Developmental Changes in Reading
Comprehension: Implications
for Assessment and Instruction
Suzanne M. Adlof,
Theories
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Meta analysis 2018 Wanzek Current Evidence on the Effects of Intensive
Early Reading Interventions
many reading difficulties
and disabilities can be prevented if students are provided
with early reading intervention Partanen & Siegel, 2014
very low levels of initial reading achievement predict later
low levels of reading achievement even when these students
are provided less intensive Tier 2 type interventions Lam & McMaster, 2014
specific
recommendations based on the available research for intensifying
interventions through (a) the use of strategies that
promote cognitive processes, (b) delivering more explicit
and systematic instruction in addition to increased opportunities
for feedback, (c) providing additional instructional
time, and (d) decreasing group size (Vaughn et al., 2012
Grade level was
related to the magnitude of intervention effect, with larger
effects reported in studies in Grades K through 1 than in
Grades 2 and 3. Vaughn 2012
Hedges’s g was calculated
suggests intensive
early reading interventions result in positive outcomes for
early struggling readers in kindergarten through third
grades. improvements in reading -by as much as four-tenths of a
standard deviation.
The success of multitiered systems of support is predicated
on the provision of increasingly intensive interventions
in response to students’ needs.
No difference between intervention types [would you really be able to sat this as comparing apples and pears]
suggests that providing an
extended number of sessions may be more important than
the number of hours of intervention
Grades K through 3
(b)
instructional content addressing phonological awareness
(e.g., syllable segmentation, phoneme identification and
manipulation), phonics and word recognition (e.g., lettername
and letter-sound correspondence, blending and segmenting
the sounds in words, reading decodable words and
high-frequency words), and fluency (e.g., initial reading, rereading, and shared reading of decodable texts); and (c)
school staff or community members implemented the interventions.
Thus, generally standardized, explicit instruction
including reading foundational skills provided for more
than 100 sessions has a positive effect for students with
reading difficulties in Grades K through 3.
[This statement does not consider lang comp- this could be due to the age being assesssed and the curren form of teaching focused on word reading]
RTI
EBP improving reading
Assessing learning difficulties
measures of oral language
skills can be used to identify children who are at risk for reading difficulties prior to the onset of reading instruction.
low background knowledge can be a source of
generally poor reading comprehension performance for some children.
[this could be justification for emerging literacy and access to books early]
Simple view of reading
as described in developmental changes Adolf
reading comprehension is modeled as the product of word reading
and language comprehension
both components are necessary, but neither is sufficient
for successful reading comprehension. Second, although the two factors
are usually highly correlated, they are also dissociable: It is possible to
have high ability in one component but low ability in the other.
Reading comp Dev- early- word reading primary factor
word reading by
itself accounted for 94% of the variance in reading comprehension in second
grade,
Upper Elementary- language comp most important
language comprehension accounted for 100% of the variance in reading
comprehension in eighth grade
word reading always sets a
ceiling for comprehension, as demonstrated in our example of reading
Braille. In the early grades, children are just beginning to learn how to
decode print, and their spoken language knowledge far exceeds their
decoding abilities; thus, in early grades, word reading skills best explain
individual differences in reading comprehension.
Comprehension
assessments used with children in the early grades tend to stress word
reading; if the children are able to read the words in the text, they can
generally answer the comprehension questions.
by eighth
grade, they are expected to be reading to learn (Chall, 1983)
It is unlikely that a student
without considerable background knowledge could answer complex questions
without sufficient skills in language comprehension.
sentence structures
in texts in the later grades are more complex, and they contain more
advanced, topic-specific, and abstract vocabulary. The language used in
these texts is usually more complex than the language used in conversations
Quandrant
“poor reader” was
defined as any child who scored at least one standard deviation below the mean (i.e., below the 16th percentile) on the composite measure of reading comprehension.
Top right good
w reading and l comp good. Good readers
lower right quadrant are children
with specific comprehension deficits, whose language comprehension
is low relative to their word reading abilities.
lower left quadrant.
