Reading-Writing_Relationships

Research on the Components of a Comprehensive Reading and Writing Instructional Program Patricia M. Cunningham, Wake Forest University James W. Cunningham, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Richard L. Allington, University of Florida [DRAFT September 11, 2002] (Four Blocks is a Framework for Reading and Writing that includes all the components of a comprehensive instructional program. We include teacher read-aloud and independent reading during the Self-Selected Reading Block. Comprehension instruction is included during Guided Reading. Phonics, including phonemic awareness, is taught during Working With Words. Fluency is developed as children learn to read and spell high-frequency words during the Word Wall activity and when we do Repeated Readings during Guided Reading. Writing instruction is included during the Writing block. Meaning vocabulary is taught during Guided Reading, especially when we include material during Guided Reading related to science and social studies. Meaning vocabulary is also developed during Self-Selected Reading as children listed to what the teacher reads aloud and engage in regular independent reading. Here is the research that supports the inclusion of all these components.) Currently most schools are working to implement research-based reading and writing instruction. In some cases, research is being used to support instruction that is very single-minded and narrowly focused. Instruction that is almost exclusively focused on phonics instruction, for example, will usually produce better reading achievement scores at the end of first grade. There is no evidence, however, that these initial gains can be sustained and in fact, there is evidence to the contrary. There is general agreement about the long-term goal of reading and writing instruction. We want all our children to go to middle school able to think deeply about what they read and able to express themselves clearly and persuasively through their writing. We want avid and enthusiastic readers and writers who continue to grow in these avenues of communication and learning throughout their lives. Producing avid, enthusiastic, thoughtful, critical readers and writers requires that we provide them with comprehensive instruction that focuses on and develops all the essential strategies and attributes. Here are the components of a comprehensive reading and writing program which are supported by research. Word Identification Instruction Systematic instruction in how to identify words is essential for most children to become good and avid readers. The current phonics debate is more about what should be included in word identification instruction and what form that instruction should take than about whether or not to include it. There is general support from the research for systematic phonics and phonemic awareness instruction and attention to oral reading fluency. Phonics Instruction There have been few instructional studies comparing different types of phonics instruction and those that have been done have often compared systematic phonics instruction with “hit-or-miss” phonics instruction. From these studies, we can conclude that any kind of well-organized and efficient phonics instruction is generally better than little or no phonics instruction that leaves learning phonics to chance. Stahl, Duffy-Hester and Stahl (1998) reviewed the research on phonics instruction and concluded that there are several types of good phonics instruction and that there is no research base to support the superiority of any one particular type. The National Reading Panel (NRP) (2000a; 2000b) reviewed the experimental research on teaching phonics and determined that explicit and systematic phonics is superior to nonsystematic or no phonics, but that there is no significant difference in effectiveness among the kinds of systematic phonics instruction. They also found no significant difference in effectiveness among tutoring, small-group, or whole-class phonics instruction. Put Reading First (Armbruster, Lehr and Osborn, 2001) summarizes the findings of the NRP report and makes instructional recommendations based on these findings. In this document, a useful definition of systematic phonics is included: A program of systematic phonics instruction clearly identifies a carefully selected and useful set of letter-sound relationships and then organizes the introduction of these relationships into a logical instructional sequence. The instructional sequence may include the relationships between the sounds associates with single letters (for example, the sound /m/ with the letter m) as well as with larger units of written language (for example, letter combinations such as th or ing or spelling patterns such as ea or ie). Furthermore, a systematic program of instruction provides children with ample opportunities to practice the relationships they are learning. (p. 16) Put Reading First also offers the following guidelines for effective phonics instruction: o teachers explicitly and systematically instruct students in how to relate letters and sounds, how to break spoken words into sounds, and how to blend sounds to form words; o students understand why they are learning the relationships between letters and sounds; o students apply their knowledge of phonics as they read words, sentences and text; o students apply what they learn about sounds and letters to their own writing; o can be adapted to the needs of individual students, based on assessment; o includes alphabetic knowledge, phonemic awareness, vocabulary development, and the reading of text as well as systematic phonics instruction. (p. 16) Another issue related to how phonics instruction can be most effectively taught relates to when and for how long phonics instruction should take place. Put Reading First recommends that phonics instruction be completed by the end of first or second grade and summarizes the research on phonics instruction and older children: Systematic phonics instruction by itself may not be enough to significantly improve the overall reading and spelling performance of reading beyond first grade. The effects of phonics instruction on students in second through sixth grades are limited to improving their word reading and oral text reading skills. The effects do not extend to spelling and reading comprehension. For these students, it is important to emphasize reading fluency and comprehension. In addition, these students also require explicit spelling instruction to improve their spelling. (p. 18) Because systematic phonics instruction is better than nonsystematic or no phonics, but does not result in improved spelling or reading comprehension past first grade, a comprehensive program will include instructional attention to phonics, oral reading fluency and comprehension from the beginning. The recommendation to complete all phonics instruction by the end of second-grade, however, seems shortsighted when one considers the changing nature of new words encountered in the text students read from third grade on. In 1984, Nagy and