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Reading Association of Ireland
Cumann Léitheoireachta na hÉireann
READING NEWS
Autumn 2011
Features:
Conference 2011, Thursday September 29th - Saturday October 1st
Reading Comprehension
Digital tools for Literacy
Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life
Phonics Fun: Implementation Challenges
Interventions for Literacy
Reading News • Autumn 2011
Contents
Reading Association
of Ireland
Cumann Léitheoireachta
na hÉireann
The Reading Association of Ireland
(RAI), a national affiliate of the
International Reading Association, was
established in 1975.
RAI aims to promote and disseminate
best practice in the teaching and study
of literacy.
CURRENT PROJECTS
The promotion of research in literacy
education
• RAI Literacy Development Awards
for Schools
• RAI Biennial Award for an
Outstanding Thesis on Literacy
The RAI Book Award
The RAI book award aims to support
and promote Irish literature for children
and adolescents
Regional development
The development of regional branches
of RAI and the provision of professional
development seminars across Ireland
Annual Conference September 2011
Theme: Creating Multiple Pathways to
Powerful Literacy in Challenging Times
Page
Editorial ......................................................................2
Accommodating Digital Tools for
Literacy in the Classroom.........................................4
Towards the Next Generation of
Comprehension Instruction ......................................9
Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life:
The National Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy
among Children and Young People 2011-2020 ..............15
The www.interventionsforliteracy.org.uk
website ....................................................................18
PHONICS FUN: Implementation challenges
for volunteers..........................................................21
PUBLICATIONS
• Reading News
• Conference Proceedings
PRESIDENT
Aoibheann Kelly
CONTACT
Reading Association of Ireland
c/o Educational Research Centre,
St. Patrick’s College
Drumcondra, Dublin 9, Ireland
Conference Programme .........................................26
First Book:
A poem by Dermot Bolger...........................................28
www.reading.ie
PAGE 1
Dear Members,
With our 35th annual conference only weeks
away, I welcome you to our conference edition of
READINg NEWS. This year’s conference Creating
Multiple Pathways to Powerful Literacy in
Challenging Times comes after quite a challenging
year for education in Ireland and serves to
provide teachers, teacher educators and all those
working in the field of literacy with national and
international research findings and information
on best practice.
In December 2010 when the OECD published the
results of PISA 2009 there was shock and awe in
some circles, whilst the results did not come as a
huge surprise to others. Those on the ground, in
our schools, colleges and universities have been
concerned for some time at falling literacy levels,
particularly literacy in the ‘traditional’ sense. It
was with relief then, that we welcomed the much
less publicised report from the OECD in June
(2011), PISA 2009 Results: Students Online: Digital
Technologies and Performance (Volume 6), which
explored students’ use of information technologies to learn. Interestingly, Ireland’s mean score
on the digital reading assessment was
significantly above the OECD average while our
mean score on the print reading assessment was
not significantly different than the OECD
average. Surprisingly, this good news story was
not widely advertised in the media. But what
does this mean in real terms? Do we give up pen
and paper type activities and grasp digital
literacies with open arms? I think many would
agree that the definition of literacy remains much
the same, whether it is digital literacy or pen and
paper type literacy. For a student to be digitally
literate they require an adequate level of literacy
in the traditional sense also. However, as
educators we may be able to enhance a student’s
motivation and engagement for literacy and
increase their level of literacy both digital and
traditional, by incorporating information and
communication technologies (ICT) in our
teaching and encouraging students to
communicate and respond using ICT.
To help our members embrace technology in the
classroom, in this issue of READINg NEWS Dr.
Bernadette Dwyer explores the possibilities of
some digital tools for literacy and discusses how
teachers might accommodate these etools within
the classroom. Dr. Dwyer will present a keynote
PAGE 2
address entitled Meeting the challenges of 21st
century literacies: Equity and excellence for all
students at this year’s conference in the Church of
Ireland College of Education, Rathmines, which
runs from Thursday 29th September to Saturday,
1st October.
Another keynote speaker and internationally
renowned literacy expert has also contributed an
article for this issue of Reading News. In his
chapter Toward the Next Generation of
Comprehension Instruction: A Coda, Professor P.
David Pearson gives us an insight into what is to
come at the conference. Professor Pearson, a
member of the Reading Hall of Fame, presents on
Friday morning and will consider The Future of
Reading Comprehension: The Impact of Disciplinary
Perspectives. On Friday afternoon he will also
participate in what should be a riveting panel
discussion on The Role of Assessment in Driving
Change.
In our last issue of Reading News we provided a
summary of the RAI response to what was then
the Department of Education and Skill’s (DES)
draft national plan for literacy and numeracy.
Since then, the DES has considered the responses
received, held consultation meetings with
different parties and produced a national strategy
for literacy and numeracy, Literacy and Numeracy
for Learning and Life: The National Strategy for
Children and Young People 2011-2020. Dr. Karen
Willoughby revisits some of the key areas RAI
commented on in its response to the draft plan
and considers how these areas are addressed in
the National Strategy. I wish to take this
opportunity to thank committee members Dr.
Martin gleeson, Dr. gerry Shiel and Dr. Karen
Willoughby for representing RAI at the
consultation meeting with the DES and launch of
the National Strategy.
In this issue we also have an informative article
on the work of Barnardo’s Wizards of Words Project
which is currently working with schools to assist
children who are struggling with literacy. This
project illustrates what school, community and
parents can do when working together. Dr. greg
Brooks in correspondence with incoming RAI
president Dr. Karen Willoughby also offers some
helpful information for teachers and parents of
children with specific learning difficulties/
dyslexia.
Just a final note on the upcoming conference, it
opens on Thursday 29th Sept at 7.30pm with an
opening address by well-known Irish poet,
novelist and playwright Dermot Bolger. This will
be followed by the much coveted RAI Children’s
Book Award. Look out for the book award
shortlist which will be announced online shortly.
In addition to the many and varied presentations
that will take place over the three days, we can
also look forward to hearing from teacherresearchers in the field at the Outstanding Thesis
in Literacy Award on Saturday 1st October.
I hope you all enjoy this edition of READINg NEWS
and I look forward to meeting you at the annual
conference. A special word of thanks to all those
who contributed articles to this edition and to my
editorial team, Karen and Finian. Thanks are also
extended to Caitríona Breatnach for her beautiful
work as illustrator in previous articles
contributed by Siobhán Ní Mhurchú.
Beir bua agus beannacht,
Aoibheann Kelly
President, RAI 2010-2011
Mission Statement
1. The Reading Association of Ireland aims to support and
inform all those concerned with the development of
reading, language and literacy (including teachers,
lecturers, researchers, trainers and parents), encourage
them in reflection and dialogue, challenge them in their
practice and give public voice to their concerns.
2. The purposes of the Association are to:
(i) provide a coherent voice on the acquisition, teaching
and learning of reading, language and literacy in
English and gaeilge (L1 and L2);
(ii) encourage the development of reading, language
and literacy at all educational levels from early
childhood through adolescence to adult level;
(iii) foster an interest in and love of reading in all its
forms;
(iv) promote an interest in children’s literature at
national and international levels;
(v) stimulate, promote and conduct research on reading,
language and literacy at national and local levels;
(vi) study the various factors that influence progress in
reading, language and literacy;
(vii) publish where possible the results of pertinent and
significant investigations and practices;
(viii) assist or advise on the development of teacher
education programmes;
(ix) act as a clearing house for information related to
reading, language and literacy;
(x) disseminate knowledge helpful in the solution of
problems related to reading, language and literacy.
3. In pursuit of these purposes, the Association engages in
such activities as:
(i) advocating to shape national policy on reading,
language and literacy;
(ii) organising conferences, seminars and workshops, to
disseminate research and best practice in reading,
(iii) publishing conference proceedings and a journal,
Reading News;
(iv) maintaining a website and archive, www.reading.ie;
(v)
providing information about reading development to
parents;
(vi) maintaining links with and contributing to the
activities of the International Reading Association
(IRA), the International Development in Europe
Committee (IDEC) and the Federation of European
Literacy Associations (FELA);
(vii) maintaining links with national organisations,
including the Department of Education and Skills,
the National Council for Curriculum and
Assessment, the Teachers’ Professional Network
(TPN), colleges, universities and teacher unions;
(viii) supporting student research through the Biennial
Outstanding Thesis Awards;
(ix) supporting children’s literature through the Biennial
RAI Book Awards;
(x) supporting teacher research and school development
through the RAI Literacy Development Awards for
Schools;
4. The Association also seeks to achieve its purposes through
the work of Regional Branches. The regional branches,
which work under the auspices of the national
association, engage in such activities as:
(i) organising symposia, seminars, workshops and
presentations on the development of reading,
(ii) developing membership at local level;
(iii) promoting the dissemination of current best practice
in research in reading, language and literacy,
including practitioner-based research at local level;
(iv) liaising with local libraries, parents’/community
groups and national organisations with local
presence, in the promotion of all aspects of children’s
literacy development including children’s literature,
poetry, technological and new literacies;
(v) liaising with first, second and third level institutions
in the advancement of effective pedagogical practice
in the development of reading, language and
literacy.
The association's membership includes teachers, students, teacher educators and parents, but any person interested in
literacy or language development is welcome to join, as the Association seeks to expand its membership.
www.reading.ie
PAGE 3
Accommodating Digital Tools for
Literacy in the Classroom
Dr. Bernadette Dwyer
The Internet is ubiquitous in society and almost
30% of the world’s population are now online
(Internet World Statistics, 2011). The Internet is
shaping the way we read, write and
communicate. Web 2.0 (the social web) introduces
new possibilities for all online users to be
designers,
producers,
collaborators
and
communicators. The generation M_ report
(Rideout, Roehr, & Roberts, 2010) noted that
young people spend on average seven hours and
thirty-eight minutes consuming media content
per day (often more than one medium at a time).
Our students live online, engaging with social
networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and
google+; sharing and manipulating media
content by uploading and downloading YouTube
videos and podcasts; sending and receiving
multimodal messages and conducting online
searches for information. Technology is
embedded in their lives outside of school.
However, despite the possibility that digital tools
can both enhance literacy development and
motivate and engage students (Moran, Ferdig,
Pearson, Wardrop & Blomeyer, 2008) there is a
disconnect between students’ in-school and outof-school lives (Alvermann, 2008).
In this article I explore the receptive, generative
and expressive possibilities of some digital tools
for literacy and consider how teachers might
accommodate these etools within the classroom
literacy curriculum. In the first section I explore
some digital tools to enhance vocabulary
development. Following this I discuss some of the
digital tools to enhance response to literature.
way enhances ownership and authenticity,
encourages word consciousness, cultivates
vocabulary development and promotes links
between reading, writing, thinking and
communicating.
