Literacy Talks

Can We End “the Reading Wars?” Part Three—What is Skilled Word Reading?

• Reading Horizons • Season 4 • Episode 9

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“There’s more to learning to read than phonics…” 

This statement is true, but without phonics at the core of foundational literacy, the progression from beginning reading to fluent reading is at risk. In this episode of Literacy Talks, our three hosts look at skilled word reading and how the process develops in children. From decoding to spelling, from spelling to sound, and then from sound to meaning, skilled word reading takes both experience and time with text. The answer? It’s not either/or. It’s and! The article “Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert” by Anne Castles, Kathleen Rastle, and Kate Nation provides important research data and practical examples of explicit and sequential ways to ensure students build orthographic knowledge. They help make it all classroom-friendly and practical, which benefits students, educators, and families alike. 


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Narrator:

Hello literacy leaders and champions. Welcome to literacy talks, a podcast series for Reading Horizons dedicated to exploring the ideas, trends, insights and practical issues that will help us all improve our professional practice knowledge and confidence in teaching reading. Our host is Stacy Hurst, professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Advisor at Reading Horizons where reading momentum begins. Joining Stacy are Donell Pons, a recognized expert in literacy and special education. And Lindsay Kemeny, an author, speaker and a first grade elementary reading teacher. Today's episode is part three of our four part mini series as we unpack ending the reading wars reading acquisition from novice to expert by castles wrestle and nation. Today's episode takes an in depth look at teaching students to become skilled word readers. Our hosts discuss understanding the role of phonics and helping children connect spelling and meaning. They also explore implications for the classroom, every teacher will discover new ways to think about foundational literacy instruction and its many components. It's complex, fascinating and important information to know. Let's get started.

Stacy Hurst:

Welcome to another episode of literacy Talks. My name is Stacy Hurst. I'm the host and I am joined by my awesome co hosts, Donell Pons and Lindsay Kemeny. And as you know, if you've been listening to our podcast episodes in order, we are in the midst of a multi part discussion about the text titled ending the reading wars reading acquisition from novice to expert, by the researchers Anne Castles, Kathleen Rastle, and Kate Nation, we like to call Castle Rastle and Nation just because Castle and Rastle rhyme, it just flows, doesn't it, guys. So last time, we talked about cracking the alphabetic code. And if you have the article downloaded, and you're following along today, we will be discussing the second section titled becoming a skilled word reader, pages 16 through 26. There's a lot of really good information in here and some really great questions, too. So before we dive in to specifics, we did end the last episode by saying this one, you can sum it up by saying experience matters, right with text. But I want to make sure that we address the things that you guys most want to talk about. So maybe we could start a little differently this time. And I will ask you, what stood out to you what you as you read this you most wanted to talk about? Lindsay? Let's start with you. Oh, okay.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Well, I highlighted lots of things, we could start with a quote in the very beginning section, the very beginning of the second section, I should say, it's kind of talking about why they think that there hasn't been a resolution to the reading wars. It's been this relative lack of attention to aspects of reading acquisition that go beyond alphabetic decoding, which give rise to arguments that reading is more than phonics. This is a statement of the obvious to any reading scientist. And I would add anyone who has, you know, a pretty good knowledge of the science of reading. Yet such statements are often used in public debate to undermine the case for the use of phonics in the initial stages of learning to read. We see this I mean, this was in 2018. We see this like all the time now this is like the favorite strawman argument of those that are kind of against the science of reading. And you know, I love that said it's obvious. It's obvious to all of us of course, there's more that go into this.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, I highlighted the same quote and the the sentence right before that says the acquisition of phonic knowledge, because they're talking about the last section right is by no means all there is to learning to read even at a single word level. And then they do state that in our view, the impediments to translation of research into teaching practice. And I think that's one thing I love about this article and the way it's designed, and especially this section, you get a lot of content about the research behind what we're talking about, but then they also address how to how to apply it in your instruction in ways that will help students but I loved that they call that out too. And I see that on social media all the time that people are saying, you know phonics is at the heart have structured literacy. It's definitely part of it, but it is not all. So I appreciated that too. Donell, what are your thoughts on that or what you want to make sure we have time to discuss? Yeah, I