Anderson published a landmark study in which they analyzed a sample of 7260 words found in books commonly read in grades 3-9. They found that most of these words were polysyllabic words and that many of these big words were related semantically through their morphology. Some of these relationships are easily noticed. The words, hunter, redness, foglights and stringy are clearly related to the words, hunt, red, fog and string. Other more complex word relationships exist between words such as planet; planetarium, vicious; vice, and apart; apartment. Nagy and Anderson hypothesized that if children knew or learned how to interpret morphological relationships, they would know six or seven words for every basic word known. Phonics can be simply defined as understandings about the relationships between letters and sounds. From third grade on, a large percentage of the new words encountered are polysyllabic words and these words are related through their morphology—base words, prefixes and suffixes. If phonics instruction is completed by the end of first or second grade, where will readers learn the morphemic relationships necessary to decode the polysyllabic words encountered in text from third grade up' Teaching morphemic letter-sound relationships to decode big words has not been widely investigated and thus does not have an adequate research base to support it. Logic, however, suggests that since phonics instruction with the vowel/consonant patterns that comprise most short words is effective in helping children read them, instruction with the morphemic patterns that make up most polysyllabic words would also be helpful. This instruction might be included as part of the spelling program or as part of meaning vocabulary development, but should be integrated with what students already know about decoding. What is important here is that we recognize that most of the new words that readers have to decode from third grade up are polysyllabic words and cannot be decoded based on the simple letter patterns found in one-syllable words. Somewhere in a comprehensive reading and writing curriculum, there should be attention to how morphemes help us decode, spell and access or build meaning for big words. Surely, the inclusion of the features of systematic phonics instruction that emphasize careful teaching and lots of opportunities to apply what is taught would help. A word of caution about phonics. While there is research support for systematic phonics instruction from the beginning of reading instruction, studies also suggest that it will not work for all children, it can be overemphasized, and newer spelling-based phonics approaches may work better for below-average readers. Wise & Olson (1995) discovered that reading-disabled children who learned the most from synthetic phonics instruction did not transfer this improvement to real-word reading, either immediately or even after one or two years. Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte (1997) found a similar result with their participants who had serious reading disabilities. Juel, Biancarosa, Coker, & Deffes (2002) found that an overemphasis on letter-sound instruction in first grade negatively affected the development of oral meaning vocabulary knowledge for some children. Newer approaches to teaching phonics often use guided and independent spelling activities to teach letter-sound relationships and their application (P. Cunningham, 2000; Stahl, Duffy-Hester and Stahl, 1998). A number of studies support integrating phonics and spelling instruction with young children (e.g., Cataldo & Ellis, 1988; Ehri & Wilce, 1987; Ellis & Cataldo, 1990). For instance, Clarke (1988) found that first-grade programs that included invented spelling produced better decoders than first-grade programs that included only traditional spelling. Uhry & Shepherd (1993) also found that including spelling as part of the word instruction first-graders receive improved their decoding. More recently, Davis (2000) found that spelling-based decoding instruction was as effective as reading-based decoding instruction for all her students, but more effective for the children with poor phonological awareness. Juel & Minden-Cupp (2000) noted that the most effective teachers they observed of children who entered first grade with few literacy skills combined systematic letter-sound instruction with onset-rime compare-contrast activities instruction, and taught these units to application in both reading and writing. Phonemic Awareness Instruction In addition to systematic phonics instruction, there is a great deal of research support for phonemic awareness instruction (National Reading Panel, 2000b). Phonemic awareness is the realization that spoken words are made up of sounds. These sounds (phonemes) are not separate and distinct. In fact, their existence is quite abstract (Shankweiler, 1999). Phonemic awareness has many levels, and includes the ability to decide whether or not spoken words rhyme, to know what spoken word you would have if you removed a sound, to segment words into sounds and to blend separate sounds into words. Phonemic awareness seems to develop gradually for most children through lots of exposure to nursery rhymes and books that promote word play (Yopp & Yopp, 2000). Phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of success in learning to read (Bryant, Bradley, Maclean, and Crossland, 1989; National Reading Panel, 2000b). Perhaps because it is such a good predictor of beginning reading, some schools and teachers have overemphasized phonemic awareness. Large amounts of time given to phonemic awareness activities each day means neglecting other important-to literacy activities, such as the development of oral language and meaning vocabulary, listening comprehension and print concepts. In fact, Put Reading First makes the specific recommendation that: “Over the school year, your entire phonemic awareness program should take no more than 20 hours.” (P. 9) Allocating 30 to 40 minutes per week (not the 30-40 minutes per day observed in some classrooms) will ensure that phonemic awareness is emphasized—but not overemphasized. A word of caution about phonemic awareness. Torgesen & Davis (1996) concluded that even extensive phonemic awareness training does not succeed with children who are severely disabled in phonological processes. Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin (1999) found that the children who most lacked phonemic awareness often benefited least from phonemic awareness instruction, especially if their oral vocabulary was also weak. Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley (1995) reported that even successful phonemic awareness instruction was much more likely to transfer to later decoding ability than to later word recognition and oral reading fluency abilities. If we consider phonemic awareness instruction to be adequate preparation for being able to learn to read, we will ignore the other kinds of preparation that make it easier to learn to read. Ellis & Cataldo, (19''), the National Reading Panel (2000b), and Davis (2000) all found that working with letters aided phonemic awareness instruction. Yet that makes phonemic awareness instruction synonymous with phonics instruction (Yopp & Yopp, 2000). It is important not to start such instruction too early. Oral Reading Fluency Instruction All of this attention to research supporting systematic phonics instruction and up to 20 hours of phonemic awareness instruction might lead one to conclude that reading is carried out by decoding each word as that word is encountered. In fact, it is only our most struggling readers who decode most words as they read. Good readers recognize most words automatically, that is, quickly, with little or no effort, as a unit (A. Cunningham, Perry, & Stanovich, 2001; Gustafson, 2001; Lee, Honig, & Lee, 2002; Logan, 1997). Readers who automatically recognize most words in a text and can simultaneously do the other things that reading requires (J. Cunningham, 1993) are reading that text with fluency. Fluency is the ability to read most words in context quickly, accurately, automatically and with appropriate expression. Fluency is critical to reading comprehension because of the attention factor. Our brains can attend to a limited number of things at a time. If most of our attention is focused on decoding the words, there is little attention left for the comprehension part of reading—putting the words together and thinking about what they mean. The NRP Summary explains this relationship between reading comprehension and fluency thusly: “If text is read in a laborious and inefficient manner, it will be difficult for the child to remember what has been read and to relate the ideas expressed in the text to his or her background knowledge.” (p. 11) Fluency is not something a reader has or doesn’t have. In fact, how fluent a reader you are is directly related to the complexity of the text you are reading. If you are reading a text with lots of words you have read accurately many times before, you probably recognize those familiar words immediately and automatically. All your attention is then available to think about the meaning of what you are reading. If you are reading a text with lots of words you have never encountered in print before, you will have to stop and decode these words in some way—using the letter-sound and morphemic patterns you know to turn the printed letters into sounds and words. In order to comprehend what you have decoded, you may have to reread the text once or even twice so that your attention is freed from decoding and available for comprehending. Research supports two different approaches to helping students become more fluent oral readers. First, teachers should read aloud to their children and have the children reread texts orally to improve their accuracy, rate, and expression. Second, teachers should teach their students to spell the most common words in books and other reading materials. Teacher read-aloud and repeated oral readings. Lots of successful reading is essential for the development of fluency. “Fluency develops as a result of many opportunities to practice reading with a high degree of success. Therefore, your students should practice orally rereading text that is reasonably easy for them—that is, text containing mostly words that they know or can decode easily.” (Put Reading First, p. 27) In English, approximately 300 words make up 85 percent of the running words in almost all the text we read (Samuels, 2002). Recognizing these high-frequency words accurately and automatically promotes fluent reading. While some practice with these high-frequency words in isolation can help children learn these words, that word learning will not necessarily transfer to reading words in text unless lots of practice in reading interesting and meaningful text is provided (J. Cunningham, Koppenhaver, Erickson, & Spadorcia, in press). Put Reading First recommends two activities for increasing reading fluency: reading aloud to children and engaging children in repeated readings of instructional-level text. The many reasons why a comprehensive literacy program includes daily teacher read-aloud will be summarized later, in the reading-aloud to children section of this review. As it relates specifically to fluency, however, Put Reading First recommends: By listening to good models of fluent reading, students learn how a reader’s voice can help written text make sense. Read aloud daily to your students. By reading effortlessly and with expression, you are modeling for your students how a fluent reader sounds during reading. (p. 26) Even more important than the teacher modeling good oral reading is having the children read instructional-level texts more than once to improve how fluently they read them. To accomplish repeated readings without boredom setting in, Put Reading First recommends the use of plays and poetry using such formats as adult-then-student reading (echo reading), choral reading, tape-assisted reading, partner reading and readers’ theater. When meaning is emphasized during repeated readings, children can also be taught how to read with better expression (Erekson, 2001). Spelling-based word recognition instruction. Early on, word identification and spelling seem to be strictly separate processes (Bryant & Bradley, 1980). By the end of first grade, however, they have become highly related to each other (Bryant & Bradley, 1980; Gough, Juel, & Griffith, 1992). Correlations between the two are quite high (Ehri, 1997; Zutell, 1992), in spite of dampening from the well-known fact that most children can identify words they are unable to spell (Bosman & Van Orden, 1997; Perfetti, 1997). The high relationship appears to derive from the opposite condition that children beyond the beginning can almost always pronounce a word accurately that they can spell correctly (Hall, 1991). These studies make it very plausible that teaching students to spell words is one way to teach the students to recognize those words. A few other studies have investigated this possibility more directly. For example, Uhry & Shepherd (1993) found that including spelling as part of the word instruction first-graders receive improved their word recognition. Logan (1997) presents evidence that automatic word recognition is not a general skill or ability, but how well each word is known. He further argues that how well each word is known is in part a function of how much it has been studied. Learning to spell words is one way of carefully studying them. It seems prudent to begin no later than spring of first grade to teach children to spell the 300 most common words in printed English correctly as an aid to their automatic word recognition for those words and hence their oral reading fluency. A word of caution about oral reading fluency. Good oral reading does not guarantee comprehension as you can easily prove by reading articles aloud from academic journals in fields you know little about. Moreover, an overemphasis on oral reading fluency may give some students the impression that silent reading comprehension is unimportant. These commonsense understandings draw support