Polly Bayrd, MA, LP

Best Practices for Mainstream

Modifications for the LD Population

Research Based Research Based Instruction in ReadingInstruction in Reading

Reading is the key …

• To all school based learning

• To general knowledge, spelling, writing abilities and vocabulary

• To love of learning

• To success in most academic and occupational fields

• To a healthy self-concept

Reading Success is key …

• Poor readers by end of first grade have lowered self-esteem and self-concept and motivation

• Embarrassing even devastating to demonstrate this weakness in the classroom

• “I would rather have a root canal than read”

It is Imperative …

• Prevent reading failure

• Prevent frustration

• Allow flexibility of pacing

• Avoid stigmatizing and comparing

• Nurture a culture of acceptance

Five Pillars of Reading Instruction

• Phonemic Awareness• Phonics • Fluency • Vocabulary•

Text Comprehension

Strategies for Teaching LD Students

Specific, directed, individualized, intensive

• Direct instruction• Strategy instruction• Accurate assessment to monitor progress• Scaffolding

Successful Teachers of LD Students …

• Break learning into small steps• Administer probes• Supply regular quality feedback• Use diagrams, graphics, and pictures

Successful Teachers of LD Students …

• Provide ample independent, intensive practice

• Model instructional practices

• Provide prompts of strategies to use

• Engage students in process type questions: “How is that strategy working for you?”

Scaffolding

• Process in which students are given support

• Strategies that allow the teacher to break down a task

• Technique that is flexible and temporary

Eight Essential Elements of Scaffolding

• Pre-engagement with the student and the curriculum

• Establish a shared goal

• Actively diagnose student needs and understandings

• Provide tailored assistance

Elements of Scaffolding …

• Maintain pursuit of the goal • Give feedback• Control for frustration and risk• Assist internalization, independence, and

generalization to other contexts

Scaffolding Tips

• Begin with what the student can do

• Help students achieve success quickly –avoid frustration and “cycle of failure”

• Help students to “be” like everyone else

• Know when it is time to stop “Less is more” once mastery is demonstrated

• Help students be independent when they demonstrate mastery

Accommodations Involving Materials

• Use a tape recorder• Clarify or simplify written directions • Present a small amount of work• Block out extraneous stimuli• Highlight essential information

Accommodations Involving Materials …

• Locate place in consumable material– (Diagonal cut on corner of last page used)

• Provide additional practice activities

• Provide a glossary in content areas

• Develop reading guides

Accommodations Involving Interactive Instruction

• Use explicit teaching procedures• Repeat directions• Maintain daily routines• Provide a copy of lecture notes• Provide students with a graphic organizer• Use step by step instruction

Accommodations Involving Interactive Instruction

• Simultaneously combine verbal and visual information

• Write key points or words on the chalkboard

• Use balanced presentations and activities

• Use mnemonic instruction

• Emphasize daily review

Accommodations Involving Student Performance

• Change response mode

• Provide an outline of the lecture

• Encourage use of graphic organizers

• Place students close to the teacher

• Encourage use of assignment books or calendars

• Reduce copying by including information or activities on handouts or worksheets

• Use cues to denote important items

Accommodations Involving Student Performance …

• Design hierarchical worksheets (easy-hard) • Allow use of instructional aids• Display work samples • Use peer mediated learning• Encourage note sharing• Use flexible work times• Provide additional practice• Use assignment substitutions or adjustments

Five Pillars of Reading Instruction

• Phonemic Awareness• Phonics • Fluency • Vocabulary

• Text Comprehension

Phonemic Awareness

• Ability to hear, identify and manipulate the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words

• Primary grade activity using rhymes and games• Auditory skill, not visual skill• A part of phonological awareness

Two Important Phonemic Awareness Activities

• Phoneme Blending. – /d/ /o/ /g/ (used in decoding words)

• Phoneme Segmentation– Break spoken word into separate phonemes– 4 sounds in truck /t/ /r/ /u/ /k/– Used in spelling word phonetically- – “Invented spelling” is OK

Phonics Instruction

• The Sound (phoneme) - symbol (Grapheme) relationship

• Phonics vs. Whole Word debate

More on Phonics Instruction

• Phonics is a means to an end not an end of itself

• Should be Part of a comprehensive reading program,

• Most effective when early (K or first grade)

Systematic and Explicit Phonics Instruction …

• Effective for children from various social and economic levels

• Particularly beneficial for children who are having difficulty learning to read and are at risk for developing future reading problems

• Must include ample opportunities to practice and review the relationships they are learning

Reading Fluency

• The ability to read with accuracy, and with an appropriate rate, expression, and phrasing.

• Important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.

• Attention to fluency is often neglected in reading instruction.

Why Fluency is Important

• More fluent readers focus their attention on making connections among the ideas in a text and between these ideas and their background knowledge. Therefore, they are able to focus on comprehension.

• Less fluent readers must focus their attention primarily on decoding and accessing the meaning of individual words. Therefore, they have little attention left for comprehending the text.

Reading Fluency

If you don’t ride your bikefast enough, you fall off.

Automaticity = Fluency

• Automaticity refers only to accurate, speedy word recognition, not to reading with expression.