Wordle
Wordle (www.wordle.net) is a free online tool you
can use to generate ‘word clouds’ from text that
you provide by inputting text into a create
window screen, or by copying and pasting text
from a word document or indeed online text (for
example, National geographic for Kids
(http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/). No
software download is required. The word display,
font size and colour schemes can be varied
according to personal preference. You can print,
save the created Wordles to a public gallery to
share, or embed the code into a Wiki, Ning or
class blog. Alternatively, you can capture a screen
shot (using the Alt+Print Screen function keys),
crop the image using picture tools in Word or
PowerPoint or enhance using Photoshop. You can
then create posters for use in the classroom or
indeed on your interactive whiteboard.
Wordle provides possibilities for enhancing
literacy development in the classroom. You can
use Wordle to:
• Capture the key words or concepts in a text
• Examine the meanings of words such as,
contractions and tricky words (Figure 1 and 2)
• generate synonyms, antonyms, homonyms
• Investigate the relationships between words
Figure 1. Using Wordle for ‘tricky words’.
Digital Tools to Enhance Vocabulary
Development
Using digital tools for literacy to enhance
vocabulary development can involve receptive,
generative and expressive processes. Receptive
processes include viewing images and graphics to
enhance vocabulary learning. generative and
expressive processes actively engage students in
expression, composition and the generation of
digital artefacts (Castek, Dalton, & grisham, in
process). Creating and designing artefacts in this
PAGE 4
Figure 2. Using Wordle for contractions.
Wordle can also be used in the literacy curriculum
to enhance reading comprehension development.
For example, you can create Wordles to make
predictions, forge connections, analyse character
traits, summarise or synthesise text content.
Figure 3 shows a Wordle created from the much
loved Charlotte’s Web (E. B. White, 1952). You can
discuss predictions about the text with the
students. For example, who are the main
characters in the book? Where is the story set?
How do you know?
explore nouns adjectives and verbs; develop a
deeper knowledge of the associations between
words; and delve deeper into the morphology,
usage and meanings of vocabulary. You can
watch a tutorial YouTube video on using Word
Sift by following this link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaIb_gNs_U8
The text of the speech of Queen Elizabeth II,
delivered in Dublin Castle in May, 2011, was
copied and pasted into the WordSift window.
Figure 4 shows the WordSift screen. Figure 5
presents the same speech sifted according to the
most frequent words in the text. The words are
displayed in alphabetical word. The most
common words are also distinguished by font
size. Figure 6 shows a visual thesaurus word
cloud of ‘community’. Also shown are google
images of the same word. This would provide a
receptive affordance for English Language
Learners (ELL) and struggling readers in the
classroom.
Figure 4. Text of speech by Queen Elizabeth II delivered in Dublin
Castle on May 18th 2011.
Figure 3. Making predictions for Charlotte’s Web.
WordSift
WordSift (www.wordsift.com), developed by
Stanford University, is a free instructional tool
which captures an inputted text and displays a
tag cloud of 50 of the most frequent words in the
text. You can customise the display of words from
rare to common, in alphabetical order, or
according to specific content areas such as,
science. WordSift presents google images for
selected highlighted words. Crucially, it displays
examples of the vocabulary selected in the context
of the sentence within the original text. A visual
thesaurus can be also generated of selected
words. The visual thesaurus helps students to
Figure 5. Speech of Queen Elizabeth 11 sifted in WordSift, with
words presented in alphabetical order.
PAGE 5
Figure 6. A visual thesaurus and Google images of the word
community.
Vocabulary Videos
Vocabulary videos are short (45-90 second in
duration) videos that situate a target word within
a particular context. They can be created easily
using for example, a flip camera or mobile phone
device etc. They are created by groups of students
and so enhance social learning within the
classroom. Dr. Bridget Dalton (lecturer in
Vanderbilt University in the USA) and her
students created vocabulary videos which can be
viewed online. In the example shown in figure 7
the target word is ‘conspicuous’. You will notice
on the video that the target word is used and
related to similar word meanings throughout the
video and the target word is displayed at the end.
Can Max find a hiding place that is ‘discreet’ not
‘blatant’ or ‘eye-catching’ or ‘obvious’. You can
view the video in the online version of this article
or by following the link displayed
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq6lKJkJE
ms&feature=player_embedded)
Figure 7. Vocabulary video of the word conspicuous.
(Used with permission)
PAGE 6
To create a vocabulary video, have students work
in triad groups (two acting, one filming) using a
flip camera or mobile phone device. Choose Tier 2
words (sophisticated ways of saying everyday
words) or Tier 3 words (related to content areas)
to explore (Beck, McKeown & Kucan, 2002). give
students time to become familiar with target
words by using the visual thesaurus or image
search on google. Brainstorm a context for the
chosen word by asking questions such as, who,
what, when, where and why you would use the
chosen word. give students a limited amount of
time (say 15 minutes) to plan, execute and film a
dramatisation of the word. To explore more
vocabulary videos visit the Literacy Beat Blog at
http://literacybeat.wordpress.com/
For more on accommodating digital tools for
literacy to enhance vocabulary development in
the classroom read Dalton and grisham’s article
entitled Voc Strategies: 10 Ways to Use Technology to
Build Vocabulary in February 2011 edition of The
Reading Teacher.
Using Digital Tools to Enhance Response to
Literature in the Classroom
glenna Sloan (2003, p.12) notes, “There is a story
or poem to raise a goose bump on the toughest
skin, and we are well advised to help each child
find it. A child who has never thrilled to words
will remain indifferent to reading and writing
them”. It is so important for us as educators to
cultivate a love for reading and great literature in
our students. We want students who can read,
who do read and who love to read. Many of you
may already be using literature circles, book clubs
or literature discussion groups to enhance your
students’ response to literature. In the next
sections I will explore some digital tools to
enhance response to literature, including glogster,
google Lit trips and digital book trailers.
Google Lit Trips
Google Lit Trips (first published on the Literacy
Beat blog)
Lucy McCormick-Calkins in the Art of
Teaching Reading (2001) urges us to help our
students to compose lives in which reading and
writing matter. She noted that great literature
helps us “to stand, feeling small, under the
vastness of the Milky Way”.
google lit trips (http://www.googlelittrips.org/)
(the brain child of Jerome Burg, a retired highschool English teacher) allows students to travel
beyond the mind’s eye, and take a virtual road
trip, by satellite, navigating right across the
world, viewing locations from the novel on the
way. Lit trips help students, who are unfamiliar
with locations within a novel, to recreate scenes
and become fellow travellers with the characters
in the novel, visiting places the characters lived,
where they struggled and where they overcome
adversity. The site has won the 2010 Tech
Laureate award. It provides us with a good
example of a meaningful way to integrate literacy
with technology and indeed the content areas.
Figure 8. The Google Lit Trip interface.
Getting Started
Before visiting the google Lit trip site you need to
download google Earth (a free downloadable
program). You will need google Earth as google
lit trips run off KMZ files. If you are not already
familiar with the google Earth interface take a
couple of minutes to familiarise yourself with the
tool palette and side bars. Tutorial videos for
google
Earth
are
available
online
(http://www.google.com/earth/learn/beginner.
html). For example, you can record a tour using
the camera icon; view historical imagery of place
marks on the clock icon; and create place marks
using the pin icon. (On the side bar, in the layers
menu, ensure you unclick the layers when
creating a google lit trip so that you will only
view locations within the novel).
Visit the google lit trip web site for helpful
webinars and examples of Lit trips created by
teachers and their students. Lit trips are organized
across grade level from kindergarten through high
school to higher education. google lit trips don’t
stop at merely visiting locations or geographical
features within the novel. Sample Lit trips on the
site show discussion popup windows to help our
students ‘linger and look’ (Calkins, 2001) and dig
deeper with their responses to literature by
making connections to themselves; to other texts
they have read and to their own world
experiences. Teachers (or their students) can create
different levels of questions to spark meaningful
discussions; and can provide links to other web
sites to access crucial historical background
information thereby enhancing meaning.
Sample Lit Trips
There were many readymade lit trips that you can
explore on the google Lit Trip web site. The
section which follows explores three of my
current favourite lit trips.
• Possum Magic by Mem Fox (aren’t all of her
books memorable?) a tale of grandma Poss
who makes Hush invisible to protect her from
snakes. Seemed like a good idea except she
doesn’t know how to make her visible again!
The lit trip takes the reader to seven locations
in Australia and provides imagery of various
types of Australian food as grandma Possum
tries to undo the mayhem.
• Going Home by Margaret Wild is a tale of Hugo,
a child anxiously awaiting discharge from
hospital. His hospital window overlooks a zoo
and Hugo begins day dreaming of the natural
habitats of a range of animals such as, African
elephants and Snow leopards. Antonella
Albini, the teacher librarian, who created this
lit trip provides helpful imagery, audio and
video links to child-friendly websites such as,
National geographic for kids.
• My final choice is the compelling The Watsons
go to Birmingham -1963 by Christopher Paul
Curtis. This is the story of an African American
family whose lives become intertwined with
the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s. The
teacher creator of the Lit trip, Heather
McKissick, provides seventeen Question Stops
along their journey with links to historical
imagery and questions to spark meaningful
discussion among her students.
There are a number of online tutorials available to
get you started with google Lit trips. Click here
or follow the link for You Tube video (http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=chm38KqK4KY)
Glogster
glogster (http://edu.glogster.com/) allows users
to create multimedia interactive posters and are a
good digital alternative to the dreaded book
report. You can upload videos, audio and music
PAGE 7
files, graphics, images and text to create an online
multimedia response to literature. Your students
can work collaboratively to respond to a
particular novel in the classroom (or indeed a
project in a content area). When the glog is
completed you can print it, embed it into a web
site, wiki, Ning or blog to share with an invited
audience. Teachers should register with a
glogster EDU account. This protects the privacy
of your students’ work through a log in password
system and also allows you to monitor the
content. You can register for up to 100 free
accounts.
Visit
the
glogsterEdu
site
(http://edu.glogster.com/what-is-glogsteredu/) for examples of published glogs.
Digital Book Trailers
A digital book trailer is short video (often two
minutes in length) composed by a student to extol
the virtues of an ‘absolutely must read book’. The
video combines the genres of advertisements and
film trailer where the student pitches, sells and
hooks a potential reader into wanting to read
their favourite novel. Figure 9 shows a digital
book trailer created by a first grade student for
the annual Story Tube contest conducted by the
American Association of Librarians (ALA). The
Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Di
Camillo is one of my all time favourite books. It’s
the story of a rather haughty china doll rabbit
who embarks on an extraordinary journey where
he discovers the meaning of life.
