LINDFIELD EAST PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENT PRESENTATION HELPING MY CHILD WITH BEGINNING READING SKILLS

1. LINDFIELD EAST PUBLIC SCHOOLPARENT PRESENTATIONHELPING MY CHILD WITH BEGINNING READING SKILLS Linda Gerard Assistant Principal Learning Assistance Northern Sydney Region 2012

2. Presentation • Research into reading • Reading model • Practical ideas • Strategies

3. The Brain • Every brain is unique – like a fingerprint • At birth, the human brain weighs 25% of adult weight • Thus, experiences at critical junctures can greatly influence connections • More importantly, an impoverished environment limits growth

4. Research • There is an overwhelming academic consensus that the years from birth to age 5 is the time when a child’s brain is undergoing the most growth and development. • Cognitive development is the product of two interacting influences, brain growth and experience, both of which exert their greatest impact during the first five years of life. • Reading to a child during this critical time, specifically during the preschool years of ages 3 - 5, buildsa number of skills that are key to literacy, including phonological awareness, alphabetic knowledge, and concepts about print conventions. • Given the course of brain development, it is not surprising that mostyoung children who are exposed to certain early language and literacy experiences usually prove to be good readers later. From: American Early Childhood Literacy Gap

5. Reading aloud • Reading aloud to young children is critical • Research has continually shown that when adults read to children, discussing story content, asking open-ended questions about story events, explaining the meaning of words, and pointing out features of print, they promote: • increased language development • comprehension of story • content, knowledge of story structure, and a better understanding of language– all of which lead to literacy success

6. However • Nearly half the population struggles without the literacy skills to meet the most basic demands of everyday life and work. • There are 46% of Australians who can't read newspapers, follow a recipe, make sense of timetables, or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle. • If reading came naturally for all students, teaching would be a much easier job. Children would learn to read as readily as they learn to speak. Teachers would only need to give students the chance to practise their skills • But many children don't learn to read just from being exposed to books. Reading must be taught. For these children, reading must be taught explicitly and systematically, one small step at a time

7. Why do some children have difficulty learning to read?Neuroplasticity of the brain • We were never born/hardwired to read – reading is an invention of man • Unlike language, reading has no specific genes to set up its circuitry or to dictate its development • As we are taught/learn to read, the brain forges new pathways or connections • Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to reorganise/rewire/ form new connections in its neural pathways based on new experiences • For connections to be made, the brain needs hundreds of exposures to letters, letter patterns and words • For students with a reading disability (dyslexia), the brain needs thousands of exposures so that the brain can be restructures to automise print From, Professor Rosemary Tannock, Learning and Attention Difficulties: implications of neuroplasticity, The Sebel, Parramatta, Sept 25th 2009

8. Reading is a complex process and involves • decoding words and understanding the alphabetic code • understanding vocabulary • rechecking meaning and analysing information as it is being read and after it has been read • gaining meaning from, responding to and making inferences from words and images in a variety of contexts • linking known knowledge with the knowledge in texts • categorising, building, changing, redefining and sharing knowledge • transferring knowledge to new contexts and subjects • understanding authors viewpoints, purpose and intended audience • critically analysing messages and information in a variety of literacy modes (visual literacy, multimodal texts) for a variety of purposes.

9. Report: The National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy, Teaching Reading (2005) This report concluded that students learn best when an integrated approach is adopted with teachers explicitly teaching: • Phonemic awareness – the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in oral language • Phonics – the relationship between letters and sounds • Fluency – the ability to read quickly and naturally, recognise words automatically and group words • Vocabulary knowledge – new words and what they mean • Text comprehension – understanding what is being read, developing higher-order thinking skills . Snow (1998) also identified the following as important: • control over strategies for monitoring comprehension and repairing misunderstanding • continued interest and motivation to read for a variety of purposes.

10. Early instruction and intervention – best outcomes when • Explicit instruction for decoding, word analysis and context cueing • Lots of opportunities to practise skills and strategies with high levels of success ensured • Corrective feedback and encouragement • Texts matched to student at appropriate level of difficulty • Spelling and writing included as integral part of literacy program • Adults or peers used to facilitate additional practice • Close liaison established with parents/caregivers to ensure continuity of support at home From: Westwood, P. Learning and Learning Difficulties, 2004

11. The Reading Model • Good readers integrate the four sources of information effortlessly, monitoring and adjusting their reading as they go • The four sources of information are: • Semantic information (meaning) • does this make sense? • does this fit with what has gone before? • Grammatical information • does this sound right? • would we say it like that? • Graphological information (visual) • does it look right? • Phonological information (sounds) • do the sounds I want to say match the letters on the page?

