Knowledge and Practice Standards

for Teachers of Reading:

Implementing Structured Literacy

Center for Effective Reading Instruction

International Dyslexia Association

Presentation by Louisa Moats, Ed.D.

KPS Published 2010,

Revised 2018
Contributing Authors and Reviewers of
the IDA Knowledge and Practice
Standards (2018):
  
Louisa Moats
Jule McComb-Tolis
Stephanie Al-Otaiba
Louise Spear-Swerling
Barbara Wilson

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Why Were Standards Necessary? (1)
—  Reading failure persists at unacceptable
levels!
—  Reading failure can be reduced,
ameliorated or remediated with
Structured Literacy instruction that is:
◦  Explicit
◦  Systematic
◦  Cumulative
◦  Multisensory
◦  Multi-linguistic
 NIH-NICHD Multidisciplinary Research Program (North
America; Lyon, 1985-2015)
Children’s
Hospital/
Harvard LDRC
U of Waber
Washington U of
Berninger Toronto Massachusetts Emerson College
Lovett Rayner Aram

Mayo Tufts Beth Israel

Clinic Wolf Galaburda
Kalusic
Syracuse U Yale
Shaywitz
Blachman
U of Michigan Haskins
SUNY Albany Labs
U of Wisconsin Morrison Vellutino Fowler/
Stanford Johnson-Glenburg Carnegie-Mellon Liberman
Reiss Boy’s Town Northwestern U Rutgers U Johns
Smith Booth Scarboro- Hopkins
ugh Denckla
U of Southern California Purdue U
Manis/Seidenberg Hynd D.C./Houston
Colorado Duke U Forman/Moats
LDRC U of U of Goldston
Defries Kansas Georgetown U
Missouri Eden
Shumaker Geary U of Louisville
Univ of California – Irvine Molfese
Filipek Colorado Gallaudet U
San Moats LaSasso
Francisco Bowman
U of California – San Diego, U of Arkansas – Gray
Herron Med Ctr
Salk Institute Wood
Bellugi Dykman Georgia
State
R. Morris
U of Georgia
U of Houston Stahl
Yale Francis
Methodology
Fletcher
Florida State
Torgesen/Wagner Univ of Florida
U of Texas
– Med Ctr Alexander/Conway
Foorman/Fletcher
NICHD Sites
U of Texas
Vaughn
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Percent of 1st Grade Students Below 30th
%ile after Research-based Instruction

—  Foorman et al., 1998 5%

—  Mathes et al., 2001 6%
—  Allor at al., 2002 6%
—  Mathes et al., 2006 5%
—  Felton, 1993 3.8%
—  Vellutino et al., 1996 4.5%
—  Torgesen et al., 1999 4%
—  Torgesen et al., 2002 .7%

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Why Were Standards Necessary? (2)
—  Students with dyslexia and all other
language-based reading and writing
challenges benefit from Structured Literacy
teaching
—  Special education serves only a small
percentage of these students
—  Therefore, the standards address all teachers
who teach language, reading, and writing
Why Were Standards Necessary to
Revise and Update in 2018?
—  Practicum requirements for Dyslexia
Therapists and Specialists should
overlap align with classroom teachers,
but be elaborated
—  Educators need more detailed
guidance about how to apply the
standards in classroom and remedial
settings
 Realities of Teacher Preparation

—  Regrettably, state licensing standards are

insufficiently rigorous and lacking in
specificity
—  Popular textbooks are often not aligned
with current reading science
—  In-depth preparation is required to ensure
that teachers and specialists are prepared
to teach effectively

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 Format of Revised IDA Standards

Introduction
Supporting Research for Each Section
—  Standard 1 – Foundational concepts.
—  Standard 2 – Diverse reading profiles.
—  Standard 3 – Assessment.
—  Standard 4 – Structured literacy teaching.
—  Standard 5 – Ethical standards.

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Standard 1: Foundations of
Literacy Acquisition
—  Dependent on language processes
—  Not natural, like speaking
—  Components are interdependent
—  Social, environmental, cultural factors
—  Good/poor reader differences
—  Progression of development
—  “Reading is a moving target”

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 The Simple View of Reading

R = D x C

“Capacity for reading comprehension is determined by

ability to decode text and ability
to comprehend spoken language.”
-Phil Gough

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 Scarborough’s “Rope” – A Model of Reading
Development

LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION

● Background Knowledge SKILLED READING:

● Vocabulary Knowledge fluent execution and
● Language Structures coordination of word
● Verbal Reasoning recognition and text
● Literacy Knowledge comprehension.

