CHAPTER 9

READING

1. INTRODUCTION
1. Reading ability is a big indicator of academic competency
2. Reading is a demanding process requiring the integration of multiple intact developmental functions
3. As the child evolves, reading ability evolves and new demands arise.
4. The developmental variations examined in part 1 are powerful determinants of reading competency.



2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF READING ABILITY
1. Professionals from many disciplines have studied the process by with children normally acquire reading skills.
2. Specific curricula and teaching methods have been developed based on theories of the normal progression of reading abilities.
3. Understanding why certain children fail to read may be predicated on knowledge of how others succeed.
4. A common approach to the study of reading has been the attempt to discern specific stages in the development of skills.
5. Gray's conceptual model of the development of reading
1. In 1925, Gray described 5 critical periods
1. Getting ready to read
2. Acquiring initial skills
3. Rapidly perfecting skills
4. Applying reading skills
5. Refining reading practices, tastes and attitudes
2. Gray associated each of the periods with a specific grade level
3. He assigned students definite goals as they arrived at each stage
4. He also associated distinct expectations for achievement with each stage
6. Chall's conceptual model of the development of reading
1. Chall's (1983) conceptual model has 6 stages
1. Stage 0 - prereading
2. Stage 1 - initial reading and decoding
3. Stage 2 - confirmation, fluency and ungluing from the print
4. Stage 3 - reading for the new
5. Stage 4 - multiple viewpoints
6. Stage 5 - construction and reconstruction
2. Chall's stages extend from the prereading of very young children, to the highly sophisticated interpretations of educated adults.
1. Stage 0 - ages 6 months to 5 years / preschool
2. Stage 1 - ages 5 to 7 / kindergarten, first, and second grades
3. Stage 2 - ages 7 to 8 / second and third grades
4. Stage 3 - ages 9 to 14 / fourth grade to junior high school
5. Stage 4 - ages 14 to 17 / high school
6. Stage 5 - ages 18 + / college and beyond
3. Each of Chall's stages have unique features
1. Stage 0
1. Language appreciation
2. Awareness of printed words
3. Mastery of alphabet and simple words
4. Vocabulary expansion
5. Rhyming awareness
6. Knowledge of language structures
7. Ttop - down approach
2. Stage 1
1. Sound - symbol associations
2. Trial-and-error decoding
3. Growing attachment to the printed word
4. Oral reading
5. Word- by-word (dysfluent) reading
6. Bottom - up approach
3. Stage 2
1. Reading to confirm existing knowledge
2. Growing sight vocabulary
3. Increasing speed and efficiency
4. Further acquisition of word analysis techniques
5. Linguistic and cognitive content of materials remains beneath students processing ability
4. Stage 3
1. Reading to acquire new knowledge
2. Expanding grasp of morphology
3. Use of introductory content area texts
4. Growth of silent reading
5. Appearance of new and specialized vocabulary in reading
6. Need for reading recall, summarization skills
5. Stage 4
1. Reading to discern a perspective
2. Reading to compare ideas
3. Mastery of multiple strata of meaning
4. Greater depth and novelty of subject matter
5. Different literary genres
6. Appreciation of figures of speech, symbolism
7. Awareness of text structures
8. Activation of schemata
6. Stage 5
1. Detailed analysis, synthesis, and judgment of what is read
2. Variable pace: skimming, scanning, studying
3. Creation of one's own views or philosophy based upon reading



3. READING WORDS
1. Definitions of reading
1. Some define reading as the derivation of meaning from text
2. Others define reading as the construction of meaning from text
2. Both deriving and constructing meaning entail an appreciation of a word's range of different characteristics delineated by Gibson (1971) as:
1. Graphic features (overall visual configuration)
2. Orthographic features (order of letters)
3. Phonologic features (the sounds represented)
4. Semantic features (meaning)
3. A reader recognizes a word when the sensory input corresponding to the word makes contact with the representation of the word stored in long-term memory.
4. Sight vocabulary
1. Consists of words that the reader instantly recognizes as gestalts or wholes and can derive meaning quickly.
2. A reader's sight vocabulary increases with repeated exposure to words
3. Since it takes little effort for a reader to decipher sight vocabulary, more time and energy can be spent on other important aspects of reading like comprehension and retention.
4. As a reader matures, they become more reliant on sight vocabulary, which allows for greater speed, automaticity in accessing words, reading efficiency, comprehension and enjoyment.
