Download Details The String Theory of Reading

The String Theory of Reading
by Alexandra Jaime Pilar Lockwood
Developing Language & Literacy for Diverse Learners
RL-5770.COP
Plymouth State University
Abstract
This paper uses the metaphor of a piano and piano instruction to illustrate the
multifaceted components of reading instruction. These include phonemic awareness,
phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency. In addition, the close connection
between phonics and spelling instruction is examined. The importance of early literacy
and critical thinking skills are emphasized. Areas of the brain that impact phonological
processing, word recognition and meaning, and the orthographic principle are
described. Successful intervention strategies for English language learners and special
education students are discussed. Assessment and the Response to Intervention model
are explained, particularly how they can impact literacy instruction for all students.
Introduction
I envision the teaching of reading to be similar to learning how to play the piano.
There are many components that go into learning how to play the piano, such as
positioning of the hands, fingering, learning how to read the notes, tempo, and
expression, just as there are many steps to learning how to read fluently and
comprehend the text including phonemic awareness, decoding, comprehension,
vocabulary, and fluency.
The strings of the piano are like the various elements that a teacher uses to
teach reading. First, a child must have print awareness and know what a book is and
how to use it. Next, the child learns phonemic awareness and has the ability to play with
the sounds in words -- rhyme, delete sounds in words, change sounds in words, and so
on. Then the child learns the alphabetic principal and that the letters of the alphabet
represent the sounds. The child learns the sounds that each of the letters represent
individually and in various combinations for sounds and spelling patterns. They
memorize sight words. They learn comprehension skills and strategies to use to
understand what they are reading. Students need to acquire a vocabulary that is robust
and diverse. All of these elements need to be put together in a cohesive way for a
student to learn how to read fluently. In addition, children need instruction in writing,
including spelling and grammar. Phonemic awareness and phonics are closely related
to spelling instruction. In a child’s literacy development if any element is missing -decoding skills, for example -- the child will have difficulty being able to read fluently and
comprehend what he or she is reading because so much effort is put into the decoding.
Similarly, when a piano student is focusing on the notes to learn them the music is
choppy. It is not until the pianist knows the notes and achieves a level of automaticity
that he or she can play beautiful music with expression.
There are other elements that go into the teaching of reading which the strings
also represent. These include the areas of the brain that impact the teaching of reading,
the program that a school uses (including the Response to Intervention that is now
required by the government) and the methods a teacher uses to teach reading. Also,
the family, cultural and community environment are other important strings. Has the
child been read to? Has the child had a language rich environment with the parents
pointing out the names of things? Does the culture value storytelling and reading? Is the
school or larger community interested in reading? These are all important questions that
can impact a child’s ability to learn to read.
Emergent Literacy
Emergent literacy is the term used to describe the process a child goes through
“gaining the concepts and knowledge base required for reading and writing.” (Norton,
2007, p. 49.) This process can begin before a child enters school, but to varying extents
depends on the culture of the family, socio-economic status and early experiences.
Emergent literacy is the first string on the piano. Norton in Table 2.1 on page 52
describes accomplishments which can occur from birth to three years and between
three and four years of age. Some of these are recognizing books by the cover,
pretending to read books, listening to stories, scribbling, repeating sounds in language,
identifying some letters, and so forth. If a child has been exposed to books at home or
preschool, read to, sung songs and nursery rhymes, and sees those around him or her
reading books, magazines, newspapers then they are emerging in their literacy
development. Oral language skills are vitally important as well -- parents naming
objects in the environment, talking to the child , describing the world around the child --
all are things a parent can do to assist in language development. Isabel Beck (2002)
says in Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction that first-grade students
from higher socio-economic levels knew twice as many vocabulary words as their peers
from lower socio-economic levels (p. 1) It is important that teachers provide a print-rich
environment in preschool, kindergarten and first grade because of the disparity in
children’s experiences prior to entering school. Some children will not have made the
gains listed in Table 2.1 and may not be able to recognize any letters or know nursery
rhymes. A child whose first language is different from English may have had these
experiences in their native language, but not in English so a teacher needs to provide
many opportunities for non-native speakers to build an oral vocabulary.
