Educational Research Service Making a Difference in Our Children’s Future

A qu arterly journal of school research and information providing access to research studies and reports produced by administrators in local school districts across the nation. Spectrum also features practical research conducted by the academic community, as well as data relevant to public school operation produced outside the field of education.

ERS Spectrum—Fall 2001

Learning to read is considered by many to be the most important skill taught in schools. Print surrounds us on a daily basis, on street signs and maps, restaurant menus and job applications. Reading and writing allow us to express our thoughts and emotions and to record our daily observations. For those who can read, the skill seems second nature and requires little effort. But for those who lack basic literacy skills, the simplest of tasks may become nearly impossible.

Given the pervasive nature of reading in our daily lives, reading instruction is an important responsibility for schools. Unfortunately, schools often find it difficult to fulfill this responsibility. Given the many different philosophies concerning how reading should be taught, it can seem a daunting undertaking to remain current on the latest research focused on reading instruction.

However, research has demonstrated that building an effective reading program from the elementary grades through high school can serve to increase the achievement level of all students. Because teachers, researchers, and the general public agree that students must learn to read well in order to participate effectively in education, schools and districts across the country are evaluating and sometimes redesigning their reading programs.

A review of the research reveals several characteristic of a high-quality reading program:

• an understanding that literacy instruction should be embedded across the curriculum;

• a coordinated plan for literacy instruction aligned across grade levels, K-12;

• a balanced literacy approach for the early grades, which includes both skills-based and whole language instruction depending on student needs;

• ongoing assessment to ensure that no students fall too far behind;

• additional help provided for students who need it;

• staff development and support provided for teachers and principals.

Instruction in the Early Grades

Naturally, an effective early-grades reading program depends on high quality instruction. As the Learning First Alliance said in a recent action paper, "Every educator, parent, and child knows that reading is the most important skill taught in elementary school" (1998, 52). Given this, every child deserves an excellent reading teacher who encourages independent learning, has high achievement expectations, provides assistance when needed, and knows about the latest reading research findings. The findings unanimously support the need for effective literacy instruction. What the teacher will not find in the literature, however, is agreement among educators, parents, and researchers on the specifics of how to teach young children to read.

The "Reading Wars"

Over the past 30 years, whole language and phonics have each taken their turn as the prominent instructional method used by teachers and schools. The argument over which method works best has become so intense that it is known within the profession as the "reading wars" (Lemann 1997).

Proponents of the whole language approach argue that overuse of drill in phonics skills may lessen children's interest in reading, and that children surrounded by a print-rich environment and engaged in meaningful reading and writing activities will learn to read naturally, as they learned to speak. Conversely, proponents of phonics-based instruction argue that children should be taught basic decoding skills as the foundation of fluent, independent reading, since some of them cannot develop the skills without explicit instruction.

The widespread acceptance of whole language philosophies dominated reading research and instruction from the 1960s to the 1990s, but researchers are now beginning to find evidence that supports the need of some children for "systematic, synthetic phonics in which children are taught sound-symbol correspondences singly, directly, and explicitly" (Moats 2000). Phonemic awareness programs are gaining attention, as educators work to find ways to draw children's attention to the individual letter sounds that compose words.

Unlike phonics programs, which teach the relation between specific written symbols and their associated sounds, phonemic awareness instruction seeks to develop children's awareness of letter sounds and the way they can be blended to form words. For example, a child who is phonemically aware can tell you that the word "cat" is made up of three separate and distinct letter sounds "c," "a," and "t." Similarly, this child also knows that cat rhymes with "bat" and "mat" because the three words each contain the "at" sound at the end of the word (International Reading Association 1998).

The Need for a Balanced Program

In reading education, teachers are frequently presented with a "one size fits all" philosophy that emphasizes either a "whole language" or "phonics" orientation to instruction. No doubt, this parochial type of preparation places many children at continued risk for reading failure since it is well established that no reading program should be without all the major components of reading instruction (phoneme awareness, phonics, spelling, fluency, and reading comprehension).

• Having students begin by writing letters, then parts of words, then words and sentences.

• Providing extensive time for reading, both with support from the teacher and independently (Snow, Burns, and Griffin 1998).