12. Good readers • Read quickly, effortlessly and with automaticity • Employ all cues: semantics, grammatical/syntax, graphological, phonological & contextual • They read with tone & expression, pause appropriately and emphasise appropriate words • Read chunks of print and don’t have to attend to each sound or each word • As a result, they are able to attend to comprehension and enjoy the text • Able to activate strategies as necessary when meaning breaks down • Draw on their background knowledge • Risk takers, confident enough to engage in difficult tasks and enjoy the challenge – confident in their ability

13. Weak or dependant readers • Weak readers labour to decode or identify words • Rely on a limited set of cues • Read word by word in a very stilted fashion with little intonation, pitch and fluency • Often do not realise when meaning has been disrupted - do not demand or expect sensible, coherent comprehension to be the end product • Poor strategy knowledge and usage • Have deficits at phonological level, perhaps underlying receptive and/or expressive language disorder or delay • Often have limited vocabulary • Poor comprehension as mental capacity taken up with working at word level

14. Differences K- 2 and 3 -6 Learning to Read • Jacobs explains that students learn and practise beginning reading skills through about the third grade, building their knowledge about language and letter-sound relationships and developing fluency in their reading. Reading to Learn • Around fourth grade, students must begin to use these developing reading skills to learn – to make meaning, solve problems, and understand something new. • They need to comprehend what they read through a three-stage meaning-making process : Prereading, Guided Reading & Postreading.

15. Language learning difficulties • Difficulties with reading, writing and spelling are often part of the bigger picture of language disability • "...children who have trouble with oral language generally will go on to have difficulty with written language..." Dr. Paula Tallal, Co-Director, Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers • Review of literature shows that up to 75% of children with early language delays continue to show reading problems at age 8 years Law,J; Boyle, J; Harris, F; Harkness, A; & Nye, C (1998)

16. Language • Expressive Language: Talking -Use of vocabulary, sentences, longer utterances to convey a message • Receptive Language: - Understanding of vocabulary, grammar, sentences, instructions, explanations, stories • Pragmatic language: Social skills – the unwritten rules of communication eg eye contact, taking turns, topic maintenance , asking to join a game appropriately etc

17. At risk markers • Family history of reading difficulties • Delayed speech and language development –slow vocabulary development, poor expressive language, weak syntax • Persistent problems with sound processing, inconsistent Speech production • Problems mastering production of new words • Evident naming, word retrieval difficulties • Difficulty learning letter sounds • Poor invented spelling • Difficulty with other rote sequences (eg. days of week, birthday) • Slow progress despite well monitored, code based instruction.

18. What is dyslexia • Dyslexia is a language based deficit/disorder that can be linked to neurological origin • Dyslexia occurs across the range of intellectual abilities • Dyslexia is a learning problem that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling • Characteristics: difficulties with phonological awareness, verbal memory and verbal processing speed • Co-occurring difficulties may be seen in aspects of language, motor coordination, mental calculation, concentration and personal organisation, but these are not, by themselves, markers of dyslexia • A good indication of the severity and persistence of dyslexia can be gained by examining the individuals response to well-founded intervention Source: National Report from Dyslexia Working Party, Jan 2010 and Rose Report , UK, 2009

19. Impact on student learning • Impedes development of age appropriate reading, writing and spelling skills • Without support, limits access to age appropriate curriculum across the Key Learning Areas • Students with dyslexia are often slow to respond to evidence-based interventions • Students with dyslexia are at greater risk of exiting school without achieving literacy skills sufficient to meeting the increasingly complex demands of everyday life

20. How to help your children • Young people lead busy lives and school curricula become increasingly crowded. • This may not affect keen readers, who will always make the time for books, but it does deter reluctant or uncommitted readers How we can overcome these barriers? • Develop a reading culture at home and/or at school. • Be open to new formatssuch as graphic novels • Explore the opportunities presented by new media such as lively websites, blogs and book trailers, extending the life of a book beyond its covers Keeping Young Australians Reading, Centre for Youth Literacy, Nov 2009

21. Reading with children Sharing a book for just 10 minutes a day, an hour or so a week, can instil in a child a lifelong love of reading. Children should be encouraged to explore and experiment with a wide variety of texts, including: • Posters • Magazines • Comics • Picture books • E books and games • Dictionaries • Atlases\manuals • Poems • Plays • Novels/Novellas • Newspapers • Travel books timetables • Schedules • Visual texts • Road signs • Food packaging • Screen games

22. Methods • Read aloud to your child • Child reads aloud to you/sibling • Take turns reading with your child (paragraph/page each) • Read together, in unison (Neurological Impress Method) • Child reads onto a tape • Child reads along with book on tape/CD/ MP3 Player/computer/E book • Silent reading • Vary the use of activities to keep it interesting for everyone involved • Reread ‘loved’ stories • Lots of discussion about vocabulary • If concerned about your child’s progress, make an appointment with the classroom teacher

23. Three levels of text • Independent text – can be familiar texts; easy to read/read for pleasure; can pick up and put down; look at the TV whilst we read it; most home readers from school; Premier’s Reading Challenge; DEAR time in class; to increase fluency • Instructional texts – these are generally texts that are used during guided reading lessons to teach children to read, with support from teacher/parent volunteer; need more concentration; need to activate strategies when understanding breaks down; may be more unknown vocabulary/technical words • Frustration level texts – too difficult to read alone; may be read to; follow along with CD; read along with voice activation on CD ROM

24. Introducing a new book • This should be fun and exciting so keep it short, simple and moving Before Reading • Talk about the author/previous books read • Predict what the story may be about from title/cover/pictures • Draw attention to difficult or unusual words in book – discuss meaning • Discuss places, things relevant to story.