from research showing that it is poor readers rather than good ones who have received a greater relative and absolute amount of oral reading instruction (Allington, 1983; 1984). Summary of Research on the Word Identification Component The research on word identification instruction is quite clear and there is general consensus on a number of key issues. Children profit from systematic phonics instruction but there is no one best systematic method. Children need lots of opportunities to apply what they are learning in phonics to their own reading and writing. Phonemic awareness is important to success in reading and can be accomplished with a maximum of 20 hours of instruction. Fluency, the ability to read words in text quickly, accurately and with expression, is essential for comprehension. Oral reading fluency is best developed through the modeling of teacher read-alouds and reading and rereading of easy materials, and is indirectly facilitated by teaching students to spell the most common printed words. Reading Comprehension Instruction Comprehension—thinking about and responding to what you are reading—is “what it’s all about!” Comprehension is the reason for and prime motivator for engaging in reading. What comprehension is, how comprehension occurs and how to teach comprehension have driven hundreds of research studies in the last 30 years. Reading comprehension—and how to teach it—is probably the area of literacy about which we have the most knowledge and the most consensus. It is also probably the area that gets the least attention in the classroom. In 1978, Delores Durkin published a landmark study demonstrating that there was little if any reading comprehension instruction happening in most classrooms and that the little bit that did occur was “mentioning” rather than teaching. Having children answer comprehension questions to assess their reading comprehension was the main activity most often seen. This finding shocked the reading community and probably propelled much of the reading comprehension research that has occurred since. Unfortunately, more recent research (Beck, McKeown & Gromoll, 1989; Pressley & Wharton-McDonald, 1998) indicates that reading comprehension instruction is still a rare commodity in most elementary classrooms. One important type of reading comprehension research has focused on the characteristics of good comprehenders. Duke and Pearson (2002) summarize what good readers do and this is our summary of their summary. Good readers: o are active and have clear goals in mind. o preview text before reading, make predictions and read selectively to meet their goals. o construct, revise and question the meanings they are making as they read. o try to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words and concepts. o draw from, compare and integrate their prior knowledge with what they are reading. o monitor their understanding and make adjustments as needed. o think about the authors of the text and evaluate the text’s quality and value. o read different kinds of text differently, paying attention to characters and settings when reading narratives, constructing and revising summaries in their minds when reading expository text. Knowing that good readers have and use them, many researchers have investigated the effects of teaching students a variety of comprehension strategies. Put Reading First defines comprehension strategies as “conscious plans—sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of text.” (p. 49) According to the NRP report, there is substantial evidence to support the teaching of the following six comprehension strategies: (1.) monitoring comprehension. (2.) using graphic and semantic organizers. (3.) answering questions. (4.) generating questions. (5.) recognizing story structure. (6.) summarizing. According to the NRP report, there is also some research support for two other strategies: (7.) using prior knowledge. (8.) using mental imagery. Duke and Pearson (2002), in their review of research, identify six research-based strategies: (1.) prediction/activation of prior knowledge. (2.) think-alouds (which includes monitoring comprehension). (3.) using text structure. (4.) using/constructing visual representations (including graphic organizers and imagery). (5.) summarization. (6.) answering questions/questioning. A comparison of their list with the NRP list shows a remarkable amount of agreement on which strategies, if taught, produce measurable gains in reading comprehension. The final question to be considered is how these comprehension strategies can be most effectively taught. Again, we find a great deal of consensus. Both the NRP and the Duke and Pearson reviews suggest that explicit teaching, including an explanation of what and how the strategy should be used, teacher modeling and thinking aloud about the strategy, guided practice with the strategy and support for students applying the strategy independently are the steps needed to effectively teach any comprehension strategy. Both support the use of cooperative learning groups working together to apply the strategies to text. Both suggest that since we do not comprehend by using only one of the strategies, lessons which combine comprehension strategies are most effective. For example, reciprocal teaching (Palinscar & Brown, 1984), a cooperative learning format in which students work together to use the strategies of questioning, summarizing, clarifying and predicting, is one way to organize instruction that incorporates both cooperative learning and combining strategies. Earlier reviews of research on teaching reading comprehension found that a number of specific lesson frames can improve reading comprehension ability (Pearson & Fielding, 1991; Tierney & J. Cunningham, 1984). Most of these lesson frames have in common that they include guidance throughout and links among before, during, and after reading activities. They each teach one or more strategies that appear in one of the lists (above) with explicitness, application, or both. Duke and Pearson also found that it is better to teach a variety of comprehension strategies rather than relying on one or a few. For example, they cite a research base for SAIL (Students Achieving Independent Learning). Comprehension strategies taught in SAIL (Pressley, Almasi, Schuder, Bergman, Hite, El-Dinary, et al, 1994) include predicting, visualizing, questioning, clarifying, making associations between text and reader’s experience and summarizing. In SAIL, students observe teacher think-alouds and then practice applying these strategies to a variety of texts. A Word of Caution about Reading Comprehension Reading comprehension, rightly and broadly understood, probably cannot be overemphasized. However, comprehension lessons and comprehension outcomes can become such a focus of our teaching we forget that a major goal of literacy instruction is for reading to become intrinsically motivating to students. We want our students to learn to enjoy reading for its own sake, something they can and will do outside of school with no prospect of external notice or