Donell Pons:

noticed that I had the same section highlighted too, because it also stood out to me as well. But something that was kind of interesting just to those who are listening and have been following along. And today as I went through this section, I pictured myself as the character of owl from Winnie the Pooh. And if anybody knows owl from Winnie the Pooh, owl thinks he knows a lot, and uses very big words and is trying to teach everybody, this section is tough. I mean, I kind of pictured l talking to me through this section. And so, you know, I say, settle down, take a deep breath. And Rereading is my friend. And that's what I did many times in this section, but it's well worth it. Because they are tackling some some really big ideas here, right? Some things that are fundamental to that huge thing between beginning reading and becoming the expert reader. And that's a big space, a very big, interesting space, where a lot of things wrong, can happen, right.

Lindsay Kemeny:

And I would add, if you're a busy teacher, and you're struggling to get through this, it's okay to right now skip to the implications for the classroom and at least read that section. And you can return to these anytime. But really, you know, because it is like we were saying this is dense, can get a little hard to get through. But you can skip to those implications for now and come back to the others when you have more time or even more background knowledge on the topic.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, and I don't know if we use the word dense after we started recording, but we certainly did before. And I admitted that even though I utilize this in my classes, I kind of give a very general overview to this section, because it's very cognitively demanding. But we Yeah, done, I'll go ahead

Donell Pons:

without those, Stacy, what's interesting is, is that this is the place where I'd like to have more conversations, because this really is the secret sauce, or the space where I get a student to such a place, but we never seem to get beyond or it seems like we get to the hurdle, and we can't get over the hurdle. And this is really interesting space to talk about. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

and you know, I, I liked it too, because I do like identifying areas that I can learn more about. I like learning new things, and solidifying and refining my knowledge. And this is definitely going to be a part of this text that I revisit. I think a central idea to the first parts of this section is that skilled readers can generalize. And I think, as we say that you guys are both nodding your heads, I have seen that with students that I've worked with that maybe take a minute, to become fluent. And the other thing that I drew out of this repeatedly, this process happens over time. And over the years in the case of English, right, so we need to keep that in mind as well. But I've noticed that with my students who struggle maybe or don't get it as quickly as others is that they can read a word in one context, and totally get it and see it again. And it's like they've never seen it before.

Donell Pons:

The other piece that I find important to that, Stacy is to back up even a little bit further. And it reminds us that even skilled adult readers continue to use alphabetic decoding, and phonological processes as a matter of routine. So again, that goes back to what we know about well, what do struggling readers who are older need? Well, they need those skill sets too, right. So don't skip them, provide them. And then it continues on with what you said the most obvious evidence of this is that skilled readers can generalize, as you were saying, they can read not only words with which they are highly familiar, but also new words that they have never seen before, or indeed non words. And they give some examples. That was really interesting.

Stacy Hurst:

Lindsay, what were you thinking is

Lindsay Kemeny:

talking about? So not much to add to that I highlighted a lot of the same things.

Stacy Hurst:

They talk a lot about computational models, which again is something to look into there's a table that does a good job of kind of synthesizing those, but I liked that they have no matter the model, they have two things in common. One that cognitively we need to translate a word spelling into sound, and then to meaning and then one that allows us to gain access to meaning directly from the spelling. So again, that orthography becomes central to automatic reading. Any thoughts about that direct access to meaning?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Cool, I liked how they defined that with the orthographic learning where they said it's it's mapping their spellings directly to their meanings without recourse to decoding up process we've referred to orthographic learning, it just set not that, you know, in order for that to happen, they have decoded it previously, right. So it's not saying we're skipping that step, that step has happened. But now they're so familiar with it, that they access the meaning of the word.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, I like that they pointed out there too. And I run page 19. Phonological processes still exert an influence on reading, but they do so in a less overt way. So it really is kind of what takes center stage when you're reading a word. So it also says that in even in children's silent reading, those phonological processes are at play. So we can't in our practice, we can't over estimate probably the importance of that early on. And then Lindsay, as you mentioned, they discussed orthographic learning and I never a, we all have heard orthographic mapping. For me the phrase orthographic learning was a little bit novel, right? They say it's an umbrella term that encompasses both the acquisition of words specific knowledge required to access the particular words meaning from print, and also the accumulation of more general knowledge about orthographic regularities within the writing system. So there we have referring again, to experience and time with text, I thought that was interesting. And then it which kind of transfers into the self teaching hypothesis. And I know we've talked about that amongst the three of us before. Anything in this section that was a little bit refining to the knowledge you already have of the self teaching hypothesis. Donell, you're really good at synthesizing definition. So how would you define self teaching hypothesis?

