Auditory Processing Skills & Reading Disorders in Children

• May 14, 2013 by Hallie Smith, MA CCC-SLP

It’s not exactly news that there’s a relationship between auditory processing skills and reading disorders in children. But with research by scientists such as Elise Temple and Nadine Gaab helping to establish and confirm the connection, the mounting evidence points to just how strong the correlation is—especially for children with dyslexia.

In a recent study by Jane Hornickel and Nina Kraus published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the authors set out to determine whether inconsistency in the brain’s response to speech sounds is correlated with poor reading skills. The study evaluated 100 normal-hearing children from 6 to 12 years of age who were divided into 3 groups—good readers, average readers, and poor readers—based on their fluency scores.

The researchers asked the children to listen to the syllables “ba” and “ga” while measuring the children’s auditory brainstem response. They also measured the children’s brainstem response to a simple clicking sound for comparison.

The authors found that the auditory brainstem response was considerably more variable for poor readers than for good readers, but only when listening to the relatively complex speech sounds—not when listening to the simple click sound. They also found that the inconsistencies in brainstem response were more closely associated with the consonant portion of the syllable than the vowel portion.

The variability in brainstem response occurred intermittently throughout the testing rather than building over time, and was primarily seen among the poor readers rather than all three groups, indicating that neural fatigue was likely not a factor. The authors note that the more likely explanation for the intermittent variability is poor encoding of speech sounds in the brains of the struggling readers.

According to Kraus, it’s this inconsistency of brain response that prevents some children from making the crucial connection of sound to meaning that is the foundation of language and reading skills. Strong readers, on the other hand, typically make the connection with ease. The relationship between reading ability and auditory processing skills, she says, is “a highly significant relationship.”

Distinguishing between consonants can be particularly difficult for children with dyslexia, as this study shows, because they are spoken so much more rapidly than vowels. But consonants typically give meaning to words (think “cat” vs. “bat”), so that missing bit of information can make learning to read enormously difficult. The takeaway is that when children with normal hearing experience reading difficulty, auditory processing plays a role.

Fortunately, our students’ brains are highly adaptable and responsive, enabling dramatic improvements with appropriate intervention. When the auditory processing issues are corrected, children are then able to make the critical sound-to-meaning connections that lead to proficient reading and improved learning all around.

Related reading:

Dyslexia, Auditory Processing Disorder, and the Road to College: Maria’s Story

What Educators May Not Know about the Neuroscience of Learning

 

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Special Education

Tags: auditory processing, autism, brain development, brain plasticity, brain training, child reading development, cognitive skills, dyslexia, improving reading skills, intervention, learning disabilities, learning to read, literacy, phonemic awareness, processing rate, reading comprehension, reading intervention, struggling readers, technology in education

Why Dr. Timothy Rasinski Thinks Reading Fluency Should Be “Hot!”

• April 23, 2013 by Norene Wiesen

Tim Rasinski is on a mission to change minds and he shares that mission with us in his webinar, “Keys to Increasing Reading Comprehension in the Age of Common Core.”

What’s Hot, What’s Not

Rasinski laments the fact that reading fluency has been ranked “Not Hot” for years in the annual “What’s Hot, What’s Not Literacy Survey” in Reading Today. Worse, he says, is the fact that the reading experts surveyed said that fluency should not be hot.

Fluency is one of the key skills, says Rasinski, that increases comprehension, the real goal of reading. So he wrote an article called “Why Reading Fluency Should Be Hot!,” which was featured in last May’s Reading Teacher magazine.

Building a Bridge to Reading Comprehension

Rasinski likens reading fluency to a bridge that connects accuracy in word study (phonics, decoding, spelling, and vocabulary) to comprehension. When students do not pick up the connection intuitively, educators have to teach it. But, if educators do not see fluency as an important component of reading instruction, the bridge to comprehension may never be built.

Teaching fluency means developing automaticity in word recognition, so learners can devote their available cognitive energy to comprehension. When that limited energy is spent on word recognition, there’s often not enough left over for the difficult task of deriving meaning from the words that have been read.