reward. Teacher read-aloud and independent silent reading are among the best ways to build intrinsic motivation to read. Reading comprehension instruction, as essential as it is, must not be seen as a substitute for teacher read-aloud and independent silent reading or their long-term benefits for all children may be decreased or lost. Summary of Research on the Reading Comprehension Component We know a great deal about how good readers comprehend, what the comprehension strategies are and how to teach them. Our job now is to implement a well planned program of reading comprehension instruction in every elementary classroom. Children need to focus on meaning and learn strategies for making meaning from the very beginning. Put Reading First summarizes the important role of reading comprehension instruction at all grade levels. Teachers should emphasize text comprehension from the beginning, rather than waiting until students have mastered “the basics” of reading. Instruction at all grade levels can benefit from showing students how reading is a process of making sense out of text, or constructing meaning. Beginning readers, as well as more advanced readers, must understand that the ultimate goal of reading is comprehension.” (p. 55) Independent Silent Reading Most educators and many research studies support the importance of the amount of reading students do. Allington (1977) and Biemiller (1977) concluded that students who are the poorest readers spend the least amount of time actually reading. Nagy and Anderson (1984) showed that good readers often read 10 times as many words as poor readers during the school day. Data collected from the 1996 NAEP testing indicated the 13-year-olds who reported more independent reading demonstrated better reading comprehension of both narrative and expository text than 17-year-olds who reported less independent reading (Campbell, Voelkl, & Donahue, 1997). In other words, middle school students who read more were better readers than high school students who had had four more years of schooling! Stanovich (1986) labeled the tendency of poor readers to remain poor readers as “The Matthew Effect” and attributed the increasing gap between good readers and poor readers in part to the difference in time spent reading. Wide reading is highly correlated with meaning vocabulary—which in turn is highly correlated with reading comprehension. Students who read more encounter the same words more frequently and repeated exposures to the same words have been shown to lead to improvements in fluency (Topping & Paul, 1999). A. Cunningham and Stanovich (1998) found that struggling readers with limited reading and comprehension skills increased vocabulary and comprehension skills when time spent reading was increased. Wide reading is also associated with the development of automatic word recognition (Stanovich & West, 1989). Share (1995; 1999) has reviewed the research evidence for his contention that self-teaching of word recognition occurs while a reader is decoding words during independent reading. Good decoders teach themselves to recognize many words as they read for enjoyment. The practice of independent silent reading has come under scrutiny recently because of the National Reading Panel conclusion that independent silent reading did not support fluency. Samuels (2002), who was a member of the National Reading Panel, points out that the National Reading Panel report did not recommend independent silent reading as a way to improve fluency because of the lack of support through experimental studies. …the NRP decided it would not accept correlational studies, of which there are a substantial number showing a positive relationship between various measures of reading achievement and time spent reading. (p. 174) One of the many studies ignored by the NRP because it used correlational data and was not an experiment was conducted by Cipielewski and Stanovich (1992). In this study, Cipielewski and Stanovich attempted to sort out the “chicken and egg” question that clouds much of the correlational research showing that good readers read more. Are they good readers because they read more or do they read more because they are good readers' To help them decide, they compared reading comprehension scores at the end of third and fifth grade and included a measure of the amount of reading which they called print exposure. To estimate print exposure, they used a Title Recognition Test (TRT) and an Author Recognition Test (ART). Students were asked to select titles and authors which were real books and real authors from a list that included some real titles and authors and some foils. Results of the hierarchal regression analysis indicated that scores on both the TRT and the ART explained significant additional variance after third grade reading scores were partialed out. The authors of this study point out that this was a very conservative test of the effect of reading on comprehension because some effect for print exposure would already have been present in the third grade scores. By entering third-grade reading comprehension ability into the regression equation prior to the TRT and ART we do not mean to imply that we believe that print exposure has no influence on comprehension…prior to the third grade…We nevertheless allowed third-grade comprehension to appropriate variance that rightly belongs to print exposure, in order to deliberately bias the analyses against the last variable…Print exposure appears to be both a consequence of developed reading ability and a contributor to further growth in that ability. (85) Another kind of information that was ignored by the NRP because it was not experimental research comes from surveys. In 1975, Sterl Artley asked college students what they remembered teachers doing that prompted their interest and competence in reading. The vast majority of the respondents gave teacher read-aloud and time for independent reading as major factors in their reading development. Recently, Ivey and Broaddus (2001) surveyed 1765 sixth graders to determine what motivates them to read. The responses of this large group of diverse preteens indicated that their motivation for reading came from having time for independent reading in books of their own choosing and teachers’ reading aloud to them. Experiments, by their very nature are short-term interventions. The studies reviewed by the NRP that did not find reading comprehension gains when children were given time for independent reading were, for the most part, carried out across weeks. The study most prominently cited (Carver & Leibert, 1995) spanned a six-week summer program in which the children read on average for a total of 24 hours. The lack of comprehension gains after 24 hours of independent reading should not be a surprise. Comprehension is a complex act in which motivation, background knowledge, vocabulary, strategy use, interest and type of text all play a role. There are also problems in measuring comprehension and comprehension gains. A Word of Caution about Independent Silent Reading While independent silent reading is