Nov. 5th ~ The Primacy of Science in Communicating Advances in the Science of Reading; Rethinking How We Teach and Assess Reading Comprehension (open access preprint)!
The Weekly Newsletter that Keeps you Informed of the latest Reading Research!
Welcome! This is Volume 2, Issue No. 24
Welcome to the Reading Research Recap, a weekly newsletter featuring the latest reading research published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The goal of the Recap is to share recent scientific findings and foster an appreciation of science as a way to navigate the world. I try to make this one of the most informative emails you get each week.
Updates
This is not really an update, per se, but there were a lot of great reading studies on a variety of different topics that came out this week! It was hard to pick and choose, so I erred on the side of more rather than less. If you are not a weekly subscriber, consider signing up using the button below.
The Primacy of Science in Communicating Advances in the Science of Reading (open access)
“A recent article in this journal claims that the simple view of reading represents a long-outdated account of what underlies the ability to read. Its authors argue that if teachers are to be better informed about what is known about reading then the simple view must be replaced by a more current model, one that captures the substantial progress that has been made in our understanding through the science of reading. In this comment on that article, we discuss the authors’ perspective on the simple view and the three advances in research they claim invalidate it, clarifying misconceptions and critically reviewing presented evidence. We argue that the SVR, centered on the proximal causes of reading capacity under a large grain-size perspective, has garnered strong empirical support, has achieved an important level of consensus within the field regarding its validity, and has shown utility in helping education professionals understand and maintain focus on the most important cognitive capacities underlying reading success. We also argue that the proposed replacement represents a weaker, unproven model that could lead education professionals astray if applied in practice.”
Sleep-disordered breathing and daytime sleepiness predict children’s reading ability (open access)
“Hierarchical multiple linear regression assessed whether parentally reported sleep problems were able to predict word and non-word oral reading speeds as measures of sight word reading and phonemic decoding efficiency, respectively. Children with parent-reported increased sleep-disordered breathing, daytime sleepiness, and shorter sleep latency had poorer performance on the reading task for both words and non-words, as well as the total combined score. The models explained 6–7% of the variance in reading scores…This study illustrates associations between sleep and word and non-word reading. The small but significant effect is clinically meaningful, especially since adverse factors affecting children’s reading ability are cumulative. Thus, for children with multiple risk factors for poor reading ability, sleep problems may be another avenue for treatment.”
Same topic, different genre: Elementary school children's mental representations of information embedded in narrative and expository texts
“Using a sentence recognition task, we investigated whether elementary school children's (N = 92; Mage = 9.3 years, SD = 1.1 years) memory of the text surface, the textbase, and the situation model differed depending on whether the same information was embedded in an expository or a narrative text. Previous research with children that used narrative and expository texts dealing with different topics indicated beneficial effects narrative over expository texts regarding various indicators of processing on the levels of the textbase and the situation model. In contrast, our results did not indicate differences between narrative and expository texts for any of the levels of representation. Thus, the role of text topic in studies investigating the effect of genre on text comprehension should be investigated further.”
Unraveling Adolescent Language & Reading Comprehension: The Monster’s Data
“This study explores the roles of morphological skills (Morphological Awareness, Morphological-Syntactic-Knowledge, Morphological-Semantic-Knowledge, and Morphological-Orthographic/Phonological-Knowledge), vocabulary (knowledge of definitions, relationships between words, and polysemous meanings), and syntax in contributing to adolescent reading comprehension. Specifically, we identify the relative importance of these language skills.…Findings are interpreted within the Reading Systems framework. Findings confirm the role of vocabulary, morphology, and syntax in supporting reading comprehension and suggest a relatively stronger role for vocabulary and morphological awareness. The meaningful role of the four morphological skills also suggests a broad role for morphology. Implications for theory, research, and practice are shared.”
Rethinking How We Teach and Assess Reading Comprehension (open access preprint)
How Does Lexical Access Fit into Models of Word Reading?
“Skilled reading requires fast and accurate access to previously encountered words stored in memory. Yet, little research addresses skills that support such lexical access. Based on theoretical predictions, one skill that may support lexical access is orthographic knowledge. Thus, our goal was to investigate the relation between lexical access and orthographic knowledge. We addressed this research question in a sample of 104 English-speaking fourth grade children. We assessed lexical access with an experimenter-created measure of timed word recognition; word reading efficiency with the TOWRE Sight Word Efficiency subtest; and lexical and sublexical orthographic knowledge with real and nonword orthographic choice tasks, respectively. We controlled for other reading related skills, including nonverbal ability and phonological awareness. A confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that lexical access and word reading efficiency are separate constructs. A subsequent linear regression revealed a concurrent relation between sublexical orthographic knowledge and lexical access beyond controls. Results highlight a unique place for lexical access in reading development theory and help us better understand the specific skills required to read quickly and accurately.”