Ways to Develop Fluency That Really Work

Rasinski outlines what he calls “the essentials” of developing reading fluency:

1. 1. Reading real literature
   2. Getting real-time word recognition support
   3. Reading with expression
   4. Participating in assisted reading activities
   5. Practicing both “deep” and “wide” reading

Anyone interested in helping students become eager and capable readers should take the time to watch the full webinar and hear Rasinski’s thoughts on these points in his own words. It’s a topic he’s thoroughly studied, and he brings his extensive knowledge and passion to the discussion.

The online Reading Assistant program, as Rasinski points out, supports classroom teachers by delivering these five essentials—including real-time corrective feedback—to any number of students simultaneously.

Reading comprehension all comes down to meaning, says Rasinski, and teaching reading fluency ultimately helps learners get better at deriving meaning from any text.

Doesn’t that sound “Hot!” to you?

Related reading:

5 Fluency and Comprehension Strategies That Every Reader Can Use

Print Exposure and Reading Fluency: Building a Foundation for Academic Success

 

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Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant

Tags: child reading development, cognitive skills, Common Core, fluency, improving reading skills, learning to read, literacy, phonics, reading comprehension, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact, technology in education, vocabulary, webinar

Growing Together: Join Our Annual Visionary Conference on May 17th

• April 16, 2013 by Norene Wiesen

This May 17^th, we will be hosting our annual Visionary Conference for Fast ForWord Providers entirely online for the very first time.

Save on travel expenses, spend less time away, and learn just as much as in years past—maybe even more.

This year’s theme is Growing Together, and we’re thrilled to announce that our esteemed Visionary Conference presenters Dr. Paula Tallal and Dr. Martha Burns will be sharing exciting new research on the brain and learning.

Dr. Tallal will be reporting on the latest research with college students who used the Fast ForWord program and saw improvements in a number of skill areas.

Dr. Burns will present research from the Human Connectome Project (a project studying the connectivity of the human brain) and research on memory and attention disorders and interventions.

Additional sessions will review the latest Fast ForWord product updates, best practices for getting the most from the products, marketing resources, and professional development opportunities to help you thrive as a Fast ForWord Provider and help more children succeed.

Because this year’s conference is online, we’re welcoming any and all attendees, whether you’re a provider or not! There is no charge for any of the sessions, so you can attend one or attend them all. If you’ve been to past conferences then you already know…It’s the highlight of the year!

 

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Fast ForWord, Reading Assistant

Tags: accelerate learning, attention, brain training, improving reading skills, intervention, learning disabilities, literacy, memory, reading comprehension, Scientific Learning events, student growth, technology in education, writing

Instilling a Love of Reading: What Every Teacher and Parent Should Know

• March 27, 2013 by Jacqueline Egli

As an educator I spend a considerable amount of time providing advice to parents whose children are finding it difficult to be inspired with reading! Parents will describe their child as  “struggling,” “disinterested,” or ”anxious” about reading and are searching for ways to instill the love of reading, when it is such a tedious task for their child.

It’s really quite simple: Children who do not read well will not be inspired to read, or to practice reading more. So, how do we get our reluctant readers to find reading fun?

As the director of a school that specializes in working with students with reading disorders—and a parent of a youngster who was diagnosed with dyslexia in 3^rd grade—I see this issue from both sides.  Some suggestions that I share with our parents (and that I used with my own son) can create a safe haven for reading for the emerging reader, gifted reader, or a student who needs more direct instruction to improve reading skills.

The Practice of Reading Skills

Keep the work of developing reading skills separate from pleasure reading. Students who require reinforcement in their decoding or vocabulary should practice those tasks for a short time (15-20 minutes) several times per week. Use some of these ideas to make the reading fun!