5. Word analysis
1. The process of consciously analyzing the components of unfamiliar words and the context in which they occur in order to derive meaning.
2. Word analysis skills fall into three general categories: phonologic, structural or morphologic and contextual
3. Phonologic word analysis
1. The process of segmenting words into their phonemes through associating the written letters with their corresponding sounds and synthesizing the sound units to determine pronunciation and meaning.
2. It consists of several steps.
1. A reader must first visualize a word, processing its configuration and letter order
2. Next the reader engages in phonological coding, translating the visual symbols or segments into meaningful sounds.
3. Then the reader has to synthesize or blend the sounds to form recognizable words.
4. From this, the reader gains access to his internal semantic dictionary which enables him to recognize a word as a word (as opposed to a nonlinguisitic sound ) and associate it with a specific meaning.
3. Segmenting written words calls for a variety of skills.
1. First children must be able to recognize individual letter symbols. This requires visual attention, visual memory, visual-spatial ability, and visual discrimination.
2. Once individual letters and letter combinations are discerned, the reader must associate them with their phonological equivalents. This requires visual-phonological associative memory.
3. As a reader segments words into their written symbol and associates those symbols with specific sounds, he must hold the sounds in active working memory and then synthesize or blend them to form a recognizable word. Thus sequential organization and memory are important.
4. Finally, to arrive at meaning, a child must compare the composite sound of a word with vocabulary stored in their long-term memory. For this storage and retrieval from long term memory are critical skills.
4. Structural or morphologic word analysis
1. Involves the use of word structure or word parts to determine pronunciation and meaning.
2. As readers begin to encounter unfamiliar, multisyllable words in their reading, phonologic analysis and the process of segmenting words by individual phonemes becomes inefficient and severely taxes active working memory, sequencing, and synthesis abilities.
3. Structural word analysis is made up of several components
4. Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of language. Words can consist of one or more morphemes.
1. A free morpheme is a group of letters that makes up a meaningful word and can stand alone, such as play, boy, girl.
2. A bound morpheme is a group of letters that can be affixed to a word to change meaning but cannot stand alone, such as suffixes, prefixes, tense markers, and inflections.
5. Other elements of structural analysis include syllables, compound words, and word roots or derivations.
6. In addition to facilitating decoding of long, multisyllable words, structural analysis and morphologic awareness can be a valuable asset in increasing a student's knowledge of word meaning and expanding vocabulary.
5. Contextual word analysis
1. The process of determining word meaning and, less often pronunciation by examining the context in which a word is found.
2. There are two broad categories of contextual clues
1. Semantic (meaning clues)
2. Syntactic (word order clues)
3. Miller (1988) described the following six types of context clues.
1. Experience clues: A reader uses his own experience and prior knowledge to determine meanings of unknown words.
2. Association clues: A reader associates an unknown word with a related known word in the context.
3. Synonym clues: There is a known synonym to the unknown word in the sentence that explains it.
4. Summary clues: Several sentences summarize the meaning of the unknown word.
5. Comparison or contrast clues: There is a comparison or contrast to the unknown word in the sentence or paragraph that denotes its meaning.
6. Previous contact clues: A reader determines the meaning of an unknown word from previous contact with a similar word, often one with a similar root.
6. Developmental Dysfunction: Impacts on Reading Words
1. Attention deficits can hinder a child's ability to read words in several ways
1. Superficial attention to details can result in :
1. Unpredictable letter reversals
2. Transpositions of letter sequences
3. Arbitrary insertions and omissions of symbols
2. Weakness in attention may also be at the root of slower than average processing.
3. Cognitive impulsiveness, often seen in children with attention deficits, may result in :
1. Inaccurate guessing based on vague configurational attributes from context or expectation or by extrapolating arbitrarily from the first letter or two.
2. Rapid phonological or semantic association that fails to take into account the multiple features of a word.
4. A high level of distractibility may make it difficult for a child to retain the entire decoding process.
5. Children with attention deficits often have poor feedback or self-monitoring skills.
2. Visual processing weaknesses can also hinder a child's reading ability.
1. Researchers have found that the visual processing speed of children with reading problems is slower than that of normal readers
2. Confusion over the directionality or other spatial characteristics of a word may result in weak or inaccurate registration in visual memory, possibly creating significant delays in the consolidation of a sight vocabulary.
