Download Steps for Developing Instructional Approaches EGRA

Steps for Developing
Instructional Approaches
EGRA Workshop
March 12-14, 2008
Marcia Davidson
University of Maine
Orono, ME 04469
[email protected]
Sandra Hollingsworth
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA
[email protected]
Developing a Pilot Instrument
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Conceptual framework for assessment probes
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General Outcome Measure (GOM) rather than a Mastery
Measure
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GOM means that progress is linear over time and the
measure is sensitive to small increments in performance.
The monitoring is always on a goal reading passage – not
instructional level.
Efficient and simple to administer and score
Provides valid and reliable information on reading
proficiency
Class or Student Level Report: Individual Student
Performance Profile or Student History
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An individual student progress summary provides both a
numerical and pictorial display of student performance on one
measure across a year(s) in relation to the established goal.
One student’s Oral Reading
Fluency Progress Across Years
Harn (2005)
Harn (2005)
3
Step 4: How to Graph Reading Scores
Correctly Read Words Per Minute
The vertical axis is labeled with the
range of student scores.
100
90
80
70
60
50
The horizontal axis is labeled with
the number of instructional weeks.
40
30
20
10
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Weeks of Instruction
10
11
12
13
14
Measures Developed for The Gambia
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Letter Name Knowledge: naming random list of
upper and lower case letters in one minute. Total of
100 letters.
Phoneme Segmentation: This measure is more
challenging and asks children to count the number
of sounds and then make the sounds. It can be
difficult and it is possible that a poor performance is
not due to poor phonological sensitivity but to poor
working memory.
More on Phoneme Segmentation
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Why is this task considered important?
Phonological processing is key to success in
reading. Children need to know the sounds in
words so that they are able to map the
sounds/phonemes to letters/graphemes and can
acquire the alphabetic principle.
There are developmental phases of phonological
awareness.
Phoneme segmentation as well as phoneme
blending are predictive of reading success.
PHONEMES Are Most Difficult
Phonological Awareness
Phonemes
Onset/Rime
Syllable
Slide developed by Linda Farrell
Really Great Reading Company
There are levels of phonological awareness
We know that phonemic
awareness is the highest
level of the phonological
awareness skills.
Phoneme
/sh/
/ īn /
Onset/Rime /sh/
Syllable
Word
Slide developed by Linda Farrell
Really Great Reading Company
sun
/ī/
shine
sunshine
/n/
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When children have difficulty with
phonemes, we need to “back up”
along the phonological continuum.
Familiar Word Identification
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What does a student’s performance on this
measure tell us?
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If a child is sounding out each word, letter by letter, then
they have not developed automaticity in word recognition,
a necessary skill for fluent reading.
A child needs to see a word from 4-10 times and
recognize it accurately before it can become automatic.
Children need to read words they are learning many
times in context and practicing reading words in isolation
is sometimes very helpful.
If a child is not able to sound out words successfully, they
need to learn basic phonics skills, followed by more
advanced word study.
Simple Unfamiliar Nonword Decoding

Children read a list of pseudowords/non
words. Why do we ask them to do this?

It is the only way to know how they decode
words. If we ask them to read real words, they
may have memorized many and we cannot
know if they understand the sound/symbol
(phoneme/grapheme)relationship. We must ask
them to read nonwords so that we can see
whether they understand how speech to print
works.
Passage Reading
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Students are asked to read connected text
aloud for 60 seconds.
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Why is reading connected text fluently
important?
Why does rate and accuracy matter when
reading aloud?
Students are asked a series of questions
about what they read to make sure they are
not just saying words without understanding
what they are reading.
Listening Comprehension

This task involves reading a short passage
to a student aloud and then asking questions
about the passage to find out whether the
student understood what was read to
him/her.

Why is this important? Consider the simple view
of reading:

decoding X listening comprehension = reading
Dictation
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The student is asked to listen to a short
sentence that is read aloud and is asked to
write the sentence. The sentence is
repeated two more times more slowly.
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What skills does this task address?

Working memory, spelling skills,
phonological/orthographic memory
Instructional Implications
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Five key components of reading
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Phoneme awareness/sensitivity
Phonics
Fluency
Vocabulary
Comprehension
All are important and they are NOT a
sequence of instruction.
Instructional Implications from The
Gambia EGRA Instrument
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Children need to learn:
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phonological awareness
letter names and sounds to automaticity
decoding Skills to automaticity
vocabulary and comprehension skills
Phonological/Phonemic Awareness
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Playing with the sounds of language.
Teaching PA in the dark!
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Sounds in children’s names
Changing the first sound in a name or adding a sound at
the end
Counting sounds in names
Hearing a word segmented into phonemes and blending
it
Listening to a word and saying the sounds
Pushing a marker into a box for each sound in a word
Learning Letter Names with an alphabet
arc
From Florida Center on Reading Research: Student Activities - Phonics
More on Phonics