• Play Scrabble using real or nonsense words! Get the real game board! Let students use a dictionary to look up words that they can create with their tiles. Or, play a game with nonsense words, but everyone should be able to read their words! Non-word reading is a good way to practice decoding.
• Word of the day: Have the whole family select a “word of the day” and keep a tally on how many times that word is read, or spoken throughout the day. At dinnertime, share the results of the family “survey” and select a new word for the next day.
• Matching game: Have your child use index cards to write their words for practice on one card and the definition on the other. Play this game like the Memory card game (also known as Concentration), encouraging the student to read the word and the definition for every card turned over. (My son and I both did this when we were studying—he used his 5^th grade spelling words and vocabulary, and I had my “deck of cards” on education law terms and definitions for my Master’s degree coursework).
• Use Unique Materials! Change it up! Have your child practice by writing spelling words on the sidewalk with colored chalk. Put shaving cream on the kitchen counter and let your child write their spelling words in foam! Put a piece of screen material in an open picture frame. Have your child place a piece of paper over it and write their words on the paper with crayon. This approach provides practice and highlights the individual letters with a unique, textured surface. See some examples here:  
• Create your own storybook: Children, by nature, will be more involved and interested in practicing oral reading if they are excited about a topic. Using some of the newest technologies, such as the camera feature on your phone, have the child take photos of a favorite activity that the child or the whole family enjoys doing, or take pictures that match the vocabulary list!  Put those photos into a PowerPoint and have the child tell or type the words, match vocabulary or create a story to go with the photos. With PowerPoint you can add motion, sound, or music—so be creative! You can even print the pages and bind them into a book, and you have some great stories for practicing oral reading. The book can also make a great gift for a relative for a birthday or holiday.

Reading for Pleasure

Children who are behind in their reading abilities, such as decoding, vocabulary, or comprehension, may not always select independent reading material that “matches” their age and grade. In fact, many children who struggle with the mechanics of reading may be interested in topics that are way above their independent reading level. To meet their intellectual interests and instill the “habit” of reading for pleasure, consider these ideas:

• Read aloud for evening wind-down: What child doesn’t want to delay bedtime? This is a perfect time to read a chapter or two and discuss the elements of a read-aloud story. Ask questions about the characters and setting and inquire if they can predict what will happen next. Let your child select a book that they have an interest in, regardless of the reading level, and read it to them before bedtime. For those youngsters who are gifted, be sure that the topic is not above their maturity level. You may want to read the selection before you read it together, as some authors do include more mature themes than some of our learners are ready to handle.
• Books on tape in the car: Face it—we are a mobile society! I have parents who report spending many hours in the car for errands, driving kids to practice for sports, and waiting on our busy roads to make it home in the late afternoon hours. Audio books can be a great way for everyone to enjoy a good mystery or listen to a story that will soon be featured in film at the local movie theatres. Use of an audiobook is also a great way to keep a youngster connected to current trends in literary work. Students who are behind in their reading abilities may still have an interest in the latest chapter book that will be featured in an upcoming movie, such as Hunger Games. Although your child may not be able to wade through the actual printed version, listening to the audio series will permit them to understand the content and will encourage their discussions with their peers about the latest chapter of a popular series.
• Model reading activities! In our busy lives we sometimes forget that our children and students need to see us reading! Some schools still include a specific reading time where everyone in the school reads a book or magazine for 15 minutes.  As parents, we should practice what we want our children to do, so they can see our enjoyment of literature! Every summer, I would take a stack of paperback books with me to the beach, and my children would know that I was enjoying my “junk novels”. Now, when we get together for our annual beach week, my young adult children break out their Kindles and read too!
• Don’t get concerned if your child has selected something to read independently that is not at their grade level. Nothing concerns me more than when I hear a parent or teacher indicate that the “child” is selecting a storybook, chapter book or series to read that is “not at their grade level”. Reading for pleasure should be just that, for pleasure. Allow and encourage reading for entertainment value. I often remind my students’ parents that “eyes on print” is a good thing, and not to get concerned over the level of the material that a child reads for pleasure. I don’t look at the back of the book I am purchasing for my annual beach trip to see what grade level it is before I purchase it. I select books that I am interested in reading for fun! I enjoy books that have a mystery and involve law, written by authors such as John Grisham. What I don’t do is determine the Lexile Score, or Independent Reading Level of the text or content. So, allow your child a choice in what they wish to read independently and encourage them to develop the habit of reading!