Phonological Processing
The next string on the piano is phonological processing. The area of the brain
that allows for phonological processing and the sound-symbol connection to occur is
Broca’s area. This is the area of the brain where sounds are heard. Phonological
processing works with the smallest unit of sounds -- phonemes. With phonological
awareness a teacher needs to assess whether a child recognizes the following:
Auditory awareness: Do children recognize that different sounds have different
meaning?
Auditory discrimination: Are children able to distinguish one sounds from another
sound?
Auditory blending: Are children able to blend sounds to form words?
Auditory sequential memory: Are children able to hear sounds, remember the
sounds, and repeat them in the same sequence in which they hear them? (Norton,
2007, p. 141)
Some of the tools that teachers can use to do this assessment (assessment is
another string on the piano) are the Phonological Awareness Skills Test (PAST) or
Blevins Phonemic Awareness Assessment (Blevins, 2006, p. 43) Playing with language
using rhymes and songs should begin in preschool or kindergarten. Some children will
acquire these skills more rapidly than others. Because children vary in whether or not
they acquired the emergent literacy skills and if they have attended preschool and/or
kindergarten it is important for a teacher to assess these skills and teach explicitly those
the child is missing. As Blevins in Phonics From A To Z (2006) writes, “Research has
shown that explicit phonemic awareness instruction increases reading and spelling
achievement among preschoolers, primary-grade children, and students with learning
disabilities.” ( p. 43) Blevins continues to describe many useful strategies to use with
students in small groups to increase students’ oral blending and oral segmentation
(using Elkonin boxes for example). He discusses literature that can be used to increase
students’ phonemic awareness and on pages 51-58 has quick and easy activities for
developing various phonemic awareness skills. Other resources that I have used to
teach phonemic awareness skills are Sounds in Action by Yvette Zgonc, Phonemic
Awareness Activities for Early Reading Success by Wiley Blevins, Phonemic
Awareness: Playing with Sounds to Strengthen Beginning Reading by Jo Fitzpatrick,
and Phonemic Awareness in Young Children by Marilyn Jager Adams.
Sound-Symbol Connection
The next string on the piano involves a child’s ability to make the sound-symbol
connection. He or she needs to understand that letters represent sounds. This occurs in
the occipital lobe. Also in this area orthographic processing happens so that the child
can write the letters for the sounds they hear. The angular gyrus is the area of the brain
where the phonological processor and orthographic processor come together. A teacher
can say to a child use your eyes and look at the letters and sound out the word. This is
where phonics instruction occurs in the primary grades. A strong phonics program
according to Blevins (2006) should be “active, social and reflective.” Children should be
“aware of what they are doing, why they’re doing it, and how they’re progressing. This
type of phonics instruction can be described as ‘metaphonics’ -- phonics combined with
metacognition.” (113.) On the same page Blevins quotes Stahl (1992) as saying: “The
purpose of phonics instruction is not that children learn to sound out words. The
purpose is that they learn to recognize words, quickly and automatically, so that they
can turn their attention to comprehension of text.” The purpose of learning how to
decode and do it with automaticity is just this -- so students can understand and think
about what they are reading. Talking with students about what good readers do is one
strategy that helps get children thinking about process in learning to read. This can be
done as early as kindergarten and first grade.Teachers can create a poster or bulletin
board with photographs of children practicing reading strategies. Children need to
understand that first they learn how to sound out words, then read fluently and finally
comprehend and think about what they are reading.
Successful Intervention Strategies
For many students the connection in the brain happens effortlessly as students
begin to learn to decode and read, but for many others this is not the case. This is
similar to a broken string on a piano or a beginning piano student who lacks fluency with
reading music. English language learners in particular will need instruction that is rich in
oral language and may need more direct phonics instruction. Students with reading
disabilities need “successful intervention strategies [that] have carefully developed
instructional objectives that help the students develop their skills and relate the new
skills to previous knowledge.” (Norton, 2007 p. 439) They may have problems
discriminating the sounds of letters which may cause difficulties not only in reading, but
also in spelling. They may be weak in recognizing high-frequency words. A word wall,
especially in the early grades can be useful for all students. Norton says that
Cunningham and Allington (2003) recommend “‘doing’ a word wall versus ‘having’ a
word wall with struggling readers because having a word wall frequently means that the
words are listed but not used by the students.” (2007, p. 440) The children who are
kinesthetic learners and/or musical learners will benefit from chanting and moving as
they say the letters in the words and learn them. Blevins at the end of Phonics From A
to Z describes fourteen problems and possible solutions. Other students might have
weakness in comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, and deficiencies with oral language
or memory. There are interventions that will benefit these students which are also best
practices for all students, although students with these weaknesses will benefit from
more direct instruction and smaller group sizes (which will be discussed more in the RTI
model and differentiated instruction sections.)
