds in an English education system. It might not apply to your teaching context. And, it isn’t remotely claiming to be a method for teaching students to read in the first place.

Second: I don’t know if this research has been replicated. We’re always more comfortable with a strategy when it’s been shown to work many times.

Third: the fact that this strategy seems to have worked for reading doesn’t mean it will work in other disciplines. We should not assume that, say, students will learn to play the violin simply by hearing someone play the violin; or learn to do math simply by watching others solve math problems.

At the same time, I do find this research helpfully intriguing. In fact, if you’re thinking about this strategy, I encourage you to read the initial study. It’s unusually well written. And, it includes helpful details — including comments from teachers in the study.

If you give this a try, I hope you’ll let me know how it goes. According to the initial study, the students loved it.

Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching by J. Richard Gentry and Gene P. Oullette

Rebecca Gotlieb

September 16, 2019

Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching by J. Richard Gentry and Gene P. Oullette

Far too many children are not learning to read well. New research about reading has not sufficiently informed teaching practices. In Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching, J. Richard Gentry and Gene P. Ouellette, expert reading researchers and education consultants, use the new science of reading to suggest ways to support students in becoming strong readers. They explain recent brain- and behavior-based findings about how kids learn to read.

Brain words, as used by the authors, are words for which students know the pronunciation, meaning, and spelling, such that they can read, write, and use the word correctly and comfortably. This book seeks to help instructors guide students in building brain words by offering ways to assess reading abilities as well as scientifically-backed practices for teaching reading. They emphasize especially the overlooked importance of teaching spelling. The authors offer specific, practical tips for teaching reading in kindergarten through sixth grade. They conclude with advice for schools and parents about how to support students with dyslexia.

Learning to read does not happen automatically. In fact, reading is effortful and as others, such as Maryanne Wolf, have explained, the brain’s distributed reading circuitry is not present at birth but rather develops with exposure to and instruction in reading.
Gentry and Ouellette state that most teachers are not trained in effective literacy instruction practices, and many do not have access to science-based teaching resources. As such, the authors review best practices for teaching reading in light of current research.

As Daniel Willingham and other reading experts have argued also, Gentry and Ouellette state that using both phonics and whole-word approaches to teaching reading is more effective than relying on only one of these strategies. Phonics is necessary for building reading skills, while whole-word reading provides motivation for engaging in active reading. Spelling is a critical step on the road to reading with comprehension, and yet accountability assessments do not measure spelling competence. As a result, many schools do not have spelling curricula. The authors call for a spell-to-read approach to reading instruction. They offer reflective questions that teachers can consider to improve their reading instruction.

Gentry and Ouellette detail a quick and effective way to determine students’ developmental reading phase based on a carefully designed spelling test. Students’ performance on this test can be parsed into phases. The non-alphabetical phase involves children using shapes that might resemble letters but not writing in any recognizable form. The pre-alphabetical phase involves using letters but the letters the child writes do not systematically correspond to sounds. The partial alphabetical phase involves some matching between letters and spoken language. In the full alphabetical phase children spell with one letter to represent each sound. When children can spell nearly or completely correctly, they can begin to read independently. With an understanding of students’ reading and spelling abilities it is possible to optimally facilitate reading instruction.

The authors suggest a “listen first” approach to learning spelling and reading in which students first hear a word, then say the word, write the word, read it, and use it. In older grades a spelling pretest, which students correct themselves while reflecting about the reasons for their mistakes, is an effective teaching tool. The most important measure for improving students’ vocabulary and reading abilities is to support the students in reading more.

Between five and twenty percent of the population is affected by dyslexia. This reading disorder has a neurobiological and a genetic basis. People with dyslexia are not less intelligent nor are they less hard working. The authors explain common signs of dyslexia at different ages (e.g., abnormal spelling, trouble articulating words, or trouble with arbitrary sequences). Early identification of dyslexia is very important for helping these students learn to read and achieve academically. Gentry and Ouellette conclude with suggestions for how parents and schools can support students with dyslexia.

Brain Words will inform educators about recent advances in the science of learning while also offering practical and effective techniques for improving reading instruction. This book can help educators help more students learn to read well.

Gentry, J. R., & Ouellette, G. (2019). Brain words: How the science of reading informs teaching. Stenhouse Publishers.

When Parents Teach Reading, Do They Also Promote Math Skills?