Donell Pons:

You know, one thing that came to mind this time around when I was reading it, and I highlighted it, and then I wrote in the margins, Stanislaus, to Haim, in his book about how we learn what he said about human, the human brain having that ability to learn from one trial, and how important and significant that is, that's why he's not too wasn't too worried about machine learning, I wonder if that same conversation would happen today if you'd be worried or not. But that's really important. That was interesting, that popped into my head here, with the self teaching hypothesis, yeah, that

Stacy Hurst:

you need to have data, or that experience won't really get you where you need to go. Right. So data and then over time, one thing I loved also on page 19, he uses this term by requiring the child he's talking about, you need to have a lot of experience with text essentially. So he says by requiring the child to engage in the here is my favorite term, effort, full process of translating print to sound, and therefore to focus on the letters in a word and their sequence. The act of decoding also provides an opportunity to acquire orthographic knowledge. So that phrase effortful process of translating, print to sound really helps me to think about it and then he talks about repeated exposure, and they're able to self teach through their independent reading. So when we're talking about effortful processes, I have seen in practice, sometimes when teachers are presenting decodable texts to a student, and they read it out loud to them first, I think that robs that child, or the student of that effortful process. I know we've had conversations about that, but when you hear the phrase effortful process, what do you guys think about,

Lindsay Kemeny:

I feel like it's that necessary, productive struggle that has to happen in order for these students, you know, for this orthographic learning to occur. And I love this, the self teaching hypothesis is so interesting to me. And it's important to realize that they need, you know, it says in this article that the self teaching hypothesis has alphabetic decoding at its core, you know, and the students need to have been taught enough of the code where then this kicks in and takes place and maybe sometimes, certain philosophies of reading have thought that students will teach them themselves from the beginning. Like I think that more and more they need, they need that base and need to be explicitly taught. And then you'll see things kick in and I think that's really exciting as a first grade teacher, because I felt like I really, I was seeing that. Look. Now we're transitioning out of these decodable so I'm giving them harder texts. It might have some unusual spelling's that I haven't taught yet and the students are picking that up and doing great and reading with it. Others needed more time before or if they were ready. And so it's just interesting that the self teaching hypothesis that, you know, it's kind of different for each child.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, I loved that. He pointed that out. And there is on page 20. This, this concept to, at any particular point in time, a child, maybe reading some words slowly and with great effort. And you were talking about that, Lindsay, when your students are ready for texts that maybe had words that had patterns you hadn't taught yet, while recognizing and understanding other words rapidly and efficiently with less reliance on that alphabetic decoding. And the authors of this paper say that they posit that that self teaching hypothesis is actually what takes a student from novice to an expert reader.

Donell Pons:

And Stacy, I thought something interesting to that is, is within the wording of how they say things, I think it's important the wording was so important is when they talk about the fact that once a student has been given these, the information, as we say they have to have the information even begin the process. This knowledge is then available on future encounters with the word. So that's that piece Lindsay, you've been talking about as well, you have to make sure that the student has enough of the information, the knowledge to then utilize it on those encounters with something that may be a stretch beyond a little bit beyond what you've been teaching them before. So vital and important. And as you say, this may look different for students in the room, you may have five that looks rather similar, you may have four that don't, and, and so on and teachers, we as teachers, we need to be confident in the way that we teach confident the materials that we have in order to meet those needs. Because as we've always said all the way along and everybody knows your students come with different backgrounds and prepared in different ways.

