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The Stories We Tell Ourselves: Reading Recovery and the MSV Myth

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00August 21st, 2019|Classroom Teaching, Latest News, Reading Recovery Teaching, Reflections and Commentary, Teaching|

by Jeffery Williams

Every culture across time has developed a set of stories, tales, and myths that were designed to help explain the complexities of the world.  Such lore is handed down across generations to explore how human strive for love, what happens when jealousy takes over, or to try to make sense of natural disasters or phenomena.  These stories, usually orally presented and often borrowed from others, evolve and change over time, helping to bring the wisdom of the ages to those who have had less time to ponder or less experience to gather from to understand the complexity around us.

We, as a Reading Recovery community, have one such tale in the oft cited myth that there are three cues readers use, meaning, structure, and visual, or that Marie Clay herself created this theory and the corresponding three-circle depiction that is familiar to most teachers.  Perhaps it originally was used to water down the complexity of the reading process for new teachers, in classrooms and in Reading Recovery, to make it easier to understand.  The purpose of this blog is to explore what Clay actually said and to remind us that such myths, though they may have been purposefully utilized at one time, also need to be checked against reality and not just adhered to because it is a story we have heard before that must be true.

 

“Three Cueing Systems”
Though other researchers have pondered the proliferation of the three cueing systems model, the most notable and thorough pondering came from Marilyn Adams’ 1998 chapter called, The Three-Cueing System.  In this piece, Adams examines the origins of the theory (finding that idea did not originate with Clay) and also discusses the pervasive misunderstanding that the three cues are not equal or that the visual system is somehow less important than meaning or structure. I agree that the view presented with the “three cueing systems” is limited for several reasons. Firstly, Clay did not advocate the idea that there are only three sources of information:

“According to the theory of reading behind these recovery procedures there are many sources of information in texts” (Clay, 2016).  Furthermore, she did not advocate the use of any one source as the sole basis of reading or making a word attempt, stating: “Different kinds of information may be checked, one against another, to confirm a response or as a first step towards further searching.” A careful reading of this statement uncovers that one source may be a first step towards further searching and that searching would always involve a close look at letters and sounds.

According to Adams (1998), the notion that the reader constructs the meaning of the text as jointly determined by lexical, semantic, and syntactic constraints had been a theme of the reading literature since the late 1970s.  She found that the problem was not with the three cueing systems schematic but with some interpretations that had become attached to it. For example, a common misinterpretation is that the position of graphophonic information in the Venn diagram with 3 circles as below the other two somehow diminishes the value and use of such information while reading. From a Reading Recovery perspective, we disagree with this interpretation and Clay spends an entire chapter on learning to look at print and states vociferously in the opening that:

Reading begins with looking and ends when you stop looking. Reading begins with passing information through the eyes to the brain. But the eyes do not just take a snapshot of the detail of print and transfer it to the brain,

  • The child must learn to attend to some features of print,
  • the child must learn to follow rules about direction,
  • the child must attend to words in a line in a sequence, and
  • the child must attend to letters in a word in left-to-right sequence.

    (Clay, 2016, p. 46)

Although Reading Recovery teachers analyze daily running records using meaning, structure, and visual, our analyses go well beyond MSV as we closely examine the records to better understand students’ strengths, to identify teaching goals, and plan the next lesson. To learn how to do this, as Reading Recovery teachers, we take weekly graduate coursework for an entire year during initial training and continue our learning through ongoing annual professional development six times per year. The depth of this training and the ongoing nature of a university support system enables us to identify the complexity of student behaviors and plan precise teaching to support increasingly complex reading and writing that goes well beyond just MSV.