Andrew Watson

July 28, 2019

When Parents Teach Reading, Do They Also Promote Math Skills?

Parents begin teaching children well before schooling starts. Obviously.

In fact, parents often teach children topics that we might consider “academic”: say, how to read, or, how to count.

Researchers might investigate this parental pre-school teaching with some reasonable hypotheses.

For instance:

Presumably, the way that parents teach reading influences the reading skills that their children develop.

Likewise, presumably, the way parents teach numbers and counting influences the math skills that their children develop.

Let’s ask a more counter-intuitive question:

Does the way that parents teach reading influence their children’s math skills?

In other words, does early teaching in one discipline influence understand in a different discipline?

That question might raise skeptical eyebrows, for a number of reasons. In particular, most research that asks this kind of transfer question comes back with a negative answer.

That is: learning in one discipline (say: playing piano) doesn’t usually make you better at another discipline (say: doing calculus).

Today’s Study

Researchers in England wanted to explore this surprising hypothesis. They had hundreds of parents fill out questionnaires. Some questions focused on parental approaches to reading:

How often does the child discuss the meaning of a story with an adult?

How often is the child encouraged to name letters or sound out words?

Other questions focused on parental approaches to numbers:

How often is the child encouraged to identify numbers in books or the environment?

They then tested the children on a variety of number and math skills.

Can you put two ducks in the pond?

Can you point to the number 5?

If two horses are on the path, and another joins them, how many horses are on the path?

So, what did they find? Did either of the reading approaches predict number and math skill? Did they predict those skills better than the parents’ direct focus on numbers and math?

The Results

Yes, and yes.

The parents’ approach to reading predicted math success better than the parents’ focus on numbers.

And, when comparing the two approaches to reading,

A focus on letters and sounds led to better math performance than did a focus on the meaning of the story.

In the dry language of research:

Only letter-sound interactions could predict statistically significant unique variance in counting, number transcoding and calculation.

What Should Parents Do?

This research pool is deep and complicated, and — as far as I can see — we’re not yet able to offer definitive parenting advice.

So, this study found that parental focus on letter-sound interactions improved later math skills.

But:

Self-reports aren’t always reliable (although they’re very common in this field), and

The differences weren’t all that great, and

We have many different goals when we teach children to read.

That is: if our only goal were to help students understand numbers, then this study would encourage parents to focus substantially on letter-sound relationships.

But, of course, we want our children to think about the meaning of stories too. That’s one way they learn important developmental lessons. That’s how they think about meaning in their own lives.

This study — especially if it’s confirmed by later research — encourages us to use several strategies to teach our children about words and reading.

And, it gives us reason to think that those multiple approaches will help them with books, and with numbers too.

Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf

Rebecca Gotlieb

December 20, 2018

Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf

How often do you read in a deep and sustained way fully immersed, even transformed, by entering another person’s world? In her newest book, Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World,Maryanne Wolf cautions that, the way our engagement with digital technologies alters our reading and cognitive processes, could cause our empathic, critical thinking, and reflective abilities to atrophy. This in turn could undermine our democratic, civil society.

Wolf, the John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University and the director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at UCLA, has written a series of nine warm letters to her readers encouraging us to think about the perils of a changing reading culture and promises of supporting media biliteracy in young readers. She argues that we should teach students distinct ways of reading print versus digital sources and help them switch between these modes of reading. Drawing on evidence from across cognitive neuroscience and education and on her own experiences as a teacher, parent, researcher, and non-profit founder, Wolf suggests helpful parenting practices, ways teachers can support reading and digital literacy, and how policy might increase the number of students who can fully immerse themselves in written thought.

As important as reading is to our thinking today, we did not evolve to read and cannot learn to do so without support. It is through an elaborate process of neural recycling—of repurposing brain areas that have evolved for other reasons—that we are able to become readers. With whimsical analogies to the circus Wolf explains how the act of reading even a single word requires coordinated activation across many neurons in regions distributed throughout the brain. She explains properties of attention, vision, sound, and affective processing in the brain that contribute to reading.