Lindsay Kemeny:

You articulated that perfectly Donell, you had the words that I couldn't. That was great how you explain that

Stacy Hurst:

competent and flexible, right? Because there are still some things we don't know, I wish it were as precise that the research said to us, the student will need exactly this many exposures to a pattern before they get it. But we still don't know that right? And they did say that exposure is the key to that transition to self teaching and orthographic learning occurs as a function of alphabetic decoding together with exposure to novel words in print. So there are some things we still don't know that the question they ask are all types of exposure equally valuable. And that kind of leads to the next section. Two point two, they're talking about perfetti is work of lexical quality. This is where that word flexibility comes up again, as well. They define lexical quality as the extent to which a stored mental representation of a word specifies its form and meaning in a way that is both precise and flexible. And when he talks about precision, as I understand it, he's talking about the exact spelling of a word. And flexibility refers to the meaning of the word and how it can be used in different contexts. Any thoughts as you read that section?

Lindsay Kemeny:

I don't know. It's the stuff we know, I think it's it's saying, you know, when the lexical quality is low, some of the readers limited cognitive resources must be directed to the more basic task of word recognition. And comprehension is compromised as a result. So I think we talked about that a lot where this stuff needs to be automatic, so that students can be thinking about comprehension, and have the mental capacity to be thinking about that, and not thinking about the decoding. And I

Donell Pons:

think it's interesting, because a lot of things can indicate to you as the educator, exactly what the lexical quality is for a student, right? So just even in the way that a student interprets and approaches a text and their comfort with it with a text. And they even said, you could get this off of a few sentences, while chosen sentences even, and observing how a student responds and what their, you know, understanding is of things and so I thought this was really interesting here. I loved just again, diving back in and thinking about lexical quality, what that might look like, how does the student demonstrate their level of lexical quality? That was really interesting.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah. And he does emphasize Well, Perfetti's work emphasizes that again, just the more a student knows about a word, the more likely they are to get it in their long term memory. So we're talking about phonology orthography, morphology etymology, and he talks about having those literacy experiences over time. He also mentioned that in his research, and again, the authors of this paper continue to mention that so I think we just can't put too fine a point on that.

Donell Pons:

When it comes to those experiences in text, they're so vital and so important because as I give them one example of the word jam, you know, that could be on bread, you know, on a piece of toast for breakfast, but it could also be being in a bind. And you're not going to have those experiences to get that lexical quality with a word that might have more than one meaning. And that's just one, you know, three sound word. And it's interesting to think about with your students, the hip. And again, this is that Matthew effect to that we've talked about, the more that you challenge, your struggle, and you have challenges, the less you want to expose yourself to something that's hard and difficult and doesn't produce that much for you. There's embarrassment and all of that, that goes with it. And that keeps you from having those experiences, they're even more vital for you. Right, as a reader, it's just so interesting, this point right here. And later,

Stacy Hurst:

they talked about the Matthew effect. And another thing they're emphasizing to your point, Donell, is wide reading. So it isn't it's cumulative frequency of these words you're seeing over time, gives you the ability to generalize those, and not just in one type of text, right, so that he calls that cumulative frequency. And then I think that really lends itself to the Matthew effect. If you are not getting those patterns in long term memory and the lexical quality two years low and you're spending more cognitive resources understanding, then you won't spend time reading.

Narrator:

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Donell Pons:

Okay, so I'm gonna toss in a little question here. Maybe the spanner in the works? What do you guys think about the role of listening to good rich text? If a student maybe has challenges with being able to read a text for him or herself, and it's difficult and challenging? And so having that balance between well then let's get them to really enjoy listening to texts that's above perhaps where they are with word level reading, in order to get exposure to right. What do you think that how that influences? And again, you know, I'm just asking a why question here. And I'm sure there's pieces of research, we could pull to say specific things. But I just want in general, your view of what you think of that, and how you how you see it being used or utilized or not.

Lindsay Kemeny:

I think it's huge. It's huge. And we have multiple texts in our classrooms for multiple purposes. We have decodable texts to practice those sounds, spelling correspondences we have grade level text is a little more challenging that students can grapple with, it's a little more complex for them. And we're always doing a read aloud as well. That's the that's going to raise the roof of their listening comprehension because, like just what you were describing Donell, and so for students who struggle providing audiobooks, is is huge for them to help develop vocabulary and those more complex concepts and themes and texts, and they're gonna get with books that they can actually, you know, decode. And I feel like that was a huge piece for my own son, because, you know, I was would tell his third grade teacher during silent reading time, he needs to be able to listen to texts, because it's not doing any good to sit here while he's either pretending to read or he's embarrassed to read the books that he can actually read in front of his peers, give him audiobooks. And I still credit that to you know, by the time his decoding ability caught up, he was not behind in his vocabulary. He's not behind in background knowledge. He understood, you know, the structure of different types of texts because he had been exposed to so many through the read alouds,