WORD RECOGNITION
● Phonological Awareness
● Decoding (and Spelling)
● Sight Recognition

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 Language: Words and Rules

Phonology
pragmatics
Morphology
Sentential
Lexical
LANGUAGE semantics
semantics

Orthography Syntax

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 Language: Words and Rules

Speech sounds Social rules and

patterns of language
use
Meaningful word
parts
Sentence and inter-
Word
LANGUAGE sentence meanings
meanings

Sentence
spellings structure

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 Key Concept: Reading is NOT
Primarily a Visual Skill!
—  Generic visual-spatial skills are virtually
unrelated to reading and spelling.
—  Language proficiencies are the best
predictors of reading and spelling.
—  Visual memorization, visual tracking, and
visual-motor drills have little to no impact on
reading
—  Structured language teaching is the most
effective approach.
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How We “Map” Words to Long-
Term Memory (Kilpatrick, 2016)

/red/ have
/haz/

/r/ /ĕ/ /d/ /h/ /ă/ /v/

/h/ /ă/ /z/

/hăv/
red
has
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Development of Word Reading Skills
(Kilpatrick, 2016)
—  Every level of word-reading development depends
upon phonological skills, even fast mapping of new
“sight” words
—  Visual shape memory is critical for LETTER
learning, but plays virtually no role in WORD
reading (beyond visual acuity)
◦  Orthographic memory is a central brain function,
requiring only rudimentary visual acuity; letters are
abstract representations in memory

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Evidence:You Can Read These
Mental graphemic images
Mental graphemic images
Mental graphemic images
Mental graphemic images
Mental graphemic images
Mental graphemic
images
Mental graphemic images
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19
Words Are Not Recognized by Configuration

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Word Recognition Depends On Fast,
Accurate, Phoneme-Grapheme
Mapping!

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Context Does Not Drive Word
Recognition or Printed Word Memory

—  “….Don’t know that word? Well just

keep reading (or peak at the pictures) and
see what might make sense here…”

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 Link to Brain Science

Before
Left Hemisphere Right
Hemisphere
Little activity in
“phonics” area

After

“Normalized” response to phoneme-grapheme correspondence

instruction 23
Standard 2: Diverse Reading Profiles,
Including Dyslexia

—  Tenets of the 2003 definition of dyslexia

—  Provisions of state laws concerning LD
—  Distinguishing characteristics of dyslexia
—  Variability of symptomology and degree of
disability
—  How and why changes occur over time

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Standard 2 – Important Big Ideas

—  Dyslexia is the most common, but not the

only, reading disability
—  Symptoms of dyslexia vary; not all have a
low score on tests of phonology, for
example
—  Language comprehension can be the major
limitation in literacy learning

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Recognized Subtypes of Poor Readers
(Fletcher et al., 2019; Spear-Swerling, 2015)

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 Standard 3: Assessment

—  We can locate students at risk for

reading failure in K or sooner!
—  Teachers must know basic concepts of
measurement and statistics
—  Curriculum-based measurement is
reliable, valid, and efficient
—  Need to use informal diagnostic surveys
of phoneme awareness, spelling, phonics,
vocabulary and reading fluency
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Standard 4 -- Applications in
Structured Language Teaching
A.  Essential principles and practices
B.  Phonological and phoneme
awareness
C.  Phonics and word recognition
D.  Automatic, fluent text reading
E.  Vocabulary
F.  Listening and reading
comprehension
G.  Written expression

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Phoneme Awareness: How Many
Speech Sounds?

ice _________ sigh ________
coin ________ creep _______
weight ______ quaint _______
song _______ fox _________
few ________ chew________

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 What Does This Illustrate?
—  English does not use one letter symbol for
each phoneme
◦ box = /b/ /o/ /k/ /s/
◦ weight = /w/ /ā/ /t/
—  Whole words are not articulated as a series
of discrete phonemes; sounds are “hidden” in
speech
—  Phoneme awareness is an acquired, unnatural
skill; even literate adults are not proficient
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 Phoneme Segmentation of “Hard
Words” LANGUAGE,SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN
SCHOOLS, October 2008, 39, 512–520

