Development of Reading

Stage 0: Prerequisites for Reading

birth to beginning of 1st grade

Stage 1: Phonological Recoding Skills

1st & 2nd grades

Stage 2: Reading Fluency

2nd & 3rd grades

Stage 3: “Reading to Learn”

4th – 8th grades

Stage 4: Higher Levels of Comprehension

high school years

PRE-READING SKILLS

READING FORMAT

- left to right on line

-top to bottom on page

-text goes from extreme right (end of line) to extreme left (new line)

- spaces signal beginning & end of words

LETTER PERCEPTION

- degree of confusability due to # of common features

e.g., vertical/horizontal lines, curved lines, open vs. closed letters

“d” and “b” “F” and “E” highly confusable

TESTING PHONEMIC AWARENESS

Which Word Not Does Belong?

1. song long pain wrong

2. hit pit fan kit

3. boat treat bank bunk

4. shoe light ship sheet

KEY PRE-READING SKILL

Phonemic - recognizing that words consist of

Awareness separable sounds

*** IMPORTANT ***

Predicts early reading achievement

STUDY: ask 4 & 5 yr old children to tap when they hear a specific sound in a word, e.g., “it.” None of the 4 yr olds could do it, only some 5 yr olds could. Training helps, ask children to pick out word that is different.

cot, pot, hat

THE COSTS OF WEAK PHONEMIC AWARENESS

difficulty in learning to read words

limits exposure to text

delays automaticity in decoding

delays skill in comprehension

more limited vocabulary & knowledge base

PHONICS BASED APPROACH

“I am hot,”

said the pot.

“I am wet,”

said the pet.

“I am cut,”

said the nut.

Get the pot.

The pot is hot.

Get the pet.

The pet is wet.

Get the nut.

The nut is cut.I got the nut.

The nut was cut.

I got the pet.

The pet was wet.

I got the pot.

The pot was hot.

WHOLE WORD APPROACH

STRANGE BUMPS

Owl was in bed.

“It is time

to blow out the candle

and go to sleep.”

he said with a yawn.

Then Owl saw two bumps

under the blanket

at the bottom of his bed.

“What can those strange

bumps be?” asked Owl.

WHICH METHOD SHOULD WE USE?

Question 1: How do skilled readers read?

- They use direct, visually based retrieval from LTM

That is, they recognize whole words

- They employ fast and accurate decoding processes

WHICH METHOD SHOULD WE USE?

Question 2: Which method provides a transition from less skilled to more skilled reading?

- the phonics based approach enables a child to

adopt a sounding out strategy when a word is

not automatically recognized

- & each correct pronunciation strengthens the

tie between the written word and its auditory

representation

SO, ONCE AGAIN, WHICH METHOD SHOULD WE USE?

The case for the whole word method: It emphasizes direct, visually based retrieval from LTM, just like skilled readers, and reading for meaning

The case for the phonics based approach: It emphasizes correct pronunciation of new words, enhancing the transition to automaticity of decoding skills

Recommendation: Phonics based approach has the advantage, but a combination of both is best.

LEVELS OF COMPREHENSION

Level 1: Lexical Access

Definition – retrieve meaning of printed word from long-term memory

strawberry jam fruit bat

traffic jam baseball bat

LEVELS OF COMPREHENSION

Level 2: Proposition Assembly

Definition - the process of relating words to each other to form meaningful units

Can you break this sentence into its basic propositions?

“The sick boy went home.”

Propositions:

“there was a boy” “the boy was sick”

“the boy went home”

LEVELS OF COMPREHENSION

Level 3: Proposition Integration

Definition - involves combining individual propositions into larger units of meaning

Level 4: Text Modeling

Definition - processes by which readers draw inferences and relate what they are reading to what they already know.

If the balloons popped the sound wouldn’t be able to

carry since everything would be too far away from the

correct floor. A closed window would also prevent

the sound from carrying, since most buildings tend to

be well insulated. Since the whole operation depends

on a steady flow of electricity, a break in the middle of

the wire would also cause problems. Of course, the

fellow could shout, but the human voice is not loud

enough to carry that far. An additional problem is that

a string could break on the instrument. Then there

could be no accompaniment to the message. It is clear

that the best situation would involve less distance.

Then there would be fewer potential problems. With

face to face contact, the lesser number of things could

go wrong.

John BransfordVanderbilt Univ.A Founder of

Cognitive Psychology

ClassicProblems:Understanding The Balloon Story

ClassicProblems:Understanding The Balloon Story

Making Inferences

Good comprehension requires that the reader make inferences, filling in missing details, etc.

e.g., “She slammed the door shut on her hand”

Inference: hurt her finger

e.g., “Our neighbor unlocked the door”

Inference: used a key

e.g., “The river was narrow. A beaver hit the log that a turtle was sitting on (beside), and the log flipped over from the shock. The turtle was very surprised by the event.”

Inference: Turtle was knocked into the water.