Stacy Hurst:

which is a great example what I was thinking as you asked the question, Donell, the mechanism behind that is that yes, it takes some students longer to learn how to decode on that level, that we would call it approaching or at a proficient level. But by the time they get to that point, if they already have that meaning in their long if their spoken and oral vocabularies, that's the same word listening and speaking vocabularies, then they'll make that connection even faster. And there is a lot of research to support that, too. So it's critical. We're never not attending to that vocabulary and comprehension. Right? In our reading instruction.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, so interesting. So I, the point, I want to say right here is yes, yes, yes to all of it, because I still run into teachers who say, Oh, you can't have them listening to it, because then they won't read it. And I tried to help them understand exactly the balance between yes, we're still going to work on skills. But let's promote those opportunities to enrich that child's ability to hear a narrative vocabulary, use rich vocabulary use follow a story, right? create those pictures in their head, because as you say, Lindsay is pointed out with with her reader, in her own household, she noticed a huge difference in that ability to create that for the student, and then be able to catch the skills up. And then you've got a student who has already been filling that upper end, you would have had a larger gap in terms of that. And that was my son as well, always exposed to really rich narratives in great stories, still learning the skills, but at the same time, having an opportunity to have great pictures in his head. And then once he was able to connect those today, he loves to read, he's one of my, you know, biggest readers still. So I think that's a really big key piece right here. And this is a great section for it. Yeah. And

Stacy Hurst:

as you were talking, I was just making that connection between the precision that they're talking about and the flexibility, right? Because if you hear those words in all different contexts, then you already you're building that flexibility. So the time you can be precise with that spelling of a word. You're ready to go with the meaning. Lindsay, you were gonna add to that? Well, I

Lindsay Kemeny:

was and then I know, we also have a lot to still talk about.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, it's true. But go ahead.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah. So in my classroom, I do. I have reading center. This is when I'm pulling small groups and one of the activities is reading all students get the opportunity to listen to audiobooks at this time. And it this does not replace any practice reading aloud practice applying skills. I'm teaching them in our phonics lessons. This is something added to you know, so this is not a waste of time, it's great to have students get to listen to books. Do I say that's their opportunity to practice reading? No, this is different. It's a different purpose.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, I love that. Because we don't want to forget that we need to teach them to decode and those phonics skills are acquired, and

Lindsay Kemeny:

they need a lot of time practicing that aloud.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, and talking about words that are important. And remember how he said, for flexibility purposes, you need to expose students to words in different contexts, but I thought this was important words that people experienced in a range of different semantic and syntactic concepts might yield stronger orthographic representations than words that are repeated in the same context. And I don't know about you guys, but immediately I thought of those tier two words that we focus on in vocabulary. They are applicable in many different contexts. So shows us how important vocabulary instruction on those specific words are.

Lindsay Kemeny:

And here's a little tip, now that we have AI, chat GPT Google Bard, you can take your vocabulary words, and you can put them in and say, give me a fourth grade passage that includes these words, and now you have them in a new context. Yeah, there

Stacy Hurst:

you go. I love it. And then hopefully, students will get to the point where they can create their own context for those words, right. The next section talks about something, I know that we all really have an affinity for it, and that's morphology. So they're talking initially about how early on words that students learn or have single morphemes. But then, the importance of understanding morphology increases when they get to words that have more than one syllable, and more than one morpheme. And here's a fun fact, I thought, fun to me, because we were nerds, but around 80% of words in the English language are built from more than one morpheme I don't think I could have quantified that. It makes sense to me, but I don't know if I can quantify that. That's cool. I'm glad somebody does that research. Donell, I know you've been doing some of your own deep dives into morphology, anything in this section that you want to highlight.