Figure 9. Screen shot of Storytube contest entry by first grade
student (from http://teacherlibrarian. ning.com/video/storytubecontest-entry-edward).
You can find more ideas for incorporating digital
tools for literacy in the Literacy Beat blog which I
write with my fellow bloggers, Jill Castek, Bridget
PAGE 8
Dalton and Dana grisham. You will find the blog
at http://literacybeat.wordpress.com/. You may
also be interested in visiting the excellent
Vocabulogic
blog
(http://vocablogplc.blogspot.com/). This blog is updated every
second Sunday and one of the contributors is
Professor P. David Pearson.
You can view the videos and links discussed in
this article by copying the links or viewing the
online version of the article on the Reading
Association of Ireland (RAI) website at
www.reading.ie. A blog on this article will also
run on the web site where you can upload
comments or share ideas of your own uses of
digital tools for literacy with fellow educators.
Dr. Bernadette Dwyer will present a keynote address at the
annual Reading Association of Ireland Annual Conference in
the Church Of Ireland College of Education, Rathmines on
Saturday 1st October, entitled Meeting the challenges of 21st
century literacies: Equity and excellence for all students. She
may be contacted by email at [email protected].
References
Alvermann, D. (2008). Commentary: Why bother
theorizing adolescents’ online literacies for
classroom practice and research? Journal of Adolescent
& Adult Literacy, 52, 8-19.
Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.g., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing
words to life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. NY:
guilford Press.
Castek, J., Dalton, B., & grisham, D. (in press). Using
multimedia to support students’ generative
vocabulary learning. In J. Baumann and E.
Kame’enui (Eds.) Vocabulary instruction: Research to
practice (2nd ed.). New York, NY: guilford Press.
Dalton, B., & grisham, D. (2011). eVoc strategies: 10
Ways to use technology to build vocabulary. The
Reading Teacher, 64(5), 306-317.
Internet World Statistics (March, 2011). Usage and
population statistics. Retrieved August 11, 2011 from
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
Moran, J., Ferdig, R. E., Pearson, P. D., Wardrop, J., &
Blomeyer, R. L. (2008). Technology and reading
performance in the middle-school grades: A metaanalysis with recommendations for policy and
practice. Journal of Literacy Research, 40(1), 6-58.
Mc Cormick-Calkins, L.(2001). The art of teaching reading.
Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Rideout, V. J., Foehr, U.g., & Roberts, D. F. (2010).
Generation M_ media in the lives of 8-to-18 year olds.
Washington, DC: A Kaiser Family Foundation Study.
Sloan, g. (2003). The child as critic. Developing literacy
through literature, k-8. New York: Teachers College
Press
Children’s Book References
White, E.B. (1952). Charlotte’s web. London: Puffin
Books.
Di Camillo, K. (2006). The miraculous journey of Edward
Tulane. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.
Towards the Next Generation of
Comprehension Instruction
A Coda
P. David Pearson
This chapter by Professor P. David Pearson is the closing chapter in a new book Comprehension Going Forward,
edited by Harvey Daniels (2011) and gives a taste of what is to come at this year’s conference. We look forward to
Professor Pearson’s keynote address, The Future of Reading Comprehension: The Impact of Disciplinary
Perspectives, which takes place on Friday Sept 30th at 9.30am. David also participates in a panel discussion on
Friday afternoon, examining the role of assessment in driving change.
My colleagues—the editors and authors of this
diverse array of chapters—have written an
important book about reading comprehension
instruction, and at just the right time. It is
important because it achieves two essential goals
on behalf of all those professionals committed to
comprehension as the core of reading instruction.
First, it reasserts the fundamental, research based
principles that have guided responsible
comprehension instruction for nearly three
decades. Second, it responds, in both explicit and
implicit ways, to the recent criticisms of
comprehension instruction, especially instruction
that helps students learn how to use
comprehension and metacognitive strategies to
understand otherwise puzzling text. As
important as these goals are, they are not the real
genius of this book. Its real genius is that it is
written by teachers, for teachers. All of the
authors in this book know what classrooms are
like—either because they teach in classrooms
every day or because they spend a lot of time
working with teachers in classrooms and in
professional development settings. This means
that authenticity and integrity pervade every
chapter in this book. Teachers will immediately
sense this authenticity on their way to realizing
that this book offers an endless supply of useful
suggestions for creating comprehension inside
classrooms.
being a focused and highly strategic reader,
inferred from reading across all the chapters. I
believe, and I hope, they are an appropriate
summary (maybe even a synthesis) of the
wonderful ideas in this text.
Teaching Comprehension Is a Moral Enterprise
Let’s begin with the broadest and, I think, most
important principle. Teachers don’t enter into the
kind of instruction privileged in this volume just
so students can and will read better. They do it
because they know that comprehension opens a
world of opportunity – that the ability to make
sense of text, to engage with the big ideas of
literature, and to learn about how the world
around them works makes it possible for students
to live a good life, a life in which reading is a
never-ending source of learning, enjoyment, and
reflection. We may not think about it every day
when we enter the classroom, but it really is true
that we teach comprehension to create a
competitive workforce for the global economy, to
promote a literate citizenry worthy of our
democracy, and to guarantee that each student we
have the privilege of serving has the tools to live
an “examined” life. It is useful sometimes to step
back and ask ourselves why we do what we do.
The authors of this book invite us to do just that.
Actually a few of them – including Zimmermann,
Upzack garcia, and Commins – insist we do just
that.
Achieving the Major Goals
Research-Based Principles
In the spirit of honoring the importance of
reading to learn, I will frame my synthesis of the
research-based principles on which this book is
based as an account of what I learned from
reading the chapters in this important volume. I
have organized them as a set of principles that I,
Comprehension Instruction Begins and Ends in
the Hearts and Minds of Students
We’ve known about the impact of knowledge on
comprehension for several decades; that was the
fundamental message we learned from schema
theory in the 1970s. And many of the authors of
this volume have published eloquent accounts,
PAGE 9
both in this volume and in previous works, of
how we can use knowledge to promote
comprehension. What has changed in the last few
years is that we are much more aware of the
complementary idea that knowledge is as much a
consequence as it is a cause of comprehension:
Knowledge begets comprehension begets
knowledge begets comprehension… This is the
kind of virtuous cycle we would like to promote
in schools instead of the vicious cycle we are all
too well aware of—the one in which reading
failure prompts reading avoidance prompts
failure, and so on. Put differently, we can and
should say that good comprehension instruction
puts the interests, needs, and knowledge
resources of students at the heart of
comprehension instruction. In her chapter,
Marjorie Larner truly enacts this principle when
she directly asks students themselves how
comprehension instruction has affected them as
learners.
Reading to Learn Is Always a Part of Learning
to Read1
They don’t always say so out loud (as gina
Cervetti, Anne goudvis, and Brad Buhrow do),
but one of the goals that the authors of this
volume share with me is to do everything
possible to downplay the commonly expressed
distinction between learning to read and reading
to learn. I have tired of hearing the phrase that in
grades 1–3, kids learn to read, and after that they
read to learn (Pearson and Cervetti in press). The
authors of this volume reject that idea, either
explicitly or implicitly. In its place they champion
the idea that learning from reading should be part
of the reading equation from the outset of
kindergarten and first grade. Kids should always
be reading content that is worth knowing. They
should encounter ideas that promote the
acquisition of knowledge, insight, human
understanding, and joy. Even though this book is
more about reading than writing, I would add
(and I think that all the authors would agree) that
students should also be writing about things that
matter, about those very understandings,
insights, and moments of joy. Then and only then
will they learn that reading and writing are tools
for learning—a message some of our commercial
curricula seem hard-pressed to promote.
If we want to promote this idea that reading to
learn is always a part of learning to read, we need
to really emphasize the tool metaphor—that
reading and writing (and I would add language,
especially what we have come to call academic
language) are tools for learning. And they are best
put to service in acquiring knowledge and
inquiry skills in disciplines like science, social
studies, mathematics, and literature. As a vivid
example of this principle, in her chapter, Tanny
Mcgregor talks about extending the use of the
thinking tools of language throughout the school
day. By the way, I think it is better to think of
literature (not language arts but literature) as a
discipline on a par with the subject areas of
schooling2. Then the process parts of the language
arts (reading, writing, and language) are released
from the sole grasp of literature and are available
for all the disciplines. Think of it as a matrix with
disciplines across the top and tools for learning
down the side, as depicted in Table 1.
These ideas first appeared in a revision of my own perspective on the Radical Middle that I wrote for the second edition of
Rona Flippo’s book Reading Researchers in Search of Common Ground (in press). They appear here with the permission of the
author and the editor.
2
I agree with those who argue that the subject matter of literature is the human experience itself—life and death, love and hate,
friendship and betrayal, harmonizing with or harnessing the natural environment, and so on.
1
PAGE 10
Were we to take such a matrix seriously, we
would have very different basal reading
programs than those currently on the market
because the distribution of disciplines and genres
would be much broader in scope than is currently
the case. This broader scope would have the side
benefit of broadening the appeal of basal content
to a wider range of learners than is possible with
the literature-centric basal programs in today’s
market. But what is really important about this
reconceptualization is that it means that the
acquisition of knowledge, understanding, insight,
and (yes) joy would always provide a context for
honing our language-based learning tools.
Wouldn’t that be a great expectation to hold—that
when we learn new ideas, we improve our
language skills!
Reading about how the natural or social world
works need not, should not, be boring (to borrow
from the most popular of adolescent terms to
describe school!). Finding ways to connect these
texts to students’ lives is one way of achieving
engagement, as is providing choice. Not everyone
has to read the same text about gravity or the War
of 1812; it makes for interesting discussions, in
fact, when students bring different perspectives
and knowledge sources to the table. Students can
even choose the ways in which they want to
demonstrate their understanding; Susie can
answer some constructed response questions,
Miguel can write an essay, and Darien can make a
PowerPoint presentation about the very same
text. And each form of response represents an
opportunity to assess student comprehension.
Comprehension Is as Dependent on Affect
as It Is on Cognition
Scaffolding Is the Central Instructional
Metaphor in Guiding
There is no denying the importance of cognitive
activity and outcomes in the comprehension
process. I just said as much in acknowledging the
importance of knowledge. And I have spent most
of my career championing cognitive connections
between the texts kids read and the background
knowledge they bring to the classroom. But we
have not (or at least I have not) always paid as
much attention to the affective side of
understanding as we (I) might, focusing more on
the ideas that students gain from reading rather
than on feelings or motives.