Wolf then explores how digital reading may endanger deep engagement with text and empathizing with others by limiting our attention span and background knowledge. Surprisingly, we are reading more than ever before—on average about a hundred thousand words per day. Because we are so overloaded with text, simplifying, skimming, and reading in short bursts are reasonable compensatory mechanisms. Wolf’s concern lies in this skimming style of reading becoming a habit that we exercise across all content. She is troubled by the trends of decreasing empathic abilities among young people, increasing rates of attentional disorders, and increasing susceptibility to “fake news”—all of which have occurred in parallel with a rise in digital reading, media multi-tasking, technologically mediated social interactions, and outsourcing of knowledge to the internet. Deep reading, on the other hand, causes people to take perspectives—a process that requires patience and increases our knowledge of the world and our ability to behave morally.

By fourth grade only a third of children in the U.S. can read deeply. Nearly half of African-American and Latino student are not reading at even a basic level. Wolf offers advice about countering this trend in the digital age. Drawing heavily on The Big Disconnect, Wolf suggests that before age five, children and parents should jointly read physical print-based books as often as possible and largely limit digital reading. Reading to children exposes them to the sounds, visual representations, and word-meanings in our language and builds their knowledge of the world. Schools can support reading by determining students’ readiness to read and helping all students improve, including struggling readers who have been underexposed to text and readers with learning disabilities. Phonics should unequivocally be a part of reading instruction. Teachers in higher grades should learn to teach reading since many of their students may not be proficient. Policy makers can help by investing in early childhood education, literacy, teacher professional development, and equitable access to print and digital media.

Wolf concludes by proposing that, since the next generation will enter a job market primarily based on jobs that do not exist today, we need to support young people in building biliterate brains. That is, they need to learn to work effectively in both print and digital media. As they develop proficiency in both deep and fast ways of reading they will also learn when and how to switch between these modes. Schools should require courses that openly discuss the intriguing and harmful aspects of internet usage, and responsible practices.

A democracy thrives on diversity of ideas, but if citizens are not able to use new technologies, critical thinking, and empathic skills to evaluate those ideas, society will not advance. Wolf’s strategies for supporting reading in a digital age help us improve as readers and help us grow a stronger, more civil democracy.

Wolf, M. (2018). Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. New York: Harper Collins.

Andrew Watson

September 24, 2018

The Best Way to Read? Paper vs. Screens

Do you have to print out emails before you read them, because you just hate screens?

Or, do you take your Kindle everywhere, because old-fashioned books are just too cumbersome?

The “paper vs. screens” debate has raged for quite a while now.

I occasionally visit schools that have “done away with books” altogether. For reasons of cost and convenience, administrators tell me, e-readers are the only way to go.

Paper vs. Screens: Today’s news

Although I have written about tentative answers to this question, we would love to inform the debate with substantive research. As of today, we can.

Lalo Salmeron and colleagues have completed a meta-analysis comparing the two formats. Their research included several dozen studies, and included more than 170,000 participants.

The results?

In almost every case, students understand better and learn more when they read from paper than when they read from screens.

Some highlights:

Surprisingly, we aren’t getting better at reading from screens. In fact, more recent screen technologies produce greater gaps than previously. As Salmeron writes, “the screen inferiority effect has increased in the past 18 years, and … there were no differences in media effects between age groups.”

Especially when students faced time pressure, the length of the text didn’t matter. That is: even short passages that don’t require scrolling are harder to understand on screen than on paper.

Another surprise: screens made reading information harder. But, they didn’t make reading narrative harder. The teaching implication: e-readers work better for novels than for textbooks.

Paper vs. Screens: Today’s reality

Salmeron’s team has a practical bent as well:

“Given the unavoidable inclusion of digital devices in our contemporary educational systems, more work must be done to train pupils … with reading tasks in digital media.”

On standardized tests, for instance, our students will almost certainly have to read on screens at important moments in their academic lives.

We do need more research on particular strategies. In the meanwhile, this article recommends Lauterman & Ackerman’s article on “Overcoming Screen Inferiority” for places to start.

In the meanwhile, we can help our students understand by having them read from good old-fashioned paper. And no: despite “cost and convenience,” e-readers are not the best way to learn.

Andrew Watson

May 10, 2017

Once Upon a Digital Time…

A recent study suggests that 3- and 4-year old children understand as much, and learn as much vocabulary from, digital books as from read-alouds with adults.

This study hasn’t been published–it was presented at a recent conference–so we can’t look at all the details with the specificity that we usually do. (And, skeptics will rightly be concerned that the research was funded by Amazon: a company that might well profit from its conclusions.)

At the same time, the description I’ve linked to sounds plausible and responsible, so I’m not inclined to dismiss this finding out of hand.

