EvidenceBased Reading Instruction: Effective Fluency and Vocabulary Instruction

1
Evidence-Based Reading Instruction Effective
Fluency and Vocabulary Instruction

• Keynote Speaker
• University of Mississippi - 2nd Annual Reading
  Conference
• School of Education
• D. Ray Reutzel, Ph.D.
• Board of Directors
• International Reading Association

2
Last Week
3
Learning to Read

•  
• Jake is 5 and learning to read.
•  
• He points at a picture in a zoo book and says,
• Look Mama! Its a frickin Elephant!
•  
• Deep breath. What did you call it?
•  
• Its a frickin Elephant, Mama! It says so on
  the picture!

4
And so it does..

•  
• A F R I C A N ELEPHANT

5
Evidence Based Reading Instruction

• Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children
  (National Research Council)
• Teaching Children to Read An Evidence-Based
  Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature
  on Reading and Its Implications for Reading
  Instruction (National Reading Panel)
• The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research
  (National Institute of Child Health and Human
  Development).
• National Assessment of Educational Progress 2007
  Reading Results for 4th Grade

6
Evidence Based Reading Instruction
The mission of public schooling is to offer
every child full and equal educational
opportunity, regardless of the background,
education, and income of their parents. To
achieve this goal, no time is as precious or as
fleeting as the first years of formal schooling.
Research consistently shows that children who get
off to a good start in reading rarely stumble.
Those who fall behind tend to stay behind for the
rest of their academic lives.
Burns, Griffin, Snow, 1999, p. 61
7
Evidence Based Reading Instruction

• Until the turn of the millennia, NAEP trend data
  in 4th grade reading scores suggested
  unacceptably high rates of below basic reading
  proficiency among vast segments of the population
  of children. The achievement gap was widening,
  particularly in rural and urban centers and in
  specific ethnic populations.

8
Evidence Based Reading Instruction

• The Nations Report Card
• on Reading NAEP 1971-2007

9
Evidence Based Reading Instruction
NAEP, 2007 Fourth Grade Trends
http//nationsreportcard.gov
10
Evidence Based Reading Instruction
NAEP, 2007 Fourth Grade Trends
http//nationsreportcard.gov
11
Evidence Based Reading Instruction

• The most expensive burden we place on society is
  those students we have failed to teach to read
  well. The silent army of low readers who move
  through our schools, siphoning off the lions
  share of administrative resources, emerge into
  society as adults lacking the single prerequisite
  for managing their lives and acquiring additional
  training. They are chronically unemployed,
  underemployed, or unemployable. They form the
  single largest identifiable group of those whom
  we incarcerate, and to whom we provide
  assistance, housing, medical care, and other
  social services. They perpetuate and enlarge the
  problem by creating another generation of poor
  readers.
• Fielding, L., Kerr, N., Rosier, P. (1998). The
  90 reading goal, p. 6-7. Kennewick, WA National
  Reading Foundation.

12
Evidence Based Reading Instruction

• During the 1990s and early 2000s the Reading
  Wars were raging. Why have we turned to
  evidence-based practices in reading instruction?
• Resolving disputes in practice should be
  grounded in evidence rather than the product
  of political processes.
• We need quality control mechanisms
• and consumer protection in educational
• research and practice.

13
Evidence Based Reading Instruction

• Our hospitals statistics show what studies
  everywhere else have shown that we doctors and
  nurses wash our hands one-third to one-half as
  often as we are supposed to. (pg. 15)

14
Evidence Based Reading Instruction

• What does the evidence say about Reading Fluency
  Instruction?

15
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency

• Because the ability to obtain meaning from print
  depends so strongly on the development of word
  recognition and reading fluency, both of the
  latter should be regularly assessed in the
  classroom, permitting timely and effective
  instructional response.. (p. 323).
• Snow, Burns, and Griffin, 1998

16
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency

• Practices Recommended in the Report as
  Research-Validated
• Focused on analysis on
• 1) Guided oral repeated reading
• 2) Independent reading (encouraging more reading
  on their own).

17
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency

• Practices Recommended in the Report as
  Research-Validated
• 77 guided, oral repeated reading studies were
  analyzed.
• Results show that guided, oral, repeated
  reading is effective in promoting reading
  fluency.
• The Effect Size was .41 of a standard deviation
  or approximately 14 percentile points
  difference).

18
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency

• Practices Recommended in the Report as
  Research-Validated
• 14 studies were located and analyzed looking at
  independent reading practice (SSR, Dear,
  Accelerated Reader, voluntary reading).
• Mostly of the studies were of poor quality.
• Only studies 3 found differences.
• The differences werent large enough to be
  considered educationally significant (Effects of
  less than 5 difference).

