Research background

Possible Pitfalls on the Path
to Fluent Reading
Marita Mäkinen
University of Tampere, Department of Teacher Education
[email protected]
EARLI
12th Biennal Conference, Budapest
Developing Potentials for Learning, Aug 28 - Sep 1, 2007
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Research background
•
•
The project “Lukitaitojen aikaan”
[Reading and writing skills
through time]
The aim of the project is to follow
the development of the reading
and writing of Finnish children
from preschool education to the
end of basic education
Aki (6 yrs.)
Aki (12 yrs. )
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Context
SCHOOLING
Early
childhood
(0-6 yrs.)
READING
SOCIALISATION
PREREQUISITIES
FOR READING
Preschool
Basic Education
(6-7 yrs.)
(7-16 yrs.)
Primary
literacy
initiation
Acquisition
of written
language
e.g.
Phonological
awareness
Word
decoding
Struggling reading
Non reading
Secondary
literacy
initiation
Fluency
Reading
comprehension
READING ENGAGEMENT
Voluntary reading
Passionate reading
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Purpose of the present
study
• to investigate the characteristics of
reading aloud in 2nd grade (age 8) and
in 4th grade (age 10)
– challenges and obstacles for fluent reading
• to present a retrospective look at the
results of the intervention in preschool
education
– principals for strengthening phonological
skills
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Psycho-linguistic
approach on
reading
• Prerequisites for fluent reading
– Alphabetical principle, letter-sound correspondence
– Phonological awareness
• Fluent reading
– Speed, accuracy, prosodic reading (e.g. Lundberg & Herrlin, 2004;
Meyer & Felton, 1999; Rasinski, 1999)
– Connections to the phonological, morphological,
orthographical, semantic mental representations (e.g. Goswami,
1994; Vellutino et. al., 2004)
• Obstacles to fluent reading
– The connections depend on phonological skills
– The difficulty to read single words is a possible pitfall on the
path to fluent reading (e.g. Hanley, Raynolds & Thornton, 1997)
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Procedure
• Participants
– Follow-up study (N = 57)
• training group (N=15),control group (N=16), follow-up
group (N= 37)
– Pre-school (N = 2) and primary school (N = 6) teachers
• Data
– Oral reading assessments in the end of the second
and fourth school year
– Retrospective data of the phonological skills during
pre-school education
– Observation and reflection diaries of teachers
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Analyses
• Transcribed reading
– Linguistic analysis
– Quantification of qualitative analysis:
factor analysis, cluster analysis
• Early intervention
– Analysis of variance, linear regression
analysis
– Analysis of the contents of the teachers’
texts
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Some specific features of
the Finnish language
• Variation of phonemic duration is semantically
distinctive [tuuli, tuli, tulli]
• Words are relatively multisyllabic [ajelehtimassa,
kiinnostuivat]
• Morphological system is agglutinative
[taloissanikin]
• The rhythm of speech is based on syllabic
division [sa-la-ma, hyp-pää-mäi-sil-lään]
• Syllables are fairly short and consonant clusters
are rare [katu, hiiri, jakkara, koukku, tonttu]
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Progress of the analysis
describing reading profiles
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Repetition (+/-)
Anticipation (+/-)
Onset syllable break (+/-)
Onset syllable error (+/-)
Inner structure (+/-)
Syllabication
Sound for sound
[ ` mus(..)tat
pilven(.)n(.)k(.)a(.)leet
lensivät vinsa(..)
vinsa(..)
vinhasti
taivaan(.)rantaan `
Kohti pilvi peitti kun
katsoa ku(..)mi(.)si]
ku(..)mi(.)si]
___
Explanation of the symbols:
‘ sentence break,
(..) half break (in word structure),
(.) short break (in word structure)
+ entry = Identified the word
- entry = Not identified the word
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Results: Characteristics of
2nd graders’ reading aloud
Table 1. Characteristics of reading aloud according to two factor
rotational model
Factors
1
Onset syllable brake –
Inner structure –
Onset syllable error –
Sound for sound
Anticipation –
Repetition –
2
.977
.954
.945
.928
.582
.384
Phonological struggling
(The word not identified)
Onset syllable error +
Inner structure +
Anticipation +
Onset syllable break +
Syllabication
.748
.740
.472
.421
.301
Phonological processing
(The word identified)
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Reading profiles in
2nd grade
Figure 1. Placing of children on skill levels describing reading profiles according
to cluster analysis* on the basis of the difference between factors
* (Hierarchical Cluster, Agglomeration, Ward-method, Squared Euclidean Distance)
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Placing of children on clusters
describing reading profiles in 2nd
grade
Table 2. Placing of children on skill levels describing reading profiles according to
cluster analysis on the basis of the difference between factors
Reading
profile
Phonological struggling
(- entries)
Syll.
brake
-
Inner
struck.
-
Syll.
error
-
Soud
for
soud -
Anticip.
1. P: Struggling
(N = 3)
44.00
7.93
58.33
7.23
30.0
7.21
90.33
30.17
24.33
14.97
2. P: Word-by-word
(N = 17)
2.06
2.82
6.23
6.45
3.71
4.40
3.47
3.97
1.52
1.74
5.03
5.49
2.44
2.65
4. P: Fluent (N = 10)
0.70
0.40
0.70
0.94
Total
3.72
9.90
7.44
13.34
Phonological processing
(+ entries)
Repetit
.
Inner
struck.
+
Syll.
brake
+
Syll.
error
+
Anticip
.