Scope and sequence of teaching children
how to decode:
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Teaching letter names and sounds: Early on,
children need to pay attention to the location of
the letter in a word as well as its sound
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Poor readers often get the initial letter in a word, but
do not do well with the medial or final letters. So they
must be taught to attend to every letter in a word.
Teaching Letter-sound relationships
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Large letter cards
Pocket chart
Letter tiles and magnetic board
(video clips)
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Instructional sequence:
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Begin with /m/ sound and talk about the sound in several words.
Move to print and show children how the sound /m/ is represented by the
letter ‘m’.
Discriminate among words that begin with ‘m’ and those that begin with
other letters.
Present an example of a word with the ‘m’ in the final position.
Discriminate among words that end with ‘m’ and words that end in other
letters.
Fluency
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Teaching children to decode to automaticity:
every word becomes a sight word.
Building decoding skills so that children
recognize spelling patterns in words.
Practice reading the word patterns taught in
connected text.
Reading with a model for guided oral
repeated reading to build fluency.
Vocabulary
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Never begin with a dictionary definition.
Always explain a word in student-friendly terms.
Create a definition that a child would understand.
Example: cinnamon: (American Heritage
Dictionary) The aromatic reddish or yellowishbrown bark of certain tropical Asian trees, dried and
often ground for use as a spice. (!!!)
Select Tier 2 words to teach. Words that are
important for children to understand – not rare and
unusual words that they will not see often.
Comprehension (some examples of
strategies)
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Teaching narrative story structure
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Story maps with topic/title in a circle on the
middle of the page, and subtopics in surrounding
circles.
Teaching text structure: for example, main
idea, compare-contrast, classification. How
is the text organized?
Focus on Before, During, and After reading
Developing Teaching Strategies: Building a
Beginning Reading Program based on
EGRA data
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What are some phonological awareness activities
that can be taught to a whole class?
What are some approaches to teaching decoding
skills?
What are some strategies to help children build
fluency in reading connected text?
What are some effective ways to teach children
vocabulary?
What are effective ways to teach comprehension
skills?
Other Considerations
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Linking data to instruction
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How to decide what to teach
When to consider grouping children (who will
teach groups?)
How do you know when they have mastered a
skill?
An Example of a Reading
Program
A
PROGRAM
NOW
BEING
PILOTED IN
NIGER AND
MALI
Systematic Method for
Reading Success
SMRL is based on these assumptions
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Children in developing countries have
UNACCEPTABLE LITERACY LEVELS!!
Being denied an opportunity to learn to read
and write in their native languages is
oppressive
Teachers in these countries have little
training in how to teach literacy
Teachers need a guaranteed method for
teaching literacy
Given Baseline Assessments,
What now?
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From research, we know that students need:
 Phonemic Awareness
 Phonics
 Fluency
 Vocabulary and
 Comprehension
The best way to learn phonemic
awareness, phonics and sight words
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is to introduce them through a systematic
program…..
that begins with phonemic awareness, then the
slow introduction of one or two letter-sound
combinations and one or two sight words that
students will be able to practice enough so that
when they come to a story containing the sounds
and words, they will know how to read them.
Then multi-syllabic words and stories
With an emphasis on comprehension.
The best way to learn to read
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is through successful practice every day…from
Day 1
Students gradually build up knowledge of letter
names, sounds, blending sounds into words,
recognizing sight words, so that they NEVER
fail when learning to read.
At the end of the systematic
program(approximately 75 lessons, depending
on the native language patterns), they are
competent enough to read any materials.
Materials: 2 books, approx. 75 lessons
Book 1
Book 2
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1. Re-read yesterday’s text
2. Phonemic Awareness
3. Name & sound of letters
4. Blending sounds into
Words
5. High frequency sight
words
6. Read-aloud for
vocabulary & comp
7. Independent reading
using letters & words
taught
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1. Review
phonics/sight words (if
needed)
2. Sight syllables
3. Reading entire
words
4. Spelling & writing
5. Read-aloud for
vocabulary and comp
6. Independent reading
Each step has a simple routine that the
teacher and students learn quickly
Step 3: Letter names & sounds
di ka di e ni ne ye.
ye di da yan.
e ni ne ye di ye.
e ni ne
.
Consistent and simple to learn
for teachers
and students
Then they can begin to transition
successfully to the national language.
The tools
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Proper materials development
Proper training and commitment of
supervisors
Proper training of teachers
Close monitoring of teachers
Mastery test every 10 lessons (to know
where every student is and what’s needed)
Celebrations of success!
Here are some results from Niger
100.00
90.00
80.00
70.00
Baseline Mots
60.00
2/8 Mots
50.00
Base. Texte
40.00
2/8 Texte
30.00
20.00
10.00
0.00
Base. Texte
Baseline Mots
Here are some results from Mali & Niger on correlations of
teacher implementation Ts =8 Sts.= 390
Implications:
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A simple program that would work in every
developing literacy country…….if
You had an agreement with your ministry to
pilot it
You had supervisors to support the teachers
in the beginning
You had a strong management team
And a deep belief that all students deserve
to be literate.
Questions for either or both of us?