SLPs % correct Teachers

knuckle 90 73
sing 71 45
think 75 41
poison 60 34
squirrel 51 18
quick 70 11
box 61 10
start 31 6
fuse 21 3
use 17 3

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A Phoneme is a Sound AND a
Mouth Gesture
Phonemes are shaped by the mouth
according to the sounds that surround
them. What do you feel your mouth doing
with /d/ as you say these words?
desk
dream
ladder
would you

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Children with Poorly Developed PA May
Confuse Sounds That Have Similar Features

fan wait dream

pet blade
chunk

dig sled coach

mob stick fright

rope shine snowing

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 English Consonant Phonemes
(Moats/LETRS 3rd Ed.)
bilabial Labio- Inter-dental alveolar palatal glottal
dental

stops /p/ /t/ /k/

unvoiced /b/ /d/ /g/
voiced

nasals /m/ /n/ /ng/

fricatives /f/ /th/ /s/ /sh/ /h/

unvoiced /v/ /th/ /z/ /zh/
voiced

affricates /ch/
unvoiced /j/
voiced

glides /wh/
/y/
unvoiced /w/
voiced

liquids /l/ /r/

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 How We Recognize Words
Units of Analysis

unreachable word
un-reach-able morpheme
un-reach-a-ble syllable
u-n-r-ea-ch-a-b-le grapheme
u-n-r-e-a-c-h-a-b-l-e letter

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 A Layer Cake of Language Concepts
Supporting Word Recognition

Advanced Phonics Latin/Greek

derivational morphemes

syllable spellings
Anglo-
Saxon
inflectional morphemes
Anglo-Saxon
grapheme units and sequences
Anglo-Saxon
phonemes and sound patterns
Anglo-Saxon

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Teach More Complex Phoneme-
Grapheme Correspondences

wet w e t
went w e n t
when wh e n
wish w i sh
witch w i tch

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Errors at Morphological Level?
obszrvashuns
closle
memris
intesting
liveing

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Word Building with Morphemes

in
ible/able
per
ation
con
ed
contra/ vers,
vert ive
contro
ion
intro
ity
sub
ing
re 39
Word Origin: Why Important?
church -- Anglo-Saxon word, uses
digraph ch to spell /ch/

machine – French-derived word; uses

digraph ch to spell /sh/

school – Greek-derived word; uses

digraph ch to spell /k/

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This Is Not Phonics Instruction…

O E
one eye
once eat
only end
out every
open even
on
off
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How to Achieve “Deep Lexical Quality” in
Word Learning

Antonym Synonym

connotation
word Examples in context:

denotation Multiple Sounds, spelling,

meanings meaningful parts,
words it is to be
distinguished from.

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Example: “flexible”

Antonym: rigid Synonym: bendable

connotation
: positive flexible Examples in context:
attribute
Multiple
Denotation: Sounds, syllables; root/
describes Meanings:
suffix
people and (concrete/ abstract
material qualities)
things
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Words in Sentences (Syntax!)
—  The rigid metal bar was replaced by a
more flexible one.
—  We had no reason to think she was less
flexible than her competitor.
—  Lack of flexibility is a major problem.
Lack of flexibility is the major problem.
—  The firm foot bed was adequate,
although it would have been better
constructed with more flexible material.
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Analysis of Academic Discourse

The weasel is an elegant little animal,

with elongated slender body, back much
arched, head small and flattened, ears short
and rounded, neck long and flexible, limbs
short, five toes on each foot, all with sharp,
compressed, curved claws, tail rather short,
slender, cylindrical, and pointed at the tip, and
fur short and close.
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Summary Ideas: Structured Language
and Literacy
Phonemes are
speech segments.

Academic language
in text can be explicitly Spelling represents
taught! language at many levels.

Sentence Oral language

comprehension precedes written
can be taught. language.

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Believe It!
—  Reading
failure can be reduced,
ameliorated or remediated with
Structured Literacy instruction that
is:
◦ Explicit
◦ Systematic
◦ Cumulative
◦ Multisensory
◦ Multi-linguistic
“Defying the Odds” is Possible!

Typical distribution of results

(national, state, local)

Outstanding classroom,
school, or district

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 Thank You!

For the work you are doing and for your

participation in this session!

louisa.moats@gmail.com

dyslexiaida.org

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