Finally, few dispute the fact that good teachers have been using a combination of both methods to teach children to read all along (Snow, Burns, and Griffin 1998). In fact, the more strategies a teacher knows and uses to address students' different strengths, weaknesses, and reading styles, the better prepared that teacher is to accurately perceive students' needs and help them to learn before reading problems develop (Education Commission of the States 1998). In recognition of this, many states and districts have adopted balanced literacy "models," which incorporate a specific mix of both phonics and whole language instruction.

But within these frameworks, individual teachers still need to use their own professional judgment about the appropriate balance in the classroom every day. As Denton writes:

The term "balanced" is often used to describe reading instruction that incorporates the strengths of both phonics and whole language. There is no single combination of instructional techniques that works best for every child in every classroom. Instead, balance requires teachers to choose from numerous instructional strategies to provide a balance that is appropriate for each child (1999, 1).

The Need for Early and Continuous Literacy Assessment

85% of those children likely to become poor readers can be identified with tests of their abilities to manipulate letter sounds, to rapidly name letters and numbers, and to demonstrate an awareness of the concepts of print (The Special Edge 2000, 6).

• a focus on the individual child, including details about specific skills mastered and not mastered; and
  

• a plan ensuring that assessments are done often enough to identify problems before students fall too far behind to catch up.

The Importance of More Targeted Support When Needed

Even with a high-quality early reading program, some students will need additional help. These interventions very in nature, duration, and focus, but all aim to help struggling readers achieve their grade-level literacy targets. The following are some common characteristics of successful approaches:

• Students receive individualized or small-group instruction.
  

• Students are taught to read using meaningful texts that they can relate to.
  

• Students have the opportunity for repeated reading of passages.
  

• Books that contain predictable vocabulary and sentence structures are used.
  

• Children learn reading strategies to help them decipher text.

• The program must be "intensive enough to close the ever-widening gap between poor readers and their grade level peers as quickly as possible."
  

• Research about the acquisition of reading skills should guide the program.
  

• For older readers, the program must include instruction that builds the skills they missed developing in the primary grades.
  

• The intervention must "match the student's level of reading because each stage of growth requires a special focus."
  

• For very poor readers, the instruction must be designed to develop students' phonological skills since their inability to correctly identify speech sounds typically acts as a barrier to developing other reading-related skills.
  

• Text reading fluency should be the target for instruction for less-impaired readers who can decipher words through sounds. Vocabulary development should be targeted through direct instruction as well as through providing opportunities for and encouraging extensive reading (Moats 2001, 37).

• a certified reading specialist to assess children's reading skills and needs, develop lesson pans, observe tutors, and provide them with feedback and support;
  

• ongoing training and feedback from tutors;
  

• structured tutoring sessions that contain opportunities for rereading familiar text, word analysis, writing, and introduction of new stories;
  

• intensive and consistent tutoring (a minimum of one and one-half to two hours each week, working with the same tutor);
  

• ongoing assessment of students to help tailor lesson content to the needs of the individual child; and
  

• coordination of tutoring with classroom instruction (Wasik 1998).

Reading at the Middle School and High School Level

As students progress through school, the nature of reading instruction and assessment changes, with instruction focusing on "reading to learn," rather than "learning to read." Textbooks become staples of instruction, replete with technical vocabulary and complex diagrams, which students are expected to read for meaning and retention. Students must also learn to read the maps, graphs, charts, and tables that are scattered throughout their texts. Even students who have been "good readers" throughout elementary school may begin to experience some difficulties.

Developing Active Readers

Because effective reading habits are an integral component of academic success in middle school and high school, teachers of these levels must also consider themselves teachers of reading. However, this does not mean that content-area teachers should neglect their subject matter in order to focus on teaching reading. Instead, instructional strategies that help students to cope effectively with the increased demands can be woven into everyday instruction.

For, example, teachers can encourage students of all grade levels and in all types of classes to use the following strategies:

• Scan material before reading.
  

• Use text features (such as titles, bold print, italics, pictures, and graphs) to predict what the reading will be about.
  

• Predict what will happen next.
  

• Recall background knowledge.
  

• Summarize main ideas.
  

• Make text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections.
  

• Stop periodically to summarize what has been read and how it connects with previous paragraphs.
  