19
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency

• What are the conditions for practice to be
  effective?
• Imagine the following conditions for learning to
  drive in a high school drivers education class.
• The teacher models how to drive in his/her own
  car.
• The teacher does not communicate or interact with
  students about how to drive.
• Students can choose any car they want for
  learning to drive.
• Students can choose any road and traffic
  conditions for driving practice.
• Students will practice daily without supervision
  or monitoring.
• In fact, the teacher does not hold the student
  accountable for actually practicing their driving
  each day.

20
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency

• How do the conditions for learning to drive in
  high school and learning to read in middle and
  high school differ?
• Motivation is very high to practice driving but
  not so high for practicing reading for many
  students.
• Stakes for failing to learn to drive are much
  lower than failing to learn to read.
• Others.

21
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency
Reutzel, D. R., Jones, C. D., Fawson, P. C.,
Smith, J. A. (2008). Scaffolded Silent Reading
(ScSR) An Alternative to Guided Oral Repeated
Reading that Works! The Reading Teacher, 62 (3),
pp. 194-207
Kelley, M., Clausen-Grace, N. (2006). R5 The
Sustained Silent Reading makeover
that transformed readers. The Reading Teacher,
60(2), 148156.
22
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency Defined

• Accuracy and Automaticity
• Readers decode words accurately.
• Readers decode words effortlessly.
• Reading Speed or Rate
• Readers read with an age or grade level
  appropriate rate.
• Reading speed is adjusted for purpose and text
  difficulty.
• Expression and Prosody
• Readers read with smoothness, phrasing, and
  inflection.
• Comprehension
• Readers comprehend important ideas.

23
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency

• Skilled readers can read words in context three
  times faster and read words in lists two times
  faster than can struggling readers.
• With this distribution of fluency in a classroom
  whole class instruction and singular approaches
  will not be likely to meet the needs of all
  children.
• Struggling readers are slower because of problems
  in list reading as context doesnt make any
  unique contribution to fluency rates and
  accuracy.
• Jenkins, J.R., Fuchs, L. S., Van den Broek, P.,
  Espin, C., Deno. S. L. (2003).
• Accuracy and fluency in list and context reading
  of skilled and RD groups
• Absolute and relative performance levels.
• Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 18
  (4), 237-245.

24
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency
25 words make up 33 of the words you
read! Thorndike-Lorge magazine count. Ed. E.L
Thorndike I. Lorge. New York, 1944 Columbia
Univ.. entries from "The teacher's word book of
30,000 words" on RLIN
25
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency

• 107 words make up over 50 of the words you read!
• 930 words make up 65 of the words you read!
• 5,000 words make up 80 of the words you read?
• 13 of words occur only once in one million words
• Zeno, S. M., Ivens, S. H., Millard, R.T.,
  Duvvuri, R. (1995). The educators word guide.
  New York Touchstone Applied Science Associates,
  Inc.
• Hiebert, E. H. (2004). Texts for Fluency and
  Vocabulary Selecting Instructional Texts that
  Support Reading Fluency

26
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency

• Sight Word Teaching Strategy
• See the word -the
• Say the word - the
• Spell the word - the
• Visualize the word (Take a picture in your mind)
  - the
• Cover the word
• Verbally spell the word
• Check
• Spell the word
• Cover the word
• Write the word

• Check
• Cut, mix and manipulate letters to spell words
• Check
• Find the word in text
• Dictate the word
• Write the word

27
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency

• Effective fluency lessons include practice and
  explicit instruction on the elements of fluency.
• Fluency practice is effectively accomplished
  using a variety of effective practices such as
  readers theater, oral repeated readings, buddy
  or paired reading, assisted reading, closed
  caption TV, choral reading, etc.
• Worthy, J., Broaddus, K. (2002). The Reading
  Teacher, 55(4), 334-343. Worthy, J., Prater, K.
  (2002). The Reading Teacher, 56(3), 294-297.

28
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Explicit
Instruction of Fluency
Reutzel, D. R. (2006). Hey teacher, when you say
fluency, what do you mean Developing fluency and
meta-fluency in elementary classrooms, pp. 62-85.
In Timothy V. Rasinski, Camille Blachowicz,
Kristin Lems (Eds), Fluency Instruction
Research-Based Best Practices. New York
Guilford Press.
29
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Explicit
Instruction of Fluency

• Explanations explicit teaching of the terms and
  components of fluency.
• Modeling teacher demonstrations of fluency and
  disfluency characteristics.
• Scaffolding
• ME, YOU and ME, YOU
• Easier texts to more difficult
• Charts, visuals, diagrams to convict you of
  teaching fluency terms, concepts, and fluency
  fix-up strategies

30
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Fluency

• Effective fluency lessons include practice and
  explicit instruction on the elements of fluency.