+
2.33
2.52
6.33
4.04
51.67
14.74
2.67
1.53
1.67
2.08
6.41
4.93
0.94
1.30
5.18
3.86
20.76
13.76
3.24
3.07
2.00
1.90
1.07
1.41
10.89
6.39
0.44
0.75
3.81
3.29
7.37
6.42
3.07
3.26
2.40
2.15
0.00
0.00
0.20
0.42
1.90
2.08
0.40
0.70
3.00
3.37
4.30
2.67
1.50
1.78
2.60
1.90
3.84
7.13
6.33
20.94
8.68
7.74
0.68
1.12
4.21
3.54
13.16
14.46
2.82
2.93
2.28
1.99
-
(struggling & processing)
3. P: Associating
(N = 27)
(struggling & fluent)
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Reading profiles in
2nd grade
• Fluent reading
– prosodic reading
• Associating reading
– anticipating with the phonological clue
– obstacles with comprehension
• Word-by-word reading
– accurate decoding led by the onset syllable
– obstacles with solving the rhythmic structure of words
• Struggling reading
– reading through picking up speech sounds,
– not discover the meaning of the words, not attain the
rhythmic structure of the words
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4. Profile: Fluent
reading
• Ease on working on the text
• Reading was guided by semantic
and morphological-syntactic
awareness
• Prosodic reading
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3. profile: Associating
reading
• Proceeding through assembling words
with few repetitions and corrections
• Associating and anticipating with the
phonological clue
• Few pauses dividing reading
• Few reflections on syntactic or semantic
awareness
• May cause to hasty and predictive
reading style
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2. profile: Word-by-word
reading
• Attempt at identifying the words
accurately
• Decoding led by the onset syllable
• Problems with solving the rhythmic
structure of words
• Reading showed some signs of
syntactic and semantic awareness
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1. profile: Struggling
reading
• Slow and laborious reading
• Reading through picking up speech
sounds and sound combinations
• Not attain the rhythmic structure of the
word
• Not discover the meaning of the word
• Several phonological processes* included
in reading
* The term ‘phonological processes’ is used by linguists to describe mental
operations performed on behalf of the physical systems involved in speech
perception and production (e.g. Ingram, 1989; Magnusson, 1983)
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Characteristics of 4th
graders’ reading aloud
Table 3. Characteristics of reading aloud according to three factor
rotational model
Factors
1
Repetition –
Repetition +
Onset syllable
error +
Onset syllable
brake +
2
-.937 Syllabication
.439 Sound for sound –
.584 Onset syllable
break –
.581 Onset syllable
error –
Inner structure +
Monitoring
3
.782
.571
.441
Anticipation –
Inner structure –
Pausing:
sentence –
.945
.850
.583
.857
.308
Phonological
struggling
Associating
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Reading profiles in
2nd & in 4th grades
Figure 2. Distribution of the reading entries in 4th grade into
reading styles in 2nd grade
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Characteristics of
fourth-graders’ reading
aloud
• Monitoring
– Different ways of making sense of the text and of
reading comprehension
• Associating
– Uncorrected anticipation errors, unidentified word
structures and omitted pauses
• Phonological processing of word structures
– Syllabication, progressing sound by sound,
processing the word structure and making errors
in the initial syllable or its boundary
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Figure 3: Reading profiles in
2nd & in 4th grades
R = .494
F = 50.78, p = .000
(The number of entries)
t = 7.13
(The number of entries)
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Figure 4. Signs of
slowness in learning to
read
R = .43
F= 20.59, p = .000
The number of entries
t= -4.54
The score of performance (max 120)
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Perception of word units (M) in preschool initial test
Early intervention as an aid in
the development of reading
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
Group
1
Training (N = 16)
0
Control (N = 15)
1
2
3
4
Skill levels (1-4) in 2nd grade
Figure 5. Distribution of children into skill levels (1-4) according to their
results in the word units exercises in pre-school initial test
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Overview of the intervention in
pre-school
The principles of the
intervention for strengthening
phonological skills:
• Strengthen the children’s phonological
awareness
• Confirm the experience of equal
participation for all children involved
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Strengthen the phonological
awareness (1/2)
• Pay attention to both
the phonemic
structure and meaning
of a word
• Initiate the children
into recognising both
the orthographic and
the phonological
features of a word
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Strengthen the phonological
awareness (2/2)
• Emphasise the
importance of an
explicit awareness
on a syllabic level
• Strengthen the
recognition of
grapheme-phoneme
correspondence
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Confirm the experience of
equal participation (1/2)
• Action – attention
– peer support
• Encourage learning
through positive
experience
• Associate exercises
with contexts that are
familiar and interesting
for the children
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Confirm the experience of
equal participation (2/2)
• Scaffold the learning
processes by
modelling and
verbalising the paths
of performance and
thought
• Use mental and
functional images to
support oral
language games
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Conclusions (1/3)
•
The reading profile adopted by a child in the early stages
of learning to read predicts the characteristics of later
reading The pitfalls on the path to fluent reading reflect
phonologically based difficulties
The difficulties may result from
•
1.
problems in perceiving the supra-segmental features of a
word
•
2.
•
The children had difficulties in mastering the rhythmic
structures of words and length of sounds and syllable
inclination to anticipate the text with the inadequate
phonological clue
Challenges to pedagogical views on reading instruction
–
reading engagement by scaffolding, dialogic interaction,
support of special needs
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Conclusions (2/3)
• The signs of slowness in learning to
read
• The early training of phonological skills
supports the development of reading
– rhythmic structure of words
– inclusive views of training
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Conclusions (3/3)
Pedagogical views on learning
• Balance of individual and social aspects
of learning
• Language and social interaction are
involved in learning
• Active learning requires:
• Scaffolding
• Dialogic interaction
• Support of special educational needs
(e.g. Vygotsky, 1978; Bruner, 1996; Black, 2004; Burns & Myhill, 2004)
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Thank you for your attention
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