 

Teaching Phonemic Awareness and Phonics
Perhaps because of the myth of the three-cueing system, critics have often supposed that visual information is not emphasized or taught in Reading Recovery lessons. This is quite untrue and is supported by nearly four decades of empirical research which show Reading Recovery’s strong effects across all domains, including phonics, phonemic awareness, and comprehension. For more information on some of these studies, please see the What Works Clearinghouse website. Also, on the What Works website is a recent 2016 publication from IES, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, with Barbara Foorman as the chief author. It was commissioned to present recommendations “…that educators can use to improve literacy skills in the early grades…based on the best available research, as well as the experience and expertise of the panel members” (Foorman et al., 2016, p. 1). Research from Reading Recovery is cited 117 times by the authors in support of the panel’s four recommendations.  To demonstrate the alignment of some of Foorman’s key recommendations with typical Reading Recovery lessons, citations from Foorman (2016) and Clay (2016) are shown below:                                       

Foorman Recommendations Foorman Citations Clay Citations
Using Elkonin boxes in writing to develop phonemic awareness pp. 24, 26, 27 pp. 98, 100, 107
Procedures for learning letter-sound relationships through segmentation p. 19 pp. 58, 98, 100, 106, 107, 173
Procedures for using manipulatives such as magnetic letters for learning how words work pp. 19, 24 pp. 40, 58, 63, 68, 72, 91, 149, 151, 175
Teaching breaking words by syllables pp. 15, 16 pp. 95, 107, 149, 173
Teaching onset/rimes pp. 15, 16, 19 pp. 58, 107, 150, 153, 156, 160, 173
Teaching meaningful parts pp. 27 pp. 73, 107, 152
Teaching how to isolate and blend word parts smoothly p. 24 p. 96
Using writing to help with analogies with spelling patterns p. 26 pp. 90, 105
Within text blending by chunking or in smaller units within text p. 23 pp. 96, 144, 175
Avoiding guessing strategies p. 34 pp. 48, 101, 118
Reading connected text daily pp. 1-3, 22, 28, 32 pp. 20, 110-165

 

Interestingly, the Foorman document states, “When students encounter words that they find difficult to read, remind them to apply the decoding and word-recognition skills and strategies they have learned and to then reread the word in context … using prompts such as: ‘Look for parts you know.’ ‘Sound it out.’ ‘Check it! Does it make sense?’” (p. 34). These prompts are almost verbatim to Reading Recovery prompts (Clay, 2016) and seem to suggest that research favors using multiple sources of information to cross-check one against another and does not favor the use of any one source solely. 

A recent document for parents from RRCNA (2019), outlines how phonemic awareness and letter/sound relationships are taught in Reading Recovery:

  • Phonemic awareness is initially established with structured instruction during the writing component of the lesson.
  • Letter identification is taught using multisensory approaches and reinforced throughout the series of lessons to ensure fast, accurate recognition and discrimination.
  • Applying known letter sound associations and linking sound sequences to letter sequences is addressed in both reading and writing.
  • All new learning is applied and observed/analyzed in reading and writing every day.
  • Fast visual processing is supported as the child analyzes unknown words in stories by taking them apart on the run.
  • Your child will develop the advanced analysis skills needed for decoding multisyllabic words and will profit from classroom word work and study.
  • The teacher monitors your child’s daily progress in word analysis and re-teaches as needed. Many opportunities for applying new skills are provided daily across multiple reading and writing activities. (p. 3)

These references might clear up misunderstandings about Reading Recovery, particularly for those who think that Reading Recovery students are not taught phonics or phonemic awareness.

 

Value of Reading Connected Text
Reading Recovery’s daily use of connected, continuous text, where children cannot afford to rely on any one source of information entirely, is clearly an advantage  and is supported by Foorman’s report on the research: “Having students read connected text daily, both with and without constructive feedback, facilitates the development of reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension and should begin as soon as students can identify a few words” (p. 32).  Two other recent publications—one from the International Literacy Association (ILA) and another from the International Dyslexia Association (IDA)—also offer suggestions that are supportive of the idea that reading continuous text daily, again because it demands that the reader not be able to rely solely on any one source of information, may be advantageous:

Students progress at a much faster rate in phonics when the bulk of instructional time is spent on applying the skills to authentic reading and writing experiences, rather than isolated skill-and-drill work. At least half of a phonics lesson should be devoted to application exercises. For students who are below level, the amount of reading during phonics instruction must be even greater. (Blevins, et al., p. 6)

And, in discussing the problem of “treatment resistant literacy difficulties” for students who have had a structured literacy approach and not shown evidence of success, IDA offers the following recommendation:

