Essentials of Evidence-Based Academic Interventions

1. Essentials of Evidence-Based Academic Interventions October 10, 2013 Chapters 4 and 5 Jennie Stumpf and Heidi Hahn Regions 5 and 7 SLD Trainers

2. Agenda • Questions since previous session • Review Chapters 1, 2, and 3 • Chapter 4 • Sharing of approaches • Chapter 5 • Sharing of approaches Next session: November 7 from 3:30 – 5:00

3. Review from last time • General Principles of Evidence-Based Instruction • Both NCLB and IDEA mandate that general and special educators use methods and materials that work and have a positive impact on student progress • The hope is that the application of research to practice will result in significant improvements in student learning and achievement

4. Review from last time • Phonological Awareness and Beginning Phonics • Training in phonemic awareness clearly does not constitute a complete reading program; phonological awareness is necessary but not sufficient for good reading • Good reading also requires mastery of more complex phonic skills, automaticity with sight words, a robust vocabulary, reasoning abilities, and world knowledge • Training in phonological awareness when coupled with systematic instruction in letter-sound correspondences, will help children move along the pathway to the development of efficient reading skills.

5. Review from last time • Phonics and Sight Word Instruction • If a reader has poor basic reading skills, automatic word recognition and fluency are sacrificed and comprehension is compromised • If children do not acquire basic reading skills during the first 3 years of schooling, they will have a difficult time developing the levels of fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension necessary for effective reading in upper grades.

6. Chapter 4 – Reading Fluency • Definition of Reading Fluency (pg 52) • Speed or rate of reading • Ability to read materials with ease and expression • “Reading fluency is the ability to read connected text rapidly, smoothly, effortlessly, and automatically with little conscious attention to the mechanics of reading, such as decoding” (Meyer & Felton, 1999) • The purpose of fluency instruction is to increase ease and automaticity with reading so that a reader can devote all of his or her attention to understanding the material

7. How Slow Reading Affects Reading Performance • Students read less text and have less time to remember, review, or comprehend the text • Students expend more cognitive energy than peers trying to identify individual words • Students have trouble retaining parts of text in their memories and are then less likely to integrate those segments with other parts

8. Reading Fluency and Comprehension • Beginning readers first must focus on accuracy of reading and as their skills develop shift more attention to understanding what they read. • Fluent reading facilitates comprehension • When readers are fluent, reading is effortless and the reader is free to focus on meaning rather than word decoding

9. Characteristics of Students Struggling with Reading Fluency • Limited Prosody – a student who lacks expression when reading • Has trouble modulating his or her voice with proper stress and intonation • Ignore punctuation marks , such as not pausing at periods or raising the tone of voice for a question mark • Students who do not divide sentences into meaningful phrases will have trouble comprehending written text

10. Characteristics of Students Struggling with Reading Fluency • Elements of Good Oral Prosody • Vocal emphasis is placed on appropriate words • Voice tone rises and falls at appropriate places in text • Voice tone rises at the end of a question • Vocal tone represents character’s feelings and emotions • Appropriate pauses are made at phrase boundaries, using punctuation, prepositional phrases, subject-verb divisions, and conjunctions

11. Characteristics of Students Struggling with Reading Fluency • The rapid naming of colors, objects, digits, and letters appears to be related to the later development of reading fluency • In Kindergarten and first grade, these early naming speed deficits are good predictors of who will struggle with fluency later in school

12. Characteristics of Students Struggling with Reading Fluency • Orthographic Processing Problems • Trouble developing accurate high-quality mental representations of word patterns and spellings • Students have problems acquiring a sight vocabulary • Slow to recognize common syllable units and word parts easily and thus fail to develop automaticity with word recognition

13. Characteristics of Students Struggling with Reading Fluency • Working Memory and Attention Problems • Readers have to pay attention to the appearance of words to develop accurate orthographic representation • Slow word recognition results in a working memory bottleneck that then uses up attentional resources and affects reading comprehension • If a reader’s attention is drained by decoding words, little energy is left for the demanding process of comprehension

14. Determining Reading Rate • Divide the number of words read correctly by the total amount of reading time • Example: A teacher counts out 100 words in a passage and then times students as they read the passage. If a student reads 92 words correctly out of the 100 in 1.5 minutes, the words correct per minute (wcpm) would be 61. • Example 2: Have a student read a text for 1 minute. Count the total number of words read, minus the number of errors, to obtain the number of wcpm. • Self-corrections are not counted as errors, but do impact reading r ate

15. Word Reading Rate for 1-minute Timings • 30 correct wpm for 1st and 2nd grade children • 40 correct wpm for 3rd grade children • 60 correct wpm for mid-3rd grade children • 80 correct wpm for students in 4th grade and higher

16. Determining Accuracy Level • Accuracy level is percentage of words read correctly • Divide the number of words read correctly by the total number of words attempted • Example: If the student reads 110 words correctly out of a total of 120 words, the accuracy rate is 92% (110 wcpm/120 wpm= .916 or 92%) • Knowing a students accuracy level ensures that materials for building reading fluency will be at an appropriate instructional level for that student.