low skills in both word
reading and language comprehension fall
This
“mixed-difficulties” group displays the most common profile of reading
difficulty, and individuals fitting it could be described as “garden-variety
poor readers”
top-left quadrant
Poor w reading Good l comp
includes children with specific decoding deficits in spite of relatively
good language skills. These children might also be described as having
dyslexia
The simple view model
helps explain why children with specific comprehension deficits (LRQ) appear to have late-emerging reading difficulties. Because early assessments of reading comprehension are explained primarily by word reading skills, these children initially appear to be good readers. When comprehension demands on reading assessments increase after second or third grade, children’s reading comprehension difficulties may emerge
defintion of fluency in this text
Kindergarten predictors of poor reading
non verbal IQ- eigth grade difficulties
not in second grade
[Different cog functions impact different developmental points and not restricted to language only]
Kindy Predictors of early reading difficulties(in combo)
socio economic
family history of SLD
Alphabet knowledge
rapid automatic naming (RAN)
phonological awareness
early reading outcomes
measures related to word reading may
be somewhat less useful for identifying children with mild oral language
weaknesses that might lead to reading comprehension problems later on.
the addition of broader, nonphonological language assessments,
such as those that consider vocabulary, grammar, and discourse
skills, may also be useful.
Kindergarten predictors reading outcomes status in both second and eighth grades. sentence imitation,
phoneme deletion, RAN, and mother’s level of education.
However,
Kindergarten predictors reading outcomes -second grade
alphabet knowledge (not in eighth grade).
Kindergarten predictors reading outcomes -eighth grade
grammatical knowledge and nonverbal intelligence (not second-grade).
To screen for late language comp problems use
vocabulary, grammar,
and narrative or discourse skills, screeners (although may not be severe enough to pick later problems up)
children already receiving speech-language services should be monitored closely,
as they are most at risk for later comprehension problems
Children who have difficulty
with word reading may need more intensive instruction to develop phonological
awareness and knowledge of letter–sound correspondence, andthey may need extra practice to ensure that word recognition becomes automatic, especially for irregularly spelled words.
early grades reading comprehension measures-reliant on assessment of word reading abilities
(not sufficient to identify children who will have later comprehension difficulties)
supplemental assessments of language comprehension
skills can be useful for obtaining a clearer picture.
i.e. listening comprehension and vocabulary assessments
(children with word reading difficulties may
need to complete oral, rather than written, vocabulary assessments).
language comprehension difficulties
mild- comprehension-focused instruction.
severe- may need to be referred to a speech-language
pathologist for in-depth testing and possible language intervention.
fifth grade, children should have
a solid foundation in both word reading and language comprehension. At
this point, it is probably not as important to assess for “risk” of future
reading problems as it is to identify children with current problems.
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language skills are the strongest predictor of comprehension
in the later grades.
Adolf
Teaching
word reading
high-quality instruction - explicitly and systematically teaches - phonological awareness
- alphabetic principle, and
- letter–sound correspondence, and it
employing plenty of practice to facilitate automatic word recognition.
Note: children with word reading difficulties do not need qualitatively different instruction to make gains in reading,
-need longer, more explicit, and more intensive instruction to increase their skills
[evidence for TRI but not long term]
Adol
Prefered
to counter for later reading comp problems
code-based skills have the largest influence on reading performance in the early grades, the evidence we have reviewed highlights the importance of focusing also on language comprehension, even in the early years. The influence of language skills on reading comprehension is observable throughout all grades, and language skills are the strongest predictor of comprehension in the later grades.
Adolf
Current
primary grades to focus nearly exclusively on decoding and code-based skills, especially in special education classrooms and in high-poverty schools where the knowledge gap is widest.
Brownell, & Menon, 2010
How
comprehension difficulties
to reduce the number of children who experience comprehension difficulties later on. Facilitating the growth of these skills involves building children’s able to reduce the number of children who experience comprehension difficulties later on:
- vocabulary knowledge,
- ensuring that they understand complex syntactic
structures, - teaching them to draw inferences, and
- supporting their understanding of abstract language.
None of this requires actual reading, so it can begin as early as preschool.
Adolf
comprehension oriented instruction for preschoolers have found that it does improve oral language skills, with gains maintained for several months after training ended
Bianco et al., 2010;
Adolf
Both comp and word-based instructionare necessary for optimal development.
comprehension following oral language instruction do
not generalize to code-based skills, nor do gains in
code-based skills following instruction in them generalize to language comprehension.
Fletcher and Miciak 20??
The Identification
of Specific Learning Disabilities:
A Summary of Research on Best Practices
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Synopsis see word doc
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Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Reading
Interventions for Students in the Primary Grades
Gersten 2020
La La
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Teal 2020 Early literacy research meta analysis
Vocab interventions Studies focused on vocabulary learning during classroom read alouds found that when comparing the impact of repeated read alouds with and without explicit word explanations, students of teachers who transparently discussed word meanings performed better. [this is more evidene for in class interventions]
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Phonological awareness increased effectiveness if interventions were contextualized rather than implemented in isolation, or without explicit regard for students’ curricular contexts. [Predictor of reading difficulties in kindy (Adolf) this could be used as a justification for intergrated learning within the class]
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Reading comp
first graders’ phonological processing, rapid automatized naming, oral
language comprehension, and nonverbal reasoning impacted future reading
comprehension through grade 5.