Students Along the Path of Independence. When
Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) coined the
scaffolding metaphor as a way of describing what
expert tutors do to promote problem solving
among students, they could not have possibly
imagined how popular the term would become as
a way for educators to describe the pedagogical
journey from teacher-dependent to completely
independent learning on the part of students.
In nearly every chapter in this volume my fellow
authors encourage us to broaden our view of
comprehension, to worry as much about the will
and thrill of reading as about the skill. This
perspective comes packaged in many forms, each
with different terms. In the chapters that
emphasize literature, including those by Leslie
Blauman and Chryse Hutchins, we are reminded
that encouraging aesthetic responses to literature
is core to the literary experience (my preference
has always been to deal with aesthetic response
before more everyday comprehension responses
so as to encourage personal responses while they
are still fresh in students’ recollections). We are
also reminded that even when students read the
informational texts of social studies and science,
they can—if teachers ground the experience in
“hands on” science or “minds-on” social
studies—promote a high degree of engagement.
The instant I read Wood et al.’s account when it
appeared in the mid 1970s, I was smitten. It
captured exactly what I was trying, albeit
clumsily, to communicate to teachers about the
genius of instruction. I soon incorporated the
term into my teacher lexicon—along with prior
knowledge, comprehension strategy, inference,
and metacognition—as terms to describe the
basics of comprehension instruction. It was the
core concept behind another popular metaphor,
the gradual release of responsibility (hereafter gRR),
that Meg gallagher and I coined in 1983 to
describe the genius of the work that Joe
Campione and Ann Brown were doing with
learning-disabled students at the Center for the
Study of Reading.
What was, and is, so compelling about the
scaffolding metaphor is that it captures most of
the important insights we have developed about
good pedagogy. Here are my top four insights.
PAGE 11
1. We reduce the amount of scaffolding across time
(and lessons) as students develop greater
independent control in applying any strategy, skill,
or practice we want them to use with regularity.
This is the most common and obvious of
insights about scaffolding, the very core of the
gRR framework. But it does not mean, as
many infer, that we always begin a sequence
with modeling, then moving to guided
practice, and finally independent practice. We
could begin a sequence by asking students to
“try it on their own,” offering feedback and
assistance as students demonstrate the need
for it. James Baumann, an instructional
researcher who has made significant
contributions to comprehension research, once
asked me in a conference session on strategy
instruction, “David, how much explicit
instruction should a teacher provide?” My
response: “As little as possible.” And I meant it
sincerely. There is no inherent virtue in explicit
instruction and modeling. We offer if and
when students demonstrate less than
completely independent control over an
activity; and we provide just enough
scaffolding so that students can perform the
activity successfully. It is a “goldilocks”
phenomenon— not too much, not too little, but
just the right amount.
2. We vary the amount of scaffolding offered within
any given lesson as students demonstrate the
capacity to control the strategy, skill, or practice.
It is extremely powerful for a group of
students, within the context of a single lesson,
to demonstrate to themselves that they can do
more on their own by the end of a lesson than
they could at the beginning.
3. We can and should vary scaffolding between
students within a single lesson.
Part of the genius of the gradual release of
responsibility framework is that it applies in so
many situations. We have already suggested
that we can vary the scaffolding provided to
students across lessons and across time within
a lesson. But we can also differentiate the
nature and amount of scaffolding across
students within a given lesson. For example, in
a discussion about a story or an informational
text, one student may benefit from a clue about
what page to look at to find information
relevant to answering a question, a second
PAGE 12
may be helped by restating the question in
different words, and a third by turning an
open-ended (Why did Henry take Jake’s
backpack?) into a forced choice question (Did
Henry take Jake’s backpack for revenge or
money?).
4. We are prepared to revert to greater (or lesser)
scaffolding as text and task demands create varying
scaffolding needs.
This, for me, is the most powerful and
important insight about scaffolding. If we
accept the general notion that reading
comprehension represents an interaction
between a reader, a text, and a “task” within a
sociocultural context (RAND Reading Study
group 2002), then we must accept the idea that
our comprehension “ability” varies with the
text and task. And the path to progress is not
always a straight line: Show me a reader who
is a master comprehender today, and I’ll show
you one who isn’t tomorrow. All I have to do is
to up the ante on the complexity of the text, the
obscurity of its topic, or the cognitive demand
of the comprehension task. As teachers, we
must always be prepared to revert to greater
scaffolding when one of these elements (text,
topic, or task) creates greater demands on
readers. Just as surely, we must be prepared to
withdraw that scaffolding when these “stars” of
comprehension are more positively aligned. It is
this insight that I had in mind when I responded
to Baumann’s query with the “as little as
possible” explicit instruction answer. And this is
precisely what Debbie Miller has in mind when
she admonishes us to release responsibility a
little faster than we have in the past.
Responding to the Critics of Strategy
Instruction
In some ways, it is clear that an underlying
purpose of this book is to respond to the
criticisms that have been leveled at comprehension instruction, particularly strategy instruction,
over the last several years. Keene, in the opening
chapter, lays out a compelling account of all the
things we have learned because we have been
engaged in strategy instruction as a profession for
the past thirty years. And there is an assumption,
in most of the chapters, that others in the
profession are questioning some of the basic
assumptions about strategy instruction. The
response is effective, I believe, because the
authors of the chapters in this book realize what I
also know to be true—that the critiques offered of
strategy instruction are often a critique not of
thoughtfully designed and executed strategy
instruction, but of some hypothetical caricature of
strategy instruction. So my fellow authors have
redoubled their efforts to lay out first principles to
guide our efforts, along with compelling examples
of what good strategy instruction should look like.
I think they have accomplished that goal. This
book is justified on these grounds alone.
In my personal view, the fundamental reason
why strategy instruction has been vulnerable to
critique is that when it gets implemented in
commercial reading programs (which is surely
the site of its most widespread implementation),
the dynamic, adaptive, and responsive character
it has in the hands of the authors of the chapters
in this volume is replaced by rigidity and
inflexibility. Even worse, if and when it becomes
the object of assessment (as is highly likely in our
current hyper-accountability context) it is likely to
become even more set in stone. Risking the label
of a troglodyte, I would remind readers that when
I wrote about comprehension strategies with
Roehler, Dole, and Duffy (1992), we cautioned
teachers that (a) good reading strategies are as
adaptable as they are intentional and (b) good
strategy instruction is as adaptable as it is
intentional. Both reading strategies and the
instruction we offer to support them cannot
survive in an environment that requires strict
adherence to accountability demands.
So I would argue (indeed I have quite recently
[Pearson in press]) that strategy instruction,
especially in the ways in which it has been put
into practice in the modern curriculum (e.g.,
basals and kits), stands in need of reform. It may
not be as effective as conventional discussions
that, in one way or another, focus on knowledge
acquisition (McKeown, Beck, and Blake 2009;
Wilkinson and Son 2011). And it may breed an
excessive reliance on abstract, content-free,
metacognitive introspection about strategy use
(Pearson and Fielding 1991).
When strategy instruction becomes too generic
and abstract, too “isolated” from the goal of
acquiring knowledge and insight, it is in danger
of becoming an end unto itself—what Pearson
and Fielding (1991) speculated might become
“introspective nightmares. “We get these
nightmares when the enactment of the strategy
becomes more complicated than the ideas that the
strategies were supposed to help students
acquire. I am not arguing that we should throw
out all forms of strategy instruction. To the
contrary, I remain committed to high-quality
strategy
instruction,
instruction
that
demonstrates the purpose and utility (what they
buy you in terms of learning goals) of strategies at
every step along the way. Put differently, I
endorse the dynamic, adaptable, thoughtful
model of strategy instruction put forward in the
chapters of this book. So I am completely on
board with Ellin Keene’s conceptualization of the
outcomes and dimensions of understanding or
Debbie Miller’s advice to move more rapidly
toward independence, Cris Tovani’s notion of a
tool kit for getting yourself unstuck, and
Samantha Bennett’s integration of comprehension
instruction with planning and assessment. These
fellow authors convey precisely the approach to
strategy instruction we must take to compensate
for the more “compliant” enactments we find in
some of the commercial attempts to promote
strategies, especially those that couple it with
standards and assessments for strategy use.
To ensure that strategy instruction gets off to a
good start, students must acquire “insider”
knowledge about why and how we use strategies,
as Ellin Keene and Cris Tovani (among others)
have always contended. And they benefit greatly
from the instant feedback demonstrating to them
that strategies are useful—that pulling out just the
right tool to help you over a hurdle at just the
right moment makes you a smarter, more
effective, and more strategic reader.
In a sense, strategies suffer from the same rap as
phonics rules. Ideally they are only a means to an
end. It’s when phonics rules or strategies become
their own goals that the system self-destructs. In
such circumstances, both teachers and students
are more likely to engage in mock compliance.
Thus the strategies get put into a special “school
talk” box that is hauled out only when the
assignment requires it and then put back on a
shelf well out of reach for everyday reading. The
only way to block mock compliance is to provide
guided apprenticeships that help students learn
how, when, and why to apply strategies so that
they can see their transparent benefit.
PAGE 13
A Final Plea
I close this coda with a plea to all readers of this
wonderful book on reading comprehension. And
the plea is simple: Don’t get too enamored with
comprehension as the sole solution to all the
problems of modern reading instruction.
Comprehension instruction can make the critical
difference in student engagement and
achievement, but only if it gets enacted in an
ecologically balanced instructional program, one
that ensures that students get a fair shot at a lot of
other reading and language skills and
understandings. Writing in 2002, Nell Duke and I
argued
that
comprehension
instruction,
especially ambitious strategy instruction (which
we fully embraced and championed), could only
be nurtured in a pedagogical surround that paid
adequate attention to phonics and word
recognition, vocabulary, rich discussions of text,
sound writing instruction, opportunities for
students to read a wide range of texts and genres
independently, high-quality assessment, and
motivation and engagement. To that list, writing
from today’s perspective, I would echo my
colleagues Stephanie Harvey, Anne goudvis,
Brad Buhrow, and gina Cervetti in keeping
knowledge acquisition high on one’s pedagogical
agenda. I know that the authors of this volume
share this view of ecological balance. I encourage
all those who read this volume to embrace such a
view. If and when you do, you’ll find that your
comprehension curriculum will be more
powerful and more fruitful than ever. Happy
teaching—and learning.
References
Duke, Nell, and P. David Pearson. 2002. “Effective Practices for Developing Reading Comprehension.” In What Research
Has to Say About Reading Instruction, 3d ed., edited by A. Farstrup and J. Samuels, 205–42. Newark, DE: International
Reading Association.
