Theories of Reading

Every Child Reading

• Every healthy child should be reading by age 9.
• Base educational decisions on evidence.
• Promote adoption of texts based on the evidence of what works.
• Provide adequate professional development, especially for teachers
of ELL students.
• Promote whole-school adoption of effective methods.
• Involve parents in support of their children’s reading.
• Provide early childhood experiences that promote literacy.
• Improve pre-service education and instruction.
• Provide additional staff for tutoring and class-size reduction.
• Improve early identification and intervention.
• Introduce accountability measures for the early grades.
• Intensify reading research.
• Professional development should be provided for everyone!
 Every Child Reading
• Studies found that:
• Phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, and concepts of
print are necessary.
• The alphabetic code: Phonics and decoding work.
• Fluent, automatic reading of text is increased.
• Vocabulary is extended.
• Text comprehension is better with fluent readers.
• Written expression is aided by phonics instruction.
• Spelling and handwriting follow along with writing.
• Screening and continuous assessment to inform
instruction is necessary.
 National Reading Panel
• Analysis revealed that systematic phonics instruction
produces significant benefits for students in
kindergarten and first grade.
• In 2nd through 6th grade phonics failed to have an
impact with low achieving students.
• The ability to read and spell words was enhanced in
kindergartners who received systematic beginning
phonics instruction.
• First graders who were taught phonics systematically
were better able to decode and spell, and they showed
significant improvement in their ability to comprehend
text.
 National Reading Panel
• This panel asked members of society such
as teachers, parents, scientists,
administrators to look at:
– The importance of parents in reading
instruction.
– The importance of early identification.
– The importance of phonemic awareness,
phonics, and good literature.
– The role of the teacher.
– Professional development for educators.
 Reading IS Rocket Science
• About 20 percent of elementary students nationwide
have significant problems learning to read.
At least 20 percent of elementary students do not read
fluently enough to enjoy or engage in independent
reading.
• The rate of reading failure for African- American,
Hispanic, limited-English speakers and poor children
ranges from 60 percent to 70 percent.
• One-third of poor readers nationwide are from college-
educated families.
• Twenty-five percent of adults in this country lack the
basic literacy skills required in a typical job.
 Reading IS Rocket Science
• These components and practices in reading instruction are
successful:
Direct teaching of decoding, comprehension, and literature
appreciation.
• Phoneme awareness instruction.
• Systematic and explicit instruction in the code system of written
English.
• Daily exposure to a variety of texts, as well as incentives for children
to read independently and with others.
• Vocabulary instruction that includes a variety of complementary
methods designed to explore the relationships among words and the
relationships among word structure, origin, and meaning.
• Comprehension strategies that include prediction of outcomes,
summarizing, clarification, questioning, and visualization.
 Teaching Reading IS Rocket
Science
• Strong, core standards are missing from
the education of our educators.
• Teacher preparation must be better.
• Number one reason that children are
unsuccessful in reading is…
 Putting Reading First
• Phonemic Awareness/Phonics instruction
works.
• With these skill children have an easier
time learning to read/spell.
 Putting Reading First
• Found that Phonemic Awareness
– can be taught and learned.
– Helps children learn to read.
– Helps children learn to spell.
– Includes instruction where children are taught to
manipulate phonemes related to the alphabet.
– Is most effective when it focuses on only 1-2
types of phoneme manipulation such as
onset/rimes and blending and segmenting.
– Should be taught in small group instruction.
 Behaviorism
• Learning occurs because of change in behavior.
• The environment shapes and changes behavior.
• Positive reinforcement is essential to explaining
the learning process.
• Consistent repetition of material with small
progression sequences.
• Motivation is extrinsic.
• Drill and kill.
• Question/Answer
• Bottom-Up Theory of Learning
• Phonics based
 Cognitivism
• The memory system is an active and
organized processor of information.
• Prior knowledge plays an important role in
learning.
• Brain-based learning.
• The teacher facilitates discovery by
providing necessary resources.
• Motivation is internal.
 Social/Constructivism
• Active involvement of learners
constructing knowledge for themselves.
• Emphasizes top-down approach.
• Begin with complex problems and teach
basic skills along the way.
• Whole Language.
• Teacher acts as a facilitator.
 Schema
• Make connections between ideas.
• Background knowledge is essential to
learning.
• Teachers must provide if necessary.
• Schemata are well organized and
embedded in other schema.

Dogs
 Bottom Up Model of Reading
• Influenced by Behaviorists.
• Focuses on developing basic skills like
matching sound with letters.
• Associated with phonics.
• Based on recognition and recall.
• Most comprehension is literal.
 Top Down Model of Reading
• Focuses on background knowledge a
reader uses to comprehend a certain text.
• Associated with schema theory.
• “meaningful learning” introduces new
information and connects it with the text.
Transactional Model of Reading
• Meaning is based on knowledge and
experiences.
• Student centered and balanced.
• Readers interact with text to gain meaning.
• Whole Language based.
Psycholinguistic Model of Reading
• Same as the top down model of reading.
• Begin with the task and learn the basic
steps as you go along.
 Interactive Model of Reading
• An interactive instructional program is a
program for teaching reading and writing.
• It focuses on teacher-directed interaction
between whole language and phonics
activities.
• The rationale behind it is based on the belief
that learners need explicit instruction about
various reading strategies that they can use
to help them understand a text.