Above all, BE PATIENT and ENCOURAGING with your child as they develop independent reading habits. The “art” of reading is quite complex. Some children will require more support, individualized instruction, and continued practice, and may benefit from the services of a reading specialist. Your positive influence, patience, and support can make your child feel safe to take the “risk” of reading new words or selecting more challenging material. Celebrate the small steps, and keep positive so your child will become more confident!

Related reading:

18 Ways to Encourage Students to Read This Summer

5 Reasons Why Your Students Should Write Every Day

 

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: child reading development, elementary school learning, emotions in learning, high school learning, how adults learn, improving reading skills, learning to read, literacy, middle school learning, motivating students, reading comprehension, struggling readers, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact, vocabulary

Daily Reading Practice: More Important Than You Would Ever Imagine

• March 5, 2013 by Maura Deptula

Many students enter our classrooms with limited vocabulary and loads of catching up to do. I’ve seen teachers discouraged by the challenge they are faced with, and yet doing valuable things in their classrooms everyday to not only meet challenges but to exceed expectations. The good news is that the little things we do everyday can have a great impact. 

Why Modeled Reading Matters

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.”  - Emilie Buchwald

Our students have a wide range of lap hours logged. For some, the idea of climbing up to listen as someone reads to them is more natural than putting on a pair of socks, while for others it’s a rare event.  In classrooms, all children benefit from listening as we read. 

Modeling fluent reading in our classrooms and displaying our love for the written word benefits every student, but it is essential for those students who do not get this benefit at home.

Older students can benefit as well. On this topic, Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook, says, “Every read-aloud is an advertisement for pleasure, every worksheet is an ad for pain. If the pain outweighs the pleasure, the customers go elsewhere.” When we read and showcase our love of reading we are advertising the very thing we want our students to buy.

Get Students Reading More, More, More (and More)

“There is ample evidence that one of the major differences between poor and good readers is the difference in the quantity of total time they spend reading.” - National Reading Panel, 2000

The best way to improve reading skill is through reading practice. If we’ve modeled fluent reading for students and chosen material that is a great fit for their ability and their interest, then we have set the stage for practice.

It’s no wonder that good readers read a lot and poor readers read little. If an activity is not pleasurable, devoting time to it is not desirable. However, as good readers read and poor readers do not, the gap in their ability grows. We must encourage all of our students to read. We must find ways to make reading pleasurable for all students.

*Note that I’ve indicated Children A, B & C are all reading at the same rate (100WPM).  Though this scenario may be unlikely, it highlights the gains that are possible for all students.  As their reading improves, their rate will increase along with more words devoured.

For those with poor skills, the need to practice is critical—not only to improve their reading ability, but also to open their world. These “words” represent new vocabulary, new ideas, new topics, and new learning. By getting students to read more we are expanding their imaginations and building their background. When students read little they miss out on so much more than slow-growing reading skills.

A Deep and Continuing Need

One final note on quality.  To incent students to read and to help them read well, we must also focus on motivation and help students choose reading material that will be inspiring and well suited to them.

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.
”  - Maya Angelou

I’ve always been struck by some of the reading material we put in front of our struggling readers.  As I’ve worked with students on their assigned texts, I can’t help but find myself bored and listless. How can we expect students to develop a fondness for reading if what we’re asking them to read is not particularly good? Think about why you read and what you like to read. I’ve yet to find the well-read adult who chooses reading material based on their ability level alone. Instead, they read to gather information, to soak up a genre they are especially fond of, to escape and to dream. To foster this ‘deep and continuing need’, we need to provide our students with delicious, fantastic literature. They need rich vocabulary, exotic stories and variety. At times this beautiful content is beyond the reach of our students’ ability, but we are wise to help them reach, to scaffold, to encourage and to make every attempt to give them the good stuff.

