Compelling Why Talking Points

This document is designed to help participants organize talking points around the
importance of a school-wide reading model.
Author: Michigan’s Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative (MIBLSI)
Version: 1.0
Date: June, 2017

Simple View of Reading

Talking Points for Simple View of Reading:

• Reading comprehension consists of two major components: decoding (knowing how
to move to print to speech) and language comprehension (the ability to understand
the language we hear).
• The two major components are often referred to as “buckets” and all the activities
and lessons teachers lead in classrooms can be categorized into one of the two
buckets that make up reading comprehension.
• The Simple View of Reading has a great deal of history and research behind it.

Compelling Why Talking Points (June, 2017)

Michigan’s Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative (MIBLSI) is a Grant Funded Initiative (GFI),
funded under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) through the Michigan Department of Education.

1
 • It is set up as a multiplication problem to show that we are unable to achieve the
final goal of reading comprehension without one of the key components.
Anything multiplied by the number 0 is always zero. This is important to
remember when analyzing core reading instruction. It is necessary for us to “fill”
both of the buckets of decoding and language comprehension during our 90-
minute blocks. Both buckets are necessary to achieve successful reading
comprehension.
• For example, if a student has had powerful decoding lessons and has a
strength in reading words accurately and at a good rate, but the student has
poor language comprehension, reading comprehension will suffer.
• Another example is just the opposite: If a student has had rich language
exposure and strong language comprehension but is unable to read words on
a page – poor decoding skills, reading comprehension again will be weak.
• As. Dr. Anita Archer states, “There is no comprehension strategy powerful
enough to compensate for the fact you cannot read the words.”

Decoding

Compelling Why Talking Points (June, 2017)

Michigan’s Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative (MIBLSI) is a Grant Funded Initiative (GFI),
funded under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) through the Michigan Department of Education.

2
Talking Points for Decoding:
• If we look inside our “decoding bucket” we will notice, there is a progression of skills.
It starts at the basic level of print concepts and moves upward towards being able to
read words fluently (accurate reading at a good rate).
• The Common Core State Standards address these skills in the Reading Foundations
strand, starting in kindergarten and progressing through 5th grade.
• This cascade of skills is important to understand because if students are struggling
with decoding words accurately at a good rate, then there is most likely an
underlying issue preventing this from happening.
• It may be necessary to “peel back the layers” with additional diagnostic assessments
or other tools to determine which skill needs to be addressed.
• Reading research over the past 30 years has been compiled together to reveal that
the skill of phonological awareness is pivotal in the creation of successful readers.
This is a critical component that if not directly taught can cause challenges later in
reading.
• Another key idea this image captures is the concept of “word knowledge.” This is the
ability to read words by sight – we automatically know them without having to
decode them. This “sight vocabulary” consists of all word types: regular, irregular,
high frequency, etc.

Language

Talking Points for Language:

• The language comprehension bucket contains these four elements – but the order
doesn’t. These elements can be taught in any order at any level.
• The Common Core State Standards address the Inferential and Narrative Language
skills in the strands of Reading: Informational Text, Reading: Literature. Academic
vocabulary is addressed in the Common Core in the Language strand.

Compelling Why Talking Points (June, 2017)

Michigan’s Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative (MIBLSI) is a Grant Funded Initiative (GFI),
funded under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) through the Michigan Department of Education.

3
• These are skills that are continually modelled and practiced with every read aloud,
shared story, science lessons, etc.

Changing Emphasis

Talking Points for Changing Emphasis

• This chart takes the Simple View of Reading a few steps further and breaks down
the emphasis of reading instruction across K-5 grades. The dark blue portrays the
critical skill for that grade at that point in time and that is the one that should be
where we provide the most support for whole and small group instruction.
• This does not mean that kindergarten and 1st grade teachers are not teaching
comprehension or vocabulary skills…those are also critical skills that are modeled
and practiced daily.
• This chart depicts how each grade level does a “handoff” of critical skills to the next
one. If the skills are not obtained, students may fall further and further behind and
the teachers continually have to fill in gaps versus develop the next skill.
• The darker shaded blue columns lead to successful independent reading in 4th and
5th grades. In order to reach these levels successfully, readers need the necessary
decoding skills that are shaded in blue as well as the lightly shaded boxes with the
language comprehension components.
• The purpose of this chart is to help teachers figure out where to focus their
instruction, what to monitor in order to keep kids on track for future reading success
and to have an understanding of what comes before and after the critical skill.

Compelling Why Talking Points (June, 2017)

Michigan’s Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative (MIBLSI) is a Grant Funded Initiative (GFI),
funded under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) through the Michigan Department of Education.

4
Do Students Own the Skill?

Talking Points for Do You Own This Skill:

• Instruction is a powerful tool and so often it is discontinued on a specific skill
before mastery or automaticity it achieved.
• The term is used to capture “automaticity” as students “owning a specific skill.”
This means students are highly unlikely to get it wrong and are automatic at
retrieving the sound, word, etc.
• This image is used to help further understand the Changing Emphasis of Big
Ideas chart and knowing at what time of year students are just acquiring a skill or
practicing recently taught skills or retrieving (owning) mastered skills.
• The take home point here: We do not stop teaching once students get it right.
We continue teaching until they cannot get it wrong. This means they own that
skill!

Michigan’s Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative (MIBLSI) is a Grant Funded
Initiative (GFI) funded under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) through
the Michigan Department of Education.

Compelling Why Talking Points (June, 2017)

Michigan’s Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative (MIBLSI) is a Grant Funded Initiative (GFI),
funded under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) through the Michigan Department of Education.