17. Accuracy Level • In general, students should have an accuracy rate of 90 to 94% on the material used for reading fluency instruction.

18. Focus on Accuracy or Fluency? • If a student is making more than one error for every ten (10) words read, instruction should focus on building accuracy • If a student is making fewer errors, for example one error in every 15 to 20 words, but has slow speed, then instruction should focus on building fluency

19. Effective Fluency Interventions • Have provisions of an explicit model of fluent reading • Have multiple readings of text with corrective feedback on missed words • Establish performance criteria for increasing the difficulty level of the text

20. Recommendations for Increasing Fluency • Select interesting passages • Ensure active engagement • Have students engage in multiple readings (three or four times) • Use instructional-level text • Use decodable text with struggling readers • Read passages aloud to an adult • Provide extra practice with trained tutors • Provide corrective feedback on word errors • Establish a performance goal or criterion of the number of words per minute • Provide short, frequent periods of fluency practice • Provide concrete measures of progress using charts and graphs

21. Fluency Intervention Procedures • Speed Drills • Choral Reading or Neurological Impress Method • Repeated Reading • Previewing • Taped Books and Technology • Prosody • Fluency and Comprehension • Commercial Program (See descriptions on pages 60 – 74)

22. Sharing Time • What method or program have you used to help with fluency? • What do you like about it? • What don’t you like about it? • How easy is it to use? • Other comments • Share a method or program you currently don’t use but are interested in learning more about

23. Chapter 5: Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension • Comprehension is a complex task that requires the reader to identify words in text, know the meaning of the words, connect the ideas to prior knowledge, and retain information long enough to understand what is being read • If a reader cannot quickly decode or recognize the words in the text, then comprehension will suffer • If a reader can decode words but does not know what they mean, then comprehension is compromised • If the reader cannot connect the ideas presented in the text with existing knowledge, then comprehension is difficult

24. Vocabulary Research • Children from homes at or near the poverty level were exposed to about ¼ the volume of words that children from professional level families were exposed to. • By the end of second grade, a 4,000 word difference exists between children in the highest vocabulary quartile and children in the lowest, which is mostly a reflection of differences in experience

25. More Vocabulary Research • Students struggling with reading during the first 3 years of school will have difficulty developing sufficient vocabulary, using adequate comprehension strategies, and acquiring adequate fluency. • Children with a limited oral vocabulary will struggle with nearly all aspects of academics

26. Reading Struggles • Children struggle with reading due to either limited decoding skills or limited word knowledge • A limited vocabulary by grade 3 has been linked to declining comprehension scores in the later elementary years • Adequate reading comprehension depends on a person already knowing 90 to 95% of the words in a text

27. Characteristics of students struggling with vocabulary development • Difficulty comprehending oral language • Trouble remembering and retaining words • Limited word choice • Exhibit errors when speaking, reading, or writing • Difficulty repeating sentences or learning new words

28. National Reading Panel Findings Related to Vocabulary • Vocabulary should be taught directly and indirectly • Words must be seen multiple times and in multiple contexts • Language-rich environments foster incidental learning of vocabulary • Technology helps develop vocabulary • No one single methods works best all of the time for teaching vocabulary

29. Effective Vocabulary Instruction • Overall goal of a vocabulary program is to expand both receptive and expressive vocabulary and to move more words from the receptive level to the expressive level • Receptive Level: I understand the word when I hear it or read it • Expressive Level: I understand the word when I use it in a conversation or in writing

30. Vocabulary Instruction • Incidental Word Learning • Read Aloud • Books on Tape • Word Consciousness • Intentional Explicit Word Instruction • STAR Framework • Synonyms, antonyms, multiple-meaning words • Semantic feature analysis • Semantic maps, word webs, graphic organizers • Preteaching vocabulary words • Examples and nonexamples • Keyword method (See descriptions on pages 82 – 90)

31. Vocabulary Instruction • Independent Word-Learning Strategies • Contextual Analysis • Resources (Dictionary, Encyclopedia, etc.) • Morphemic Analysis (See descriptions on pages 82 – 96)