McKeown, Margaret g., Isabel L. Beck, and Ronette g. K. Blake. 2009. “Rethinking Reading Comprehension Instruction: A
Comparison of Reading Strategies and Content Approaches.” Reading Research Quarterly 44 (3): 218–53.
Pearson, P. David. In press. “An Update on Life in the Radical Middle: A Personal Apology for a Balanced View of
Reading.” In Reading Researchers in Search of Common ground, 2d ed., edited by R. Flippo. Newark, DE: International
Reading Association.
Pearson, P. David, and gina N. Cervetti. In press. “Literacy Education: Should the Focus Be on ‘Reading to Learn’ or
‘Learning to Read’?” In Curriculum and Instruction: Debating Issues in American Education, edited by C. J. Russo and
A. J. Eackle. NewYork: Sage.
Pearson P. David, and Linda g. Fielding. 1991. “Comprehension Instruction.” In Handbook of Reading Research, vol. 2,
edited by R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P.Mosenthal, and P. D. Pearson, 815–60. NewYork: Longman.
Pearson, P. David, and Margaret C. gallagher. 1983. “The Instruction of Reading Comprehension.” Contemporary
Educational Psychology 8: 317–44.
Pearson, P. David, Laura Roehler, Janice Dole, and gerald Duffy. 1992. “Developing Expertise in Reading Comprehension.”
In What Research Says to the Teacher, 2d ed., edited by S. J. Samuels and A. E. Farstrup, 145–99. Newark, DE:
International Reading Association.
Pearson, P. David. 2011. Toward the next generation of comprehension instruction: A coda. In H. Daniels (Ed.).
Comprehension going Forward, pp 243-253. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
RAND Reading Study group. 2002. Reading for Understanding: Toward an R&D Programin Reading Comprehension.
SantaMonica, CA: RAND.
Wilkinson, Ian A. g., and E. Hye Son. 2011. “A Dialogical Turn in Research on Learning and Teaching to Comprehend.” In
Handbook of Reading Research, vol. 4, edited by M. L. Kamil, P. David Pearson, Elizabeth Moje, and Peter Afflerbach.
London: Routledge.
Wood, David, Jerome S. Bruner, and gail Ross. 1976. “The Role of Tutoring in Problem Solving.” Journal of Psychology and
Psychiatry 17 (2): 89–100.
PAGE 14
Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life:
The National Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy
among Children and Young People 2011-2020
Dr. Karen Willoughby, RAI Executive Committee
In July 2011, the Department of Education and
Skills launched Literacy and Numeracy for
Learning and Life: The National Strategy to
Improve Literacy and Numeracy among
Children and Young People 2011-2020. It
represented the culmination of several months of
consultation between the DES and diverse
educational
stakeholders
following
the
publication in November 2010 of Better Literacy
and Numeracy for Children and Young People – A
Draft National Plan for Literacy and Numeracy in
Schools. Approximately 480 written submissions
had been submitted to the DES in response to the
Draft Plan. In the last edition of Reading News, RAI
presented the executive summary of its response
to the literacy element of the Draft Plan (see
www.reading.ie for full response). In this article,
some of the key areas of the Draft Plan that RAI
focused on in its response are revisited in terms of
how they are addressed in the National Strategy
Towards a Broader Conceptualisation of
Literacy
In its response, RAI (2011, p. v) recommended
“that a clearer and more comprehensive
definition and conceptualisation of literacy be
provided in a national plan for literacy”. In
addition, RAI (2011, p. 2) recommended that “the
conceptualisation of literacy in the Draft Plan be
broadened to include a much stronger focus on
new literacies”.
The definition of literacy initially provided in the
National Strategy remains rather general in nature:
“Literacy includes the capacity to read,
understand and critically appreciate various
forms of communication including spoken
language, printed text, broadcast media and
printed media” (DES, 2011, p. 8). Positively,
however, unlike the Draft Plan (DES, 2010), the
National Strategy’s objectives include reference to
reading for enjoyment, digital literacy and the
balanced development of both lower and higherorder literacy skills and strategies.
Balanced Literacy Instruction
In its response to the Draft Plan, RAI (2011, p. v)
emphasised that a national plan for literacy
should acknowledge and promote the
“internationally accepted notion of effective
balanced literacy instruction”. Moreover, RAI
(2011, p. v) cautioned that “if this accepted notion
is not explicitly acknowledged, the plan could
result in an overly-narrow focus on a limited
range of literacy skills, at the expense of a
broader-based approach”.
In comparison to the Draft Plan (DES, 2010), the
National Strategy (DES, 2011) promotes a more
balanced approach to literacy learning and
instruction. Throughout its objectives, greater
emphasis is placed on enhancing pupils’ interest
in literacy not only as a tool for learning, but also
for enjoyment. Furthermore, whereas the Draft
Plan (DES, 2010, p.20) proposed investment in the
development of a cure-all “generic skills-based
programme”, the National Strategy (2011, p.31)
makes explicit reference to the importance of
enabling teachers to become “familiar with the
various strategies, approaches, methodologies
and interventions that can be used to teach
literacy… as discrete areas and across the
curriculum”.
Curriculum
Although RAI welcomed proposals in the Draft
Plan (DES, 2010) to increase attention to and time
for literacy development, RAI expressed concerns
about the possible narrowing and diminishing
role of the wider curriculum, including the
sacrificing of some subject areas, to allow for
increased time for literacy development. In
PAGE 15
addition to other features of the Draft Plan (e.g., as
previously discussed, its limited conceptualisation of literacy and the proposal to develop a
generic skills-based literacy programme), RAI
expressed concern that the Draft Plan
communicated and promoted a reductionist view
of literacy learning. RAI cautioned that, taken
together, a number of the Draft Plan’s proposals
could promote an overly-narrow focus on a
limited range of literacy skills.
In contrast, as previously noted, the National
Strategy
(DES,
2011)
communicates
a
conceptualisation of literacy and literacy
instruction that is broader and more balanced
when compared to the Draft Plan. In addition,
with its emphasis on literacy teaching and
learning across subject areas and disciplines, it is
with greater success that the National Strategy
acknowledges that pupils “acquire literacy skills
across subject areas and that such areas allow for
the development of literacy skills in a rich
context” (RAI, 2011, p. 21). Despite the National
Strategy’s (DES, 2011, p.57) retention of the
objective to “Increase the amount of time spent on
the teaching of literacy and numeracy in primary
schools”, in this broader and more balanced
context, concerns regarding a reductionist
curricular view are somewhat allayed.
The National Strategy does not delineate the
specific amount of increased time to be devoted to
literacy instruction in schools. At the official
launch, however, Minister Ruairí Quinn
announced that a DES circular will be issued to
primary schools requiring them to increase the
time available for literacy to 90 minutes per day
from September 2011. It was not clarified by the
Minister, however, if this requirement will be
coupled with any guidance for teachers and
schools. This requirement arguably represents a
significant and somewhat unexpected change for
primary teachers. This requirement for increased
time should, therefore, go hand-in-hand with
appropriate levels of support and guidance.
Similarly, proposed changes to the curriculum at
post-primary level, which include increasing “the
time available for the development of students’
literacy and numeracy skills” (DES, 2011, p.57),
the revision of the Junior Certificate English and
Irish syllabi (DES, 2011, p.58-59) and specific
requirements regarding the development of
PAGE 16
literacy and numeracy across all subject areas
(DES, 2011, p.60), represent a move away from
traditional subject-oriented syllabi. To ensure the
effective implementation of these proposed
changes, they will also need to be accompanied
by appropriate system-wide levels of support and
guidance.
Assessment of and for Literacy
RAI welcomed the Draft Plan’s enhanced
emphasis on assessment for learning (AFL) and
formative assessment practices. Despite its
enhanced emphasis on AFL, however, the Draft
Plan’s preliminary targets were somewhat
dominated by low to high stakes summative
assessment measures. The Draft Plan called for
investment in:
• the development of classroom assessments
based on curriculum standards, to be
administered at five stages during compulsory
schooling, with assessment data shared at
whole school level and with school boards,
• the expansion of standardised testing, with
assessment data shared at school level, with
school boards and the Inspectorate, and
administered at four stages during
compulsory schooling,
• a ‘Schools Like Ours’ initiative, with schools
given access to “information about the
achievement levels of students in “matching”
schools” (DES, 2010, p. 41),
• the extension of national assessments,
• continued participation in international
assessments such as PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS.
RAI (2011) raised concerns about the Draft Plan’s
preliminary assessment targets. In particular, RAI
stressed the potential and less desirable effects of
high-stakes standardised testing. RAI cautioned
against an imbalance of assessment in favour of
standardised testing, emphasising instead the
priority of place that assessment for learning should
receive in future plans.
The National Strategy (DES, 2011) presents a more
balanced set of assessment targets, with
assessment for learning receiving more attention as
exemplified by the following quotation:
We need to combine good assessment for
learning practice with appropriate assessment of
learning (AoL) approaches… simply assessing
the progress that learners have made is not
enough (DES, 2011, p. 74).
Standardised testing remains a feature of
assessment targets, but it is acknowledged that
“Standardised tests cannot measure the progress
students have made in achieving many important
learning outcomes” (DES, 2011, p. 75).
There is no reference to a “Schools Like Ours”
initiative among the National Strategy’s targets.
Nonetheless, the National Strategy (DES, 2011,
p.79) argues for the “need to collect aggregated
data from each school to form a national picture
of how well students are acquiring literacy and
numeracy” because “It can help to inform quality
assurance of the system and the identification of
schools that may need additional supports”. It is
stressed, however, that aggregated national data
from schools “will not give us the complete
picture about the work of schools in improving
literacy achievement, nor should it be used to
compile “league tables” of schools” (DES, 2011,
p.79).
Continuous Professional Development
(CPD)
RAI welcomed the Draft Plan’s (DES, 2010)
acknowledgment that the provision of highquality CPD opportunities for ECCE, primary
and post-primary practitioners will play a pivotal
role in developing and sustaining high-quality
teaching and learning. In its response, RAI (2011,
p.24) sought “greater clarification regarding the
funding available to and the modus operandi of
future plans and actions for CPD”, as well as the
opportunity to respond to such details.
Disappointingly, in respect of CPD, the National
Strategy has evolved little insofar as it sheds
limited light on the funding to be allocated to and
the modus operandi of future CPD provision.
Designing, funding and supporting all teachers to
participate in CPD experiences that are more
effective in terms of bringing about lasting change
in teachers’ practices for literacy is an immense
challenge. Nonetheless, this challenge will have
to be met if the National Strategy is to move from
ambitious rhetoric to realised action and success.
References
Department of Education and Skills. (2010). Better
Literacy and Numeracy for Children and Young
People: A Draft National Plan to Improve Literacy
and Numeracy in Schools. Dublin: government
Publications.