“It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations—something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own.”  - Katherine Patterson

Related reading:

Building Fluent Readers: How Oral Reading Practice Helps Reading Comprehension

After Just 24 Days, Summer School Students Significantly Improve Reading Scores

 

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant

Tags: academic success, accelerate learning, child reading development, how children learn, improving reading skills, reading comprehension, reading intervention, struggling readers, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact, technology in education

Adolescent Learning: Why Reading Interventions Aren't Working

• February 26, 2013 by Cara Gipson

It’s exciting when a child learns to read—combining letters and sounds to form words for the first time until they’re stringing those words together to create sentences. But what happens when a child goes from “getting by” in the early grades to struggling in adolescence when cognitive demand increases along with the difficulty of required texts?

How Adolescent Learning is Different

There are important differences between childhood and adolescent brain function, and developmentally appropriate regression in abilities such as impulse control can affect adolescent learning.

Dr. Martha Burns’ webinar “Reading and the Adolescent Brain: What Works?” provides research-based insights for busy educators interested in the science of adolescent learning. Tune in and discover…

• What changes in the adolescent brain can affect academics, attention and other cognitive skills?
• Why does the adolescent learner often plateau and in some cases even decrease in certain skills? 
• Why are so many reading interventions failing to make a difference, and what can be done?

Understanding what’s happening in the adolescent brain can give you the tools to educate your students, support them in their struggles, and provide the help they need to get back on track academically.

Why Reading Interventions Fail

One reason that many reading interventions may not work for the adolescent learner is that they fail to provide the cognitive skills and oral reading practice required for reading fluency. Research shows that using the Fast ForWord program has been correlated with positive neurological changes in the brain corresponding to the cognitive skills that underlie reading.

By incorporating the use of the Fast ForWord program to build cognitive skills and the Reading Assistant program to ensure sufficient reading practice, you can help your adolescent students jumpstart their reading progress instead of remaining stagnant. Dr. Burns takes you on a detailed tour of how these programs strengthen cognitive skills, fluency and comprehension; reinforce learning; and shorten the time it takes to achieve significant milestones in achievement. 

Changing the Future

Advanced literacy skills are needed not only in order to succeed in college but also to obtain and hold future jobs. When a teen is struggling in the present, it becomes more difficult for them to see a bright future, often causing them to erect a protective wall against learning and life. Informed educators can help transform these struggles into victory.

 

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic problems, accelerate learning, brain development, cognitive skills, high school learning, improving reading skills, intervention, literacy, middle school learning, motivating students, reading comprehension, reading intervention, struggling readers, struggling students, technology in education

Join Us for Our 2012 Fall Webinar Series for Educators

• September 4, 2012 by Carrie Gajowski

Our Fall Webinar Series for Educators is here!  Join us for presentations on topics from how the brain learn to how you can increase test scores and reading proficiency for your students. 

How the Brain Learns

9/12 - The Development of Executive Function: Building the Brain’s “Air Traffic Control” System

Dr. William Jenkins, one of our four founders and an expert in learning-based brain plasticity, will review the three dimensions of executive function often highlighted by scientists—working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility. Learn about the development of these skills across childhood and look at some popular misconceptions about executive function in children.  His last webinar on executive function was a big hit—you‘ll want to join us for this one!

10/11 - Teaching with the Brain in Mind

Brain-based learning expert Eric Jensen returns to share specific, practical brain-compatible strategies you can use in the classroom right away. Discover how the brain works, how teaching changes the brain, and what it takes for students to acquire complex learning and achieve their best. Jensen’s webinars are always packed—be sure to register and arrive early!

10/30  -  What do Neuroscientists Know About Learning That Most Educators Don't?

Dr. Paula Tallal will join us to discuss the latest neuroscience research on learning, her original research on auditory processing and language, and the classroom application of these scientific findings to help struggling learners succeed.  Dr. Tallal is one of our four founders and a very engaging presenter—don’t miss this rare opportunity to learn from her!

Real Life Results with Scientific Learning Programs

9/5  - 79% of Arizona English Language Learners Improve One or More Proficiency Levels In One School Year

Returning presenter Cory Armes will discuss how the Fast ForWord program supports English Language Learners by simultaneously developing academic skills critical for reading, such as English language conventions, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension. A live Fast ForWord demo will be included in this webinar.

