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Learning and Not Learning to Read: Current Issues and Trends
Learning and Not Learning to Read: Current Issues and Trends
Pages 14-34
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From page 14... ...
The shorthand version of the test illustrates, in an oversimplified manner, that there are two basic requisites in reading: knowledge of the notational system and knowledge of the language. Unless you had learned Pitman shorthand, you could not read the shorthand version of the test (Figure 1)
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From page 15... ...
y vi
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From page 16... ...
Decoding versus Meaning Emphasis I analyzed more than 20 beginning-reading programs, including the two reading series used most widely in the United States during 1962-1965 (the duration of the study supported by the Carnegie Corporation4 ) and innovative programs in print or in an experimental stage at the time (1967)
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From page 17... ...
Generally, code-emphasis programs view learning to read as a two-stage process: mastery of the alphabetic code and then reading for meaning. Codeemphasis programs vary, and in my classification I included systematic phonics programs, the so-called linguistic approaches of Bloom field and Fries that limit the early reading vocabulary to regularly spelled words, and schemes that use an initial modified alphabet -- for instance, the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA)
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From page 18... ...
However, on the basis of the evidence through the fourth grade, I hypothesized that the advantages associated with codeemphasis programs would remain longer, if the reading programs in the later grades were sufficiently difficult to challenge the early superior attainment of the children who had been in those programs. Although the clinical studies analyzed did not have the data to confirm or deny that code-emphasis programs produce fewer children with reading difficulties, I was able to conclude that their problems are probably less serious and more amenable to remedy.
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From page 19... ...
Following the classification scheme for beginning reading approaches that I devised for the Carnegie study,4 he categorized conventional basal reading programs as meaning-emphasis, and linguistic and phonics-first basal reading programs as code-emphasis. After analyzing the studies that were relevant to this issue, he concluded8 : Data from the Cooperative Research Program in First-Grade Reading Instruction tend to support Chall's conclusion that code-emphasis programs produce better over-all primary grade reading and spelling achievement than meaning-emphasis programs.
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From page 20... ...
The important point about floors and ceilings is that in taking successively more advanced reading tests as he proceeds through the grades, a pupil may, through fortuitous successful filling in of a few blanks, show increments in achievement while, in fact, he is still illiterate. The ceilings may also underestimate the real achievement of the advanced readers in each grade.3 Most standardized reading tests measure a conglomerate of skills and abilities that are often hard to separate.
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From page 21... ...
Even if we manage to improve the reading ability of all pupils in the United States, the percentage of "poor" readers will remain the same if standardized tests as we know them today are used, inasmuch as poor readers are usually defined as those who score one or more years below age or grade norms. Indeed, I have a strong impression that the tests for the primary grades published in the 1960's are more difficult than those published in the 1940's and 1950's; i.e., they require a greater mastery of the component reading skills for the same grade-level scores.
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From page 22... ...
The "retarded-reader" classification fails to include those who are exceptionally able intellectually, but who manage to score only "on grade level." Such a classification also overlooks another important distinction: a 1- or 2-year retardation from age or grade norms in the primary grades is different from and probably more serious than such a retardation in high school, where a one- or two-grade retardation may often be a function of a low rate of reading. There is a growing tendency in schools and clinics to move away from that rather global definition of "poor" or "retarded" readers and to use, instead, the concept of the "disabled reader." The disabled reader is a child who reads one or more years below the norm for his age or grade level and below his mental age.
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From page 23... ...
Ideally, teachers should use both standardized and informal reading tests to estimate level of functioning, strengths, and weaknesses in component reading and language skills, in order to give each child in the class the appropriate instruction. That is the ideal, but it is extremely difficult to realize.
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From page 24... ...
And even with a full complement of specialists from different disciplines, it is not easy to make a differential diagnosis. My own experience indicates that a psychologically or psychiatrically oriented clinic tends to find that most children referred to them because of reading disability have emotional problems and usually recommends some form of psychotherapy or counseling in addition to or in place of remedial instruction in reading.
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From page 25... ...
Another current trend is prevention of reading failure through early identification and treatment, even before the child is exposed to formal reading instruction in the first grade. Largely through the work of Katrina de Hirsch and her associates,6 some schools are beginning to test children in kindergarten and are setting up transition classes for "highrisk" children, where their specific lacks in visual-motor coordination, visual and auditory perception, language, and attentional processes are treated in a less pressured atmosphere.
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From page 26... ...
But if we are going to learn more about the phenomenon of reading disability, we will have to do the kind of clinical and controlled research that will ultimately lead to knowing what leads to what. The few follow-up studies of pupils who received remedial help (not always specified)
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From page 27... ...
You did not make a special point of the matter of learning to attend. For example, children are asked to read the Iowa Silent Reading Test silently and then turn it over and answer the questions.
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From page 28... ...
In fact, in the earlier classroom experiments that I analyzed for the Carnegie study and also in the more recent USOE studies, reading programs that incorporated writing with early reading instruction showed benefits over those that did not. Another bit of evidence of the importance of attention comes from a small study that I did in 1965 with colleagues at City College of New York (J.
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From page 29... ...
It is possible that children with difficulty in reading and writing have difficulty in maintaining their attention for any length of time, and certainly that has been the experience in the Word Blind Institute in Copenhagen, where it was found that the more severely affected the child is, the shorter the period of remedial instruction may be. They may start with five or six periods of 5 or 10 min at a time during the day.
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From page 30... ...
I did not know that the western languages had similar rates of reading disabilities. If that is true, we ought to know about it because western languages differ enormously in the degree in which they have predictable phonic structure; it seems to me that differences or similarities in the rates of reading difficulties in western languages ought to be of concern to us.
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From page 31... ...
. This group would include motivational problems, minimal organic defects, and "specific reading disability," which we use as synonymous with "specific dyslexia." This group includes developmental, or so-called congenital, dyslexia and designates children who are retarded in reading with respect to their age, intelligence, and educational opportunities, who have no evidence of central nervous system structural defects, and whose peripheral sensory apparatus is intact.
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From page 32... ...
CHALL DR. MEIER: I would like to suggest that the beginning chapter of The Disabled Reader (J.
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