Using Oral Language to Help Adolescent Readers & Writers

1. Using Oral Language to HelpAdolescent Readers & Writers Kathleen T. Williams, PhD dr.kathleenwilliams@gmail.com September 7, 2011

2. Overview Literacy & Oral Language Skills Developing Academic Vocabulary Self-regulating Comprehension Strategies Connections between Reading & Writing Examples throughout presentation Interactive, participatory webinar Have paper and pencil/pen ready Questions 2

3. Snapshot of the Speaker: Kathleen T. Williams, PhD Began professional life as a second grade teacher in 1968 Involved in test and instructional material development since 1989 Has been a speech pathologist, classroom teacher, school psychologist, graduate & undergraduate instructor Authored Expressive Vocabulary Test, 1st and 2nd editions (EVT-2), GRADE, G•MADE, Reading Level Indicator (RLI), Math Level Indicator (MLI), Reading Fluency Indicator (RFI), and OWLS-2 Reading Comprehension Scale (Fall 2011) Has a BS in speech pathology, MEd in elementary education, MA in educational psychology, and PhD in school psychology Is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist (retired) and holds an Indiana Life License - Elementary Education Teacher 3

4. Literacy & Oral Language Skills 3 Steps to verbal learning (learning from what we hear or what we read) • Pay attention • Encode (make it personally meaningful) • Create an associative link (link new information to something you already know) 4

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6. Expectations of Adolescent Students Know how to read and write Have verbal learning skills Can listen & take appropriate notes Can read faster than they did in elementary school Can read large amounts of text in short time Can gain information by reading Can read and understand increasingly difficult material Can write fluently 6

7. Quickwrite #1 Take 15 seconds and jot down the answers to these questions: • What are the four language arts? • Which ones are receptive and which ones are expressive? 7

8. Four Language Arts 2 Receptive • listening • reading 2 Expressive • speaking • writing 8

9. Literacy & Oral Language “Oral and written language are comprised of the same linguistic code. The same basic code is used in reading and aural comprehension and in speaking and writing.” Theory, Assessment, and Intervention in Language Disorders: An Integrative Approach, by Elizabeth Carrow-Woolfolk, 1988 “reading is considered to be a process rather than a subject, a facet of language development” Foundations of Reading Instruction, by Emmett Albert Betts, 1946 9

10. Literacy & Oral Language • Increase skills and knowledge of • vocabulary • syntax • sentence structure • Improve both oral and written language output 10

11. Research-based Characteristics of Proficient Readers • Recognize and manipulate speech sounds in words • Rhyming, segmentation, substitution • Understand the alphabetic principle • Link sound with symbol - phonics • Recognize new words with few exposures • Process larger “chunks of print” • Read with automaticity • Focus on meaning as they read - fluency • Use background or world knowledge to interpret meaning in context 11

12. Research-based Characteristics of Poor Readers • Over-reliance on context and guessing • Limited phonemic and syntactic awareness • Limited knowledge of the sound structure and the grammatical structure of language • Slow naming speed • Lack of automaticity and fluency • Limited attention available for meaning due to effort required for decoding and processing of individual words 12

13. Causes of Literacy Problems • Inadequate instruction • Limited vocabulary • Lack of conceptual knowledge commensurate with his/her same-age peers • Only knows one meaning • Limited experience with print • Limited world knowledge • Cognitive or language deficits • Dyslexia or other learning disabilities • English as a second language • Academic diversity 13

14. Vocabulary & Comprehension The “Matthew” Effect The more words you know, the more you can read The more you read, the more words you will learn Stanovich (1986) refers to this as a reciprocal relationship that “continues throughout reading development and remains in force for even the most fluent adult readers” (p. 379) According to Farber (1999) many high school students develop reading skills through a sixth-grade level but “haven’t actually read enough to develop the vocabulary or general knowledge that more advanced reading requires” (p. 1) Students must have vocabulary to learn to read and comprehend, but then they gain vocabulary by continued reading 14

15. Academic Vocabulary • Words that describe complex and abstract concepts across disciplines • Expectation of adolescent students • Can apply correct meaning and usage • Example: • parallel lines (Math) • parallel themes (English) • parallel circuits (Science) 15

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17. Using a Word Web to Study Words with Multiple Meanings

18. Quickwrite #2 • Construct a word web • What does the word “press” mean? • Rules: • You can write a phrase or sentence using the word • You can write an idiom that uses the word • You can write a synonym for the word 18

19. Quickwrite #2: Word Web

20. Quickwrite #2

21. Academic Vocabulary • Examples: • sole • bay • lodge • duty • grid • line 21

22. Building Academic Vocabulary • Interactive Word Walls • Brainstorm words that meet criteria (self-selection) • Provide contexts for meanings • Make associations from own existing knowledge and experiences • Apply words to academic situations • Metacognitive approach [think about thinking] • Get students to think about their own vocabulary and the depth of their understanding about particular words • Have I heard the word used this way? • Have I seen the word used this way in print? • Have I used the word in my writing? 22

23. Signal Words • Words that authors use to help you comprehend • Continue thought or idea • again, moreover, other, also, similarly • Indicate sequence • first, after, while, during, always • Signal a change in meaning • although, despite, however, rather • Signal an illustration • for instance, such as, specifically • Indicate conclusion • consequently, finally, hence 23