9/17  -  Administrators from Westfield-Washington Schools (IN) Discuss How Their Students Achieved Nearly Double Expected Gains In Reading

Dr. Martha Burns will open the webinar with an overview of how the brain learns.  Then, special guests Dr. Dave Mundy and Cindy Keever from Westfield-Washington Schools in Indiana will discuss how students achieved nearly double their expected gains in reading with the Fast ForWord program.   Bring your questions for our guests!

9/26 - Students Surpass Reading Level Gain Expectations by 50% With Reading Assistant

Maura Deptula will provide an in-depth look at the Reading Assistant online reading coach and results achieved by students using it. Reading practice with Reading Assistant helps strengthen fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. This webinar will include a live product demonstration.

For Parents

9/10 - The Science of Learning

One of our most popular presenters, Dr. Burns returns to discuss ways to accelerate your children’s learning. Recent brain research shows that developing the critical cognitive skills of memory, attention, processing, and sequencing can make a significant difference for your children and result in improved test scores. Dr. Burns will discuss key areas of the brain and how these areas influence reading and academic performance. Angela, a parent from Wisconsin, will discuss her son’s progress and results with the BrainPro program.

 

 

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Education Trends, English Language Learners, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Scientific Learning Research

Tags: academic proficiency, academic success, accelerate learning, brain development, brain plasticity, cognitive skills, executive function, how children learn, improving reading skills, increased test scores, learning to read, literacy, phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, reading intervention, success stories, technology in education, webinar

Common Core Reading Recommendations and the Role of the Teacher

• August 14, 2012 by Liz Kline

Like many people around the world, these last few weeks I’ve spent a little time watching the Olympics. What struck me as I watched this pageant of super human athletes was often the person the camera focused on next—the coach. The coach, the one who worked day in and day out to inspire, lead, support, and challenge the athlete was right there.  The coach was living this once in a lifetime moment alongside his/her athletes. What an amazing feeling that must be to watch your team making its way onto the Olympic field knowing that you helped them get there.

As a former classroom teacher I often wonder, would we all be better off if we began to think of ourselves a little bit more like Olympic coaches? Would we be more apt to push, challenge, inspire?  Take, for instance, Tim Shanahan’s recent post about the Common Core’s reading recommendations around text difficulty vs. the widely used Guided Reading methodology developed by Fountas & Pinnell.  I read this post with great interest because I taught using Guided Reading as my preferred approach for reading. Yet unlike many of the responses posted by other Guided Reading advocates, I found myself completely aligned with Shanahan’s views.

The Common Core take the position that students should be consistently challenged by the texts presented to them so that by the time they leave high school they are able to competently handle the texts and tasks of advanced study and the modern workplace. The Guided Reading approach also aims to present students with challenge, but at the same time it limits students’ exposure to difficult texts that are at a student’s frustration level, those that students would read with less than 90% accuracy on a cold read.

It makes me wonder. If we were coaches, not teachers, would this be a non-issue? What coach do you know who gives you a practice workout every day that is 90% attainable? Maybe she lowers the difficulty on your “rest day” but most of the time the workout is a stretch, your muscles hurt, and you are very tired when it’s over.  Usually, you notice that after a couple of days of feeling challenged the task starts to get easier. And if you have a good coach, probably right at the moment when you’re feeling like you’re getting the hang of things, she ups the challenge once again.

Reading is a lot like training for the Olympics—the challenge is real, the rewards are great. Our good readers become champions of academic success and later become leaders in the workplace.

No matter your approach to reading instruction, as teachers—I mean “coaches”—we need to teach students to tackle their frustrations head-on, coach our students through it so that we get world-class learning outcomes. I know not one teacher who wouldn’t trade a medal ceremony over a graduation ceremony any day.

 

 

Elizabeth Kline is the Sr. Director of Instruction at Scientific Learning. She began her career in education as a Teach for America corps member in Los Angeles. For the last 10 years she has worked at publishing and software companies building the tools to help great teachers, or “coaches” as she prefers to call them, everywhere.