Department of Education and Skills. (2011). Literacy and
Numeracy for Learning and Life: The National
Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy among
Children and Young People 2011-2020. Dublin:
government Publications.
Reading Association of Ireland. (2011). A Response by
Reading Association of Ireland to the Department of
Education And Skills Document: Better Literacy and
Numeracy for Children and Young People, A Draft
Plan to Improve Literacy and Numeracy in Schools.
Dublin: Author. Accessed at:
http://www.reading.ie/sites/default/files/documents/
RAI_Response_to_Draft_National_Plan.pdf
PAGE 17
The www.interventionsforliteracy.org.uk website
Greg Brooks, Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Sheffield
[email protected]
In the following article, Greg Brooks in correspondence with Karen Willoughby (RAI committee member), describes
how the www.interventionsforliteracy.org.uk website was established. This website has useful information for
parents and teachers of pupils with dyslexia/specific learning difficulties. It also provides information on twentyseven schemes that are available to help pupils with learning difficulties.
Background
The website described here is hosted in
collaboration with and on the site of the DyslexiaSpLD Trust. The Trust was set up in Britain in
2009, and one of its first actions was to
commission a number of literacy researchers to
devise the www.interventionsforliteracy.org.uk
website to provide parents and schools with
guidance on effective interventions for children
aged 5-14 who are struggling with literacy. My
role was to devise the content and architecture of
the section giving guidance on specific initiatives,
which you can find by going to the site and
clicking on ‘Schemes’. The section is largely based
on the 2007 report What Works for Pupils with
Literacy Difficulties? The Effectiveness of Intervention
Schemes. 3rd edition. London: DCSF, which you
can find at
http://publications.education.gov.uk/default.as
px?PageFunction=downloadoptions&PageMode
=publications&ProductId=DCSF-00688-2007&
Criteria for inclusion
In general, a scheme was chosen from the 2007
report for inclusion on the website only if it met
the following criteria:
• it must still be available
• it must not be an initial or preventive scheme
• it must have quantitative evidence of
effectiveness of improvement, based on at least
pre-test/post-test data from an appropriate
test given to a sample of at least 30 children in
the treatment group
• the data must come from somewhere in the UK
(to avoid the objection ‘How do we know that
it will work here?) – but I hope most of the
information will also be useful in the Republic
of Ireland
• it must be possible to calculate a reasonable
impact measure from the data.
PAGE 18
Impact measures
I use two forms of impact measure; they apply to
different forms of test data and are calculated
quite differently.
1) Ratio gain: This is the average gain in months
of reading or spelling age of a group of
children divided by the number of months
between the pre- and post-tests. By definition,
a ratio gain of 1.0 represents exactly standard
progress (one month’s gain per month).
Anything below 1.0 means the children are, on
average, falling further behind, while anything
above 1.0 (preferably above 1.4) represents
better than standard progress. Ratio gains can
be calculated only for tests which yield reading
or spelling ages; but they can be calculated for
one-group studies (i.e. those which lack a
control or properly equated comparison
group).
2) Effect size: This is calculated as
(average gain of the treatment group)
– (average gain of the control group)
an appropriate standard deviation
When you access the schemes section of the site,
you are asked if you already know the name of a
scheme you are interested in; if you click on Yes,
you are shown the list of 27 schemes and can
access outline details of your chosen scheme by
clicking on its name. If you click on No, you are
instead taken through a series of questions
(primary or secondary? reading, spelling or
writing?) and so on, which lead to a list of
appropriate schemes – do try this for yourself by
visiting the site.
The scores from which the average gains for the
top line of this formula are calculated can be any
form of test score, even raw scores, provided that
data from some form of control or properly equated
comparison group are available. A control group is
one to which participants have been allocated
randomly at the same time as others are allocated
randomly to the treatment group. A properly
equated comparison group is one in which the
participants have been matched with those in the
treatment group on some relevant factors (e.g.
age, gender, first language,…); data from
unmatched comparison groups (often, other
classes or schools which happen to be available)
should not be used to calculate effect sizes. The
best standard deviation (s.d.) to use for the lower
line of the formula is the pooled post-test s.d. of
the two groups; the next best s.d. for this purpose
is the post-test s.d. of the control/comparison
group. Where there is no control/comparison
group, the s.d. of the test can be used.
Reasonable impact measures: My chosen
definitions here are that a scheme must have
shown, in at least one study, a ratio gain of at least
2.0 (that is, double normal progress) or an effect
size of at least 0.5, which is the best available
equivalent to a ratio gain of 2.0.
Schemes selected for the website
Of the 48 schemes in the 2007 report, 26 met the
criteria. While working on the site I was sent data
on one new scheme, Write Away Together, which
also met the criteria and is included; it was a
particularly welcome addition since otherwise
only one scheme for the compositional aspect of
writing would have featured.
When you do, you will find that information on
each individual scheme at which you arrive is
provided under a standard set of headings: name
of scheme, age-range of children for whom it is
intended, type of children for whom it is intended
(e.g. low attainers, dyslexics), adult/child ratio
(small group, 1-to-1; this heading is omitted for
computer-based schemes), length of intervention,
brief description, effectiveness (in terms of ratio
gain or effect size), and where to get further
information (usually from the providers).
Gaps
If you explore the site in detail, you will discover
various gaps:
• there are no schemes for the compositional
aspect of writing at secondary level, and only
two at primary level
• there are fewer schemes for secondary pupils
than primary pupils overall
• there are very few schemes explicitly targeted
at children with dyslexia or specific learning
difficulties
• there are no schemes targeted at young people
aged 15 or over.
Queries and feedback
On behalf of the Dyslexia-SpLD Trust, I am happy
to answer queries and receive feedback on the
website. Please feel free to contact me about the
website by emailing
[email protected]
or
[email protected].
PAGE 19
At Last, a Newspaper for our Young
Ireland’s first children’s newspaper is finally here. News, sport, music, entertainment, and dare I
say, politics are among some of the many topics featured in this exciting new paper each month,
as well as children’s own contributions in the form of book reviews, short stories, poetry, school
profiles and news reports. From a farmer’s journal to your dream car and from scientific inquiry to
Hollywood gossip, The Primary Planet is doing its utmost to create a world for all interests.
With the attributes of a newspaper, dressed in the garb of a glossy magazine, The Primary Planet’s
appeal seems to be bang on the button! Children right across the country have taken to the first
three editions with great aplomb and April 6th 2011 looks to have heralded a new beginning in news
print and current affairs for children. With news pieces such as ‘OMG, it’s the IMF and the ECB’ it’s
clear the writers from The Primary Planet are having fun yet tackling the big issues with ease and
presenting them to the children in a language they can easily relate to.
To showcase the talent from children all across Ireland the newspaper’s website
www.theprimaryplanet.ie is providing a national platform for publishing the pupils’ work and along
with extra reading material, video clips, blogs and surveys, The Primary Planet looks very
committed to giving the senior primary school children real reasons to read and write. Created
by teachers for all the right reasons and with a teachers’ planning aide to accompany the order
each month, this creative endeavour is definitely worth supporting. You can email its creator
Stephen to subscribe or request a sample paper to be sent to your school at
[email protected]. The Primary Planet has over 170 schools already subscribed for the
2011/12 school year so, if you are like me and see the value of a real newspaper for children, the
wait is indeed finally over.
Stephen Keane is a primary school teacher in Drumshanbo, Co. Leitrim. Having taught in the senior
end for 6 years, he felt it was high time something was done about addressing current affairs and
news headlines with the children in a safe and secure forum. Who can argue with that! Printed and
designed in county Leitrim and with a team of 6 writers (four from Leitrim) The Primary Planet,
although a national initiative, is very much rooted in Leitrim and very much proud of that fact!
You can contact Stephen at [email protected] for more information about The Primary
Planet Newspaper.
PAGE 20
PHONICS FUN: Implementation challenges
for volunteers
Maura McMahon, Barnardos: Wizard of Words Project
Maura McMahon is a project leader with the Barnardos Wizards of Words (WoW) Project in Dublin. WoW is a
paired literacy improvement programme for children in first and second class in primary school, involving older
volunteers. WoW is currently hosted in eight schools in Dublin and Limerick. During the 2010-2011 academic year
approximately 100 children participated in WoW.
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and
dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and
through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird
– excerpt from The English Lesson
by Richard Krogh
Introducing phonics
During programme piloting, it became apparent
that the first and second class children in our
intergenerational reading programme needed
specific revision in phonics. The teachers we
work with all include phonics as a regular part of
their reading instruction; however, there simply
isn’t enough time in the day to ensure every child
consolidates the skills necessary to become a
fluent reader. Children progress through stages
when learning to read words: moving from seeing
words as a whole, to the alphabetic stage where
they begin using letter knowledge to “sound out”
or decode words. In the orthographic stage,
children recognise letter/sound patterns to begin
reading fluently by sight (Frith, 1985). While
most children move through these stages by third
class, there are a significant number who struggle
with gaps in their letter/sound knowledge which
has a knock on effect on their reading
achievement.
While the Primary School Curriculum for English
Language recognises the importance of using
various strategies to decode and understand text,
it does not delineate a specific scope and
sequence for teaching phonological awareness. In
fact, there is “no reference to the direct teaching of
phonics” in the curriculum, and its main focus in
this area is onset and rime (Reading Association
of Ireland, 2011, p.8). The Department of
Education and Skills (DES) defines phonological
awareness as “a range of skills such as the ability
to analyse words into their constituent speech
sounds, the ability to combine speech sounds,
and the ability to detect rhyme and alliteration”
(DES, 1999, p.70). References to phonological
awareness are peppered throughout the
curriculum but lack specificity for teachers to
organise instruction around. Perhaps it is because
of the general nature of the curriculum that
schools adopt commercially available phonics
programmes to sequence class instruction.
Common phonics programmes used in schools,
such as Jolly Phonics, Letterland, Read Write Inc.,
and Floppy’s Phonics, appear more teacherfriendly and provide usable features including
blackline masters, assessment guidelines, and
even multi-modal manipulatives.
The purpose of Barnardos Wizards of Words
(WoW) reading programme is to help children in
first and second class to improve their reading
achievement and enjoyment of reading. Children
attend WoW three times a week for thirty minute
sessions throughout the school year. The children
are withdrawn from their classrooms to work
with the same volunteer/s using a guided
reading process which focuses on key reading
areas: phonics, fluency, vocabulary building, and
comprehension (Fountas and Pinnell, 1996). One
session each week is organised strictly around
phonics, however, its holistic approach embeds
all of the key reading areas. The children are
PAGE 21
chosen for the programme by their classroom
teachers, and are identified as being “a bit behind
in reading”. These children are aware of phonics,
and familiar with using a variety of materials to
help improve their phonological awareness. In
other words, volunteers generally do not
introduce children to new concepts or activities,
but focus instead on revising gaps in phonics
knowledge and skills.