Another way to address this problem could involve placing a greater emphasis on text reading in intervention, which scientific investigators widely agree is an important aspect of intervention (e.g. Brady, 2011; Foorman et al., 2016; Kilpatrick, 2015), to help increase children’s exposure to real words.  This last idea might be effective if done early, before decoders have accumulated the enormous gap in reading practice characteristic of older poor readers in the upper elementary grades and adolescence (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998; Torgesen, 2004).” (International Dyslexia Association, 2019, p. 13)

 

Reading Recovery Research
While no single approach works for every child, Reading Recovery has the strongest evidence base of any of the 228 beginning reading programs reviewed by the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse. Because of Reading Recovery’s impressive research base spanning decades, in 2010 the Department of Education provided $46 million to fund a 5-year scale up of Reading Recovery in schools across the U.S. In 2016, an independent research study of this scale-up was published by the Center for Policy Research in Education. The study was the largest randomized controlled trial “and one of the most ambitious and well-documented expansions of an instructional program in U.S. history” (May et al., 2016).

The results demonstrated Reading Recovery’s impressive effect sizes on comprehension and overall reading achievement. These effect sizes were replicated four years in a row and authors noted that “these are large relative to typical effect sizes found in educational evaluations. This benchmark suggests that the total standardized effect sizes…for Reading Recovery of 0.37, was 4.6 times greater than average for studies that use comparable outcome measures” (May et al., p. 42). This has been proven in both urban and rural settings, as well as with English learners. School districts invest in Reading Recovery training for teachers because of these documented successes for the past 35 years.

 

Myth or Reality?
The myth that Marie Clay was the origin of the three-cueing system model is certainly false as the readings of Clay demonstrate and as Adams confirmed.  And, the myth that Reading Recovery does not teach phonics or phonemic awareness, because the visual system is somehow less important, is also false.  So why then are these stories so closely linked to Reading Recovery?  I know that I saw a diagram of the three-cuing systems in my training nearly two decades ago.  I know that I have used a similar diagram when introducing running record analysis with classroom teachers.  I never intended it to supplant the idea of complexity, but perhaps had forgotten the essence of Clay’s warning when she wrote, “If literacy teaching only brings a simple theory to a set of complex activities, then the learner has to bridge the gaps created by the theoretical simplification” (2015, p. 105).  She was not only talking about children’s learning but our learning as well.  When diagrams or explanations water-down the complexity, we run the risk of learners ‘bridging the gaps’ on their own—filling in what is unclear with their own thinking or ideas that were never intended and that may or may not be helpful.  Clay believed that teachers wanted and needed exposure to the complexity of theory and research and once said, “…the challenge for me is to write those theoretical ideas for the academics and researchers but also for the teachers. I think they have a right to be able to read those in terms that they understand.  This has been one of my particular challenges…”  We must likewise refrain from over-simplifying the complexity of becoming literate with myths and stories for our explanations.

 

References
Adams, M. J. (1998). The three-cueing system. In J. Osborn & F. Lehr (Eds.), Literacy for all: Issues in teaching and learning (pp.73-99). New York: Guilford Press.

Clay, M. M. (2016). Literacy lessons designed for individuals (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Clay, M. M. (2015). Change Over Time in Children’s Literacy Development. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Foorman, B., Beyler, N., Borradaile, K., Coyne, M., Denton, C. A., Dimino, J., Furgeson, J., Hayes, L., Henke, J., Justice, L., Keating, B., Lewis, W., Sattar, S., Streke, A., Wagner, R., & Wissel, S. (2016). Foundational skills to support reading for understanding in kindergarten through 3rd grade (NCEE 2016-4008). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE), Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from the NCEE website: http://whatworks.ed.gov.

International Dyslexia Association (2019). Structured literacy: An introductory guide.  Retrieved from the International Dyslexia Association website: https://dyslexiaida.org/structured-literacy-works-but-what-is-it-introducing-idas-new-structured-literacy-brief/

International Literacy Association. (2019). Meeting the challenges of early literacy phonics instruction [Literacy leadership brief]. Newark, DE: Blevins, et al. Retrieved from the International Literacy Association website: https://www.literacyworldwide.org/get-resources/position-statements

Reading Recovery Council of North America (2019). How Reading Recovery helps your child learn. Retrieved from the RRCNA website: https://readingrecovery.org/supporting-struggling-readers/

 

 

Jeffery Williams is a Reading Recovery Teacher Leader and K-12 Literacy Teacher Leader from Solon City Schools, Solon, OH.