Related Reading: 

5 Fluency and Comprehension Strategies That Every Reader Can Use

Why Prosody Matters: The Importance of Reading Aloud with Expression

Subscribe to this blog to get new blog posts right in your inbox and stay up to date on the science of learning!

Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic proficiency, academic success, child reading development, improving reading skills, learning to read, literacy, reading comprehension, teacher effectiveness

Why Prosody Matters: The Importance of Reading Aloud with Expression

• July 26, 2012 by Logan De Ley

Reading aloud with expression is a foundational reading skill students should be developing between grades 1 - 5, according to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (2012). It is pretty easy to recognize when someone skillfully reads aloud in an expressive manner. However, to effectively teach or assess this skill, a closer examination of its features, development, and relationship to other reading skills is needed.

Prosody, the defining feature of expressive reading, comprises all of the variables of timing, phrasing, emphasis, and intonation that speakers use to help convey aspects of meaning and to make their speech lively. One of the challenges of oral reading is adding back the prosodic cues that are largely absent from written language.

Researchers have found strong links between oral reading prosody and general reading achievement. For example, after comparing students’ reading prosody in first and second grades with their reading comprehension at the end of third grade, Miller and Schwanenflugel (2008) concluded that, “early acquisition of an adult-like intonation contour predicted better comprehension.” Another study, which included more than 1,750 fourth graders participating in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), found a strong correlation between prosody and overall reading achievement (Daane, Campbell, Grigg, Goodman, & Oranje, 2005).

In the context of oral reading, prosody can reflect linguistic features, such as sentence structure, as well as text features, such as punctuation. Skilled readers pick up on these features, and respond to them when reading aloud, as when they pause briefly at relevant commas, pause slightly longer at sentence boundaries, raise their pitch at the end of yes-no questions, and lower their pitch at the end of declarative sentences.

While punctuation provides some cues to prosody, young readers can be misled by it. For instance, they may pause at every comma, even when the grammar of the sentence does not call for pausing (e.g., “He made his usual egg, cheese, and tomato sandwich.”). As young readers move toward adult proficiency, their pauses increasingly respect the grammar of the text rather than doggedly following the punctuation (Miller & Schwanenflugel, 2006).

Prosody can also reflect aspects of meaning. For instance, slight fluctuations in pitch, timing, and emphasis can change a simple question (e.g., “What did you do?”) into an expression of censure.  Learning to read dialog in a manner that reflects the intentions and emotional states of the characters is a great way for adolescent readers to delve deeply into literature. However, younger students may not understand this use of prosody well enough to apply it to oral reading (Cutler & Swinney, 1987). Notably, in the NAEP study, only 10% of fourth graders were judged as reading aloud with this level of expressiveness.

Finally, when thinking about prosody, it is critical to remember the other aspects of reading fluency: word reading accuracy and reading rate. Inefficient word reading is the primary barrier to good prosody for most young readers (Schwanenflugel, Hamilton, Wisenbaker, Kuhn, & Stahl, 2004). Children who are struggling to decode individual words tend to pause too frequently and for too long, so that their timing and phrasing are seriously disrupted. Furthermore, they must put so much effort into decoding that they do not have the mental resources left for constructing meaning and conveying it expressively.

Listening to the prosody of a child reading aloud provides parents and educators with a window into many aspects of reading skill. By reading aloud with appropriate timing, phrasing, and end of sentence intonation, younger readers can demonstrate their ability to:

• read words accurately;

• read at a reasonable rate;

• read most words automatically, so that mental resources are available for comprehension;

• use grammar and punctuation to help construct meaning;

By reading aloud with increasingly adult-like intonation and expressiveness, adolescent readers can demonstrate their ability to:

• use discourse-level features, such as pronouns and signal words, to recognize relationships across and among the sentences in a text;

• understand characters and their intentions when reading fiction

• understand an author’s purpose or attitude.

Ultimately, all of these abilities must be brought to bear to achieve the ultimate goal of reading with comprehension.

 

 

References:

Common Core State Standards Initiative (2012). English Language Arts Standards – Reading: Foundational Skills (Grade 1 – Grade 5). National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO): Washington, DC. 