32. Final Thoughts on Vocabulary?

33. Characteristics of Individuals Struggling with Reading Comprehension • Language-based problems • Limited vocabulary • Knowledge gaps that interfere with their ability to understand materials they read • Lack persistence – give up too easily when the reading becomes too difficult • Do not monitor their reading or pay attention to how well they understand what they are reading • Tend to read all texts in the same manner, rather than adjusting their reading based on the type of text or the purpose for reading

34. Characteristics of Good Readers • Reads actively (thinks about what is being read) • Reads for a purpose (goal-oriented) • Previews text (structure, relevant sections) • Predicts while reading • Reads selectively (focusing on what is important) • Constructs, revises, and questions meanings while reading • Determines meaning of unfamiliar words and concepts • Uses prior knowledge to help understand the text • Monitors understanding • Adjusts reading rate and approach based on genre

35. Strategies Used by Good Readers • Relating new information with prior knowledge • Figuring out the main ideas • Questioning (generating and answering) • Using knowledge of text structure (genre) • Constructing mental images of the meaning conveyed by the text • Making inferences beyond the information given in the text • Monitoring comprehension (self-regulation, think aloud) • Summarizing and paraphrasing important information • Seeking clarification when the meaning is confusing

36. National Reading Panel Findings Related to Reading Comprehension • Vocabulary instruction is required to develop word knowledge • A combination of comprehension strategies is most effective • The seven most effective reading comprehension strategies are: • Comprehension monitoring • Cooperative learning • Graphic and semantic organizers • Question answering • Question generating • Story structures • Summarization

37. Most Effective Teaching Methods and Instruction Components for Reading Comprehension • Directed response/questioning • Teacher asks questions, encourages students to ask questions, teacher-student dialogue • Control difficulty of processing demand of task • Teacher provides assistance as needed, gives simplified demonstration, sequences steps from easy to difficult and presents in that order, allows students to control level of difficulty, keeps activities short • Elaboration • Activities provide students with additional information and explanation about skill/steps, use redundant text or repetition within text (See descriptions on page 103)

38. Most Effective Teaching Methods and Instruction Components for Reading Comprehension • Modeling of steps by teacher • Teacher demonstrates the steps students are to follow • Group Instruction • Instruction or interaction between teacher and students occurs in small groups with 6 or fewer students • Strategy Cues • Teacher reminds students to use strategies or steps, explains steps or procedures, uses a think-aloud model, identifies benefits of strategy use (See descriptions on page 103)

39. Effective Comprehension Instruction • Includes explicit instruction in specific comprehension strategies, as well as plenty of time and opportunity for actual reading, writing, and discussing text • Balanced between teaching and practicing • Should not wait until students master decoding but rather should be emphasized from the very beginning of reading instruction • Should occur in a supportive classroom environment that fosters high-quality teacher-to-student and student-to-student dialogues and interactions about texts

40. Comprehension Instruction • Strategy Instruction • Strategies for reading a text • DR-TA • K-W-L • SQ3R • MULTIPASS • Predicting • Think Aloud • Visualization • Text Structures • Summarizing • Questioning • Monitoring comprehension (See descriptions on pages 102 - 113)

41. Comprehension Instruction • Explicit Instruction • Reciprocal Teaching • Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) • Students Achieve Independent Learning (SAIL) • Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) (See descriptions on pages 113 – 116)

42. Comprehension Instruction • Commercial Products • Accelerated Reader/Reading Renaissance • Early Intervention in Reading • Failure Free Reading • Kaplan SpellRead • Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies • Reading Recovery • Start Making a Reader Today (See descriptions on page 116)

43. Sharing Time • What method or program have you used to help with comprehension? • What do you like about it? • What don’t you like about it? • How easy is it to use? • Other comments • Share a method or program you currently don’t use but are interested in learning more about

44. Summary • Reading research indicates that children who get off to a poor start in reading in first grade typically continue on this trajectory and do not catch up • Students with good reading skills accrue many benefits such as increased vocabulary and enhanced knowledge, while those who struggle with reading fail to achieve similar linguistic benefits • Reading is a gateway skill that provides access to learning, opportunity, and knowledge

45. Final Thoughts • Questions? • Comments? Next session: November 7 from 3:30 – 5:00 Chapter 6: Spelling Chapter 7: Handwriting and Written Expression • Contact Information • Heidi Hahn: heidi.hahn@isd181.org • Jennie Stumpf: jstumpf@midstate.k12.mn.us