How the Brain Learns to Read Event Summary

Hi Everyone,

Let’s continue our summary of the How the Brain Learns to Read Event!

What Reading Research Should Inform Our Teaching?

Meredith Liben pointed to two research studies we should keep in mind as we teach. The Baseball Study (Recht and Leslie, 1988) concluded that “knowledge counts much more than we think in understanding text. They point out that an emphasis on teaching reading strategies—such as finding the main idea and summarization—has become very prevalent in US classrooms based on evidence that they help weak readers. But practicing these strategies over and over has diminishing returns—and comes at the cost of a crucial missed opportunity; building knowledge is at least as important.”

Nelson et al (2012) and many other researchers over the past 100 years found that vocabulary created the most challenges for students as they read complex text. Not knowing the words in a text slows readers down as their brain scrambles to process meaning in a text.

What are the Key Ingredients in Teaching Reading?

Let’s think about how experienced readers make meaning of text. We interpret readings holistically. So, reading instruction should focus on the text itself and encourage growth of knowledge and vocabulary. Good reading instruction should be like a book club where there is social learning around a text. We should see students speaking, listening, reading, and writing. We should talk about the whys behind the text. Rich text that is meaningful to adult’s lives should be taught in a discussion rich environment.

How are you using a holistic approach as you teach reading?

I'll share more in future installments.

Steve Schmidt, Moderator

LINCS Reading and Writing Group

Hi Kristin,

Thanks so much for your question! 

The LINCS course Teaching Adults to Read has a whole section on vocabulary instruction which would be a great place to start. Here are some thoughts from the course:

1. Select five or so words to teach. Most intermediate level students (grade level equivalents 4 to 9) need to learn Tier 2 words (academic words that span a variety of contexts like benefit and generalize).

2. Provide a learner friendly definition and multiple examples

3. Have learners use the words themselves

4. Engage students in active learning tasks where they fill out quadrant charts and ask and answer questions about the words

5. Ask students to use the new words in classroom learning tasks

6. Assess students' use of the new words on an ongoing basis

Please see this video to watch this type of instruction modeled.

Some resources where we can find pre-prepared Tier 2 vocabulary lessons include:

• ABSPD vocabulary library
• Adult Learning Resource Center Vocabulary Lessons.

What other suggestions would community members offer for vocabulary instruction?

Thanks,

Steve Schmidt, Moderator

LINCS Reading and Writing Group 

Hi Everyone,

This post concludes the event summary. All quotes in the text below are from Meredith Liben.

Three Text Levels

Texts are represented in our minds at three levels: surface base, text base, and situation model. These three levels all work in parallel when reading is going smoothly. The surface base is the perception of words through activation of decoding, vocabulary, and background knowledge. Many adult students are stuck at this level. “Without chances to grow lots of knowledge and vocabulary, and without us helping them integrate all the levels of meaning, reading can feel pointless.”

There are two parts to the next level, the text base. They are text structure and microstructure. The text structure is the macrostructure, the author’s purpose. Text structure examples are narrative, cause and effect, and chronological writing. The microstructure deals with the idea unit or proposition level of meaning. For example, the word because tells the reader that the author will give reasons why something happens. The more propositions there are, the more complicated text is.

The last level, the situation model, provides the gist or the meaningful whole of a reading. “Readers with greater knowledge of the subject and more reading proficiency will develop a fuller, more accurate situation model than others. Situation models continue to develop and get adjusted as text is read.” This is why background knowledge is so crucial for our students to develop to become strong readers.

How Can I Apply This Information with My Students?

Work with your students to build automatic, effortless word recognition, fluency with grade level text, and build enough vocabulary and background knowledge to make sense of a given text. Also, none of this will work without supporting students’ sense of themselves as people with agency (responsibility for themselves as learners and as people). “Don’t wait for comprehension, vocabulary, and knowledge work until foundational skills are solid. Work on them orally or with whatever supports you can. They need to commingle in every classroom period.”

To improve students’ comprehension abilities, draw attention to dense text propositions and work through them together when doing close reading of rich text. Frequently question your students on their situation model to make sure it is developing accurately. “Turn the lens on yourself. Don’t you read like this to make meaning? Or do you read one article for character’s traits, the next to make predictions, the third for main idea? You read to understand, to make meaning, to grow your knowledge and awareness. The human mind craves all that.”

Standard of Coherence

A reader with a strong sense of coherence has a mindset that expects to understand text and will use fix up strategies like re-reading when their understanding breaks down. “This is the essence of stick-with-it-ness. Students who had to work harder to learn to read often have more of this in place than students for whom everything has come easily.”

We can improve students’ standards of coherence by:

• Challenging students with regular access to grade level rich, complex text
• Giving questions and tasks that reflect models of comprehension – not discrete standards or strategies!
• Providing students chances to explain their thinking either in response to tasks and questions or while reading, even if they have to do it to themselves!
• Giving students feedback on their explanations
• Seeking out text worth all of this effort!

The Whole, Not Just the Parts

Mrs. Liben likened good reading instruction to a book club where good, text dependent questions are asked and discussed. It is a close reading that is text and student centered. Students need to speak, listen, read, and write about the text. “The mind is powerful. Equipped with the raw materials, it is a meaning-making machine! As long as we don’t mess with it by asking it to think at the atomic level about just a tiny feature of the text at a time. So how we approach text with our students matters.”

“We can’t get reading instruction right if we’re approaching it backwards. While foundational skill instruction tends to emphasize mastery of a discrete set of skills, reading comprehension instruction must not. Discrete sets of strategies, skills or standards are tools in service to comprehension, not the main point. We need to remember that comprehension is holistic: it must focus understanding on the text itself; it must grow knowledge and vocabulary.”

Meredith Liben, we appreciate your time in doing this event! Contact her at: meredithliben@readingdoneright.org

Steve Schmidt, Moderator

LINCS Reading and Writing Group