The Role of the Brain
Sally Shaywitz in Overcoming Dyslexia describes the differences between the
brain areas used by beginning readers and skilled readers. The beginning reader uses
the parieto-temporal system (also known as the word form area) -- “slow and analytic,
its function seems to be in the early stages of learning to read, that is, in initially
analyzing a word, pulling it apart, and linking its letters to their sounds. In contrast to the
step-by-step parieto-temporal system, the occipito-temporal region is the express
pathway to reading and is used by skilled readers. The more skilled the reader, the
more she activates this region.” (2003, p. 70) In other words skilled readers after
decoding words begin to decode them automatically using a more efficient part of the
brain, while students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia still use the pathways in
the brain that beginning readers use which are less efficient. The research into how the
brain works while reading is relatively new within the past ten years since prior to that
time the technology was not available to study the inner workings of the brain. As new
advances are made in technology and new research into brain functions is explored
there are great potentials for future learning about how to help students with learning
disabilities.
Phonics and Spelling Instruction
Spelling is another important string on the piano. There is a strong connection
between phonics instruction and spelling instruction. It is necessary to help “students
look for and listen to the patterns in words.” (Norton, 2007, p.160) Other researchers
find that it is helpful to teach word families. In the early grades invented spelling is often
accepted for words other than sight words. Norton (2007) writes that: “Understanding
and analyzing the stages that children use in their invented spelling helps teachers
identify the developmental stages of their students and to develop appropriate
instruction.” (p. 161) In addition to identifying the stages of students’ writing, a teacher
can also observe whether students are transferring the phonics rules being taught for
reading into their writing. As more rules are taught and students proceed through the
grades invented spellings become less acceptable. Upper grade students’ spelling
instruction focuses more on teaching prefixes, suffixes and roots.
One issue in spelling that teachers face is where to select the spelling words.
Norton speaks about this on pages 162 and 163. Some teachers select the words
directly from students’ writing, while others use the words in the basal program. For
beginning readers sight word lists made up of high frequency words make sense as do
words that follow a previously taught rule such as silent e. It can be important to
differentiate spelling instruction as students progress applying the rules. One way to do
this is to use Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary and Spelling
Instruction (Bear, et al. 2000). Bear describes the following stages of spelling
development: Letter Name-Alphabetic, Within Word pattern, Syllables and Affixes, and
Derivational Relations. There are spelling inventories for elementary and upper
elementary. In addition to looking at students’ writing, these inventories can be useful to
determine what stage a child is in and which spelling patterns they need to work on.
Some classrooms give the inventory several times a year. Students are in flexible
groups for spelling and can move up to the next level or down as needed after the
inventories are administered.
Blevins, in Phonics From A to Z (2006) presents a scope and sequences for
teaching phonics. The order in which the sounds and letters are taught is important.
Many basal programs also include a scope and sequence. This is one of the more
useful aspects that a basal program can provide for a teacher, particularly for one new
to teaching.