Getting to Know Our Writers: Strategies for Any Classroom

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00August 15th, 2019|Classroom Teaching|

By Lynne Dorfman & Diane Esolen Dougherty

A successful writing workshop depends on many factors, including how well we get to know our students. Throughout the school year, but especially in the beginning of the year, it is important to get to know our students as writers. In order to discover their identities as writers, we need to be “kidwatchers” (Goodman & Owocki, 2002). During independent writing time, here are some things you could watch for:

  • Observe student posture, pencil grip, his focus on the writing piece, and where his eyes look in the classroom.
  • Does he reread pages from his writer’s notebook?
  • Does the student write with more confidence when he has free choice or when the writing is more prescribed?
  • Are there some topics or a writing type that the writer prefers (has more confidence) than others?
  • Does the writer spend most of his time writing or drawing? Planning or drafting?
  • Does the writer look at the anchor chart from the minilesson?

Clipboard cruising to take notes and assess your students’ needs is important. Try to target at least five students each day for a quick conversation to move them forward as writers. That way, you will always reach everyone in a week’s time. Ongoing and immediate feedback is crucial to students’ success. Find a method that is comfortable for you. (Dorfman & Dougherty, 2017, 94).

Writing Inventories & Surveys
The writing inventory can be used more than once in a year’s time.  Its purpose is twofold. In the beginning of the year a teacher will discover information about how the students feel about writing and how they feel about themselves as writers. This kind of knowledge is important because it will help the teacher in several ways: create specific writing opportunities to motivate students and have access to information that will help the teacher understand prior experiences. For the student, the inventory provides an opportunity to be reflective about what they already know about writing and how they feel about the process of writing. These surveys need to be shared because sharing gives everybody in the class a vehicle to discuss writing anxieties, fears, and stumbling blocks. Sharing frees students to be honest. They find out they are not alone – that others have these same feelings. The teacher should complete the inventory as well and be a part of this community sharing. In the primary grades (K-2), make simple statements such as “I like to write.” and “Writing is easy for me.” with minimal choices such as yes, sometimes, and no. For upper grades, a four-square inventory with open-ended statements such as “I am interested in…”  and “One writing experience I had was…”  We can learn a great deal about our students and how they progress as writers through these inventories and interest surveys.

Heart Maps
Heart maps (Heard, 2016) help students to recognize what is important for them to write about. The maps can be displayed at eye level so that students can view what the writers in their community value as sources for writing material. Students do not need to complete a heart map in one sitting. They can add to them as the year goes on and as new interests develop.

Simple steps to create a heart map include:

  • Draw a big heart on chart paper or the board.
  • Start to divide the heart into sections as you talk about what is really important to you.
  • Write the word or phrase within each section and draw a small picture.
  • Leave an area or two blank so that you can fill it in at some later point in time during writing workshop.
  • Share with your peer response group. As you hear an example for an area for your heart map that also applies to you, add it to your map.
  • Share in whole group. Hang maps where everyone can see.
  • Pick one that really interests you and write a short entry about it in your writer’s notebook. You can go back to your heart map many times. Feel free to dip in when you want to write an entry or even draft a story. (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, 68-69)

Letters from Parents
After obtaining your class list for the new school year, write to parents and ask them to respond with a letter about their child which includes important information for the teacher to know such as their interests. hobbies, sports, friendships, and what they like to read and write about. Teachers can always wait until the first open house and place stationery and/or a postcard at every desk to allow parents to respond while they are in the classroom. Seeking help from the parents strengthens community and may give teachers a clearer picture of the students in their classrooms. Furthermore, these letters may help the teacher to suggest topics of interest to their student writers.

Reflection
Asking students to reflect on their writing from time to time and think about how their attitude, stamina, and skill level have evolved over time helps both the student and their teacher understand their progress as writers. It is a form of self-evaluation and formative assessment. Teachers can ask the following questions:

  • Which piece did you work hardest to write?
  • Which writing piece is your favorite? Explain.
  • Which piece do you think is your best? Why do you think so?
  • What risks or new craft moves did you use during this unit of study?
  • What are your goals for your next piece?