definitely associated with long-term growth in reading ability, it should not be seen as a substitute for word identification or comprehension instruction. At times in the past, the recognized advantages of independent silent reading have led some to think of it as a sufficient activity—“you learn to read by reading.” Because most children need more direct word identification and reading comprehension instruction to learn how to read well, independent silent reading should be seen as providing complementary applications of those kinds of instruction, rather than as replacements for them. Summary of Research on the Independent Silent Reading Component The vast body of research which looks at reading achievement and motivation in a long-term way supports the practice of providing time and motivation for independent silent reading. Samuels (2002) recommends independent silent reading but emphasizes that if independent silent reading is going to increase the amount of reading done by poor readers, teachers should help students with book selection so that they don’t choose books that are too hard and stop reading. He also stresses that students should read books they find enjoyable so that they are motivated to read further. Samuels concludes that: Increasing the amount of reading students do is important, because as words are encountered repeatedly there are a number of beneficial outcomes, such as improvements in word recognition, speed, ease of reading, and comprehension. (p. 174) Teacher Read-Aloud It is hard to overstate the importance of reading-aloud to children as a regular and scheduled part of daily instruction in every elementary classroom. Research has been cited in previous sections of this review demonstrating that reading aloud to children is an important factor in developing oral reading fluency and motivation to read. Reading to children is also an important avenue for incidental meaning vocabulary learning. Elley (1989) found that 7- and 8-year-old children in New Zealand learned new word meanings incidentally from being read to, and remembered those word meanings months later. He also found that below-average children learned about as many word meanings from teacher read-aloud as did above-average children. Similarly, Stahl, Richek, & Vandevier (1991) found that sixth graders in an urban school acquired a significant number of new word meanings from being read to. Again, there was no difference between children with low versus high previous word meaning knowledge, and even the lowest children learned word meanings when they were read a book above grade level. Put Reading First supports this aspect of teacher read-aloud while also advocating conversations with children about books they have listened to: Children learn word meanings from listening to adults read to them. Reading aloud is particularly helpful when the reader pauses during reading to define an unfamiliar word and, after reading, engages the child in a conversation about a book. Conversations about books help children to learn new words and concepts and to relate them to their prior knowledge and experience. (p. 35) Morrow and Gambell (2000) summarized the research on reading-aloud to children and concluded that: “children in the experimental classrooms who were read to daily over long periods of time scored significantly better on measures of vocabulary, comprehension and decoding ability than children in the control groups who were not read to by an adult.” (p. 568) Reading aloud to children at home before they start school has been shown to be correlated with success in learning to read. According to Morrow and Gambrell (2000), children who had been read to frequently before coming to school had increased syntactic and vocabulary development, increased desire and motivation to learn to read and more developed concepts of print. In 1985, the National Institute of Education’s Becoming a Nation of Readers stated that: “the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children” (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott & Wilson, 1985, p. 23) According to Chasen and Gambrell (1992), the practice of daily read-alouds in K-3 classrooms increased greatly since the 70’s. Their survey found that 75% of teachers reported reading aloud on a daily basis in 1990 as opposed it only 45% of the teachers in 1980. In 1994, Lehman, Freeman, and Allen. reported that 85% of elementary teachers reported reading aloud to their students at least once a day. Currently, we are in an era of “immediate accountability.” Teachers are asked to demonstrate quarterly, weekly and daily how the activities in their classrooms contribute to the reading achievement of the children they teach. It is not possible to measure the effects of teacher read-aloud on a daily, weekly or even quarterly basis. Teacher read-aloud is clearly associated with increased vocabulary, comprehension, fluency and motivation to read. Teachers must be encouraged to continue their practice of reading aloud to students and have faith that in the long-term, this well-established practice will contribute to the development of avid and able readers. A Word of Caution about Teacher Read-Aloud Reading aloud to children has many advantages, but it should never be used as a substitute for instruction or independent silent reading. In the past, some schools and teachers have chosen not to provide many children with materials they can read at an appropriate level of difficulty, but have chosen instead to read the books they had aloud. For all the reasons we have given in this review, teacher read-aloud has much value, but it cannot replace the need for students to learn to comprehend the language of texts while simultaneously identifying the words and processing the print beyond what word identification requires (J. Cunningham, Koppenhaver, Erickson, & Spadorcia, in press). Teacher read-aloud is an essential component of a comprehensive reading and writing program, but it does not by itself teach either reading or writing. Summary of Research on the Teacher Read-Aloud Component Research supports that teacher read-aloud helps children acquire oral reading fluency, motivation to read, and meaning vocabulary knowledge. Recent studies have also shown that teacher read-aloud is now a widely accepted component of a complete reading program. Meaning Vocabulary Development As we try to close the achievement gap and make high levels of literacy attainable for all children, we must pay renewed attention to the issue of meaning vocabulary. In 1977, Becker identified lack of vocabulary as a crucial factor underlying the failure of many disadvantaged students. In 1995, Hart and Risley described a relationship between growing up in poverty and restricted vocabulary. Biemiller and Slonim (2001) cite evidence that lack of vocabulary is a key component underlying school failure for disadvantaged students. More and more of the children we teach in our public schools are English language learners. The limited English vocabularies of many of these children is sure to impede their reading and writing