Kinder
letter knowledge was the ‘‘most powerful
predictor’’ of future reading skills. reading fluency also often came up as a strong predictor of reading comprehension
A Longitudinal Analysis of the Trajectories and Predictors of Word Reading and Reading Comprehension Development Among At-Risk Readers
Overview
poor comprehenders showed poorer
performance than typical readers on word reading, pseudoword decoding, and spelling between Grade 1 and Grade 7
working memory may be an early indicator for reading comprehension
difficulties.
Education processes
pedagogical shift grade 4
that occurs in the school system between the third and
fourth grades. From kindergarten to the third grade, the predominant
focus is on teaching foundational reading skills,
such as letter knowledge and word reading. In fourth grade,
however, the focus changes from learning to read to reading
to learn (Chall, 1983)
Reading instruction is not continued past the primary grades, and given the complexities
of the advanced literacy demands, a portion of
skilled readers can suddenly present with significant reading
problems.
Children with LERD have been classified into three
reading subtypes: children with primary problems in word
recognition, children with primary problems in comprehension,
and children with both word recognition and comprehension
difficulties (Leach et al., 2003; Shankweiler et al.,
1999).
studies indicate that children with
poor word recognition and/or reading comprehension may
have different underlying deficits.
[stats that suggest at this point comprehsion over decoding plays a larger part]
students identified as LERD in Grades 4 and
5, 36% were poor decoders, 32% had a specific comprehension
deficit, and 32% had difficulty with both decoding and
comprehension.
Catts, Compton, Tomblin, and
Bridges (2012) 52% had
late emerging comprehension difficulties
reading and
instructional activities that placed less emphasis on phonological
awareness and more emphasis on strategies for reading
comprehension. Struggling readers continued to receive
intervention from teachers across grades. Annual assessments
were conducted from kindergarten to Grade 7 in all 30
of the participating elementary schools.
longitudinal cohort of kids with preschool reading interventions- no comparision group
reading and
instructional activities that placed less emphasis on phonological
awareness and more emphasis on strategies for reading
comprehension. Struggling readers continued to receive
intervention from teachers across grades. Annual assessments
were conducted from kindergarten to Grade 7 in all 30
of the participating elementary schools.
interest to this study were children’s Grade
4 reading scores.
completed the reading
and cognitive measures in Grade 4 (“overall sample”
camparison TD readers v poor reading comp (below
the 25th percentile)
results
comparison/similar findings with other texts
poor comprehender and typical reader
groups had a similar progression in their scores over time. group developed at a similar pace to the
typical readers (but they had lower scores on the tests
described above)
[this is similar to Peng individaul growth curve decelerates for word reading but linier for reading comp- not sure what that means yet but worth noting]
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67% of late poor readers improve by high school-[Why is it possible the increases vocab - information builds language comprehension skills naturally and it may not require intervention? - still 33% left struggling could these be SLD in lang comp/ decoding]
Discussion
they found a higher proportion
of late emerging poor word readers than late emerging
poor reading comprehenders. Our results are more consistent
with those of Catts et al. (2012), who found that there
were a larger proportion of children with reading comprehension
than word recognition difficulties.
preschool measures - late poor comprehender group had
worse performance on the working memory measure only.
The Prevalence of Reading Fluency and Vocabulary Difficulties Among Adolescents Struggling With Reading Comprehension
Educational info
adolescents with reading comprehension difficulties are likely in need of
intervention in foundational skill and knowledge areas, which may not be viewed as instructional
priorities among secondary educators. [This could be an argument for supporting children in primary schools. If interventions not put in place to support lang comp skills iin year four then prognosis not good]
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Overview
comparison/similar findings with other texts
largest subgroup exhibiting co-occurring difficulties in fluency and vocabulary.
Students with low
reading comprehension but adequate scores in reading fluency or vocabulary represented only
a very small portion of the sample.
interventions may not be optimally
effective because they are not sufficiently aligned with the needs of students who lack
foundational reading skills and knowledge that facilitate higher order comprehension processes
(Perfetti & Stafura, 2014) Perfetti, C., & Stafura, J. (2014). Word knowledge in a theory of reading comprehension. Scientific Studies
of Reading, 18, 22-37.
[Arguement for targeted supports]
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