The authors’ conclusions conflict with some other findings in related fields. You may remember a recent blog post discussing Daniel Willingham’s conclusion that, on the whole, students learn more from books than from e-readers.

I’ve also been interested in a study by Ackerman and Goldsmith showing that students regulate their learning better with books than e-readers.

But the current study isn’t about college students trying to learn from books; it’s about pre-readers trying to follow a story that’s being read to them. In this one paradigm, the researchers have found that the right kind of e-book can do the job as well as the right kind of adult.

Gender Differences in Dyslexia Diagnoses

Andrew Watson

April 19, 2017

Gender Differences in Dyslexia Diagnoses

It has long been true that men are diagnosed with dyslexia more often than women. This article (rather technical, by the way) offers one potential explanation: processing speed.

What is processing speed? It’s an unusually straightforward concept in psychology.

Imagine that I show you a piece of paper with several rows of different shapes. There might be a square, and then a star, and then a rectangle, and then a circle. And so forth.

To test your processing speed, I simply ask you to name all those shapes as quickly and accurately as you can. Or, I might ask you to say the colors of the shapes: the first one is green, the second is purple, and the third orange.

If you accomplish these tasks relatively quickly, you have a high processing speed.

Overall, women have slightly higher processing speed than men–especially in verbal tasks. The authors of this new study find that this difference in processing speed gives women an edge in reading fluency–and reduces the likelihood that they will be diagnosed with dyslexia.

There are no immediate teaching implications of this finding; however, anything that helps us understand how learning differences come to be…and, come to be diagnosed…might help us improve reading and learning in the future.

Debate: E-Readers and Reading Comprehension

Scott MacClintic

March 15, 2017

Debate: E-Readers and Reading Comprehension

[Editor’s note: Scott’s post is in response to this earlier article.]

Most times when I get asked about the e-reader debate, it is usually not a sincere question from a person who does not already hold a strong opinion on the matter. In these moments I am reminded of the expression “when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!”

No matter how many studies I mention or which side of the issue I am trying to argue on behalf of, as soon as I provide a brief pause, I am confronted with “yeah, but…” and then the person proceeds to tell me why his/her long-held belief is the final word on the subject.

As for where I come down on the issue, I tend to defer to people who are way smarter than me on the subject — such as Daniel Willingham.

As Willingham concludes in his review of some of the literature on the subject, If the choice is read on a device or read on paper, I believe that the paper is still slightly in the lead if you are looking at straight up comprehension. The problem I have is that this shift to digital is really only a lateral move or a substitution situation, and perhaps not a wise one if you want improved student comprehension!

As a teacher, I choose to incorporate technology in the design of my lessons if I believe it is going to result in noticeable and definable modification or redefinition of the learning tasks and outcomes (SAMR model). The question I ask is “what will the use of this technology allow me or my students to do that previously could not have been accomplished?” If the answer is a “not much” then I do not bother to use the technology. The technology itself should not be the focus of the lesson; student learning must be front and center.

So…”to e-reader or not to e-reader” is actually not the question that we should be asking; rather, we should be asking “does this technology add transformative value to the learning experience for my students?” If we want to go even further, we should ask “How might I measure this value and know that my students are benefiting?”

Andrew Watson

March 04, 2017

E-Readers and Reading Comprehension

The invaluable Daniel Willingham briefly reviews the literature, and concludes that — for the time being — students understand more when they read on paper than when they use e-readers.

Willingham acknowledges that his review isn’t comprehensive. However, he’s recently written a book about reading instruction, and so I suspect he’s more up-to-date than most in this field.

If he’s right, this conclusion should give pause to the many (MANY) schools that are switching to e-textbooks. I know they have advantages; they’re less expensive, more portable, easier to modify to suit a specific teacher’s or student’s needs.

And yet, if students learn less when reading them, none of those advantages matters!

Willingham is hopeful that the quality of e-readers will improve enough to eliminate this discrepancy. Until that happens, and until we have good research showing that students can learn well from e-readers, old-fashioned books seem like the best technology we have.

(Scott MacClintic, this blog’s tech guru, will have some thoughts on this topic soon…)

Newer posts

It’s So Simple, It Just Might Work…

Dramatic Results

A Hidden Surprise

Boundary Conditions

Today’s Study

The Results

What Should Parents Do?

Paper vs. Screens: Today’s news

Paper vs. Screens: Today’s reality

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