Where to begin? So spot on! I will bore you with more details in future comments, but let me just reassure you that solving the problem is a whole lot easier than you may think, though we keep trying to reinvent the wheel--and that's part of the problem. As a reading specialist working with first and second graders with serious decoding issues, I have kept books from every reading program my district has used over the last two decades. This includes the program adopted over ten years ago that was influenced by Common Core's emphasis on informational text whereby the decodable books at the second grade level have interspersed complex informational text with more easily decoded text. These informational pieces are packed with multisyllabic words like fil-a-ments, at-mo-sphere, and con-stell-a-tion, which means my below-level second graders apply the decoding skills I teach them for attacking monosyllabic words to attacking the multisyllabic words that I know they will encounter in third grade and beyond. Believe me--we know what to do and how to do it!
Funny that I see you on this thread since this came up in our zoom conversation yesterday! It was lovely to 'see' you yesterday and I hope to have many more conversations. Making sure that we teach kids how to decode longer words was one idea that stood out to me last night about our conversation.
I disagree with those syllable breaks. They are perhaps the dictionary ones, but they are not the breaks when one is saying the word, or singing the word, and there is no way to find them a priori. For example, if I try to sing "filaments," it is "FI-la-ments"; for "constellation," it's "CON-ste-la-tion." In other words, try to break right after a vowel sound, unless it produces a barbarism that cannot be pronounced, in which case try one sound letter. For example, for "constellation," first try "co-nste...," which produces the unsayable "nste," so try "con-ste...," which works.
"I disagree with those syllable breaks. They are perhaps the dictionary ones, but they are not the breaks when one is saying the word, or singing the word, and there is no way to find them a priori."
This is an interesting point, but it doesn't apply to my second graders independently reading multisyllabic words in text. They have a book and a white board to sound out unknown words. It is entirely natural--and not the least bit unexpected--for them to write 'fil' (they know 'fill') and 'stell' (they know tell, well, fell, bell). The boy who wrote 'fil-a-ment' did an admirable job because he remembered 'ment' from the previous text that had 'monument'. 'Filament' was a previously unknown word to him (defined in the text), so he can't apply 'set for variability' (flexible pronunciations) the way he can if he had decoded 'pro-gram' (a common word) as 'prog-ram'. By applying the cue 'try a different sound' he can adjust the pronunciation to listen for a word in his lexicon.
From Richard Venezky, The American Way of Spelling, 1999: If what is first produced does not sound like something already known from listening, a child has to change one or more of the sound associations (most probably a vowel) and try again. The result, however, should make sense in the context in which it appears.
Giving students specific strategies for decoding multisyllabic words is crucial. I feel so fortunate to have been trained in Sound-Write because they put a big emphasis on this starting in grade 1. I now do the same both in my one on one tutoring and my partnerships with schools. This conversation is a crucial one for schools to consider. I would love others to check out my Sustack article that relates to this.
I lay out a way to study longer words that integrates spelling, phonics, grammar and vocabulary.
And the vicious cycle. Reading is hard for me, I always have to have extra help in reading, I hate reading, I am not going to read. And then, reading gets even harder.
Robert, is this parallel in math? I.e., kids supposed to have automaticity multiplying 12x4 and knowing 1/4 = 25% = 0.25, the rough equivalent of decoding. Many kids don't master this. Then, state math tests in Grade 6, 7 etc omit any basic computation questions, just like you report here how state ELA tests in omit decoding fluency.
Thank you for sharing this. There is (or should be) a sense of urgency to get this right. The future prospects and life trajectories for these vulnerable students are dependent on it.
This post reiterates that every strand of Scarborough’s Rope should be part of literacy instruction right from the early years and confirms Gough and Tunmer’s simple view of reading (which is anything but simplistic) as the formula:
Word Recognition x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension.
Review of vocab words by the teacher when approaching subjects such as literature, science and history is a technique I’ve used to teach higher level reading skills with older elementary and middle school students. #KnowYourAudience #SupportForStudents
Another view from the trenches. Although primarily working with struggling first and second graders, over a 4-year period I did a once-a-week job share in a third grade class, where I had to prepare students for the state exam by making sure they could read and comprehend grade-level text and synthesize a response to it. Because I now had several students who had been with me in first and second grade reading intervention, I knew exactly what these students were up against. Here's how I wrote about it in From Play-doh to Plato: All Students Need to Grapple with Grade Level Text (https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/play-doh-plato-all-students-need-grapple-grade-level-text):
"And here’s an important point: There was nothing easy about this process for any of my students. Therefore, to give my below-level readers a fighting chance, I had to pull them separately in small groups to address the fact that they still struggled with decoding multisyllabic words. So I applied the same instructional techniques I had used with these struggling readers in my second-grade reading intervention program to help them read these grade-level articles. In addition, these students were given multiple opportunities to read and reread the text so that word recognition wasn’t a barrier to accessing the content, and their developing fluency fueled their comprehension. Once this barrier was crossed, they could tackle the text in the same way my other students tackled it.