When students stop to reflect, the new learning becomes permanent. When they are the goal setters, they are part of the assessment process and have some ownership which fosters commitment.

As teachers, we participate in all the activities in our writing workshop classroom to be part of our writing community. In this way, not only do we get to know our students as writers, they get to know us as well.  As students share their reflections, they have opportunities to imagine the possibilities for their writing. As teachers, what more could we ask for!

 

References
Dorfman, L. R. & Cappelli, R. (2017). Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children’s literature, K-6.Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Dorfman, L. R. & Dougherty, D. (2017). A closer look: Learning about our writers with formative assessment. Portland, Me: Stenhouse.

Heard, G. (2016). Heart maps: Helping students create and craft authentic writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Owocki, G.& Owocki, G. (2002). Kidwatching: Documenting children’s literacy development. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Diane Esolen Dougherty (left) is an education consultant and
co-author of A Closer Look: Learning More About Our Writers with Formative Assessment, K-6.

Lynne Dorfman, Ed. D. is an adjunct professor at Arcadia University, Glenside, PA, & Co-director, PA Writing & Literature Project.

How Do I Navigate the Roundabout in Reading Recovery?

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00April 10th, 2019|Reading Recovery Teaching|

by Kim Reynolds

You know that feeling that you get in the pit of your stomach when things are uncomfortable or unpredictable? It is not a feeling that I get very often, but it happens as soon as I’m trying to enter one of those crazy roundabouts. Wikipedia defines a roundabout as “a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.” As soon as I’m ready to enter the roundabout, I start to panic and feel pressure to move quickly. Hysterically, this is the same uneasiness that I experience when I teach behind the glass.

Last year, I was given the opportunity to bring a challenging student behind the glass to provide a learning experience for my peers at our teacher leader ongoing professional development at The Ohio State University. I reluctantly accepted the invitation, remembering during my Reading Recovery training that I will always need to be tentative, flexible, and willing to problem-solve and collaborate. So there I was — ready to enter the roundabout and starting to panic. Surprisingly, the results of the lesson led to an invitation to participate with Mary Fried in one of the 2019 preconference sessions at the National Reading Recovery and K-6 Literacy Conference. At the time, I wasn’t sure if it was a ‘what not to do’ or ‘try this, not that’ session. I pictured myself as the poster child. Fortunately, Mary didn’t agree with that mugshot image of myself. She wanted to focus on the problem-solving process that we use when we are working with a student who is challenging us. Her process included identifying the problem, issues, and weaknesses, and then seeking collaboration and more analysis. This is exactly what I needed. One of the quotes she referenced for this amazing process was from Charles Kettering: “A problem well stated is a problem half solved.”

The Reading Recovery student who I taught in that behind-the-glass lesson was an English learner who had made accelerated gains but had plateaued. The lesson was pleasant, but I knew that I needed to make a shift in my teaching to lift her learning. I had entered the roundabout and was circling, knowing that my teaching and my student were the priority. I needed to listen carefully to my peers’ feedback as we problem solved together and remember that I had accepted their invitation for my learning and teaching. Their recommendations led to the biggest shifts in my teaching during the following two days. I was able to tentatively exit the roundabout with a plan of action. My videos over those next few days, which Mary insisted that I do, were powerful and revealing! I had actually not stunted my student’s literacy growth but was ready and empowered to support her next steps.

Those next steps also lead to my participation in the 2019 Reading Recovery preconference session entitled “Problem Solving Together: Learning from Children Who Challenge Our Teaching.” I was thrilled to work with my Ohio State University trainers, Mary Fried and Dr. Lisa Pinkerton, and teacher leader Jennifer Layne from Marion. Apparently, Mary wanted to highlight my roundabout journey and those of my colleagues. We didn’t realize it, but we were headed into the largest roundabout that we had ever encountered. It wasn’t just a single lane, but multiple lanes, and Mary was going to guide us through it. We would be able to navigate those lanes together through our collaboration and problem solving.