31
Explicit Fluency Lessons An Example

• Lesson Plan
• Explanation
• What
• Today boys and girls, we are going to be learning
  about how to read expressively. Important parts
  of reading expressively are pausing, stopping,
  and raising or lowering our pitch as we read.
  Pitch is how high or low the sounds are that we
  make with our voices (demonstrate high and low
  pitch). Marks on the page called punctuation
  marks (point to) help us to know when we need to
  pause, stop, raise or lower our pitch.
• Why
• We need to read expressively so that we can show
  that we understand what we are reading.
  Punctuation tells us what we need to know about
  how to express the words, phrases, and sentences
  with the right pauses, stops, and pitch.
• When/Where
• Whenever we read, we should pay attention to the
  punctuation so that we know where to pause, stop,
  and raise or lower our pitch.

32
Explicit Fluency Lessons An Example

• Modeling
• Example
• To begin, I am going to read this page with good
  expression paying attention to what the
  punctuation tells me to do, such as pause, stop
  and or raise or lower my pitch. Please look at
  the page on the overhead. Notice that I have
  colored each punctuation mark with a different
  color to help you see them more clearly. Follow
  what I read with your eyes. Listen very
  carefully to see if I stop, pause, or change my
  pitch where I should.
• Non-example
• Now I am going to read this page with poor
  expression paying no or little attention to what
  the punctuation tells me to do. I wont pause,
  stop or raise or lower my pitch. Please look at
  the page on the overhead. Notice that I have
  colored each punctuation mark with a different
  color to help you see them more clearly. Follow
  what I read with your eyes. Listen very
  carefully to see where I should have changed my
  reading to stop, pause, or raise or lower my
  pitch.

33
Explicit Fluency Lessons An Example

• Scaffolding
• Whole Group (Me You)
• Now that I have shown you how and how not to read
  this page, lets practice it together! We will
  begin reading this page all together. (Point)
  Watch my pen so that we can all stay together.
• Now we will read this again using echo reading.
  How many of you have ever heard an echo? Show me
  if you know what an echo is by putting your hands
  on your head like this. So if I say, HELLO..the
  echo will say HELLO. I will read and you will
  echo me Lets begin
• Small Group/ Partners/Teams (Me You)
• Now turn to your neighbor. Partner 1 will read
  and the other will echo. After Partner 1 reads,
  Partner 2 reads.

34
Explicit Fluency Lessons An Example

• Individual (You)
• Next, take your fluency phone and read this page
  again to yourself listening carefully to see
  where of IF you are stopping, pausing, and
  raising or lowering your pitch.

35
Fluency Guided Practice

• Select an appropriately challenging, engaging,
  and short reading selection.
• Start with
• Choral reading echoic, unison, antiphonal, and
  mumble reading

36
Fluency Supported Practice OR

• Select an appropriately challenging, brief, and
  engaging piece of reading.
• Paired Reading Buddy, Peer, Tutor
• Assisted Reading - NIM, Read along tapes, CDs,
  etc.

37
Fluency Recorded Practice

• Select an appropriately challenging, brief, and
  engaging piece of reading.
• Individual Recorded Reading
• Cassette tapes/Audio Computer Files

38
Fluency Performance

• Select an appropriately challenging, brief, and
  engaging piece of reading.
• Readers Theater
• Radio Reading
• Recitation

39
Evidence Based Reading Instruction

• What does the evidence say about Reading
  Vocabulary Instruction?

40
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Vocabulary

• Learning new concepts and the words that encode
  them is essential for comprehension development
  (p. 217).
• Snow, Burns, and Griffin, 1998

41
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Vocabulary

• Practices Recommended in the Report as
  Research-Validated
• Vocabulary should be taught both directly and
  indirectly.
• Repetition and multiple exposures are important
  to learning new vocabulary.

42
Evidence Based Reading Instruction Reading
Vocabulary

• Practices Recommended in the Report as
  Research-Validated
• Learning vocabulary in rich contexts is valuable.
• Vocabulary learning tasks should be restructured
  when necessary.
• Vocabulary tasks should entail active engagement.