Donell Pons:

You know, I think that the oral language vocabulary was really important here. Right. So acknowledging that your students have the ability to To recognize morphemes and to produce morphemes, they've been had little activity here where their children are very young, and they could even be pre readers. But because they've been exposed to so much oral language, and so the nod there is, is that we are primed for this in our oral language, and then we seem to not really acknowledged to take it further in the printed, right that's, that's really interesting, something that is comes natural to us and in our oral language and not really making those connections to our print, which we could and should be doing.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, especially because English is the Morpho phonemic language and so many times, and that morpheme carries the meaning that otherwise students wouldn't have access to.

Lindsay Kemeny:

I think it's just so interesting about our language, because so many of the, you know, maybe they seem like these irregular spellings for us, but morphology can explain that spelling, and helps with the meaning of the word. And in the article, it talks about, like the word magic. And then magician, the word magician keeps that spelling of magic, you have that see. And I just think that is so cool. That's something so neat about our language.

Stacy Hurst:

Love it. I thought this thing thing about the word sign and signal, you're not taking the pronunciation there. But the spelling carries the meaning.

Donell Pons:

I thought it was interesting. They acknowledge that teachers because I think that to your own education, this was the section that I think of, you know, all sections, maybe we can think back and say I don't I'm not sure how much exposure I even had to this new ideas. But here particularly, is lacking for most of us. Because when we can think about back to our education and say, how much of this did I receive? And now I am expected to teach my students something that wasn't really all that important or really specifically taught when I was

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, the wording they use his teacher knowledge taught. of morphology is sparse and patchy. No pressure for me, no pressure at all, to teach my pre service teachers. That was sarcasm. Okay, let's transition to what I think is my favorite part. And Lindsay, you had this suggestion at the beginning to focus on those implications for the classroom. And the first section is titled sight words revisited. What did we learn here?

Lindsay Kemeny:

I liked the quote it said teaching a sight word does not guarantee reading by sight.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, and they also emphasize learning individual sight words could only ever be a drop in the ocean in terms of children's orthographic learning. It is estimated that from middle of childhood onward children learn approximately 3000 new words per year. That's a lot. And then reading for themselves allowed children to build an experience with printed words. I thought that was important.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, and I think that's kind of the theme of this whole middle section is that students need experience with the printed words, we're always saying time in text, time in text, how much time how many meaningful practice opportunities to the students have to apply the skills that we're teaching. We can't, you know, teach decoding in isolation,

Stacy Hurst:

even if it's an effortful process, right? I did underline this. Their last sentence in that section says, We argue that there is a case for judicious instruction, on high frequency difficult to decode words as part of a comprehensive and phonics rich reading instruction program. So they're talking about those high frequency words that have irregular spellings. And then, Donell, the point you brought up that teachers may not understand morphology is kind of highlighted in the second section of that, anything else that stood out to you there?

Donell Pons:

You know, I thought it was interesting. They acknowledge that a lot of the information about research conducted about morphology, was they got to looking at the studies, it really depended on how it was implemented. Right. And they even had questions about how well it was implemented, to really get to that understanding of how important morphology is or how it impacts overall reading. And so I thought it was interesting it said it is also important to consider that form of intervention is being compared with the morphological instruction reported moderate effect sizes for morphological instruction compared with regular classroom instruction, but noted that these effect sizes fall substantially substantially compared with alternative treatments mostly consisting of phonological interventions. Of course, the nature of regular classroom instruction almost certainly differs across studies. So you're already seeing how complicated it can be to pull this out. research comparing morphological instruction with systematic phonics instruction in young children is very limited. They acknowledge that from a 2013 study, that some reported that morphological instruction improved young children's literacy skills compared with an approach that they described as traditional phonics however, although the phonics control condition and their study did provide systematic instruction on grapheme phoneme relationships, it appeared to mix this instruction with rote learning of whole words and encouragement to guess Words from context or picture cues, features that may not characterize effective systematic phonics programs. So again, read the research to see exactly what it is that you're learning from it. Right. I thought that was really important.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, because of course, like almost anything is going to show a greater effect than using the three cueing system right after you teach your phonics lessons.

Donell Pons:

Exactly.

