A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

SUMMARY WORKSHOPS

Workshop B
Conceptualizing Reading and Reading Instruction

Speaker:
Elfrieda Hiebert, Director, Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Moderator:
Joseph Conaty, Director, Student Achievement Institute, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education

Abstract:
Converging research supports the proposition that getting started in reading depends critically on mapping the letters and the spellings of words onto the sounds and speech units that they represent. Failure to master word recognition impedes text comprehension. In addition, explicit instruction in comprehension strategies has been shown to lead to improvement (e.g., summarizing the main idea, predicting what text will follow, drawing inferences, discussing the author’s communicative intent and choice of wording, and monitoring for misunderstandings).

Participants will learn more about the National Research Council Committee’s extensive analysis of the research literature in reading acquisition. By and large, participants will learn that in order to prevent reading difficulties, formal instruction in reading needs to focus on the development of two sorts of mastery: word recognition skills and comprehension skills.

Notes

Participants in the workshop learned more about the National Research Council Committee?s extensive analysis of the research literature in reading acquisition. Also, participants learned that in order to prevent reading difficulties, formal instruction in reading needs to focus on the development of two sorts of mastery: word recognition skills and comprehension skills.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PRESENTATION:

• We need to get everyone on the same page. Look at what we know, not adding new information.
• Add other key actors to the reading conversation--pre-service (IHE?s), policy makers, parents, and the community.
• Focus state efforts on getting all children to read well. Place a moratorium on new State mandates to improve reading.
• Take a look at schools that are doing well; where all students are reading well by the third grade. Do more with the information we already have.
• Need an action plan with every player on the same page. The action plan should be modest and involve a lot more and different players working together in a State; look at what New York and Texas have done.
• States need to have a five year reading plan; need the involvement of Head Start, pre-kindergarten; and need a vision from the bottom up--what can 4-year-olds do, 5-year-olds do, and what can 6-year-olds do? Look at ?building up? reading skills in young children rather than skills down from the third grade.
• Need to publicize stories of where school district have sustained reading achievement over a long period of time.
• Need developmental benchmarks, using videotape to show how a child progresses from kindergarten through third grade reading, show what children are doing as readers and writers.
• Need a national conversation on reading; may need to do it regionally or at the State level. Focus the conversation on what we want students to be able to do; not what they can?t do.
• Looking at NAEP; most children are reading; just not very well.
• The CIERA series entitled Every Child a Reader is organized like a library--materials are organized according to topics. For example, under Skills and Concepts, you will find information on early concepts, phonics and fluency, under Comprehension, you will find information on oral language, strategies, writing, and engagement; under Professional Development, you will find information on school programs.
• We need to determine how many years of incoherent instruction can a child have before it is too late.
• Key phonograms and key words are parts of instructional programs designed to teach children to decode unknown words. Children need to read lots of books that contain the 38 phonograms found in 600 common words.
• To learn to read you need to know the system is alphabetic, is linguistic, is a grammatical system, is a root system; and is a figurative system.
• Ken Goodman?s early research was about the linguistic system; mass translation of the research into practice lost the linguistic system; and focused only on text. The text/word relationship has to be balanced and based on the student?s skill level.
• Understand what children learn from reading storybooks, for example, language patterns and how to ask and answer questions. Staff development is key to improving reading instruction.