43
Vocabulary Essential Number 1

• Incidental Vocabulary Learning
• Examples
• Read Aloud
• Interactions
• Wide Reading

44
Illustration of Vocabulary Essential 1 Read
Aloud
The Weighty Word Book By Paul M. Levitt Douglas
A. Berger Elissa S. Guralnick Illustrated by
Janet Stevens ISBN0-917665-13-9
45
Vocabulary Essential Number 2

• Explicit Vocabulary Instruction
• Typical Teacher Questions
• Word Selection Which words? (Tier 2)
• Strategy Selection Which strategies?
  (Definition, Contextal Conceptual)
• How many per day? (2 -3)
• How many per week? (10-11)
• What does explicit vocabulary instruction look
  like?
• Explain the word meanings, model how to get word
  meaning from multiple exposures contextual,
  conceptual, and definitional.
• Provide guided practice with words in multiple
  task formats

46
Vocabulary Essential Number 2

• Tier One Words- Consists of basic words and
  rarely require instructional attention in school
  and highly frequent in life clock, baby, ball,
  happy, walk, run, etc.
• Tier Two Words - High frequency use for mature
  language users and found across a variety of
  knowledge domains coincidence, absurd,
  industrious, fortunate, etc.
• Tier Three Words - Low frequency use and limited
  to specific knowledge domains isotope, lathe,
  peninsula, refinery, etc. Best learned when
  teaching specific content lessons such as
  geography, science, etc.
• Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., Kucan, L. (2002).
  Bringing words to life Robust Vocabulary
  Instruction. NY Guilford Press.

47
Vocabulary Essential Number 2

• Estimates indicate that about 8,000 basic words
  need no instruction Tier 1
• Estimates indicate that about 7,000 words for
  Tier 2 or about 700 words per year.
• Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (2002) recommend
  teaching about 400 words per year K-12.
• Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., Kucan, L. (2002).
  Bringing words to life Robust Vocabulary
  Instruction. NY Guilford Press.

48
Vocabulary Essential Number 2

• Albasa
• Albasa will usually be found at grocery stores
  and resturants.
• People like to eat albasa on their hamburgers,
  although albasa are tasty with a variety of
  dishes.
• Since albasa are a vegetable, they are also
  nutritious.
• One disadvantage of albasa is the strong odor
• which has been known to produce crying symptoms
  among those who slice them.
• Gipe, J.P. (1980). Use of a relevant context
  helps kids learn new word meanings. The Reading
  Teacher, 33,(5), 398-402.

49
Illustration of Vocabulary Essential 2
Explicit Instruction using a Graphic Organizer
Conceptual Understanding
Based on Ainslie, D. (2001). Word detectives.
The Reading Teacher, 54(4), 360-62.
50
Vocabulary Essential Number 3

• Word Awareness and Word Learning Strategies
• Examples
• Word Awareness
• Word Play
• Word Study
• Word Learning Strategies When I dont know what
  a word means, how can I find out?
• Dictionary use
• Thesaurus use
• Using context clues

51
Illustration of Vocabulary Essential 3 Word
Wizards

• Copy the cover of a book for a vocabulary word
  wall (black and white copy will do) . Put the
  cover and the words from the book at the top of
  the word wall.
• Write childrens names down the left hand side of
  the vocabulary word wall.

Beck, I. L., Perfetti, C., McKeown, M. (1982).
Effects of long-term vocabulary instruction on
lexical access and reading comprehension.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 74(4), 506-521.
52
Illustration of Vocabulary Essential 3 Word
Wizards

• When children use one of the words on the wall in
  their conversation or in their written work they
  get a star, check, or some other mark.
• The student with the most marks at the end of the
  designated time period (say a day or week) is
  given the honor becoming the WORD WIZARD.

Beck, I. L., Perfetti, C., McKeown, M. (1982).
Effects of long-term vocabulary instruction on
lexical access and reading comprehension.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 74(4), 506-521.
53
Word Wizards Display

• Inventions
• Technology
• Electricity
• Appliances

Jamie v v v Jackson v v v v v Cambry v v v
v v v v Shania v v v
54
Evidence-Based Reading Instruction Effective
Fluency and Vocabulary Instruction

• an extensive knowledge base now exists to show
  us the skills children must learn in order to
  read well. These skills provide the basis for
  sound curriculum decisions and instructional
  approaches that can help prevent the predictable
  consequences of early reading failure.
• (National Institute for Literacy, NIFL, 2001, p.
  ii)

55
If you would like a copy of this power point

• D. Ray Reutzel, Ph.D.
• Emma Eccles Jones Endowed Chair Professor
• Utah State University
• www.cehs.usu.edu/ecc
• Presentations Button Left Hand Side
• or
• D. Ray Reutzel, Ph.D.
• IRA Board of Directors
• International Reading Association
• rreutzel_at_reading.org