Vocabulary Instruction
Another string is vocabulary words -- in order to be proficient readers and an
educated person it is vital to have a strong vocabulary. The area of the brain that
focuses on vocabulary is Wernicke’s area. It can be referred to as the meaning
processor. As Beck writes in the preface to Bringing Words to Life, “Vocabulary
instruction that inspires such fascination needs to be robust: vigorous, strong and
powerful in effect. It also needs to be interactive and motivating.” (2002) The authors
want to inspire in students a fascination with words and their meanings. Most of
vocabulary instruction in schools have focused on learning words through context cues,
but this is problematic for a number of reasons. First of all struggling readers are having
enough trouble decoding the words and therefore cannot decode the unknown word
and get meaning from the words around it. “Thus, depending on wide reading as a
source of vocabulary growth leaves those children and young people who are most in
need of enhancing their vocabulary repertoires with a very serious deficit.” (Beck, 2002,
p. 6) Another problem with using context cues is that “students focused too narrowly
on the context and failed to consider key aspects that were needed to derive the
meaning of a target word.” (Beck, 2002, p. 104) Also students would attribute “the
meaning of the entire context to the target word.” (Beck, 2002, p. 105) Students didn’t
go beyond the context and think of other scenarios in which the word would fit. Beck
explains the following steps when using context cues with students to teach vocabulary:
1) read/paraphrase to put emphasis on the unfamiliar word; 2) establish meaning in
context to prevent students from having an isolated focus on the word; 3) initial
identification/rational for word choice or ask students why that word may have been
chosen; 4) establish the context meaning looking at clues in the sentences around it; 5)
consider further possibilities to help students think of other possible meanings for the
word, and, 6) finally, summarize. This process may occur working individually with a
student, in a small group, or whole class.
Teaching vocabulary goes beyond using it in context cues. In Bringing Words to
Life lessons are described to incorporate robust vocabulary instruction in lower
elementary, upper elementary, middle and high schools. The first step is choosing
words to teach. Many basal programs will have already chosen the vocabulary, but a
teacher can look at those words and ask themselves if they are appropriate, useful and
important. Looking at Beck’s three tiers of words can be helpful in this. Tier 1 words are
basic words, often nouns. Tier 2 words are the words a teacher will focus on in
vocabulary instruction. These are the “high-frequency words for mature language users
-- coincidence, absurd, industrious -- and thus these words can add productively to an
individuals language ability.” (Beck, 2002, p. 16) An example of how a teacher might
teach Tier 2 words to young children would be to use trade books, read the story, and
focus on the words after reading the story. During the reading a teacher may give a
synonym for an unfamiliar word or briefly explain the meaning (this is fast mapping) to
aid comprehension of the story. Since the goal is for students to gain familiarity with
new words and use them in their daily language, a teacher wants to do extended
mapping with the chosen words. This may include developing a student-friendly
definition, giving multiple definitions or re-wording them in various ways, having the
students use them in sentences or relate them to their own lives. In a lesson about the
story Corduroy where the character is reluctant to leave her teddy bear in the store
children were asked about what they would be reluctant to do. Children may relate the
words in various ways and create examples on their own. Vocabulary instruction on the
same words should occur five days a week with the final day being a way to assess
knowledge of the words. In addition, classroom teachers should use a rich vocabulary
with their students and talk about how they are mature, confident, and so forth.
Teachers can have children earn points for using the words or for listening for them in
the news, at home, and finding them in other texts or newspapers. Tier 3 words are
words specific to a domain. If a teacher were teaching a science or social studies unit
on a particular topic, he or she would teach the Tier 3 words. Multiple exposure to the
words is essential for vocabulary growth. This will benefit students who are learning
English as well as struggling readers and writers. To assist struggling readers and
writers a teacher might pair the struggling student with a peer to complete vocabulary
activities.
Comprehension
Teaching vocabulary is closely related to comprehension, another string on the
piano. It is the goal of reading to be able to derive meaning from texts and understand
the authors’ purpose, be that to entertain the reader or teach something. Kelly
Gallagher, a high school teacher and author, writes in a recent online article: “Kids
today really struggle with difficult texts. They don’t do a very good job of monitoring their
comprehension. They don’t know how to fix their comprehension when it falters. And
I’ve found that their ability to really focus in on their reading seems to lessen with each
year.” Teachers can model, teach and have students practice the following strategies
for comprehension that can be done during reading: decode; predict; question; read
ahead; reread for clarification; use clues; visualize; adjust reading rate; make
connections to yourself, the world or another text; make inferences;
underline/highlight/take notes; sub vocalize or use a dictionary. Some of these
strategies, such as making inferences may be done more in second grade and above,
while kindergarten and first grade teachers might place more emphasis on visualization.