Stacy Hurst:

Yes. And so they did say that, Donald, to your point, they're calling out like, there's a lot of evidence we still need. But they, they asked the question, when should morphological instruction linked to printed words begin? And they said, some researchers have argued it should be introduced at the earliest stages of learning to read before alphabetic knowledge is firmly established,

Lindsay Kemeny:

which seems silly, right? But I know that person who's always advocating for that, and I like that it said, well, a lot of the beginning books have words with single morphemes. So it doesn't really,

Stacy Hurst:

and then it does state right after that. However, this suggestion awaits evidence. And maybe there has been evidence in the meantime, but I am not aware of it. I also thought it was interesting, because we start very early. When you're talking, you guys said it in spoken language. We talked about plurals, with students as early as kindergarten, right? So we are addressing morphology, we're maybe we're just not being as explicit about it. And maybe the question really, is they use the term morphological awareness, which I think we would be facilitating in that case. But at what point do we become explicit about it? So I thought that was good. And then my favorite section, anything else about morphology before we move on, by the way, the very last? Section two, point 4.3 is motivating children to read. I love this section. Me too. Lindsay, you tell us what you loved most about it.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Okay, like I highlighted a lot of things in this section. Okay, it's talking about that. The desire to read is strongly linked with reading ability. And it says, children are more motivated to read and engage in it more when they are good at it. So as a teacher, my number one thing is to teach them how to read because I know that is going to maximize the motivation to read.

Stacy Hurst:

This makes me think of we always are asking the question Do kids have to love reading? Do we have to teach them to love reading, and we I want all of my students to love reading. But I think about one of my brothers, Lindsay, when you're talking about that he actually was taught with a very explicit phonics program. Well, before that was kind of the thing it was during a whole language time. But he was lucky enough, he could read, he could he didn't love it. But by the time he started to read, that, he decided that he loved it, he could do it. And so his motivation grew, and he could access when he wanted to. So I know that there are exceptions, but to your point, we need to teach him to be able to do it before they're going to love it. Donell.

Donell Pons:

And I think some of the points they made from Willingham was Daniel Willingham book, the reading mind. They made some points from there. But they're also general points that I think we've heard many places before. And that is providing opportunities for students to choose what they're interested in as well. Right. So this is Lindsay, you've talked about it mentioned it many times, we have lots of different types of text for students to access, it's really important. And that opportunity to choose what they want to be able to read. And, and adding in the opportunity to be able to listen, and to access something that's at a different level. So they can maybe be involved in a text for the rest of their peers or reading that was really important to my son is to know what everyone else was talking about when there was a book that everybody was reading, and make sure that you're being involved in that as well. And it's just making your access to being able to have those rich experiences with a great story or learn something from a terrific, you know, informational text, whatever it is, but making sure the access is there as we always continue to teach the skills. But as we've acknowledged all the way through, not every student will be on the same trajectory to that expert reader. And my son was delayed on that trajectory, we put in a lot of effort to get him there. But by adulthood, he did, and he's become a tremendous reader. And I credit all of that with always along the way, having choice to access a great text and find a way to be able to listen to it to be involved with it. And I think that's where we kept the love burning until we were able to get the skill.

Stacy Hurst:

Willingham says that two broad categories to facilitate motivation, choice, as you mentioned, but also maximizing the value of reading And I think also what you the example you just gave did that as well. I know in your family, I mean, you had sentence structure things on your windows? Well, it's out there it was in our last episode, I don't know if you remember this sticky, stuck with me. But that the value of reading was very evident, I think in your home, Lindsey with your family as well. And I think in a classroom, that's equally important.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah. And I loved the when they were talking about what Willingham said, about this motivation to read and saying, you know, it's more than just enjoying reading, but also enjoying it more than all the other options out there. And you just think like, oh, my gosh, we have video games, we have social media, we have so many other things. And these kids, you know, you know, if they talked about survey where there's 30% of teenagers were like, yeah, they like reading, but they liked other things more. So he talks about having it available all the time having it available as an option, have books there in view, you know, in all different situations.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, related to those distractions, and they also share how many words per year students read according to their percentile ranking of reading proficiency. So those of the 10th percentile of time spent reading were estimated to be exposed to approximately 60,000 words per year. Those are the 50th percentile, which is considered average, right? For grade 900,000 words, and those are the 90th percentile with more than 4 million words. That by itself is staggering, especially when you talk about lexical quality over time, right. But this study they indicate was done before the digital era. Yeah, boy,

Lindsay Kemeny:

it was so interesting. That part. Also, again, referring to Willingham, in a study he did, where they found that rewarding children for reading may have a negative impact on their motivation to read. What did you guys think about that?