3. Language processing and production are involved in decoding. Language difficulties affecting reading include:
1. a Poor sense of phonology: difficulty appreciating the specific phonetic (sound) elements of language.
2. Morphological confusion: a poorly developed grasp of prefixes, roots, and suffixes, and other such constituents of single words.
3. Semantic deficiencies: impoverished vocabulary or trouble associating words or groups of words with their meanings.
4. Syntactic weakness: poor understanding of the role of word order in affecting the use of words and the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences
4. Problems with metalinguistic awareness: a weak comprehension of the way we use and understand language.
5. Memory problems. There are several dysfunctions that may be associated with memory problems relevant to decoding.
1. Weaknesses of phonological associative memory: difficulty establishing easily retrievable (or recognizable) sound-symbol associations and linking the visual form of a word with its phonemic correspondent.
2. Deficits in sequential memory: difficulty grasping and retrieving sequences.
3. Problems with semantic encoding: difficulty storing and retrieving linguistically encoded data.
4. Deficiencies of naming: problems with the rapid automatic retrieval of the names of things.
5. Difficulties with active working memory: inability to hold one aspect of a word in suspension while processing another component.
6. Higher-order cognitive weaknesses can also negatively impact a child's ability to read words. Problem-solving strategies and inference drawing in analyzing words require some higher-order cognitive ability to use pattern recognition, rule application, and context in identifying words.
7. Other influences. The various developmental assets and deficiencies that facilitate or impede decoding interact with other compelling forces which can influence reading:
1. Cultural background
2. Socioeconomic status
3. Emotional health
4. Quality of teaching in early grades
5. Matching teaching and learning styles
6. Prereading experience


4. READING SENTENCES
1. Syntax - reading sentences places heavier demands on syntax (Word order and grammatical construction)
1. Children who are poor at interpreting syntax they hear are likely to incompletely understand what they read.
2. Inferences drawn from syntax are necessary for reliable comprehension.
2. Phonological Coding (Translating written words into sounds)
1. It is as important for processing syntax as it is for deriving meaning from single words.
2. When reading a sentence, we store words as phonetic units in verbal memory while trying to understand the overall meaning of the sentence
3. Because sentences are too long to store in active working memory, words can be recoded into language sounds that can be stored long enough to read the whole sentence
4. This subvocalization is likely to occur in early stages of reading sentences.
3. Significance of Decoding Skills
1. Syntactical and contextual clues can be useful to weak decoders in order to make guesses of "what seems right
2. These clues become less useful as students are exposed to subjects that are not related to their everyday lives
3. Children with significant lapses of active working memory may be working so intently on sustaining the various elements of the sentence that they can't segment, blend, phonologically code, and semantically associate new words
4. Developmental Dysfunctions: Impacts on Reading Words
1. Attention Deficits
1. May read in a superficial manner
2. May fail to make good use of context cues
3. Reading is unpredicatble because they "tune in and out"
2. Poor Sentence Memory
1. May comprehend sentences, but have poor recall
2. It is difficult to determine if this is due to generalized memory deficiencies or specific language processing weaknesses
3. Poor Active Working Memory
1. It is more likely to affect comprehension of passages but can weaken sentence reading also
2. These students may have trouble remembering early parts of a sentence while reading later parts
4. Language disabilities - relevant research
1. There are significant differences in comprehension of syntactically complex sentences between good and poor readers (Morice & Slaghuis)
2. Children with reading problems commonly had a deficient grasp of word order and grammatical construction (Vogel, 1975)
3. Children with reading delays had significant difficulty formulating sentences and using syntax effectively (Fry, Johnson, and Muehl)
4. Inability to understand and employ syntax can interfere with sentence comprehension even if the child is a strong decoder
5. Children who master basic syntax may have more difficulty with more advanced texts and unfamiliar content (Roth & Spekman, 1989)
6. However, poor syntax awareness might not cause reading disabilities (Glass & Perna, 1986; Kamhi, 1988)



5. READING PASSAGES