A scope and sequence for teaching comprehension is important. Some basal programs
provide this while other schools create their own.
There are some elements to comprehension, such as establishing background
knowledge, which are necessary at all grade levels. Norton writes, “Schema theory
emphasizes the importance of activating relevant prior knowledge before students read
a selection and helping them fill in the gaps that might hinder comprehension” (2006, p.
218) If children are unfamiliar with what is happening in the world or about the culture or
time period of the text, they are going to struggle with their comprehension. Some tools
that are useful at all grade levels are semantic maps and modeling. Semantic maps are
tools that can help children relate their knowledge and experience to a text or unit of
study. As students read and learn more about a topic, they can add to their maps. A
teacher modeling their thought process “is one of the most effective ways to improve
students’ comprehension.” (Norton, 2006 p. 232). Norton gives a lesson plan for
modeling similes using the Leo Leonni book Swimmy. The teacher could say: “I know
that the author is telling me to think about more information because I saw a simile. I
know the comparison is between Swimmy’s color and a black mussel shell. I know from
my own experience that there are many shades of black....” (Norton, 2006, p. 235)
Critical thinking is another area of comprehension that should begin at an early age and
is important to teach throughout elementary, middle school, high school and beyond.
Children as young as kindergarten and first grade can look at a text and ask whose view
is represented? Who is left out? A primary teacher can use a unit on folktales and read
a version of The Three Little Pigs and then read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
by Jon Scieszcka and Lane Smith from the Wolf’s perspective to initiate such a
discussion.
In a reader’s workshop model for teaching reading the teacher or team chooses
the comprehension strategy that will be the focus over the next several weeks and will
choose books and model the lesson in a brief mini lesson for 10 or 15 minutes of the
hourlong block. Then the students will have guided practice using that strategy. Next,
the students will use it on their own in their reading, while the teacher conferences with
students about their reading and monitors the use of the strategy. Finally, the readers
will gather together to share how they used the strategy in their reading. Struggling
readers and writers and English language learners will need more direct instruction than
a brief conference. A teacher may conference with each student once a week, but know
that certain students may require a check-in more than once a week. Also, Title 1 tutors
or other paraprofessionals may assist those children during this time. Direct instruction
in comprehension can also occur during small groups and Response to Intervention
time.
Fluency
Fluency is another piano string and is achieved when the reader can read words
automatically and comprehend what is read. “Practice in reading leads to automaticity
and fluency.” (Norton, 2006, p. 247) Independent silent reading and choral reading can
help students gain fluency. It is important that children are reading in and out of school.
Schools can help accomplish this with encouraging them to keep reading logs and
having incentive programs for outside reading. This is another area where the kind of
home a child comes from can have an adverse effect on students’ reading
accomplishments. Some parents will take their child to the library or bookstore to
choose books, will read to and with their child, will listen to their child read aloud while
other parents do not engage in these activities. If families place a value on reading, the
children will likely do so too. Although many teachers love reading and try to instill this in
their students, it is sometimes not enough. Some children struggle with fluency despite
the efforts of parents and teachers. These students focus on the decoding and need
practice looping (grouping words or phrases together). Small group intervention can
focus on fluency for readers who struggle with it.
Writing
Writing is another string on the piano. To return to the occipital lobe in the brain:
The student needs to hear the sounds in the words and be able to write them. Current
research shows that grammar instruction in isolation has little effect on student writing.
There is a strong relationship between spelling and writing and the importance of
vocabulary in writing is stressed. Norton talks about five guiding principles when
organizing a writing curriculum and working with students. Students need to develop an
individual voice and be active participants by choosing topics, audience, brainstorming,
revising and reflecting on their own writing. Teachers need to teach writing using a
variety of methods including modeling and direct instruction. They need to teach various
purposes for writing. The teacher should also model writing to the students and share
their own writing. “Literature provides writing models and authentic purposes for writing
because writing is best learned during meaningful reading and writing activities.” (2006,
Norton, p. 359)
A workshop model, such as the one described in About the Authors: Writing
Workshop with Our Youngest Writers by Katie Wood Ray and Lisa B. Cleaveland, is
one method that teaches writing and encompasses the above guiding principles. The
authors work with first graders. They believe “young children who have time to write
every day can grow in all the important ways anyone who writes every day will grow.