One student in particular, who had strong vocabulary knowledge but was reading two years below grade level because she struggled so much with decoding, exemplified this need for support. Once she decoded a multisyllabic word—which was never an easy task—her vocabulary knowledge paved her way toward comprehension."
Teachers used to at least provide multi syllabic word instruction by providing instruction in latin root words and greek combining forms in late elementary and middle school. But now it’s all about “comprehension skills”. How are you going to comprehend what you can’t decode? Orton gillingham based programs do still provide this kind of instruction but they are mostly provided to special education students. The new “science of reading” trend should be providing this kind of instruction but gets abandoned by school districts after third grade.
I've just finished your wonderful webinar on the "decoding threshold," which reinforces for me the importance of integrating literacy components in the interest of both efficiency and effectiveness, what Nell Duke calls "instructional simultaneity." There was much emphasis on fluency. I found that using 'partner reading' in conjunction with 'paragraph shrinking' simultaneously practiced fluency and comprehension in my third grade class. And if we dictate multisyllabic words from the text under discussion, students can do 'phonemic analysis' and apply graphemes to the phonemes BEFORE they see the word in print--changing their versions as needed.
Linnea Ehri emphasizes the importance of vocalizing vocabulary (Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition of Sight Word Reading, Spelling Memory, and Vocabulary Learning, 2014 ) in a study with fifth graders as follows:
"Vocabulary learning is facilitated when spellings accompany pronunciations and meanings of new words to activate OM. Teaching students the strategy of pronouncing novel words aloud as they read text silently activates OM and helps them build their vocabularies. Because spelling-sound connections are retained in memory, they impact the processing of phonological constituents and phonological memory for words."
And in the book Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching (2021) Gentry and Ouellette use Ehri's research to recommend the 'hear it, say it, write it, read it, use it' sequence for vocabulary instruction, especially multisyllabic words. I rely on this routine in my (nonprofit) instructional guide to reading: From Sound to Summary: Braiding the Reading Rope to Make Words Make Sense.
Thanks again for highlighting this important topic.
I wonder how students who've had a classical education in the early years fare in these tests. Likely the pool is a bit too small presently since CE is generally not used in public schools. Florida may offer us the opportunity to find out in a few years.
Where to begin? So spot on! I will bore you with more details in future comments, but let me just reassure you that solving the problem is a whole lot easier than you may think, though we keep trying to reinvent the wheel--and that's part of the problem. As a reading specialist working with first and second graders with serious decoding issues, I have kept books from every reading program my district has used over the last two decades. This includes the program adopted over ten years ago that was influenced by Common Core's emphasis on informational text whereby the decodable books at the second grade level have interspersed complex informational text with more easily decoded text. These informational pieces are packed with multisyllabic words like fil-a-ments, at-mo-sphere, and con-stell-a-tion, which means my below-level second graders apply the decoding skills I teach them for attacking monosyllabic words to attacking the multisyllabic words that I know they will encounter in third grade and beyond. Believe me--we know what to do and how to do it!
Funny that I see you on this thread since this came up in our zoom conversation yesterday! It was lovely to 'see' you yesterday and I hope to have many more conversations. Making sure that we teach kids how to decode longer words was one idea that stood out to me last night about our conversation.
I disagree with those syllable breaks. They are perhaps the dictionary ones, but they are not the breaks when one is saying the word, or singing the word, and there is no way to find them a priori. For example, if I try to sing "filaments," it is "FI-la-ments"; for "constellation," it's "CON-ste-la-tion." In other words, try to break right after a vowel sound, unless it produces a barbarism that cannot be pronounced, in which case try one sound letter. For example, for "constellation," first try "co-nste...," which produces the unsayable "nste," so try "con-ste...," which works.
"I disagree with those syllable breaks. They are perhaps the dictionary ones, but they are not the breaks when one is saying the word, or singing the word, and there is no way to find them a priori."
This is an interesting point, but it doesn't apply to my second graders independently reading multisyllabic words in text. They have a book and a white board to sound out unknown words. It is entirely natural--and not the least bit unexpected--for them to write 'fil' (they know 'fill') and 'stell' (they know tell, well, fell, bell). The boy who wrote 'fil-a-ment' did an admirable job because he remembered 'ment' from the previous text that had 'monument'. 'Filament' was a previously unknown word to him (defined in the text), so he can't apply 'set for variability' (flexible pronunciations) the way he can if he had decoded 'pro-gram' (a common word) as 'prog-ram'. By applying the cue 'try a different sound' he can adjust the pronunciation to listen for a word in his lexicon.
From Richard Venezky, The American Way of Spelling, 1999: If what is first produced does not sound like something already known from listening, a child has to change one or more of the sound associations (most probably a vowel) and try again. The result, however, should make sense in the context in which it appears.
I agree- in my experiences it’s easier to show students how to break up words by listening to how they say it .