24. Successful Reading – Strategic Reading Reading is a complex, recursive thinking process Goal is to be a fluent reader A reader that can hear the voice of the author Fluent reading is not fast reading It is not “machine gun” decoding Good readers use lots of strategies to make sense of text Use existing knowledge to make sense of new information Ask questions before, during, and after reading Draw inferences from the text Monitor their comprehension (clarifying) Determine what is important (summarizing) Synthesize information to create new thinking (predicting) 24

25. Graphic Organizers: Comprehension Strategies • Questioning: • 5 “W” chart – who, what, when, where, why • Clarifying: • T chart to compare and contrast information • Flow chart to list sequence of events • Summarizing: • Double-entry journal • Paragraph method • Predicting: • Make guesses about text based on title and pictures • Diffusing 25

26. Diffusing: Predicting Strategy • Reading a passage, • Noting unfamiliar words or words used in an unusual way • Discovering the meaning of unfamiliar words using context clues, dictionaries, and/or thesauruses • Replacing unfamiliar words with familiar ones 26

27. Diffusing • When Clorinda’s letter came, Jackie was fourteen. The idea of having a memory had just begun to be exotic. You could remember and it was a feeling of conceit, an aberration, a limitless unfixed disguise that made things seem what they were not. Would you know yourself as once you might have been? Jackie tapped the letter on her tooth and let the voluptuous sensation of Clorinda envelop vast roomy mirrors outside the commonplace. • An Old-Fashioned Story, Jane Mayhall 27

28. When Clorinda’s letter came, Jackie was fourteen. The idea of having a memory had just begun to be exotic. You could remember and it was a feeling of conceit, an aberration, a limitless unfixed disguise that made things seem what they were not. Would you know yourself as once you might have been? Jackie tapped the letter on her tooth and let the voluptuous sensation of Clorinda envelop vast roomy mirrors outside the commonplace. 28

29. When Clorinda’s letter came, Jackie was fourteen. The idea of having a memory had just begun to be exotic(mysteriously different or unusual). You could remember and it was a feeling of conceit, an aberration(different from a normal state), a limitless unfixed disguise that made things seem what they were not. Would you know yourself as once you might have been? Jackie tapped the letter on her tooth and let the voluptuous(full of delight) sensation of Clorinda envelop(enfold completely) vast roomy mirrors outside the commonplace. 29

30. Instructional Strategies “Literacy Dig” of all the reading and writing a student does in one day or over a week Organize prior knowledge before reading or writing KWL chart (what do I know, what do I want to learn, what have I learned) Build metacognitive strategies to use while reading (paragraph marking) Shanker, J. L., & Ekwall, E. E. (1998). Locating and correcting reading difficulties (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, Merrill. 30

31. Reading & Writing Connections • Semantic features analysis • Double-entry journal • Writing complex sentences • Quickwrites 31

32. Reading & Writing Connections • Semantic Feature Analysis • Work in mixed-ability group • Use a grid or chart to discover and record • Helps students to see connections and make predictions • Can be easily adapted for second language learners • Adjust the number of categories to only 3 or 4 • Begin with a set that obviously fit the categories and then move to a set where differences are more subtle • For more ideas, see: http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/semantic_feature_analysis 32

34. Double-Entry Journal • A two-column journal (Dialectical Journal) • Student-selected passage in one column, student’s response in the second column • Asking questions of the text • Forming personal response • Interpreting the text • Reflecting on the process of making meaning of the text • Assists in organizing key textural elements and responses noted during reading in order to generate textual support that can be incorporated into a piece of writing at a later time 34

35. Reading & Writing Connections • Write complex sentences • Finish this sentence: In spite of ___________ • Other sentence starters: • Any subordinating conjunction • Examples: although, as if, even though, whatever, until, in order that, once, provided that, rather than, when • Fill-in • If………then……….. 35

36. Quickwrite • Stop and think about something read or heard • Write for a short, specified amount of time • Can write words, phrases, or complete sentence • Not an overwhelming task for struggling students or second-language learners • Meant to be a vehicle for recursive thinking • Can be used to • Engage students (First step of verbal learning is “pay attention”) • Trigger background knowledge (What do I already know or think about this topic?) • Clarify issues (Do I understand what has been said thus far, what I’ve read so far?) • Help make connections (How can I relate this new information to what I already know?) 36

37. Resources Fry, E. B., Kress, J. E., & Fountoukidis, D. L. (2006). The reading teacher’s book of lists (5th ed.). Paramus, NJ: Prentice Hall. Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life. Robust vocabulary instruction. New York: Guilford Press. Build vocabulary of high frequency words for mature language usage (i.e. absurd, coincidence, industrious, fortunate) Tovani, C. (2000). I Read It, But I Don’t Get It: Comprehension strategies for adolescent readers. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers. Taylor, S.E., Frankenpohl, H., White, C.E., Nieroroda, B. W., Browning, C,.L., & Birsner, E.P. (1989). EDL core vocabularies in reading, mathematics, science, and social studies. Columbia, SC: Educational Developmental Laboratories. 37

38. Free Resources on the Web • The 15 elements of effective adolescent literacy programs in • Biancarosa, G., & Snow, C.E. (2004). Reading next - A vision for action and research in middle and high school literacy: A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education. • To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence: www.arts.gov • Strategies: www.readingrockets.org • Graphic organizers: www.edHelper.com 38

39. Questions? dr.kathleenwilliams@gmail.com 39

40. ASHA CEUs • Complete and return both forms: • ASHA Participation Form • Evaluation Form • Mail to: Darlene Davis Pearson 19500 Bulverde Road San Antonio, TX 78259 Must be postmarked on or before September 16, 2011 to be processed. If you have any questions, please contact Sally.Ammerman@pearson.com. 40