We believe, with lots of teaching, they can develop important understanding about what
it means to write, useful strategies to guide them in the process of writing, a sense of
form and genre and craft in their written texts, and a good beginning control of the
conventions of written language.” (Ray and Cleaveland, 2004, p. ix). Students have an
hourlong block of time which begins with a mini-lesson. The lesson could use a trade
book, students might fishbowl what a peer conference is like or the teachers may survey
the room and ask what project each student is working on. One of their goals is to get
the first graders reading like writers. They may choose a book such as Mud by Mary Lyn
Ray and look at the word choice and rich use of language, notice how it has short twoword sentences with strong verbs and make connections between the words and
illustrations. They also teach techniques (word choice, sentence structure and
punctuation) strategies such as reading the text aloud to see where punctuation can go,
and understanding about how writing happens. “We’ll reinforce the big understandings - writers read differently than other people, writing exists in many different form and
genres, writers think about their audience. . . “ (Ray and Cleaveland, 2004, p. 87) They
teach conventions such as contractions, capitalization, punctuation and spelling. They
also teach questions such as when a student needs to peer conference, know if the
book is finished or what they can do to revise and make their writing better. From the
first day they provide students with materials such as papers stapled together to have
them create books. Students choose topics and techniques they may want to try such
as a question and answer format to create books. While they are working teachers
conference with them, students have peer conferences and students are engaged in
writing, revising and publishing. There is a share time where children can choose
finished pieces to share or teachers select pieces that they think have teaching
potential. Their writing workshop begin at the start of the year with students learning
how to chose topics. The teachers assess students in a variety of ways -- looking at
individual writing, watching and listening as students participate in the workshop, ask
questions, looking to see if students are applying the ideas discussed in mini-lessons
and making decisions about their writing, and assessing at a child’s writing development
over time.
Assessment
Assessment is another string on the piano and has been a theme throughout
some of the components discussed above. A best-practices reading program should
include multiple measures of assessment, including formal and informal assessments.
Some types of assessments, such as observation, tell the teacher more than what a
standardized test might. During a reader’s or writer’s workshop teachers observe while
students are participating in independent practice, and while in conference with students
determine whether they are correctly applying the skills and strategies previously
taught. Reading individually with a student may tell a teacher that the student is
struggling with decoding or fluency. Asking questions of students about a story might tell
you that someone is struggling with comprehension. Basal programs often have
methods of assessment that go with the program and can be useful. The Dynamic
Indicator of Basic Skills Test (DIBELS) is used in many schools, but a running record
can tell you more about whether a student understands the meaning of the text and has
substituted a word that makes sense in the context of the story, but was not the word on
the page. By looking at students’ errors a teacher can learn if a student is struggling
with decoding or meaning. Students in the early primary grades need to be assessed
on their phonemic awareness skills, letter-name knowledge, and knowledge of letter
sounds. Word lists of high-frequency words can also be useful in determining which
students might need more direct instruction with sight words.
Assessment should drive instruction, particularly when differentiating or forming
small groups for intervention. Teachers should use a combination of whole group
instruction, small group instruction, and individual instruction through conferencing or
listening to students read during independent reading time. The Three Tier Model or
Response to Intervention (RTI) is now required in many districts. All students receive
Tier 1 instruction during whole group instruction in the 90-minute literacy block. This
block should ideally be a combination of whole group and guided reading instruction.
Those students who are not participating in a guided reading group could be practicing
previously taught skills at centers. This could also be the time is the time when all
students receive the phonics lesson, participate in a reader’s workshop and some type
of writer’s workshop. The second tier is for students who are at-risk. The DIBELS or
some other formal assessment would be used to determine this. Students would work
with a Title 1 tutor, special ed teacher or reading specialist for an extra 30 minutes per
day. Tier 3 is for the students who have the most intense needs and receive extra
instruction from one of the previous mentioned adults. In addition to the literacy block
that all students participate in, there is an additional 30 minutes per day where students
go to a group working on a specific skill or program to meet their needs. These small
groups range in size from one to six children. The greater the needs of the children, the
more important it is to have smaller group size. During this time children who are at
grade level may be participating in centers, reading with partners or alone practicing
previously taught strategies. An RTI group might be working on phonemic awareness
skills, phonics skills, decoding, sight words, comprehension strategies, or fluency.