Epidemiology of reading disability: A comparison of DSM-5 and ICD-11 criteria
The present study performed a systematic comparison of DSM-5 and ICD-11 diagnostic criteria for reading disability. We quantitatively investigated the consequences of using DSM-5 or ICD-11, and of the different ways of implementing each diagnostic criterion on the prevalence of reading disability. We did so in a representative sample of the population of French sixth-graders (N = 25,000), using a reading comprehension test to assess reading ability. A compromise set of criteria and thresholds yielded a prevalence of 6.6% according to DSM-5 and 3.5% according to ICD-11. Factors that had the greatest influence on prevalence estimates were the criteria relative to IQ and to interference with academic performance. Compared with the reference population, children with reading disability were more likely to be boys (sex ratio≈1.6), to be schooled in a disadvantaged area (OR≈2.1), and to have lower SES (d≈-0.7), non-verbal IQ (d≈-0.4 – -0.9), and math scores (d≈-1.4). Our results emphasize that the choice of classification and the operationalization of diagnostic criteria have a large impact on who is diagnosed with reading disability.
Profiles of Oral and Reading Comprehension in Poor Comprehenders
This study aimed to profile the sublexical, lexical, and text level language skills, and cognitive processes of a sub-group of children with poor reading comprehension known as poor comprehenders. An assessment protocol was developed to assess each of the components from Perfetti and Stafura’s Reading Systems Framework. A comprehensive profile was obtained for 17 poor comprehenders in School Years 3–6 (aged 8–11 years), each assessed individually. Consistent with previous research, and irrespective of age, the poor comprehenders in this study did not have difficulty with sublexical and word reading skills overall. Unexpectedly, only two children had difficulty with the lower-level language tasks at the Lexicon and sentence sub-level of the Reading Systems Framework. In contrast, 15 poor comprehenders had difficulty with higher-level comprehension processes. All children had weak verbal working memory, supporting previous research findings. The study provides direction for clinical assessment tasks for use with this population.
Unraveling Adolescent Language & Reading Comprehension: The Monster’s Data
“This study explores the roles of morphological skills (Morphological Awareness, Morphological-Syntactic-Knowledge, Morphological-Semantic-Knowledge, and Morphological-Orthographic/Phonological-Knowledge), vocabulary (knowledge of definitions, relationships between words, and polysemous meanings), and syntax in contributing to adolescent reading comprehension. Specifically, we identify the relative importance of these language skills…Results suggest unique roles for each language area with particularly important roles for vocabulary and morphological awareness. Considering just morphology, four morphology skills each explained meaningful variance (13-17%) in reading comprehension, together explaining half the variance in standardized reading comprehension. Considering each language area, vocabulary, the four morphology skills, and syntax were shown to each explain meaningful variance, ranging from 9-13%, together explaining 62.9% of the variance in reading comprehension. Findings are interpreted within the Reading Systems framework. Findings confirm the role of vocabulary, morphology, and syntax in supporting reading comprehension and suggest a relatively stronger role for vocabulary and morphological awareness. The meaningful role of the four morphological skills also suggests a broad role for morphology. Implications for theory, research, and practice are shared.”
Neural correlates of morphological processing and its development from pre-school to the first grade in children with and without familial risk for dyslexia (open access)
“…Children at-risk for dyslexia showed sensitivity to the morphological information processing both for real words and pseudowords. However, no significant differences between the groups emerged either for the correct vs. incorrect morphological contrast or for the correctly and incorrectly derived forms separately. Interestingly, in our previous study, cluster-based permutation tests showed significant developmental behavioral and brain differences between the children at pre-school age and at first-grade age in the morphological information processing of real words and pseudowords. Our results indicate the important role of derivational morphology in the early phases of learning to read.”
Dissertation (not yet peer-reviewed)
How―and Why―Middle School Intensive Reading Teachers Make Adaptations to a Scripted Curriculum
Paper here.
I’ve covered all sorts of papers and articles in this “deep dive” section. Last week’s was a little on the technical side (about Bayesian vs OLS regression in CBMs), whereas this one is way less technical, but I believe it is equally as informative and interesting. It summarizes themes from interviews with 10 intensive reading teachers. I think you will find some of their quotes interesting and, at times, unsettling. I think it shows that we still have a lot of work to do on the implementation side and creating systems of support for reading teachers.