Giving students specific strategies for decoding multisyllabic words is crucial. I feel so fortunate to have been trained in Sound-Write because they put a big emphasis on this starting in grade 1. I now do the same both in my one on one tutoring and my partnerships with schools. This conversation is a crucial one for schools to consider. I would love others to check out my Sustack article that relates to this.
I lay out a way to study longer words that integrates spelling, phonics, grammar and vocabulary.
https://leahmermelstein.substack.com/p/building-stronger-readers-and-writersone
And the vicious cycle. Reading is hard for me, I always have to have extra help in reading, I hate reading, I am not going to read. And then, reading gets even harder.
Robert, is this parallel in math? I.e., kids supposed to have automaticity multiplying 12x4 and knowing 1/4 = 25% = 0.25, the rough equivalent of decoding. Many kids don't master this. Then, state math tests in Grade 6, 7 etc omit any basic computation questions, just like you report here how state ELA tests in omit decoding fluency.
Almost certainly. Cognitive load theory is the skeleton key that unlocks everything.
Thank you for sharing this. There is (or should be) a sense of urgency to get this right. The future prospects and life trajectories for these vulnerable students are dependent on it.
This post reiterates that every strand of Scarborough’s Rope should be part of literacy instruction right from the early years and confirms Gough and Tunmer’s simple view of reading (which is anything but simplistic) as the formula:
Word Recognition x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension.
Review of vocab words by the teacher when approaching subjects such as literature, science and history is a technique I’ve used to teach higher level reading skills with older elementary and middle school students. #KnowYourAudience #SupportForStudents
This is excellent. Learned a lot! I will share this with our team for sure. Thank you!
I’d add that plateauing at this age is dire in the AI era:
https://open.substack.com/pub/garethmanning/p/high-tech-low-literacy-how-the-ai?r=m7oj5&utm_medium=ios
Another view from the trenches. Although primarily working with struggling first and second graders, over a 4-year period I did a once-a-week job share in a third grade class, where I had to prepare students for the state exam by making sure they could read and comprehend grade-level text and synthesize a response to it. Because I now had several students who had been with me in first and second grade reading intervention, I knew exactly what these students were up against. Here's how I wrote about it in From Play-doh to Plato: All Students Need to Grapple with Grade Level Text (https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/play-doh-plato-all-students-need-grapple-grade-level-text):
"And here’s an important point: There was nothing easy about this process for any of my students. Therefore, to give my below-level readers a fighting chance, I had to pull them separately in small groups to address the fact that they still struggled with decoding multisyllabic words. So I applied the same instructional techniques I had used with these struggling readers in my second-grade reading intervention program to help them read these grade-level articles. In addition, these students were given multiple opportunities to read and reread the text so that word recognition wasn’t a barrier to accessing the content, and their developing fluency fueled their comprehension. Once this barrier was crossed, they could tackle the text in the same way my other students tackled it.
One student in particular, who had strong vocabulary knowledge but was reading two years below grade level because she struggled so much with decoding, exemplified this need for support. Once she decoded a multisyllabic word—which was never an easy task—her vocabulary knowledge paved her way toward comprehension."
Teachers used to at least provide multi syllabic word instruction by providing instruction in latin root words and greek combining forms in late elementary and middle school. But now it’s all about “comprehension skills”. How are you going to comprehend what you can’t decode? Orton gillingham based programs do still provide this kind of instruction but they are mostly provided to special education students. The new “science of reading” trend should be providing this kind of instruction but gets abandoned by school districts after third grade.
I've just finished your wonderful webinar on the "decoding threshold," which reinforces for me the importance of integrating literacy components in the interest of both efficiency and effectiveness, what Nell Duke calls "instructional simultaneity." There was much emphasis on fluency. I found that using 'partner reading' in conjunction with 'paragraph shrinking' simultaneously practiced fluency and comprehension in my third grade class. And if we dictate multisyllabic words from the text under discussion, students can do 'phonemic analysis' and apply graphemes to the phonemes BEFORE they see the word in print--changing their versions as needed.
Linnea Ehri emphasizes the importance of vocalizing vocabulary (Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition of Sight Word Reading, Spelling Memory, and Vocabulary Learning, 2014 ) in a study with fifth graders as follows:
"Vocabulary learning is facilitated when spellings accompany pronunciations and meanings of new words to activate OM. Teaching students the strategy of pronouncing novel words aloud as they read text silently activates OM and helps them build their vocabularies. Because spelling-sound connections are retained in memory, they impact the processing of phonological constituents and phonological memory for words."
And in the book Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching (2021) Gentry and Ouellette use Ehri's research to recommend the 'hear it, say it, write it, read it, use it' sequence for vocabulary instruction, especially multisyllabic words. I rely on this routine in my (nonprofit) instructional guide to reading: From Sound to Summary: Braiding the Reading Rope to Make Words Make Sense.
Thanks again for highlighting this important topic.
I wonder how students who've had a classical education in the early years fare in these tests. Likely the pool is a bit too small presently since CE is generally not used in public schools. Florida may offer us the opportunity to find out in a few years.