of English text. The size of the average child’s meaning vocabulary (sometimes called oral vocabulary) is difficult to estimate because of the issue of what it means to know a word, but vocabulary growth in the preschool and elementary school years occurs daily and amazes everyone who observes it. Estimates are that elementary school children acquire some level of meaning for an average of seven new words per day (Nagy & Herman, 1987). The staggering number of words for which children have some level of meaning cannot be attributed to direct teaching of those words. Few parents engage in direct teaching of word meanings with their preschool children and teachers could not possibly teach enough words directly to account for the size of the average elementary school child’s vocabulary. Researchers now agree that most meaning vocabulary is learned indirectly. There is also a research base to support the direct teaching of vocabulary and word learning strategies (Baumann, Kame’enui, & Ash, 2003; Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2002; NRP, 2000b; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986). Research on how meaning vocabulary is learned and how to effectively teach it leads to the inescapable conclusion that elementary classroom instruction should provide many opportunities for indirect learning of vocabulary and also include direct teaching of both vocabulary and vocabulary learning strategies. Providing Opportunities for Indirect Learning of Vocabulary How can teachers promote indirect learning of vocabulary' “Students learn vocabulary indirectly when they hear and see words used in many different contexts—for example, through conversations with adults, through being read to and through reading extensively on their own.” (Put Reading First, p. 35) Earlier in this review, we have cited research to support two of the major indirect routes for helping students acquire meaning vocabulary knowledge—teacher read-aloud and independent silent reading. Two other indirect routes also deserve mention here—conversations (Armbruster, Lehr and Osborn, 2001) and promoting word consciousness (Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2002). There are many opportunities for conversations throughout the classroom day. Teachers should seize these opportunities and promote teacher-student talk and student-student talk about current events, the weather, what students are reading, what students are writing, science and social studies topics, art, music, recess, classroom issues and problems and all the other daily events. If someone were observing these “spontaneous” conversations, it might not be obvious that something academic is happening, but a great deal of vocabulary learning occurs indirectly and conversations at home and at school are one source for this indirect learning. A final way of promoting indirect learning of vocabulary is for teachers to strive to develop a sense of “word wonder” in their students. In spite of the difficulty of ever finding a definitive research-based answer to the relationship between word wonder and vocabulary development, there is general agreement among vocabulary researchers that “word consciousness” plays an important role in vocabulary learning. Graves and Watts-Taffe (2002) explain why word consciousness matters: Students who are word conscious are aware of the words around them—those they read and hear and those they write and speak. This awareness involves an appreciation of the power of words, an understanding of why certain words are used instead of other, a sense of the words that could be used in place of those selected by a writer or speaker, and cognizance of first encounters with new words. It involves an interest in learning and using new words and becoming more skillful and precise in word usage. . . . With tens of thousands of words to learn and with most of this word learning taking place incidentally as learners are reading and listening, the positive affective and cognitive disposition toward words that we are labeling “word consciousness” is crucial to learners’ success in expanding the breadth and depth of their word knowledge over the course of their lifetimes. (p. 144-145) Put Reading First also recommends developing word consciousness and some ways to create students who “enjoy words and are eager to learn new words.” Call their attention to the way authors choose words to convey particular meanings. Encourage students to play with words by engaging in word play, such as puns or palindromes. Help them research a word’s origin or history. You can also encourage them to search for examples of a word’s usage in their everyday lives. (p. 44) Direct Teaching of Vocabulary and Word Learning Strategies Research supports the direct teaching of some words and the teaching of vocabulary learning strategies (Baumann, Kame’enui, & Ash, 2003; Blachowicz & Fisher, 2000; NRP, 2000b; Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2002). All sources indicate that the number of words directly taught must be kept to a minimum because the words need to be thoroughly taught and students need to meet them in a number of different contexts across some span of time. Put Reading First recommends limiting the new vocabulary words to 8-10 per week and teaching these words thoroughly. Because of the need to limit the number of words, teachers must carefully choose the words to be taught, given preference to those words which are important, useful and apt to occur many different times and in different contexts. Children learn words best when they are provided with instruction over an extended period of time and when that instruction has them work actively with the words. The more students use new words and the more they use them in different contexts, the more likely they are to learn the words. (Put Reading First, p. 36) The need for children to actively encounter the words in different contexts over an extended period of time lead the NRP to recommend choosing many of the words for direct teaching from content area subjects. Vocabulary words should be words that the learner will find useful in many contexts. To that end, a large portion of vocabulary items should be derived from content learning materials. This would serve at least two functions: first, it would assist the learner in dealing with the specific reading matter in content area materials; second, it would provide the learner with vocabulary that would be encountered sufficiently often to make the learning effort worthwhile. (NRP, 2000b, pp. 4-25f) In addition to the direct teaching of a limited number of useful frequently-occurring words, there is support in the research for teaching children word learning strategies. These word learning strategies fall into three major categories: (1) learning to use context clues to determine word meanings; (2) learning to use dictionaries and other word resources; and (3) learning to use morphemic information—base words, prefixes and suffixes to figure out meanings for words. If, while teaching children from grade three up to use this morphemic