Learning to read

Wilmington university

Learning To Read

Developmental Stages of Learning to Read

Jordan Barton

1/23/2013

                Learning to read is a process that begins early on in life and never really ends.  Much like teaching, our reading skills are always being tested and improved through practice and revision.  Before reading children begin to speak and build their oral vocabulary.  Speech is a stepping stone towards reading just like crawling is a stepping stone to walking.  Speech can begin as early as one year of age or as late as 18 months.  A child’s exposure to written text greatly influences their development speed from speaking to reading.  Therefore, a child who is constantly read to and shown written text will develop reading skills much quicker than a child who is not exposed to written text.

They then move on to phonemic awareness prior to beginning school.  At this stage children begin to understand the alphabetic principle.  This means that children start to understand that words are made up of letters and sounds.  This stage continues into phonics where spelling becomes important.  Students begin to understand how their spoken vocabulary can be written on paper.  These stages combine to make the “Awareness and Exploration of Reading Stage” that is typically seen in pre-K or before.  As the students move through pre-K and into Kindergarten they enter the “Emergent Reading Stage”.  At this point the students have a basic understanding of the alphabet and the sounds letters make in order to create words.  Their oral and written vocabulary both begin to grow rapidly.  As the students enter the “Early Reading Stage” fluency comes into the picture.  The students will begin to read word by word, often using a pointing device or their fingers to identify each word that is being read.  The more the students identify a particular word such as “the” the more fluent they will become as they come across it.  This is called the “Transitional Reading Stage” and typically takes place between 1^st and 2^nd grade.  Students do not develop fluency until the “Fluent Reading Stage” which begins in 3^rd grade and continues throughout their schooling years.  Fluency in reading tends to bring on comprehension.  Comprehension can begin much earlier than 3^rd grade however a student reading word by word will retain much less than a student who can fluently read the passage.  It is much simpler for a student to comprehend a reading passage that is simpler for them to read.  Although vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension continue to build throughout the grade school years, they are always based on phonemic awareness and phonics.

In conclusion, like most things practice builds skill in reading.  Just as a child will fall several times before standing, students will misspeak and struggle to read but through repetition their skills will improve.  Fluency, comprehension and vocabulary are skills that will continue to improve throughout the children’s lives and will never be perfected.  Given that perfection is impossible, there is always room for improvement at all levels of readers.   

References:

Developmental stages of learning to read. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.professionalpractice.org/about-us/developmental_stages_of_learning_to_read/

Article Summary

Wilmington University

Practicum III Research Article

Reading Comprehension Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities

Jordan Barton

1/16/2013

This is a summary of the study “Reading Comprehension Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities”.  The study covered students grades K-12 with learning disabilities form 1995-2006.  The students were put into intervention programs and their progress was studied.

            My article is a meta-analysis called, “Reading Comprehension Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities”.  This study reviewed and combined findings from forty studies spanning from 1995 through 2006.  The article was written by Berkeley Scruggs as a comparison of a meta-analysis she wrote in 1996.  The 40 studies included 1734 ranging from kindergarten through twelfth grade, all of which were labeled with a learning disability.  During the studies students were put into reading intervention classrooms using different strategies to improve their reading comprehension.  The students put into these intervention programs ranged from 4 to 18 but averaged about 12.  Students from elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and even some from residential facilities were studied.  These strategies included Questioning/Strategy Instruction, Text Enhancements, and Fundamental Reading Skills Training.  Questioning/Strategy Instruction incorporated teaching students to use self-questioning while reading and direct questioning of students while reading.  Text Enhancements “enhanced” the text through question placement within the text, and the use of graphic organizers and technology.  Fundamental Reading Skills Training created an environment with very low student to teacher ratios and worked on basic phonics skills and other basic reading skills.  The intervention classes averaged almost 30 sessions at 50 minutes a piece throughout the school year. 

            These studies were measured by their “effect size” which, “measures the impact of reading comprehension interventions” (Scruggs, 2010).  There were three types of effects studied, including: generalization, treatment and maintenance.  Generalization documented how well the students used their reading comprehension skills across all subject areas and types of text.  Treatment tested the effectiveness of specific reading strategies on reading comprehension, while maintenance studied the effects of the intervention after it had ended.  Effect sizes were measured as follows: d=0.20 indicates a small or low impact, d=0.50 indicates a moderate impact, d=0.80 or above indicates a large impact (Scruggs, 2010).  With all three types of effects averaged together the effect was 0.70, meaning that the interventions had a noteworthy effect but did not make a large impact.  However, when the data was broken down generalization had the largest impact at 0.75 while treatment and maintenance came in at 0.69.  This means that the students were carrying their skills across subjects and using them effectively.  Although these numbers do seem to be rather high they were actually lower than the 1996 study.  Scruggs seems to think the instructors are the reason for the shortcomings of the more recent study.  In the 1990’s study many of the intervention instructors were researchers well versed and comfortable with the subject while the newer study was more made up of teachers who had been through training in order to teach the interventions.  The researchers tended to have a greater success rate than the teachers, therefore more researchers equals better results.  Even though the findings were less impressive than the previous study, all three strategies (Questioning/Strategy Instruction, Text Enhancements, and Fundamental Reading Skills Training) were found to be effective.  In conclusion, Scruggs found that the intervention programs did have a significant impact on the reading comprehension skills of the students and was much more effective than regular classroom activities. 

            After reading this study I feel much more confident about the reading intervention programs at my current school.  Previously I had preconceived notions that the classes were borderline useless due conversations I had with students.  The students confessed their boredom throughout the class however they had never mentioned its effectiveness.  Perhaps the moderate improvement scores could be aided through student interest.  In my experience, students tend to learn more when they are engaged in the topic.  Also, I think Scruggs could benefit from student input on her next study.  The students could provide insider knowledge of what worked for them and what did not.  This insight could help to adjust strategies used as well to edit the implementation of current strategies.  Not to mention, I would like to see more specified data on the Fundamental Reading Skills Training programs like the Dyslexia Training Program.  I would also like to see a study done regarding reading intervention class size.  Many of the interventions in this meta-analysis had small student to teacher ratios.  These ratios could very easily skew data as students should learn better in a smaller classroom environment.  That being said did the intervention program truly work or was it simply the smaller class sizes that improved student performance.  Finally, this study eclipsed 12 years and monitored almost 2000 students making its data very reliable.     

           

 

             

 

 

 

 

References

Scruggs, B. (2010). Reading comprehension  instruction for students with learning  disabilities. Retrieved from  http://nichcy.org/research/summaries/abs tract82

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