• Make charts, webs, outlines, and record reactions (Learning First Alliance 1998; Rose 2000).

• Uses a "reading apprenticeship approach" in which teachers recognize what they do to read, and communicate these behaviors to students. As a result, students learn to be more conscious of their own reading processes and become better readers within specific content areas.
  

• Focuses on developing metacognitive skills and teaching students to be self-reflective about their reading processes (WestEd 1999).

• Occurs in a small-group discussion format.
  

• Aims to improve comprehension.
  

• Through discussions with group members, makes students aware that some questions have multiple answers and that individuals often interpret text differently.
  

• Uses flexible, heterogeneous groups with between four and eight members (Murphy 1998).

• Occurs through class discussions, small-group meetings, individual sessions, and journal entries.
  

• Aims to help students become better readers of a variety of texts by helping students gain insight into their own reading processes and stressing the need for metacognitive conversation.
  

• Teaches students strategies for reading and encourages them to "talk through" their reading of texts.
  

• Takes place in the process of teaching subject- area content, rather than as an instructional add-on (Greenleaf et al. 2001).

Reading in the Content Areas

With the growing recognition of reading difficulties, teachers have begun to acknowledge that the blank stares they receive from some students after they pose a question in class may be due to more than general disinterest. Many educators are calling for a renewed emphasis on instruction that promotes the development of better reading skills in secondary school content areas (Riggs and Gil-Garcia 2001).

Initially, many secondary school teachers were reluctant to see themselves as teachers of reading (Wilson 1999). However, in increasing numbers, content-area teachers have begun to incorporate instruction in reading, and in reading strategies in particular, into their lessons. Evidence suggests that when teachers do make time for content-area reading instruction, it makes a difference.

A study conducted by secondary school content-area teachers found the following strategies to be effective in improving content-area achievement: activating background knowledge before reading by brainstorming about the meanings of key vocabulary terms; asking students to keep a journal of content-area concept definitions; and asking students to create their own learning guides, instead of relying on teacher-prepared materials (Santa 1988). Reading specialists can provide teachers with assistance in modeling and teaching these strategies. They can also serve as a resource for identifying other possible strategies to promote active reading.

Planning ahead to integrate reading strategy instruction into middle and high school classes can help to make content-area reading instruction possible, effective, and efficient, rather than just an add-on. In many cases, this is simply seen as good teaching. Consider a high school social studies class, for example. Social studies demands not only basic skills such as recall of details, sequence of events, and recognition of main ideas, but also a higher level of critical thinking involving interpretation, synthesis, and analysis. Two important critical reading skills in this subject area are recognizing cause-and-effect relationships and distinguishing fact from opinion. Wilson (1999) suggests several ways that teachers can help students recognize cause-and-effect relationships:

• Present real-life examples.
  

• Call attention to the signal words in expository writing. Signal words include "because," "therefore," "so," and "in order to." Have students find examples of these words in their textbook.
  

• Elaborate on cause-and-effect situations during the school day. For example ask students: "What would happen if you didn't turn in your homework? Why would that happen?"

• Ask students to analyze newspaper articles, examine the statements presented in them, and determine which ones are verifiable facts.
  

• Have students restate factual information as opinion, and opinion as fact.

The Struggling Reader

Unfortunately, even with excellent instruction and proactive assessment tools, some middle and high school students will still experience problems reading and/or comprehending their texts. Because of the emphasis placed on reading skills in middle and high school, students with poor literacy skills may find themselves at risk in many of their content-area classes.

To address these problems, some schools are introducing instructional approaches that benefit all students, but also provide special support for struggling readers. For example, an Academic Literacy course introduced for all 300 ninth graders in one California school focused on helping students build reading comprehension by learning about and consciously focusing on what they do as they read. The intent of the program is to "make the invisible processes of reading visible." By the end of the year, students, across all ethnic groups and across all classrooms, had moved from an average score of early seventh grade on a standardized reading test to an average score of late ninth grade. By the end of the next year, the students gained an average of an additional two years even though they were not enrolled in a course specifically designed to continue the instruction (WestEd 1999).

Other middle and high school students, however, need more intensive remediation. Schools are learning the importance of identifying the specific skills that these students have not yet mastered, and then attempting to address these in special classes or small- group sessions.