25. During Reading • If the student makes an error or encounters an unknown word, activate the Pause, Prompt and Praise method Step 1: • Pause to give the student a chance to solve the problem. Step 2: • If the mistake does not make sense, let the student read to the end of the sentence and ask them, “did that make sense?” • Prompt them with a clue about meaning. • If the mistake did not sound right (they mispronounced the word), prompt with a clue about how we should say the word/look at the chunks/sound combinations and discuss. • If the mistake makes senseand sounds right, prompt with a clue about how the word looks. Encourage the student to guess a word that makes sense and check to see if the guess matches the sounds in the word and the look of the word. • If the student pauses too long or says nothing, prompt them to read on to the end of the sentence, think about a word that would make sense, and then check that it matches the letters. • Students can also be prompted to re-read to see if they can self-correct; to look for little words, prefixes, suffixes in the larger word; or to stretch out the word. • After two prompts, tell the student the word. The student then rereads the sentence correctly. Step 3: • Praise when the student reads correctly or self-corrects; gets a word correct after prompting; makes a good attempt at an unknown word; read with expression etc.

27. Prompting: The Listener’s Role A listeners intervention should not be: • Premature • Destructive to the reader’ s search for meaning and accuracy • Destructive to the reader’s ability to store and recall • Habitual prompting by providing words builds up the reader’s expectation that difficulties will be resolved by the listener • The aim of intervening is to assist the child to make their own decisions and to choose the correct strategy to employ (eg reread, read on, chunk, think of what will make sense and check letters)

28. After Reading (choose 1) • Talk to your child about the story • Ask them how they would feel if they were in that situation. • Ask the student to retell the story in their own words or identify the main idea as succinctly as possible. • Ask the student literal, inferential and creative questions about the text. Literal questions are those straight from the text Inferential questions relate to information that is inferred in the text, or information that needs connecting over a number of pages Creative/Evaluative/Critical questions are those which activate the student’s knowledge of the world and empower them to use higher order thinking skills • Discuss predictions. Were they correct/incorrect in their original predictions? Why/Why not? • Discuss why the author may have written the text. • Discuss whether they agree with the author’s point of view – use the text to back up answers. • Discuss characters. • Link story back to personal experience. • Discuss how home and hill start with ‘h’, or how bubble and trouble rhyme. • Ask your child to open the book at a certain page and find the word that means _____. • Tell your child the beginning of a sentence and ask them to scan the text, locate the sentence and complete it. • Identify the 4 main events in the story. Tell your child (or write the down) these events in a jumbled order and ask them to sequence them correctly.

29. Importance of Encouragement Encouragement can be used to: • Let children know they are doing the correct thing (eg reading for pleasure) • Reinforce use of appropriate reading strategies • Give credit for correcting errors (with or without assistance) • Reward effort • Motivate children to keep trying • Give realistic feedback There are two types of encouragement: • Descriptive (eg good, you realised that didn’t make sense and re-read the sentence) • General (well done, great!) Always work form the positive rather than the negative.

30. Levels of comprehension • Literal: basic facts understood; right Here in the text • Inferential: reader draws together information from number of pages – information Hidden ; goes beyond what is written right there and makes meaning or draws conclusions • Evaluative: • Critical: (Head) reader assesses what they are reading for accuracy, clarity, bias or exaggeration • Creative: (Head) the reader takes information or ideas from what has been read and develops new ideas, original thinking

31. Summary: Encourage your children to • Predict • Activate their background/prior knowledge • Monitor their understanding and activate strategies to work out unknown words: 1. Think about what would both fit the letters and make sense 2. Read on and look for key words/ideas to help 3. Re-read to check/confirm/look for clues 4. Ask themselves, “did that make sense?” 5. Look at chunks, little words, prefixes and suffixes • Self-correct when meaning lost • Look at the pictures for clues • Recall main ideas when finished reading • Expand their vocabulary; clarify the meaning of new words • Read widely and regularly

32. Selecting a book: Five Finger Method (quick guide only) • Select text. • As your child reads, note each error (fold finger). • Calculate: 0 – 1 fingers book is too easy 2 - 3 fingers book is suitable 4 – 5 fingers book is too difficult. • An error is an uncorrected word omitted, inserted, substituted, a word refused for 5 seconds or made up text. Words which are self-corrected are not errors.

33. 100 word test for older students • Mark off 100 words • Count errors • Calculate: • 0- 5 errors: Independent text • 5 – 10 errors: Instructional level text • 10+ errors: Frustration

34. Websites • National year of Reading Website www.love2read.org.au • Reading Rockets http://www.readingrockets.org • Florida Centre for Reading Research http://www.fcrr.org • Speech, Language and Communication http://www.talkingpoint.org.uk • Interactive readers & games www.starfall.com