Classroom teachers, paraprofessionals, Title 1 tutors, and the reading specialist work
together to determine groupings and skills taught and to lead these groups. Groupings
are flexible in that when the next assessment is done a student working on fluency may
have acquired it and then would be working independently, or someone working on
phonemic awareness skills may need to move to a sight word group to gain automaticity
with high-frequency words. In my metaphor of the piano this is a time for teachers to
work with students on a string that is metaphorically broken. The child who is skilled at
decoding, yet not comprehending and applying the strategies taught can work towards
repairing the broken string in a group at this time.
Finally, it is important for the teacher to not only teach critical thinking skills, but
also to use them in relation to reflecting and thinking about their own teaching and
learning. Many schools use a basal program. Educational policy over the past 10 years,
specifically No Child Left Behind, supports such programs. But, a teacher should
always look critically at any reading program and ask the following questions as posed
by Steven and Bean (2007) in Critical Literacy: Context, Research and Practice in the
K-12 Classroom:
Whose interests are being served by this curriculum?
Who is not represented in this curriculum?
How will this curriculum serve students as future learners?
Are students active or passive recipients of this curriculum?
What are the historical orgins of this curriculum?
What political stances are served or ignored in this curriculum?
(Stevens and Bean, 2007, p. 45 and 46)
I would add that teachers should also look at the components in the reading curriculum
and see if they meet what they know about best practices for literacy and the needs of
their students. A kindergarten teacher could have an entering class which lacks
emergent literacy skills. Instead of jumping right in with the basal program and the
beginning letter sounds it is important for that teacher to recognize those lacking skills
and immerse these children in literature, teach them the parts of a book, how to hold a
book and turn pages, that words have meaning and we read from left to right.
Alternately, a teacher may look at his or her basal program and find it lacking in
vocabulary instruction. That teacher, if knowledgeable about Beck’s work, could then
supplement the basal program by identifying Tier 2 words to teach and use activities
from Bringing Words to Life and other sources.
Our goal as teachers of reading is to bring children from being code breakers, to
meaning makers, text users and finally text critics. We want them to understand the
author’s purpose whether to teach or entertain. We want them to go out into the world
and see themselves as readers and writers. We want them to use reading and writing to
gain knowledge and be able to communicate their ideas. They need to see the real life
uses of literacy outside of something that happens only in school. Lastly, teachers can
instill in their students a lifelong love of reading. As Readicide author Kelly Gallagher
says in an interview schools have “completely abandoned the idea of trying to turn kids
on to the kinds of reading we want them to do 10 or 20 and 30 years from now -- and
that’s recreational reading. We have forgotten that we want them to be readers, not just
people who can pass a test.”
We want students who can pick out a book and read to learn from it or for
enjoyment just as a good student of piano, after years of practice, can choose a piece of
music and play for his or her own pleasure and delight.
References
Bear, D. (2000). Words their way : word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction (2nd
ed.). Upper Saddle River N.J.: Merrill.
Beck, I. (2002). Bringing words to life : robust vocabulary instruction. New York: Guilford Press.
Blevins, W. (2006). Phonics from A to Z : a practical guide (2nd ed.). New York: Teaching
Resources/Scholastic.
Can Reading Be Saved? (2011, April 4). Teacher PD Sourcebook. Retrieved from
http://www.edweek.org/tsb/articles/2011/04/04/02gallagher.h04.html
Gibson, V. (2008). Differentiated instruction : grouping for success (1st ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Patel Stevens, L. (2007). Critical literacy : context, research, and practice in the K-12 classroom.
Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Ray, K. (2004). About the authors : writing workshop with our youngest writers. Portsmouth NH:
Heinemann.
Shaywitz, S. (2003). Overcoming dyslexia : a new and complete science-based program for reading
problems at any level (1st ed.). New York: A.A. Knopf  ;Distributed by Random House.