Climbing the Literacy Ladder - Chapter 2

Continuing on with my study of Beverly Tyner's Climbing the Literacy Ladder.

Today I'm looking at Chapter 2, which sets up the research-based components, strategies and activities that make up her small-group instruction model.

Important Notes:

Fluency

A student's fluency will only improve if they read and reread text successfully. Spending time reading increases fluency, word recognition, speed, accuracy and as a result - comprehension - dramatically.

Word Study

Word study is a systematic developmental study of words (which include phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, phonics, morphology and etymology). Tyner advocates for teachers to stop spelling programs and weekly spelling tests, and instead focus word study practices on providing opportunities for students to compare and contrast different word patterns. To do this, teachers need to follow a developmental scope and sequence, which drives their instruction and allows them to differentiate for students based on student word study assessments. She suggests that small groups be based on the results of word study assessments, where students work on the skills they need according to the scope and sequence - isolated word recognition is the best predictor of a student's reading level. Word study needs to include systematic phonics instruction, as students who show signs of reading difficulty around Grade 3 often rely on the ineffective strategy of rote memorization, and do not have the skills needed to decode complex words.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary development is widely considered to be the cornerstone of reading achievement and therefore may just be the most important piece of reading comprehension. Becuase of this, vocabulary must be taught in a powerful way. Another way to determine the level of book that studnets are able to independently read is by assessing how many high-frequency words they have mastered.

Comprehension

Good readers use multiple comprehension strategies when reading - so does it make sense to teach strategies singularly? When teaching comprehension, the most significant ways to build comprehension are through the interactive conversations that occur before, during and after reading. Always set an engaging purpose for reading- this purpose should lead to a discussion after reading, which becomes the focus for a readers response.

Writing About Reading

While most of a students writing about their reading will take place independently, it is important that students have left the small group with the depth of comprehension necessary to write about their reading. In the small groups, teachers should introduce the writing response and expectations to students - and make sure that students know how to construct a written response independently.

Independent Literacy Activities

So what are students doing while they are not recieving small-group instruction with their teacher? Tyner suggests that students should be involved in literacy centers that practice and reinforce the fluency, word study, vocabulary and comprehension focus at an independent level. Fluency may be targetted by repeated reading of the text already taught in small group. If students are not yet able to write independently, they could respond to reading by drawing their response. Whichever center is planned, teachers must model and discuss the expectations for each activity with the class.

Questions:

• Fluency is the first component of reading that is addressed in this chapter. Is that intentional? Does Tyner view fluency as the most significant component of reading?

• When discussing "echo reading", Tyner mentions using picture cues. Are picture cues really an effective strategy to teach reading? Some may argue that using pictures promotes guessing - and guessing based on pictures is not word reading.

Connections:

Tyner highlights the use of repeated reading as a strategy to build students' reading fluency. In Visible Learning for Literacy, John Hattie, Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey also note that repeated reading is an impactful fluency strategy with an effect size of 0.67 (highly effective).

In regards to spelling, Tyner advocates for students to have opportunities to "internalize patterns by comparing and contrasting" (p. 22). This sounds much like the Words Their Way program, which is mentioned by David Kilpatrick as a word study program that has positive outcomes for students.

Hattie, Fisher and Frey note that direct phonics instruction establishes and strengthens the neurological connection between processing the sounds of language with the long-term memory needed for meaningful reading. The noted effect size for phonics instruction is 0.54, while direct instruction has an effect size of 0.59 (both highly effective).

The emphasis Tyner places on vocabulary reminds me of the Simple View of Reading (SVR) which boils reading down into a simple math equation: (word recognition) x (language comprehension) = reading comprehension. Without language comprehension, a person's ability to decode doesn't really matter as they still will not understand what it is that they are decoding. On the flip side, without decoding, no matter how strong ones language comprehension is, they will still struggle to comprehend reading. You can't have good reading without both decoding and language comprehension.