Background & Rationale
In 2019 (in Florida- where this study took place), only 54% of middle-schoolers scored ‘proficient’ on the the state reading exam
Intensive research-based reading programs such as Read 180, System 44, and Inside have been promoted as programs to help accelerate students’ reading development
"Little is known, however, about the extent to which teachers implement these programs as prescribed or, instead, make adaptations to the curriculum and its delivery. Even less is known about teachers’ reasoning behind this decision-making.”
Sample & Methods
10 middle school intensive reading teachers (across 8 schools in a large ubran school district Florida) were interviewed. The teachers experience ranged from 1 to 37 years.
The authors state that the racial/ethnic background of the sample was representative of the diversity of the teachers found in the district
All of the teachers were required to use the district-adopted curriculum: Inside (National Geographic Learning & Cengage, 2014).
Interviews were conducted and analyzed using a constructivist grounded theory approach
Findings
There were 5 main themes that arose out of the interviews:
Theme 1: Conflicting expectations for implementation
All the teachers were told to implement the program with fidelity, but several reported that they did not know what exactly that meant (because they were never told or trained) and also because it was impossible to implement the program with fidelity and also meet the district requirement of using the iReady program (which requires computers):
“Mostly they don’t have computers at home, so if they don’t get it here, they probably won’t get it at home.”
Another teacher stated (about the admin.):
“They require all these programs and monitor [students’ weekly] time on task, but they don’t realize the reality in the building . . . So let’s say you’re doing groups, and [you have] 30 minutes [for] each group. By the time the kid logs in, ten minutes have passed, so it’s really only 20 minutes on the computer. So, that’s only 40 minutes during the week [during class] and they still have to do 20 minutes at home for homework to actually comply with what [the district] wants.”
Theme 2: Teaching to the test
Teachers felt pressured to teach for the test:
““Let’s be real about it . . . we are teaching to the test.”
They said they felt pressured to specifically focus on “bubble kids”
“The term bubble kids was used frequently across nearly every participant to describe the students in their classes deemed to be on the cusp of proficiency on the state assessment. These were the students they were told to “target” (Callah) to ensure they received a passing score and thus helped increase the school’s overall percentage of students at proficiency and making learning gains as measured by the state assessment.”
Theme 3: Confidence and competence to teach reading
Confidence and competence differed across the teachers. The authors noted that the less experienced teachers felt that implementation fidelity was a compliance issue:
“You’re just flipping pages and matching in a workbook and the kids are just doing it so they can do it.” She explained further, “I gotta get their work out [of] the way first . . . it’s almost like, ‘OK, we’re done with all the jumping through hoops, now let’s learn!’” For Callah, the decision to emphasize compliance over adaptation was driven in part by fear: “I think a lot of times we limit what we’re teaching based on our fear of . . . doing something that we feel that we’re going to be penalized for.”
Theme 4: Teaching to student’s strengths and needs
Several teachers thought that sticking to the program was not helping children. I thought this quote below was really powerful:
“I would like to see data, if there is any, on the percentage of kids that actually get themselves out of intensive [reading] and are not habitually intensive kids . . . It’s supposed to be helpful. And you’re telling me my kids were in it for three years and went to high school and were [still in] intensive [reading]? . . . It’s obviously not working.”
Theme 5: Changing dynamics in the community and schools
Many of the more experienced teachers reported that teaching and students are different today than in the past. They cited social media and the amount of stimuli as something they had to compete with:
“If you follow the curriculum . . . for 110 minutes, the kids will stay in their seats the whole 110 minutes and do work off the board.” Instead, several teachers reported making adaptations specifically designed to make content relevant and engaging.
Limitations
One limitation of the study is that the interviews were collected at one point in time and, therefore, cannot possibly reflect how their thoughts change over time. Another limitation is that all the teachers that were interviewed were required to use the same curricula. It is possible that a different curricula/program would have elicited different responses.
Implications for Practice
I think this study highlights the tension that educators feel when it comes to negotiating “…the multiple and sometimes opposing realities of the current context of public schooling.”
The authors state that a change in how researchers view implementation fidelity might be necessary: the idea that it “…it is not only possible by also essential to combine “top-down” researcher-developed instruction with “bottom-up” practitioner-inspired contributions (Lemons et al., 2014, p.250).