Donell Pons:

That goes to intrinsic motivation, right? Yes, of intrinsic motivation?

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, I think of a certain program that I've seen in schools, that rewards students for reading. And I've seen it I've seen that their motivation, if they feel competition about it, younger students especially, that's not why they read, you're, you're changing the why, when you do those external motivations, right, it's to get the thing and not actually to get meaning. And that in the value that we can out of reading,

Lindsay Kemeny:

I did a little take home, because last year was my first year in first grade. So I started this take home book system, they get three books on Monday, they bring them back on Friday, they read them aloud to a caregiver at home. And I really was debating. I was like, if they bring him back on Friday, should I put a little treat in the bag? Do they get a little sticker or candy or something. And I'm like, I'm not going to I knew about this. And I didn't want to give them an external award for reading. We just talked a lot about how your reading is gonna get so much better by practicing it. And you know what all my students returned their book bags on Fridays having read the book, and they didn't need reward to do that.

Stacy Hurst:

I think that also, those external rewards contribute to the Matthew effect as well. And I'm thinking about my second grade teacher who I loved so much, she was a great teacher. But we had a reward system for every 10 books you read on Fridays, you got to pick a lucky sucker. You guys heard of these, and they were big you guys. So let's talk about facilitating diabetes early on in life. They were really full of sugar. And if you got one that had a star on the wrapper, you got to choose another sucker. And so for every 10 books you read, you had a chance, right? And I remember some weeks that I literally had 10 and 15 suckers, because I got lucky with the stars on the wrapper. But I do remember in my class, as early as second grade, noticing that there were students who never got any suckers, so I shared mine with them. And I didn't at the time ever think about it, but now I'm realizing because they weren't reading. They didn't get 10 books. And of course, I was intrinsically motivated to read. So for me, it was just a bonus. And you

Donell Pons:

know, I think you both said really important things about creating the value of the experience of reading. And so Lindsay, that's what's important to your students is they've recognized it's a value to you and it's a value to your classroom. So therefore it is valuable. And I think that's the important thing it can be brought to households too right, so my children knew that I valued it. And so it was a value in our household that we had books and to be able to access. And so even with a reader that wasn't having the same experience as some other readers in my household, you're trying to find ways that we could all be able to have that experience with reading, it was all considered valuable. And so I really urge teachers that maybe haven't had their eye on the value of listening, maybe that's something new for you, you're thinking about, and you're going to add that into your repertoire of other really great things that you do. And just thinking of ways in which you can create that value for all of the students.

Stacy Hurst:

And for maximizing that value with any text that you have exposure to your experience with. I'm thinking specifically about when time we used to call these extension activities, they really do a lot to add value. But I remember one time we were reading back in the level text days, in my first grade class, there was probably a C or a D level text about how to make peanut butter. And so these were my lower readers, it was in the later half of the year, and we've made peanut butter, I ruined a blender in the process. But it worked, right. And I think students realize you take that information from the text, and you can just read the book and walk on or you can apply it. And that's where you get some value out of what you're what you're reading. So always focusing on that.

Lindsay Kemeny:

So I think this quote, in here kind of perfectly sums up this part on motivation, kind of like our big takeaway. Children are more motivated to read and engage in it more when they are good at it. And so what can we control as teachers, we can teach them to read to make sure that they have the option to love it and do it, you know, voluntarily.

Stacy Hurst:

That is a great way to end always focusing on the value of reading and providing choice and reading lots of experience with texts, increasing that opportunity and exposure. Thank you guys, that was way better than I thought it would be. This discussion has been great. That's why I love having these kinds of conversations with colleagues like yourselves. And I love opening it up to our listeners too. So if any of you want to discuss any of these things reach out to us and we'd be happy to. I'm thinking to how excited I am about next time, which will be our final episode in this series. And it is about comprehension, which is the whole reason we read right, so I'm really excited to dive into that. So that will be the rest of the article for those of you who want to read ahead, feel free to do that. And thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Literacy Talks. And we will see you in the next episode when we learn more about comprehension.

Narrator:

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