Penn Literacy Network

RESEARCH THAT INFORMS
PENN LITERACY NETWORK SEMINARS
by Dr. Morton Botel, Penn Literacy Network Senior Advisor

No Child Left Behind legislation requires “evidence-based” research for literacy programs seeking federal funding. Penn Literacy Network Seminars are designed to incorporate this evidence into teacher training programs that empower educators to develop a balanced literacy program, one which focuses on reading/writing/talking across the curriculum.

These sources of evidence include the practices of outstanding teachers, the recommendations of experts in literacy education, experimental and correlational research and theories based on the integration of findings from many literacy related disciplines.

I will review these sources and practices based on them briefly in this essay. (More extensive development of the ideas and their documentation in this essay can be found in my book: The Plainer Truths of Teaching/Learning/Assessing Literacy, 2006. See my WEB site: MortBotel.com.)

The Practices of Outstanding Teachers:

Catherine Snow, Marilyn Jager Adams, William Labov, Annemarie Sullivan Palanscar, Dorothy Strickland and the many other literacy notables on The Select Committee of the National Research Council (“Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children,” 1998) reported from their meta analysis (compilation of many studies) of the practices of outstanding teachers that these teachers typically construct their pedagogy around a balance of literacy experiences that include:

Creating a literate environment in which children have access to a variety of reading and writing materials;

Creating multiple opportunities for sustained reading practice in a variety of formats, such as choral, individual, and partner reading;

Choosing instructional-level texts from a variety of materials, with a reliance on literature, big books, and link reading and writing activities;

Adjusting the grouping arrangements and the extent of explicitness of instruction to meet the needs of individual students;

Encouraging self-regulation through cognitive monitoring strategies, and

Orchestrating explicit word study, both in “authentic contexts” of reading and writing and (emphasis mine) in “isolated practice.” (I will return to this controversial finding later)

Confirming the above practices of outstanding teachers, international comparative research has consistently reported that the 14 year old students of New Zealand have the highest levels of literature comprehension and interpretation in the English speaking world. Of particular significance here is that the pedagogy of typical elementary and middle grade teachers of these countries is essentially like that of outstanding teachers in America as reported above.

Expert Opinion Regarding Comprehension Instruction:

The National Reading Panel (NRP) researchers made the following observations about the nature of comprehension:

Comprehension is a complex process. There exist as many interpretations of comprehension as there are of reading. This may be so because comprehension is often viewed as "the essence of reading." Reading comprehension is further defined as "intentional thinking during which meaning is constructed through interactions between text and reader" According to this view meaning resides in the intentional, problem-solving, thinking processes of the reader that occur during an interchange with a text. The content of meaning influenced by the text and by the reader's prior knowledge and experience that are brought to bear on it. Reading comprehension is the construction of the meaning of a written text through a reciprocal interchange of ideas between the reader and the message in a particular text.

The bulk of instruction of text comprehension research during the past two decades has been guided by the cognitive conceptualization of reading described above.

It is interesting to note that the Panel relied upon their expert theory-based knowledge in constructing this statement. They did not, in fact, rely upon meta analyses of comprehension and vocabulary research, because they reported that there were too few worthy studies to come to any “valid conclusions.” Nevertheless, they did endorse the following seven kinds of comprehension instruction, four kinds of vocabulary instruction and principles for developing fluency in developing literacy competence:

RE: Comprehension Instruction
1. Comprehension monitoring--in which the reader learns how to be aware or conscious of his or her understanding during reading and learns procedures to deal with problems in understanding as they arise.
2. Cooperative learning--in which readers work together to learn strategies in the context of reading
3. Using graphic and semantic organizers—in which the reader represents graphically (write or draw) the meanings and relationships of the ideas that underlie the words in the text
4. Question answering--in which the reader learns to answer questions about the details and inferences of the text
5, Question generating--in which the reader learn to generate and answer inferential questions
6. Apprehending Story Structure--in which readers improve their memory and identification of the aspects of story structure
7. Summarizing--in which readers improve their identification and memory for main ideas

RE: Vocabulary Instruction
1. Vocabulary should be taught directly and indirectly
2. Vocabulary should be taught through multiple exposures
3. Vocabulary should be taught in rich contexts
4. Vocabulary should be taught through active engagements
5.Vocabulary can be acquired through incidental learning.

RE: Teaching for Fluency
The NRP defined fluency as requiring “the rapid use of punctuation and the determination of where to place emphasis or where to pause to make sense of the text. Readers must carry out these aspects of interpretation rapidly—and usually without conscious attention. Thus, fluency helps enable reading comprehension by freeing cognitive resources for interpretation” They specifically endorsed “repeated oral readings” as an experimentally-based activity. This kind of reading is generally done in guided oral reading where students are reading at their instructional or independent reading levels. Variations of the practice include teachers modeling fluent reading, engaging children in “echo reading” and practice in paired reading with peers until they are able to perform for the teacher or class with considerable fluency. It is interesting to note that the Panel regarded the all too common practice of “Round Robin” oral reading with distain.

The NRP does acknowledge that there is extensive correlational evidence indicating that children who are the best readers, as compared with struggling readers, had been read to and talked with about books thousands more hours in their pre-school and school years. Over and over again, leaders in literacy education such as J.Trelease and R. Anderson, E. Heibert and I. Wilkinson have concluded from their meta analysis of correlational research that reading aloud to children is the most important factor in promoting reading comprehension and fluency.

Correlational and Experimental Research On Choosing and Sharing Texts
In the same way as with reading aloud to students, the NRP, with respect to wide independent reading say that the correlational research supporting the practice is overwhelming:

There are literally hundreds of studies that find that the best readers read the most and that poor readers read the least; they include the National Assessment for Educational Progress, which has found such relationships with both elementary- and secondary-age students. It appears--from the correlations--that the more that you read, the better your vocabulary, your knowledge of the world, your ability to read, and so on.