1. Skills Necessary for Reading Passages
1. Automatized decoding
2. Large sight vocabulary
3. Subvocalization
4. Higher-order cognition
5. Sufficient schema
2. Schema Theory (Underlying Assumptions of)
1. What children already know affects what they will learn from reading
2. Concept-driven and data-driven processes are both necessary for comprehension of text
3. The greater the depth of processing of a text, the more readers will remember and comprehend
4. The context in which the reading occurs frequently influences what will be remembered
3. Implications of Schema Theory
1. Prior knowledge of a text's structure can activate the appropriate schema for comprehension, storage, and retrieval, and can affect note taking
2. Motivation, depth of processing, interpretation, and ability to assimilate and accommodate new information depends largely on prior knowledge
3. Teachers should assess students' knowledge base to ensure that it is sufficient enough to permit comprehension
4. Teachers should teach students how to activate prior knowledge through direct instruction, demonstration, and guided practice
4. Skills That Develop as Students Become Adept at Processing Passages
1. How to skim and scan for facts
2. A sense of when to reread
3. Techniques for note taking, underlining, and highlighting
4. Metacognition, meta-attention, and meta-awareness
5. The ability to read and select salient information
6. The ability to synthesize information
7. Summarization
8. The ability to read cirtically, select appropriate readings, and compare/contrast all points of view
9. The ability to discern recurrent themes, author's point of view, irony, humor, symbolism, and hidden meaning
10. The ability to read a variety of literary genres and to analyze semantic and syntactic structures pertinent to each
5. Developmental Dysfunctions: Impact on Reading Passages
1. Attention Deficits
1. May affect comprehension
2. Reading may be highly superficial, passive, and unfocused
3. May cause problems with saliency
4. May result in too much skimming
5. May show excessive top-down reading
2. Memory Problems
1. May understand while reading but have problems with consolidation and retrieval
2. May forget the beginning while reading the middle or end of text
3. May recall material from the beginning but not the end due to limited memory capacity
3. Deficiencies of Sequential Organization
1. Difficulty grasping the stepwise organizational scheme of some passages
2. May have trouble recalling or making use of serial order clues
3. Makes procedural concepts in science especially difficult
4. Language Problems
1. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between memory problems and actual gaps in understanding (i.e. language problems)
2. Types of language problems that affect passage comprehension
1. Poor vocabulary
2. Poor grasp of syntax
3. Difficulty drawing inferences in verbal contexts
4. Weak metalinguistic awareness
5. Poor verbal pragmatics
5. Bilingualism
1. Is not a true learning disability, but when a child has LD and is also bilingual, reading comprehension can be seriously impacted
2. Native language interference can affect sound awareness and appreciation of the prosody and rhythm for speaking a second language
3. The reader may revert to rate, rhythm, and prosody of the nature language
4. Can weaken attention to tense markers, word endings, and punctuation
5. Can cause poor sensitivity phrasing and grammatical structure
6. May cause difficulty comprehending lengthy, complex sentences, interpreting implicit meanings, and appreciating tone and point of view.
7. May fail to attend to connective phrases and transition words and thus draw inaccurate conclusions
8. Comprehension may be fragmented and disorganized
6. Higher Order Cognitive Deficiencies (discrete or general)
1. May not have necessary knowledge base
2. May read on a level that is too concrete
3. May understand concrete examples but have difficulty with abstract concepts
4. Difficulty integrating concepts in order to understand broader principles and theories
5. Considerable unevenness in reading comprehension due to having weaknesses that only affect certain content areas
7. Poor Organizational Skills
1. Deficiencies in note taking, underlining, and pace reading skills can reduce comprehension and recall
2. Don't read for a purpose
3. Often forget to even take the book home



6. ASSESSMENT
1. Assessment of Decoding - should include:
1. Decoding single words and decoding connected text
2. Sight word recognition
3. Word analysis skills:
1. phonics
2. structural analysis
3. context cues
4. Use of context cues
1. semantic cues and vocabulary knowledge
2. syntactic cues
3. higher-order cognition
4. schemata (knowledge of subject matter)
4. Some examiners also use nonsense words because it may be a purer test of knowledge of phonological rules, ability to segment words into syllables, appreciation of morphology, and blending