My school’s conference room became our think tank. As I sat in that room, I remember asking myself “What the hell am I doing?” and “What on earth can I contribute?” Mary had a vision and she wasn’t going to let anything get in our way, even my own insecurities. As we began to discuss the students who challenged us, Mary patiently, eloquently, and brilliantly tied it all together into an amazing learning opportunity. She methodically led us to utilize Clay’s work and helped us—through her questions and guidance—to better understand our students’ challenges, often redirecting us in a charmingly negative way. Mary’s notetaking, time management, and eye and ear for detail is astounding and focused us on our endless learning, questioning, and revising of our own teaching.

At the end of each of our sessions, I was exhausted and exhilarated! I realized that I will always be a learner and should not be afraid of the challenges — those roundabouts. Nothing is impossible when we work collaboratively and tentatively. My great uncle’s college roommate, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, said “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” Mary helped me to better understand this quote. I’m not afraid of those roundabouts anymore, not even the big ones.

 

Kim Reynolds is a Reading Recovery teacher leader in Dublin/Southwestern Schools, Dublin, Ohio.

The Power of the Cross-Check: No Penalties in the Reading Process

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00March 26th, 2019|Classroom Teaching, Reading Recovery Teaching, Teaching|

by Jamie Lipp

My oldest nephew is a Division One college lacrosse player (proud aunt). Recently, we traveled to a game to watch him play. In the middle of an intense play, one of his teammates used his lacrosse stick with both hands to push another player from behind. Apparently, this is frowned upon, as whistles blew, flags flew, and an announcement was made that an illegal cross-check had occurred. One minute in the penalty box he went!

Witnessing this, it occurred to me the that the phrase ‘cross-check’ has multiple meanings. A homonym of sorts. The English language is funny like that. In sports such as lacrosse and hockey, a cross-check will send you straight to the penalty box. As for the reading process, the cross-check has a more positive connotation. And there are certainly no penalties for cross-checking while reading.

The dictionary defines the act of cross-checking as verifying one source of information against another. Cross-checking when reading is just that. Clay (2016) defines cross-checking as a strategic activity in reading where a child notices a discrepancy in his own responses and checks one kind of information with a different kind of information. It is an awareness, a closer look, a second glance, another attempt. A “something’s not quite right” observation resulting from self-monitoring.

So, why is cross-checking important? Cross- checking signals the child is becoming more active while reading. He is no longer inventing text, but rather, attempting to integrate multiple sources of information (meaning, structure, visual). He has self-monitored and is now ‘weighing up’ the possibilities. This increased awareness allows for attempts that become better, then more accurate, and ultimately, correct responses. Cross-checking requires the child to monitor the ‘bad fit’, search for alternative sources of information, and integrate these sources by checking the initial information he attended to against some other source of information (Clay, 2016). Essentially, the ability to cross-check is a golden ticket to reading independence.

Cross-checking must be taught for, observed, praised, and expected as our students progress as readers. We can teach for the development of the strategic action of cross-checking in a variety of ways. When reading, we must encourage students to use multiple sources of information at difficulty. Doing so requires careful modeling, prompting, and thinking aloud. Teachers can specifically point out when students have initiated cross-checking behaviors, and even when they have not. In the classroom, we can observe for cross-checking behaviors during guided reading lessons, shared reading, and especially through analyzing running records.

An observant teacher will identify the hesitations or multiple attempts that signal the child has self-monitored and is attempting to cross-check. This teacher will carefully analyze running records to notice where this occurs, how frequently, and what information sources were being integrated. When patterns emerge, the teacher can support the student to attend to the sources of information he is frequently neglecting. The cross-check challenges us to move our thinking beyond, simply, “he just doesn’t know that word” to teach for all that is happening within their processing systems. Further, attention to cross-checking behavior forces our awareness beyond an accuracy and self-correction rate, as it should be!

We expect our students to do more than simply decode the text at hand, as reading and decoding cannot be used synonymously. There is more than visual information to attend to while reading. Clay (2016, p. 135) tells us, “cross-checking on information is an early behavior.” Good news, this means we don’t have to wait until a student is reading high levels of text to expect it. And when we see it, we praise it, because we want it to continue.

Most importantly, we must acknowledge the power of the cross-check as a powerful strategic action that occurs throughout reading. In the classroom and beyond, understanding that hesitation a student makes, or a second (or third) attempt at difficulty to be a signal of higher-level processing is critical. Supporting this strategic action to become more frequent and sophisticated can “level the playing field” for our readers. The ball is in their court, or in the case of lacrosse, the stick is in their hands.