Greene describes an approach used with struggling middle and high school readers within the framework of a language arts classroom. Teachers begin by administering a placement test to the class and then scoring it to see what reading-related skills each of the students has mastered. Students are assigned to groups that focus on particular skills. In addition, all students have extensive opportunities to read material at their own level that interests them. No language arts text is used. Greene reports that "participants averaged gains of about three years in…isolated word recognition, contextual word recognition, reading comprehension, composition, and spelling during an average of six months' enrollment" (1998, 6).

Need for Staff Development

In the past, schools typically relied on the preservice instruction teachers received and the manual that accompanied the textbook series for the information and training teachers needed to provide high-quality teaching instruction. However, the number of children who experienced reading-related difficulties—along with the emergence of research that highlighted the complexity of the process of learning to read—pointed to the need for schools to provide additional training. The call for early reading initiatives, frequent reading assessments, and the introduction of reading into secondary school content areas have led to a renewed emphasis on the need for high-quality professional development in the area of reading for all teachers (Donnelly 2000). It is obvious that focused, high-quality staff development will be required to support a district or schoolwide effort to decrease the number of students reading below grade level.

Districts and schools that have effectively evaluated and restructured their reading programs begin by studying the goals they have for student learning. They analyze assessment data to identify problem areas and then ask: how can we better prepare our teachers to address both our goals and problems that have been identified?

Staff development workshops that take the form of a series of sessions and provide hands-on training or concrete examples are most likely to achieve positive results. Donnelly (2000) writes, "quick fixes are not likely to help when children are not learning to read. The root of the problem is often related to what teachers know and understand about children's learning to read. Many teachers do not have a conceptual understanding of reading." In order to gain this understanding, and the knowledge of how to teach children to read, they need ongoing professional development. All teachers must learn to evaluate the results of their teaching by asking questions such as "What reading skills have my students learned?" and then using the answers to move ahead or go back and re-teach based on individual student needs (Donnelly 2000). Participation in professional development about reading instruction should help teachers better assess the strengths and weaknesses of their students and teach them how to use this information to inform instruction.

Generally speaking, staff development in reading for K-12 teachers and administrators should:

• Convey and ensure a common understanding among teachers and administrators about what "good" reading instruction looks like.
  

• Develop a coordinated plan to address problems of individual students before they fall too far behind.
  

• Discuss and reach agreement on what constitutes "good teaching" in the area of reading instruction.
  

• Develop a plan to pull all teachers together—regular education, special education, reading specialists, ESL teachers, etc—to address reading instruction in a coordinated fashion.
  

• Train teachers and administrators in the use of effective reading instruction techniques.

Developing an Action Plan

Finally, the development of an effective reading program requires a coordinated effort to pull together the "essential elements" of embedded reading instruction, curricular alignment, balanced literacy, ongoing assessment, additional assistance, and staff development.

A key element in this process is reviewing all the pieces from a district or schoolwide perspective. The initial self-study should focus on these questions:

• Is our approach to teaching reading in the early grades balanced and researched-based? Has this been effectively communicated to all staff so that what is intended is actually what is taught?
  

• Are the curriculum and instructional methods used well-integrated and cohesive across the grades?
  

• Are we providing enough instructional time for students in general for reading and language arts?
  

• Do we have a comprehensive and ongoing approach to identifying struggling readers and their specific problems—one that ensures that no student will be overlooked for so long that he or she has little chance of catching up?
  

• Do we have a system developed for intervening and providing intensive support for struggling readers that uses a variety of approaches (tutoring, afterschool, regrouping by reading ability, etc.) and that provides more reading instruction and time for these students?
  

• Is staff development and other support available for teachers so that, for example, they know how to recognize signs of reading difficulty, can use assessment data to help direct instruction, and understand how to teach specific concepts such as phonemic awareness?
  

• Have discussions, staff development, etc., been used at the middle and high school level to help these teachers realize the importance of addressing the needs of struggling readers in the content areas and to provide them with ways to do this effectively?
  

• Is time available for teachers to collaborate so they can problem solve, share successful approaches, and discuss how to provide assistance for struggling readers?

Copyright © 2001 by Educational Research Service

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