WoW volunteers, all over the age of 55 years, tend
to have little or no recollection of learning or ever
using phonics as a decoding strategy. Volunteers
entering WoW quite rightly view themselves as
accomplished readers. The prospect of asking
them to engage in what seems to be the rather
odd and embarrassing process of “sounding out”
is daunting to say the least. Rather than focusing
on the skill of isolating and combining sounds
while reading with the children, they initially
seem frozen with fear at the notion of memorising
the myriad of blends, digraphs, dipthongs (and
anything else-thongs). This article will outline
some of the challenges of implementing phonics
sessions in our volunteer reading programme,
and illustrate a few of the solutions we have put
into place as supports.
Framework for phonics
As a volunteer run programme, it was critical for
us to select materials that would be easy to use
and appropriate for children at various levels.
After a lengthy search and detailed analysis, we
adopted a levelled phonics scheme that provided
clear sequencing of letter/sound patterns and a
spiralled approach towards the consolidation of
new knowledge. In simple terms, the scheme
provided us with books that had clearly and
logically sequenced letter/sound knowledge,
enough books to provide even struggling learners
with repeated practice, and numerous explicit
teaching supports embedded within the books.
The scheme we chose provides numerous
examples of letter/sound patterns in the text for
children to learn, practice, and consolidate.
Useful teaching prompts inside the front and back
covers of each book give the volunteers an
optional support which can be referred to quickly
and easily throughout the sessions.
The book scheme (Oxford Reading Tree) also
allows us to easily and accurately match each
child’s diagnostic assessment data to a particular
PAGE 22
level to provide the volunteers with
individualised starting points. Volunteers use
observation sessions to consider whether the
assessment data gathered corresponds with the
phonic knowledge and skills demonstrated by the
child during the sessions. At times, we find
diagnostic assessment checklists do not fully
reflect a child’s phonological awareness, and
levelling adjustments may have to be made.
Assessment to fit the phonics framework
Children are initially referred to WoW by teachers
who have noted that the child is struggling and
would benefit from some extra help in reading.
generally, we would describe this group of
children as being in the “middle group” of
classroom reading achievement; they do not
qualify for additional support under the general
Allocation Model of Support in the school but
would benefit from some additional assistance.
Once the children are referred to the programme,
we use ongoing assessment to ensure the
programme targets their individual needs. A
number of standardised and criterion referenced
assessments are used to obtain baseline data
which is used for session planning. For phonics,
we use a checklist (Figure 1) which takes 10 – 15
minutes per child, and probes initial sounds and
common digraphs (sh/ch/th/wh), as well as the
ability to rhyme, blend and segment sounds.
The schools we work in use a variety of
commercial phonics programmes and materials,
many of which include levelled assessment tools.
Alternatively, there are numerous websites with
phonics assessment checklists available to
teachers.
Figure 1:Example of Letter Sounds oral segmentation assessment
checklist (Department for Education and Skills UK, 2007)
We use the assessment data gathered to make up
one page “biographies” for each child listing
his/her reading strengths and weaknesses. The
information helps us to level each child and
match him/her to the appropriate stage in our
phonics scheme. The volunteers also use this data
throughout the year to plan for reading sessions
as it provides detailed information about what
letter/sounds patterns the child needs to
consolidate.
Volunteers are asked to record letter/sounds the
child has successfully mastered during each
session, as well as his/her blending and segmenting skills. For ease of use, the phonics record
sequences the books and the corresponding
letter/sound combinations to be covered by the
volunteers. At a glance, this cumulative record
provides a detailed account of each child’s
phonological awareness as demonstrated in WoW.
Summaries of the children’s phonics records are
done each term so that teachers have a clear
understanding of their progress in the programme,
and are able to communicate this to parents as part
of their overall achievement in reading.
Formative assessments, which are designed to
monitor individual progress in phonics, are
conducted midterm throughout the year.
Volunteers are asked to reflect on their children’s
progress in phonics holistically. Providing them
with descriptors that are more specific than
curriculum outcomes has been an effective way of
monitoring individual learning. For example,
volunteers are asked to consider whether each
child they work with is able to:
3
3
3
3
3
3
flashcards corresponding to the letter/sound
focus, and various other manipulatives for
individualised follow-up activities.
An abbreviated lesson plan for each session
explicitly outlines key phonics knowledge and
skills for the three stages of the project’s guided
reading process. The outline uses the same
format regardless of the child’s phonological
awareness level, and provides prompts and direct
questions for the volunteer to use. Volunteers
report these lesson plans provide them with
reassurance about their planning, and confidence
that they are working in the best interest of the
child. Each lesson plan embeds comprehension
and vocabulary building into the phonics session,
and provides repetition at the word level through
the inclusion of flashcards with matching
letter/sound combinations.
Follow-up activities focus on words in isolation
and in context. Working with phonics within the
context
of
books
encourages
deeper
understanding of common word patterns by
providing children with authentic opportunities
to examine similarities and differences (Stahl,
1992). The follow-up activity for each phonics
lesson begins with a review of corresponding
flashcards at various levels of difficulty. Double
sided flashcards in each phonics pack facilitate
segmentation for volunteers and children alike by
providing visual prompts for phonemes.
identify words with the same initial sounds
identify words with same ending sounds
rhyme words (orally and in writing)
break up works into beats/syllables
blend single/multi-syllabic words
segment words
Figure 2: Example of Smart Kids flashcards
Phonics format for volunteers
Once we had chosen a scheme that provided an
age appropriate and clearly sequenced approach
towards phonics, we began to organise multimodal instructional materials that were directly
linked to individual books. Levelled phonics
packs were made up so that each book in the
scheme had a one page (bulleted) lesson plan,
Linking specific letter/sound activities to each
book reduces the amount of volunteer
preparation, focuses valuable session time on
phonological awareness, and ensures a consistent
approach in our sessions.
PAGE 23
Phonics fun for volunteers
Providing the volunteers with a toolkit of various
instructional resources helps to motivate children
and maximise learning. generic materials that
are available for the volunteers include common
classroom items such as individual whiteboards
with coloured markers, magnetic letters,
plasticine, picture cards, buttons, dice, and
laminated letter boxes. Levelled word lists that
correspond with age appropriate letter/sound
patterns are also available to volunteers and are
often colour-coded by level for further ease of
use.
Here are a few other examples of materials we use
and that are linked to the curriculum:
• First and Second Class children should be enabled
to … learn about the sounds associated with the
beginning of a word or syllable (DES, 1999, p.25)
Alphabet fans are excellent manipulatives for
reviewing individual letter/sounds. Volunteers
can revise past phonics lessons and/or scaffold
through direct teaching during prereading.
Children love being asked to show the initial or
ending sound on the fan that corresponds to
words chosen by the volunteers from the book
they have read. Of course, this works equally
well when the child asks the volunteer to
demonstrate the correct answer on the alphabet
fan.
Double sided alphabet cards with the letter on one
side and a visual representation of the
corresponding sound on the other side, have
proven very helpful for both volunteers and
children in our programme. Alphabet cards can be
used to reinforce individual letter/sounds, as well
as blending and segmenting. Volunteers
preselecting letter combinations in advance
provide children with opportunities to experiment
“hands on” creating and decoding common word
patterns. We specifically include nonsense words
in our preselection which often helps the children
to focus on the sounds (rather than guessing the
words). Rhyming word families are an effective
way for children to rapidly increase their sight
word vocabulary. The Primary School English
Curriculum lists 37 rimes which form the base for
over 500 words (DES, 1999; Stahl, 1992).
r w z l ig
Figure 4: Read Write Inc speed sound cards
Regardless of whether the volunteers use
magnets, pencils or plasticine, colour coding is
also utilised to make letter/sound patterns
explicit for the children. As recommended by
Clay (1993) a different colour is used to represent
the rime element of words. For example, rhyming
word families could be represented as: an, fan,
ran, can, man.
to…engage in activities designed to increase
awareness of sounds (DES, 1999, p.25)
Figure 3: Alphabet fan available from Findel Education
http://www.findelinternational.co.uk/contact.asp
to … learn to connect the beginnings of words and
syllables with their rhyming parts as an auditory
and visual exercise (DES, 1999, p.25)
PAGE 24
For segmenting sounds, Elkonin boxes provide
children with a visual representation to support
them in distinguishing the sounds they hear in a
word (Mcgee & Ukrainetz, 2009). On the
programme we start by using commercially
available phonix™ letter cubes to segment each
phoneme as illustrated below. We then encourage
supported practice by asking children to fill in the
boxes on their individual whiteboards by printing
each phoneme. For example, the word “ship” is
segmented below using a box and various
materials:
The future of phonics
sh
i
p
Figure 5: Elkonin (letter/sound) box with buttons representing
each phoneme.
Laminated letter/sound boxes are a generic
teaching tool used by all WoW volunteers. To add
a kinaesthetic element to segmenting, individual
buttons can be pushed into each grid of the box as
each phoneme is pronounced, and/or the child
can raise his/her fingers to represent each
letter/sound (Clay, 1993). By providing the child
with the appropriately sized Elkonin boxes,
volunteers are giving them the support they may
need to distinguish the number of sounds to
correctly segment the word (McCarthy, 2008).
WoW volunteers use a transactive approach while
working alongside the children, so they are
equally happy to take on the role of student. With
Elkonin boxes, this could mean the child draws
the box or provides the buttons to help the
volunteer to segment a word s/he has selected
from the book they are reading.
to…clap the rhythms of poems and rhymes (DES,
1999, p.31)
WoW volunteers often incorporate segmentation
and syllabication activities into their sessions.
Most children are taught to tap or clap out the
“beats” which is abstract in nature and can be very
difficult. We have found that by getting pupils to
extend their hands directly underneath their
chins, they are enabled to feel the beats in a word
as they say it aloud, and this is a much more
concrete way for children to break up sounds.
Once children are able to segment words into
syllables or letter/sounds, we often introduce dice
or spinners into our sessions to extend the
learning further. For example, if the spinner or die
were to show a three, then we would ask the child
to find a word in the book with that number of
syllables. Taking turns and keeping points for
each success seems to motivate the children
further, and they are happy to look for words that
challenge even us.
Implementing phonics has been challenging and
rewarding for the volunteers involved in our
The
intergenerational reading programme.
technical precision of pronouncing and isolating
letter/sound combinations was quite nerve
wracking for some of the adults involved.