In addition to the correlational evidence there is a considerable body of experimental research supporting self-selected, sustained silent reading.. Krashen, reported his meta-analysis of that research in his book, “The Power of Reading.” He says that there are

… a total of 41 studies of the value of sustained silent reading in school. In 38 out of the 41 comparisons, readers in sustained silent reading did as well or better on tests of reading than children who spent an equivalent amount of time in traditional instruction. I found nine studies that lasted longer than one year; sustained silent reading was a winner in eight of them, and in one there was no difference.

Clearly, the message from both correlational and experimental research is that a balanced literacy curriculum should include regular blocks of time for choosing and reading self selected books.

Experimental Research on Writing

A meta-analysis of research on writing (Bangert-Drowns, Hurley &Wilkinson, 2003) identified 45 experimental studies from primary grades through college in a variety of subject matter settings. The comparison was between conventional classrooms and classrooms where intensive writing instruction took place on the same content. In over 30 of these studies students in the intensive writing classrooms outperformed the control students. A major conclusion of the study is that the key variable was not more time on task but rather that intensive writing instruction “scaffolds metacognitive reflection on learning processes.” (on the web at http://cela.albany.edu).

Experimental and Theoretical Research on Phonemic Analysis/Phonics
This section is longer than the others because the findings in the research are so often misunderstood or ignored.

The Select Committee (cited at the beginning of this essay), reported that outstanding teachers “orchestrate explicit word study, both in “authentic contexts” of reading and writing and in “isolated practice.” These word study practices included learning sight words, phonemic analysis and phonics.

The NRP came to the following conclusions reported in the body of their report based on experimental studies of the study of phonemic analysis/phonics:

Phonemic analysis/phonics should be directly and systematically taught in K/1 where such instruction has the biggest impact on comprehension. The researchers say that the reviewed research does not provide the basis for making valid recommendations beyond those grade levels and that teachers will need to make that judgment.

Methods that teach children to manipulate phonemes with letters are more effective than methods limiting manipulation to spoken words. Meta analysis of the research indicated that phonemic analysis is best taught in the process of teaching phonics. The NRP pointed out that children’s skills in phonemic analysis/phonics also develops through inventive spelling and through experiencing rhymes, chants, word play, songs, etc. Additionally they propose that:

The whole literacy program needs to be balanced.

Instruction in phonemic analysis and phonics should be limited to 30 minutes a day.

Teachers must know their children. They honor teachers’ knowledge, right and need to determine how to teach phonemic analysis/phonics in a balanced literacy program. They did not find evidence to recommend specific programs.

Further evidence presented below indicated that children will learn phonics best through their investigations of the letter/sound elements within the syllable because the syllable is the graphophonological unit most accessible to young children’s metalinguistic awareness.

There is strong theoretical and experimental research support for kids to engage in systematic co-constructivist, problem-solving investigations in general and in particular in their investigations of the syntactic and graphophonic systems). Such support is found in the theories and research of such leaders in literacy education and learning as Bruner, Cazden and Gleitman, Rozin and Shipley.

Bruner, as early as 1973, provided the methodological theory for co-constructivist investigations when he described an inquiry approach to teaching/learning that he calls “combinatorial playfulness.” In the following paragraph Bruner sums up that theory:

Emphasis on discovery in learning has precisely the effect on the learner of leading him to be a constructionist… Emphasis on discovery, indeed, helps the child to learn the varieties of problem solving, of transforming information for better use, and helps him to learn how to go about the very task of learning…Discovery results most often from a succession of constructing representations of things. We do something that is manipulative at the outset—literally, provide a definition of something in terms of action…that is a start. But it is a start that provides the material for a second step. For having acted…we are then able to turn around on our own actions and represent them. Manipulation and representation, then, in continuing cycles are necessary conditions for discovery. They are the antithesis of passive, listener-like learning.

Finally, Courtney Cazden, in her book “Whole Language Plus,” 1992, strongly supports the teaching of graphophonic skillfulness in supplements to a whole language curriculum. She states that “immersion in rich literacy environments is necessary but not sufficient” for the majority of children. They need “deliberate, well-planned help in attending to parts as well as wholes.”

Regarding the parts she refers to, as it relates to phonemic analysis/phonics, I continue to emphasize the centrality of the syllable as a core unit in early reading acquisition. For this concept, I refer to the conclusions reached by Gleitman, Gleitman and Shipley (1975) in their meta analyses of cognitive, linguistic, speech perception and psychoacoustic studies:

…we believe that the major problem in early reading acquisition is the complex and abstract relationship between alphabetic writing and speech;…that understanding of this relationship is hard to come by, and ordinarily has to be taught explicitly.

…we demonstrated that while tacit knowledge of the relevant categories (phonemes) can be shown from oral language use to exist in the head, this is insufficient to form the basis for reading acquisition: the prospective reader must achieve phonological awareness, or quite explicit access to the phonological mechanisms or principles at work in his speech system.

…we concluded on the basis of evidence from speech-perception, cross-cultural studies of reading, and other sources that, within phonology, syllables are easier to access (apprehend, talk about, manipulate) than are phonemes. In general, syllables are the smallest coherent units of speech: they tend to be physically undissectable, they are the smallest separately pronounceable units of speech…

CONCLUSION
On the basis of the evidence cited in this essay, The Penn Literacy Network is committed to designing its seminars to give teachers and school leaders access to this knowledge so that they can construct balanced literacy programs of reading/writing/talking across the curriculum.