SHORT PAPER ASSIGNMENT # 1 1

Short Paper Assignment # 1

Alberto Hadad

University of Alabama

CRD 511: Beginning Reading

Instructor: Dr. Carol Donovan

SHORT PAPER ASSIGNMENT # 1 2

Reading is an essential skill that has to be fostered along the school grades, especially

primary elementary school grades in order to provide the necessary grounding for academic

success. This is especially important, considering that in the United States, only 35% of fourth

graders in 2013 scored at or above a proficient level of the national assessment of educational

progress. If this is true in the United States, which has a much better educational system

compared to a country like Colombia, it is definitely urgent to devote all possible effort and

resources to provide effective reading instruction in the early school grades. I found the reading

suggestions and the videos for this unit about Academic Language, Vocabulary and

Comprehension very interesting and appropriate to implement in the ELA classroom in order to

improve the quality of teaching and learning outcomes.

Before I comment on the articles I read, I would like to point out that the connection

between the readings and the videos that presented the reading instruction in action was very

appropriate. Watching teachers with a clear objective in their instruction, engaged students

during the classroom interaction, the development of high order thinking skills, the development

of vocabulary, and the peer interaction are elements that caught my attention and gave me a clear

idea of how can the instruction strategies be correctly implemented in the elementary classroom.

I especially enjoyed watching the videos about inferential discussions, about morphology, and

about vocabulary instruction. It was very interesting to perceive have a teacher can guide

students by using the correct questions and prompting to develop their own ideas and draw

conclusions in an interactive environment.

Commenting on the readings, I start with the one about foundational skills to support

reading for understanding in kindergarten through third grade (Foorman, 2016). This document

presents relevant skills that can be used in the classroom and its underlying research-based
SHORT PAPER ASSIGNMENT # 1 3

evidence. According to the paper, the most effective instructional strategies in reading are the

development of awareness of the segments of sounds in speech and how they link to letters

(phonemic awareness), and the instruction on how to decode words, analyze word parts, and

write and recognize words (morphology). The strategy that has presented moderate evidence of

effectiveness is to ensure that each student reads connected text every day to support reading

accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. Finally, the strategy which has minimal practical

evidence of effectiveness is to teach students academic language skills, including the use of

inferential and narrative language and vocabulary language. Definitely, something to take a look

into is the phonemic awareness instruction during the first grades or kindergarten through first

grade while the focus on morphology is especially important from grades 1 to 3.

The second paper I read about the six pillars of reading instruction (Cervetti, 2015) was

particularly interesting because it poses a very important learning goal that complements the five

pillars identified in 2000 by the national reading panel. The way the authors describe the

importance of knowledge development during the process of learning how to read is essential

because it gives students the opportunity to connect their knowledge with their reading skills and

the different components and content across the curriculum. The paper about Word Detectives

(Goodwin, 2015) presents activities to effectively teach morphology to students by playing

around with the words, for example their prefixes and suffixes which will help them understand

words in different contacts and therefore broaden their academic vocabulary.

The last article I read was comprehension at the core (Harvey, 2013) which presents the

comprehension continuum where the student is asked to answer little literal questions, retell,

merge thinking with content, acquire knowledge, and actively use knowledge. This text presents

a consistent way to guide students to become critical, curious, and strategic readers. These
SHORT PAPER ASSIGNMENT # 1 4

abilities are essential not only along the literacy development process but throughout all the

learning process and life in general where future adults need to continually understand concepts,

acquire knowledge and actively use it.

SHORT PAPER ASSIGNMENT # 1 5

References

Cervetti, G., Hiebert, E. (2015). The Sixth Pillar of Reading Instruction: Knowledge

Development. The Reading Teacher. Vol. 68. Issue 7. pp. 548–551.

DOI:10.1002/trtr.1343

Foorman, B., Beyler, N., Borradaile, K., Coyne, M., Denton, C. A., Dimino, J., Furgeson, J.,

Hayes, L., Henke, J., Justice, L., Keating, B., Lewis, W., Sattar, S., Streke, A., Wagner,

R., & Wissel, S. (2016). Foundational skills to support reading for understanding in

kindergarten through 3rd grade (NCEE 2016-4008). Washington, DC: National Center

for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE), Institute of Education

Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from the NCEE website:

http://whatworks.ed.gov.

Goodwin, A., Perkins, J. (2015). Word Detectives: Morphological Instruction that Supports

Academic Language. The Reading Teacher. Vol. 68. Issue 7. pp. 510–523.

DOI:10.1002/trtr.1342.

Harvey, S., Goudvis, A. (2013). Comprehension at the Core. The Reading Teacher. Vol. 66.

Issue 6. pp. 432–439. DOI:10.1002/TRTR.1145.