Organising a range of materials around a
sequenced phonics programme has enabled
volunteers
to
facilitate
a
structured,
individualised approach for first and second class
children in our programme. For schools that do
not
currently
have
volunteer
reading
programmes in place, some of the strategies we
have highlighted could be adopted for small
groups and/or parents who are facilitating paired
reading sessions in the classrooms for a few hours
each week.
References
Clay, M. (1993). Reading Recovery: A guidebook for
teachers in training. Birkenhead, Auckland:
Heinemann.
Department for Education and Skills. (2007). Letters and
Sounds: Principles and practice of high quality
phonics. Retrieved August 15, 2011, from
https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/
eOrderingDownload/Appendices.pdf
Department of Education and Science. (1999). Primary
School English Curriculum. Dublin: Stationery
Office.
Fountas, I.C. and Pinnell, g.S., (1996). guided reading:
good first teaching for all children. Portsmouth,
N.H.: Heinemann.
Frith, U. (1985). Beneath the surface of developmental
dyslexia. In K.E. Patterson, K.C.
Marshall, & M. Coltheart (Eds.), Surface dyslexia:
Neuropsychological and cognitive studies of
phonological reading. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
McCarthy, Patricia A. (2008). Using sound boxes
systematically to develop phonemic awareness.
The Reading Teacher, 62(4), 346–349.
Mcgee, L.M. and Ukrainetz, T.A. (2009). Using
scaffolding to teach phonemic awareness in
preschool and kindergarten. The Reading Teacher,
62(7), 599–603.
Stahl, S. (1992). Saying the ‘P’ word: Nine guidelines for
exemplary phonics instruction. The Reading Teacher,
45(8), 618-625.
Reading Association of Ireland. (2011). A response to the
Department of Education and Skills document –
Better literacy and numeracy for children and young
people:
A draft plan to improve literacy and numeracy in
schools. Dublin: Author. Accessed at: http://
www.reading.ie/sites/default/files/documents/
RAI_Response_to_Draft_National_Plan.pdf
PAGE 25
35th Annual Conference
Creating Multiple Pathways to Powerful
Literacy in Challenging Times
PROGRAMME
September 29th-October 1st 2011
Thursday 29th September
6:30 - 7:25 p.m. Registration
7.30 - 8.15 p.m. Official Opening and Opening Address
– Room: Lecture Hall
Welcome and Official Opening of Conference
Aoibheann Kelly, President, Reading Association of Ireland
Dr. Anne Lodge, Principal, Church of Ireland College of
Education
Opening Address
Dermot Bolger, Poet, Novelist and Playwright
8.15 p.m. RAI Children’s Book Award
Followed by Reception
Friday 30th September
9:00 - 9:30 a.m. Registration
9:30 - 10:30 a.m. Plenary Session – Room: Lecture Hall
KEYNOTE ADDRESS 1
Professor P. David Pearson, University of California,
Berkeley
The Future of Reading Comprehension: The Impact of
Disciplinary Perspectives
10:30 - 11:00 a.m. COFFEE
11.00 - 12.30 p.m. Concurrent Session 1 (45 Min Sessions)
Concurrent Sessions 1A – Room: Lecture Hall
(45 Min Sessions)
11:00 - 11.45 a.m. Nancy D. Turner and MaryAnn Traxler,
St Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
Beyond Standards-based Teaching: Literacy Development
in Today’s Classrooms
11.45 - 12.30 p.m. Brian Murphy and Tara ConcannonGibney, University College, Cork
School-based Teacher Professional Development to
Transform the Teaching of Reading Comprehension: An
Irish Case Study
PAGE 26
Concurrent Sessions 1B – Room: Shaw
(45 Minute Sessions)
11:00 - 11.45 a.m. Twyla Miranda, Dara Williams-Rossi,
Kary A. Johnson and Nancy McKenzie,
Forth Worth, Texas, USA
Reluctant Readers in Middle School: Successful
Engagement with Text Using the Digital Reader
11.45 - 12.30 p.m. Darlene Schoenly,
Kutztown University, Douglassville, PA, USA
Turning the Disengaged into Motivated Literacy Learners
Concurrent Sessions 1C – Room: Yeats
11:00 - 11.45 a.m. Ellen Burns Hurst,
The Atlanta Speech School, Atlanta, georgia, USA
Undiagnosed Dyslexic Girls and the Shaping of Identities
in the Figured World of School
11.45 - 12.30 p.m. Claire Lavin College of New Rochelle,
NY, USA and Rosalind W. Rothman, Language and
Learning Associates, NY, USA
Preschoolers with Dyslexia: The Challenge of Early
Diagnosis and Intervention
Concurrent Sessions 1D – Room: Joyce
11.00 - 11.45 a.m. Jim Anderson, Fiona Morrison, Nicola
Friedrich and Ji Eun Kim,
University of British Columbia, Canada
Promoting Children’s Early Literacy Development and First
Language Maintenance in a Bilingual Family Literacy
Program: Some Results of a Three Year Project with
Immigrant and Refugee Families
11.45 - 12.30 p.m. Lorraine Connaughton, Scoil Mhuire
Convent Primary School, Roscommon
“It’s my own good language”: Attitudes of minority
language children in an Irish primary school to home
language maintenance.
12.30 - 1.30 p.m. LUNCH – Dining Room
1.30 - 2.50 p.m. Concurrent Sessions 2 (35 Min Sessions)
1.30 - 2.10 p.m. Therese McPhilips, St. Patrick’s College,
Dublin.
Multiple pathways to literacy support: Examining theory
and practice
2.15 - 2.50 p.m. Tish Balfe, St. Patrick’s College, Dublin
and Yvonne Mullan, National Educational
Psychologist Service, Blackrock, Co. Dublin
Improving Deaf Children’s Literacy Skills
1.30 - 2.10 p.m. Cara Mulcahy, Central Connecticut State
University, USA
Powerful Possibilities for Children’s and Young Adolescent
Literature.
2.15 - 2.50 p.m. Fiona Maine, Bath Spa University, Bath,
UK
Swallows and Amazons Forever? How children and adults
engage with a classic children’s book
1.30 - 2.10 p.m. Pádraig Ó Duibhir, St. Patrick’s College,
Dublin and John Harris, Trinity College Dublin.
Teagasc éifeachtach teanga: Sintéis ar an bhfianaise is
fearr/Effective language teaching: A best-evidence synthesis
*Bilingual Presentation
2.15 - 2.50 p.m. Sorcha DeBrún, NUI Maynooth,
Maynooth, Co. Kildare
Tús Maith Leath na hOibre? Curaclam na Gaeilge (1999)
agus Múineadh na Gaeilge i Scoileanna Béarla
*Bilingual Presentation
3.00 - 4.00 p.m. Panel Discussion – Room: Lecture Hall
Creating Multiple Pathways to Powerful Literacy: The role
of assessment in driving change
Panel Members: Professor Kathy Hall (Chair),
Professor P. David Pearson, Dr. Gerry Shiel, other
participants to be confirmed
Saturday 1st October
9:00 - 9:30 a.m. Registration
9.30 - 10:00 a.m. AGM – Room: Lecture Hall
10.00 - 11.00 a.m. Plenary Session – Room: Lecture Hall
11:00 - 11:15 a.m. COFFEE
11.15 - 12.45 p.m. CONCURRENT SESSIONS 3
11:15 - 11.45 a.m. Reading Association of Ireland
Outstanding Thesis on Literacy Award
Judging Panel:
Prof. Kathy Hall, Finian O’Shea and Donna Murray
11.15 - 11.35 a.m. Presenter 1 Karen Stanley
The use of digital tools to support the development of oral
language skills when used in a constructivist learning
environment in an Irish primary school infant classroom
11.35 - 11.55 a.m. Presenter 2 Shirley Heaney
The effects of Computerised Assisted Instruction ® on the
reading ability of four children from the IRISH Traveller
community using the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early
Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and the Wechsler Intelligence
Scale for Children (WISC-III).
11.55 - 12.15 p.m. Presenter 3 Caroline Cullen
Case study investigating reader response in an electronic
reading workshop
11:15 - 12.15 p.m. Nancy Picthall-French, Kevin Barbour,
Franklin School District, New Hampshire, USA and
Laurence A. French, Justiceworks Institute, University
of New Hampshire, USA
Engaging the Whole School to Improve Literacy in a LowIncome Community
12.15 - 12.45 p.m. Ann Anderson and Jim Anderson,
Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy, UBC, Canada
Listening to Parents’ Voices: A Retrospective Analysis of a
Family Literacy Program
11:15 - 12.15 p.m. Clodagh Conway,
glenville National School, Cork
Understanding the role of Fluency Instruction and its
benefits to the teaching of reading
12.15 - 12.45 p.m. Dr. Anne Jyrkiäinen and Kirsi-Liisa
Koskinen-Sinisalo, University of Tampere, Finland
Collaboration in Writing
12.50-1.00 p.m. Conference closes – RAI Outstanding
Thesis in Literacy Awarding Ceremony
KEYNOTE ADDRESS 2
Dr. Bernadette Dwyer, St. Patrick’s College, Dublin
Meeting the challenges of 21st century literacies: Equity
and excellence for all students
PAGE 27
To conclude, a beautiful and insightful poem by Dermot Bolger about the first
book he ever read. We look forward to Dermot’s address on the opening night of
the conference.
First Book
(For June, Deirdre & Roger)
Could infinity last longer than one afternoon to an ill eight-year-old,
Marooned in my mother’s bed, treated to a coal fire in the tiny grate?
Lace curtains cast studs of light over the rose-patterned wallpaper.
Girls are summoned into the arc of a skipping rope outside our gate.
Creeping silently, ordered to remain in bed, I’m tempted to explore.
On top of the wardrobe I find the only two books we have at home.
One is made of gold-sprayed metal, with a slot for coins and a lock:
Housewife’s Savings Book. Property of the Munster & Leinster Bank.
I shake the half-crowns inside, then take down the book made of paper.
Curious to feel grown up, I open this present from an aunt to my
sister.
Several pages are torn, childish squiggles disfigure the inside cover.
I struggle with peculiar phrases, the otherness of each character:
Nurseries and governesses, proving yourself “a chum worth having”.
In retrospect, this may be the worst children’s book ever in print,
But I find myself outside the lit window of a rich home in Suffolk,
The curtain is drawn back to let me peer, with shy bewilderment,
Into another universe, incomprehensibly alien, but I am hooked:
I might be the stammering child, the soft prey, the class dunce;
But I have stumbled into a sphere where bullies cannot threaten,
Turning each mildewed page, I start to inhabit two worlds at once.
Dermot Bolger
PAGE 28
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Transcription

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