January 2022 – Reflect

As of late, there has been much talk about the science of reading in the reading world.

When many discuss the science of reading, they really mean what scientific research has said about phonemic awareness and phonics. I agree that there has not been enough emphasis given to phonemic awareness and phonics instruction in many classrooms and districts across the United States. There is however scientific research in all areas of reading.

Awareness of the smallest speech units is a huge part of learning to read. Words in any language are made up of sounds. We must be aware of those sounds and make the connection that individual letters and letter combinations represent those sounds in print. We can hear and speak many words before reading them. Phonological processing is a crucial aspect of how our brains process language when we read. The more language we hear and speak ourselves, the easier it is for us as readers. The more automatic phonological awareness becomes, the better word recognition is for beginning readers. This leaves readers better able to attend to different aspects of a text.

Those different aspects of a text are essential, especially for readers in grades second on up. These other skills are learned in parallel with phonics skills for school-age kids. The science of reading goes well beyond phonemic awareness and phonics.

There is science-backed research in all aspects of reading instruction. Shanahan (2020) states, “I think our field has dropped the ball with regard to teaching phonic. I see too little of it in primary classrooms, and what is there is not necessarily consistent with research findings.” He adds that, in all fairness, those same gaps of thoroughness, explicitness, and quality are apparent in reading comprehension, writing, and oral reading fluency.

Duke, Ward, and Pearson(2021) share some of the science of reading comprehension instruction. They tackle this question: What have decades of research told us about the nature of comprehension and how to develop students’ comprehension in schools? They state that research has revealed a great deal about what goes on in the mind when readers comprehend oral and written text and how instruction and other experiences can affect that development. Researchers from many disciplines, such as developmental psychology, cognitive science, education, and linguists, have been working on the science of comprehension for years.

Please understand that the science of reading is not limited to phonemic awareness and phonics. It goes beyond the so-called reading wars, and gets to the heart of researched reading instruction, and does not limit itself. Scientific studies are being done in the areas of vocabulary learning, comprehension, and others areas of reading instruction as well.

When using research to inform your practice, be sure that the research will stand up. Shanahan (2020) suggests that you should think of educational research this way, “We tried this routine and managed to make it beneficial to students—not a small thing—and perhaps you too could make it work under your circumstances and with your students.”

When considering research, remember that it is not guaranteed to work with your student and circumstances.

Shanahan discusses the importance of looking for studies that have been replicated and have used Meta-Analysis.

Meta-Analysis refers to a method used to synthesize multiple studies into a new, more extensive analysis. When conducting Meta-analysis, it is expected that all relevant studies are included no matter the outcome. For example, the ILA journal Reading Research Quarterly publishes many meta-analysis studies. One such analysis is Effects of Expository Text Structure Interventions on Comprehension (Pyle et al., 2017).

Shanahan (2020) emphasizes that scientists try to consider all of the available data. He states, “they seek the weight of evidence, not the unusual outcomes when trying to determine what works.

Good research explains all outcomes of the research and how it was set up, and if it was a replication or not. It describes any variations from similar studies. It explains things out in detail, not leaving out information.

Shanahan suggests asking these questions when deciding to use research findings to influence what happens in your classroom.

Was the study Peer-Reviewed and Published in a Rigorously Reviewed Journal?
Was there a comparison group, and were the Groups Equal at the Beginning?
What other Differences may explain these outcomes?
Was the Instruction Really Delivered?
What were the control and comparison groups doing?
Who was delivering the teaching, and how were they prepared?
What were the students like? Did the program have different outcomes for different kinds of students?

Asking these questions should not get you to disqualify Action Research done by classroom teachers from consideration of a type of replication in your classroom. I would apply the same questions for Action Research. Remember, teachers do action research with their own students in mind, which is an enormous difference from implementing a program that was successful with an entirely different set of students, even if they might be minorities like students you might have.

Please take the time to read the references that are listed in any journal article or research study. It will help you out tremendously when trying to understand if something will work for your students.

Remember that there are sound scientific research studies done across the board by educators, linguists, and many types of scholars that go beyond phonemic awareness and phonics.

Troy

Duke, N., Ward, A., Pearson, D. (2021). The science of reading comprehension instruction. The Reading Teacher, 74(6), 663-672. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1993

Pyle, N., Vasques, A.C., Lignugaris/Kraft, B., Gillam, S.L..Reutzel, D.R., Olszewski, A., … Pyle, D. (2017). Effects of expository text structure interventions on comprehension: A meta-analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 52 (4), 469-501. HTTP://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.179

Shanahan, T. (2020). The science of reading: Making sense of research. The Reading Teacher, 74(2), 119-125. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1940

Hello everyone. I was able to ask Sunday Cummins a few follow-up questions after she read my last blog post, What Does it Really Mean?

I reflected on using the STP strategy in conjunction with her strategy Explode & Explain in that post. Below are her answers to the questions.

Question 1: What improvements have you seen over time with the use of this strategy?

Sunday: That’s a good question. I guess your blog post reveals my best answer – the integration of other strategies into the Explode to Explain experience!

Question 2: What are the biggest challenges you have noticed with students using this strategy and what suggestions do you have to overcome them?

Sunday: Sometimes, students don’t know what to write in an annotation. They have a sense that a particular detail is important but they don’t know what to write. I’ve added a scaffold to support this – at the end of any shared annotating (whether it’s with Explode to Explain or for some other purpose), we analyze and name the types of annotations. Some examples include:

name a type of detail an author has used like “comparisonreal-lifeinition” or “real life example”
create a quick sketch to help visualize,
share a helpful connection,
jot a question mark when you don’t understand and may need to come back to that detail.

We list these annotations on an anchor chart students can reference as they annotate on their own.

Question 3: Do you ever ask students to try and explain vocabulary words with this strategy?

Sunday: Just like you have folded STP into Explode to Explain, I think you could fold in conversations about unfamiliar vocabulary and the types of context clues that authors use to help readers understand those words. This could help the students think about what to write in their annotations.

I think conversations are essential to learning new words. Think back to how we learned to read. We first learned to talk and communicate by hearing others use words. We had learned the sounds of the English language before we could talk. We heard words used by others before we used them ourselves. I know and use words today I have rarely seen in print or written. I struggle to spell some of these and automatically recognize them in print. It is the same way for our students when they are exposed to new language, even more so because they have limited experiences. Having conversation and building connections to new vocabulary is essential.

Thanks for answering these questions and your insight Sunday.

Troy

Month: January 2022

The Science of Reading includes all components of Reading

What Does It Really Mean? Part 2

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