2. Assessment of Word Analysis Skills -
1. Questions to ask:
1. Can the child segment words into phonemes?
2. Does the child use decoding rules?
3. Does the child recognize stuctural/morphological elements
4. Can the child bend sounds in sequence?
5. Does the child use context cues?
6. What is the rate and efficiency of word analysis?
2. Causes of Poor Word Analysis Skills
1. Weak visual attention to detail
2. A poor sense of phonology
3. Weakness of associative memory
4. Sequential disorganization
5. Poor active working memory
6. Deficiency in semantic appreciation
7. Problems with spatial processing
8. Higher order Cognition weakness interfering with effective problem-solving strategies
3. Assessment of Sight Vocabulary -
1. Questions To Be Asked
1. Does the child substitute visually similar meaningful words?
2. Does the reader seem to have difficulty processing morphology?
3. Does the child have a tendency to look at the first few letters or some highlights of the word and then guess?
4. Does the child have trouble pronouncing words, even though they seem to recognize them?
5. Are there prolonged delays in response time?
6. Are there word retrieval difficulties
7. Does the child have trouble recognizing highly irregular words?
8. Is there a lack of practice that may compromise sight vocabulary?
9. Has phonics been over-emphasized?
2. Assessment of Speed of Identification of Sight Vocabulary
1. Automatic word recognition produces smooth reading which forms the basis of sophisticated comprehension
2. Poor decoders usually:
1. Engage in word-by-word reading
2. Reading is effortful and noticeably dysfluent
3. Comprehension and meaning are often compromised
4. Relevant Parameters of Decoding - for a list of parameter for assessment of decoding see Levine, p. 327, table 9-5.
5. Use of Oral and Silent Reading When Assessing Reading
1. Some children have difficulty reading aloud, remembering what they have read, and understanding the passage all at the same time
2. Inhibition and anxiety may thwart fluent oral decoding.
3. Some children prefer silent reading because they can bypass decoding and place greater emphasis on direct extraction of meaning
4. Silent reading can be more passive and result in superficial processing mf meaning
5. The active engagement and auditory feedback of oral reading can enhance understanding
6. Assessment of Comprehension - Complexity
1. As the demands for reading comprehension increase as children grow, the sophistication of assessment measures must also increase
2. Influences on Comprehension
1. Attention
2. Memory
3. Language Ability
4. Factual Knowledge
5. Organizational Skills
6. Higher Cognition
7. Adequacy of Decoding Skills
7. Assessment of Comprehension - Dimensions of Assessment
1. Include both oral and silent reading comprehension
2. Include both narrative and expositiory text
3. Consider whether child had difficulty understanding or remembering the questions or with actually comprehending the passage
8. Assessment of Comprehension - Skills to be Assessed
1. Vocabulary knowledge
2. Interpreting sentences
3. Identifying main ideas
4. Identifying supporting details
5. Rejective irrelevant or distracting information
6. Drawing inferences
7. Retelling a passage
8. Identifying author's intention and/or point of view
9. Summarizing
10. Understanding figures of speech
11. Prior knowledge
9. Pinpointing Specific Comprehension Difficulties
1. Have child read a single sentence and answer a question about it
2. Have child read a passage silently and ask them specific questions about it
3. When asking questions let child have the text available for referral
4. Have child retell or restate the passage in their own words
5. Have child take notes or underline in the text
6. Contrast oral and silent reading



7. MANAGEMENT
1. General Recommendations - see Levine pp 331-333.
2. Common Reading Approaches - see Levine, pp. 333-334, Table 9-6
3. Suggestions for Reading Problems Associated with Attention Deficits - see Levine, p. 335-336
4. Suggestions for Reading Problems Associated with Memory Deficits - see Levine, p. 336-338
5. Suggestions for Reading Problems Associated with Visual and/or Sequential Ordering Weakness, see Levine, p. 339-340
6. Suggestions for Reading Problems Associated with Language Deficits - see Levine, p. 341-342
7. Suggestions for Reading Problems Associated with Higer Order Cognition Weaknesses - see Levine, p. 342-343
8. Listening As a Corollary of Reading
1. Relationship of Listening and Reading
1. Some LD students have good listening skills but problems with decoding, (books on tape are very useful)
2. Other LD students have poor listening skills or auditory memory skills but do somewhat better with reading because they can go more slowly and the text is available for reference
3. Other LD student with poor listening skills also have difficulty with reading comprehension and taking notes in class.
4. Do not assume that listening and reading skills are comparable
2. Assessment of Listening - Components of Assessment
1. Sentence repetition
2. Sentence comprehension
3. Narrative comprehension
4. Narrative retelling
5. Expository comprehension
6. Expository retelling
7. Summarizing
8. Taking notes from orally presented material
3. Suggestions for Mangagement of Listening Difficulties - see Levine, p. 345-346.