information for meaning, teachers would also emphasize how these morphemic parts are the keys to pronouncing polysyllabic words, our previously expressed concerns about completing all phonics instruction by the end of grade two would be greatly alleviated. A Word of Caution about Meaning Vocabulary There is no evidence in the research that giving students a vocabulary list and having them learn a definition which they then parrot back on a test will result in long-term vocabulary growth or increase reading comprehension. Nor is there any evidence to support students studying words from a commercially produced vocabulary program which provides a weekly list of words unrelated to the curriculum and not apt to be seen or heard in any context other than in the program itself. Vocabulary can and should be taught but the way in which it is taught and the emotional response students have to learning that vocabulary may determine its long-term effect on vocabulary development, writing, and reading comprehension. Summary of Research on the Meaning Vocabulary Component There is renewed interest in the role of meaning vocabulary as we become aware of the discrepancies between the meaning vocabularies of advantaged children and children living in poverty or learning English. Teachers can greatly affect the size of their students’ meaning vocabularies indirectly by promoting conversations, reading aloud to children, encouraging independent reading and promoting word consciousness. Direct teaching of a limited number of important words and of word learning strategies can also result in larger vocabularies. The major implication of all this research on vocabulary may be to have a division of labor in teaching word meanings. While some direct teaching of general meaning vocabulary has a place, reading and writing instructional time may be better spent in teaching word learning strategies, promoting conversations about books, teacher read-aloud, and independent silent reading. On the other hand, content subjects such as science and social studies may be better venues for direct teaching of word meanings because of the natural opportunities for repeated and varied encounters with the words due to the organization of content instruction into extended units. Repeated exposures to words appears to be important for meaning vocabulary learning (Blachowicz & Fisher, 2000), and some research supports the importance of teaching prior knowledge along with word meanings (Baumann, Kame’enui, & Ash, 2003). If content subjects are the best place for most direct vocabulary teaching, an otherwise comprehensive literacy instructional program may be even more comprehensive if it leaves enough time for good science and social studies instruction than if it does not. Writing Instruction A comprehensive reading and writing program has two reasons to include effective writing instruction as a component. First, it cannot be a comprehensive reading and writing program without adequate quantity and quality of writing instruction. Second, there is evidence that good writing instruction also teaches children how to read better. Teaching Children How to Write Better The research on teaching writing is clear: grammar instruction does not result in students writing more correctly (Hillocks & Smith, 2003), and traditional, presentational instruction, where there are examination of written models, specific writing assignments, and teacher feedback on that writing, has only small effects (Hillocks, 1986). Instead, natural process writing instruction is more effective, and what has been called environmental writing instruction, where students engage in various writing activities designed to teach them to learn and apply specific writing strategies and skills is more effective still (Hillocks, 1986). The key to teaching writing, including the conventions of writing, appears to include being consistent with a developmental sequence that recognizes the commonalties of children as they move from early emergence to sophisticated ability (Dyson & Freedman, 2003; Farnan & Dahl, 2003; Hodges, 2003). Effective writing programs will look very different, grade-by-grade, and will have expectations for children at each grade that are appropriate to their development as writers rather than to arbitrary standards based on tradition or how officials would like to test writing. The best writing instruction will teach students how to plan, compose, revise, and edit their own pieces of writing, all within the context of inquiry, self-assessment and self-regulation fostered by interaction with teachers and peers. The Effect on Children’s Reading of Learning How to Write Better Earlier in this review, we presented evidence that spelling-based approaches to teaching phonics and word recognition in reading are effective. These approaches work best when the children write regularly so that they have many opportunities to apply what they are learning in spelling about both phonics and high-frequency words. In her frequently cited review, Stotsky (1983) summarized a number of studies as showing that better writers tend to be better readers. In the First-Grade Studies, classic research in reading education, Bond and Dykstra (1967/1997) concluded that reading programs with a writing component usually resulted in higher reading achievement by the end of first-grade than programs without a writing component. Mason, McDaniel, & Callaway (1974) found that first-graders gained more in vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension ability if they wrote regularly and tried to include the words they were being taught to read. Shanahan & Lomax (1986) found that first and second graders’ work indicated an interactive relationship between reading and writing, that is, knowledge gained in one often transferred to the other. A Word of Caution about Writing While writing instruction can take too much time, that rarely occurs in our experience. Rather, the danger is that writing instruction will lose its value for either writing or reading improvement by focusing too much on preparing the students for a high-stakes writing test. High-stakes writing tests definitely affect how writing is taught, and the effects often include a narrowing of the writing curriculum (Hillocks, 2002). Writing instruction can only fulfill its potential to help both writing and reading abilities develop if all major aspects and types of writing are taught in the elementary school writing curriculum. Summary of the Research on the Writing Component Good writing instruction teaches writing and, to a lesser extent, reading. Research on the development of writers can and should guide the instruction that children receive in the skills and strategies of writing and its parts. A Final Word American education has always been a very “faddist” institution and reading and writing instruction has been the most fad-driven part of the curriculum. We have a huge body of research conducted across decades that supports the need for the components summarized in this review. 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