To our growing readers, cross-check away! To my nephew, stay out of the penalty box.

Go Knights!

Reference
Clay, M. M. (2016). Literacy lessons designed for individuals. (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

 

Jamie Lipp is a Reading Recovery trainer at The Ohio State University. Follow her on Twitter @Jamie_Lipp.

Get to the Root of It

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00March 8th, 2019|Classroom Teaching, General Education|

by Kristi McCullough

While receiving Literacy Collaborative training, the professors always told the class that word-study instruction needed to be “powerful” and “generative.”

I remember thinking to myself, I know “powerful” word study means doing hands-on activities and attaching the words to authentic text. But what does “generative” mean?  And what does that have to do with learning words?

Upon reading Greek & Latin Roots: Keys to Building Vocabulary (Shell Education) by Timothy Rasinski, Nancy Padak, Rick M. Newton, and Evangeline Newton, I learned that we cannot possibly teach students every word in the English language.  However, by teaching a few word-study principles, we can help students unlock the meanings of countless new words they come across in their reading.

As elementary teachers, we present numerous lessons and activities for phonics principles and decoding strategies in word study. However, a great deal of power lies in also teaching Greek and Latin roots (i.e., prefix, suffix, base).

Previously, such instruction was saved for advanced courses or high school, but knowing the relevant research and its striking statistics has caused a change in our thinking.

  • Over 90% of the words in the English language with more than one syllable are Latin-based. The other 10% are Greek-based. Meaning, that every two-syllable word (or bigger) is comprised of word parts that carry meaning.
  • Each word part taught (i.e., prefix, suffix, base) has the potential to unlock 5-30 new words for students. By explicitly teaching the meaning of one root word to students, teachers potentially expand students’ vocabulary by upwards of 30 new words.
  • If a single teacher provided instruction on 30 roots, that would unlock the meanings of 150-1,000 new words for students per school year.
  • If every teacher in grades K-12 taught 30 roots per year, students’ accessible vocabulary would grow between 2000 and 13,000 words by graduation!

This is the power of the generative principle. Possessing knowledge of one word part generates knowledge to unlock many more words.

Convincing teachers to target root instruction is not difficult, but it does result in a common question. Which roots should I teach?  Is there a list for my grade level?

The Word Parts To Teach resource consists of beginning or advanced prefixes, suffixes, and bases. They are listed alphabetically and include the meanings and examples of each.

The key is to determine which 30 roots your students need this year. Don’t spend time working with roots they already know.  However, don’t skip over the most common roots because you assume students have mastered them. That said, consider the following when selecting this year’s word parts.

  • Check the Standards. Look through the Vocabulary Acquisition and Use Standard to see specifics on a grade-level focus for the types of roots students need to notice when reading and writing.
  • Gauge the background knowledge of students in the class. With the Word Parts to Teach resource in hand, check the last page for the most common roots in the English language. Use this page to note priority roots for instruction with primary students, as well as English language learners. Continue to check the list for Beginning prefixes, suffixes, and bases to determine which roots students need to know. If students are older or more advanced, check the list of Advanced roots that correspond with their content-area vocabulary.
  • Consider topics taught in content areas beyond language arts. Look for concepts covered that might include word parts. Certain social studies and science concepts lend themselves to specific roots (e.g., liber/free, alt/high, ). Look through this year’s math vocabulary, too. There are often word parts that signify the meaning of numbers (e.g., milli, centi), shapes (e.g., gon, hedra, etc.), and functions (e.g., sub, multi, div, add, etc.).

Taking the time to select an exclusive list for your students ensures their knowledge of words will increase. Limiting the number to just 30 new roots for the school year allows students to have adequate classroom time to engage in powerful, hands-on activities that quicken the retrieval of roots when reading and writing.

Generative instruction is not about just giving students a list of terms to memorize for the weekly test. Instead, generative instruction is about showing students how to use their acquisition of known roots to solve new words on the run.


With over 20 years in education, Kristi McCullough has been a classroom teacher, Reading Recovery teacher, and Literacy Coordinator.  She is currently a literacy consultant with Smekens Education, helping teachers across the Midwest implement a balanced literacy approach.

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