Cutler, A. & Swinney, D. A. (1987). Prosody and the development of comprehension. Journal of Child Language, 14, 145-167.

Daane, M.C., Campbell, J.R., Grigg, W.S., Goodman, M.J., and Oranje, A. (2005). Fourth-Grade Students Reading Aloud: NAEP 2002 Special Study of Oral Reading(NCES 2006-469). U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. 

Miller, J. & Schwanenflugel, P. J. (2008). A Longitudinal Study of the Development of Reading Prosody as a Dimension of Oral Reading Fluency in Early Elementary School Children. Reading Research Quarterly, 43, 336-354. 

Miller, J. & Schwanenflugel, P. J. (2006). Prosody of Syntactically Complex Sentences in the Oral Reading of Young Children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 839-843. 

Schwanenflugel, P. J., Hamilton, A. M., Kuhn, M. R., Wisenbaker, J. M., & Stahl, S. A. (2004). Becoming a fluent reader: Reading skill and prosodic features in the oral reading of young readers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96, 119–129. 

Related Reading:

Building Fluent Readers: How Oral Reading Practice Helps Reading Comprehension

5 Fluency and Comprehension Strategies That Every Reader Can Use

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Categories: Family Focus, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant

Tags: academic proficiency, child reading development, elementary learning, fluency, improving reading skills, learning to read, literacy, oral reading, reading comprehension

Teaching Metacognition: The Value of Thinking About Thinking

• July 10, 2012 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

Research performed in the past few decades has demonstrated that we can improve reading skills by teaching students “metacognitive strategies.” By metacognition, we refer to enhancing one’s awareness of “what one believes and how one knows.” (Kuhn, 2000).  In other words, the more we can teach students to be actively thinking about thinking as they learn, the more effective their learning will be.

In fact, we can teach students to become what Marcia Lovett of Carnegie Mellon University calls “expert learners.” According to Lovett (2008), teaching metacognition involves three specific processes:

• Teaching students that their ability to learn not only changes, but that they can affect how that ability develops,
• Teaching them how to plan for success and set goals, and
• Giving them lots of opportunities to monitor their learning and adapt their own learning strategies

According to Lovett’s research, an experimental group of students who used metacognitive strategies more strongly believed themselves to be effective learners, demonstrated greater motivation to learn, and achieved better academic performance than the control group. (2008)

What exactly do such metacognitive learning strategies look like in the classroom? Diane Dahl, in her blog post at The Educator’s PLN, shows how these ideas can be implemented in any number of ways, many times by simply tweaking existing instructional strategies. Here are a few recommendations based on her list.

1. Give goals. Before a lesson begins, give clear goals for what they will be expected to learn from the experience.
2. Pose questions. Posing questions before, during and after reading or instruction will help students to focus on the key points they should be learning.
3. Offer opportunities to summarize and retell. Have students summarize or retell what they have read or heard. As they do this more and more, they will learn how to more effectively identify central ideas.
4. Give self-monitoring strategies. Give students strategies for being aware of their own learning. For example, practice having students make a quiet “a HA” sound when they understand an idea or a “hmmm” sound when they don’t. This will help both teacher and students to know when a topic needs more attention.
5. Engage the five senses. As students experience a text – whether they are reading it silently or out loud or it is being read to them – have them imagine using all five of their senses to experience the text. In their mind, what do they see, hear or smell? What does it feel like on their skin?

While it might be easiest to imagine implementing these kinds of strategies in reading instruction, they can be adapted for teaching any subject. The idea is simply to get students to be consciously aware of, and take charge of, their own learning. The more we can do that, the more effective we will be as teachers.

References:

Teaching Metacognition

Instruction of Metacognitive Strategies Enhances Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Achievement of Third-Grade Students

Metacognitive Strategies for Reading Comprehension

Related Reading:

Deliberate Practice: How to Develop Expertise

The Question Formulation Technique: 6 Steps to Help Students Ask Better Questions

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Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, behavior, cognitive skills, emotions in learning, executive function, how children learn, learning to read, motivating students, reading comprehension, self-esteem, student growth, teacher impact