• Necessary prerequisite for fluency in passage reading

• LD students need work on this intermediate step

Building Automaticity in Word Reading

• Prerequisite skill is word accuracy

• Word sorts/games

• Reading word lists

• Timings on word lists

• Start with words of one pattern

• Move to word lists with multiple patterns

• Goal 45-50 wpm with 2 or fewer errors

Megawords List 22 /shun/

Megawords Lists 20-25

Proficiency Graph

Strategies for Developing Fluency

• Model fluent reading, then have students reread the text on own.

• Have students repeatedly read passages aloud with guidance

• Have students reread text that is reasonably easy (independent reading level)

• Student-adult reading, choral reading, partner reading, tape-assisted reading and Reader’s Theater

Select Reading Levels

1. Independent Reading Level. Easy reading. (95% word accuracy)

2. Instructional Reading Level. Challenging but manageable for the reader. (90% word accuracy).

3. Frustration Reading Level. This is too hard for the reader. (less than 90% word accuracy)

Select Reading Topic

• High interest

• Fun

• Nurture affinities

Lexile Level 1030

Reader’s Theater

• Fun, motivating, meaningful, enjoyable

• Easily adapted to whole class or small groups–without costumes or props

• Practice ahead of time silently and aloud

• Students do not memorize lines

• Students “perform”

Prosody

• Prosody is reading with expression, with appropriate phrasing, with pitch, stress and emphasis.

• Automatic word recognition may lead to accurate and effortless decoding but it stops short of the final goal including prosody.

Prosody …

Disfluent readers tend to read in a monotonous and choppy fashion with little or no expression and their phrasing is either word by word or involves awkward groupingofwords.

Prosody cont.

Fluent readers, on the other hand, integrate pitch, emphasis, and the appropriate use of phrasing in their reading. This occurs only as readers become aware of the connection between written and oral language. This indicates their understanding of what they have read.

Dysfluency: Kid’s View

• I hate reading!

• This is stupid!

• I just seem to get stuck when I try to read a lot of the words in this chapter.

• It takes me so long to read something.

• Reading through this book takes so much of my energy, I can’t even think about what it means.

Vocabulary

• Pre-teaching of specific words improves vocabulary learning and reading comprehension

• Use of reference aids• Use of context cues• Use of word parts –prefix, root word, suffix

Text Comprehension

• Comprehension is the reason for reading

• Systematic instruction in comprehension can help students understand what they read, remember what they read and communicate with others about what they read

• Comprehension skills should be taught during primary grades and as long as students need it

What should be Taught:Key Comprehension Strategies

• Monitoring comprehension

• Using graphic and semantic organizers

• Answering questions

• Generating questions

• Recognizing story structure (and other text structures)

• Summarizing

Monitoring

CLICKS “This makes sense.”

CLUNKS “OOOPS! HUNNH?”

“Am I remembering what I am reading?”

Graphic Organizer

• Visual representation of the elements of the thinking process

• Way to strengthen memory

• Common frame of reference for the student and teacher

What is the main idea?

Follow the Clues

Story Map

Strategies Before Reading

• Brainstorm, cluster, web, fast-write, list

• Predict

• Skim

• Question

• Predict meaning of new vocabulary

• Visualize

• Set purpose

Strategies During Reading

• Adjust reading rate

• Predict/support/confirm/adjust

• Question

• Self-correct

• Monitor understanding

• Reread

• Read/pause/summarize

Strategies After Reading

• Confirm/adjust predictions

• Retell

• Skim and reread

• Take notes

• Make inferences

• Reflect on reading

KWL

• What do I KNOW?

• What do I WANT to find out?

• What did I LEARN?

CSI: Comprehension Strategy Instruction

CSI: Comprehension Strategy Instruction

• Comprehension Monitoring

• Graphic organizers

• Listening actively

• Mental imagery

• Mnemonic instruction

• Prior knowledge activation

• Question answering

• Question generating

• Text structure

• Summarization

• Multiple strategy instruction with and without reciprocal teaching

Excellent Reading Teachers …

1. Understand reading and writing development, and believe that all children can learn to read and write

2. Continually assess children’s individual progress and relate reading instruction to children’s previous experience

3. Offer a variety of materials and texts for children to read.

Excellent Reading Teachers …

4. Know a variety of ways to teach reading, when to use each method, and how to combine the methods into an effective instructional program

5. Use flexible grouping strategies to tailor instruction to individual students

6. Are good reading coaches (provide help strategically)

Excellent Reading Teachers

• Have strong content and pedagogical knowledge

• Manage classrooms so there is a high rate of engagement

• Use strong motivational strategies that encourage independent learning

• Have high expectations for children’s learning

• Help children who are having difficulty

Recommendations for Developing Excellence in Reading Instruction

• Teachers must view themselves as lifetime learners and continually strive to improve their practice.

• Administrators must be instructional leaders who support teachers’ efforts to improve reading instruction.

Recommendations for Excellence …

• Teacher educators must provide both a solid knowledge base and extensive supervised practice to prepare excellent beginning reading teachers.

• Legislators and policy makers must understand the complex role of the teacher in providing reading instruction and ensure that teachers have the resources and support they need.

Recommendations …excellence

• Legislators and policy makers should not impose one-size-fits all mandates.

• Parents, community members, and teachers must work in partnership to assure that children value reading and have many opportunities to read outside of school.

Thank You!Thank You!