WEBVTT 00:00:00.140 --> 00:00:02.899 This is The Reading Instruction Show. I'm your 00:00:02.899 --> 00:00:06.480 host, as always, Dr. Andy Johnson. Let's learn 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:11.359 something today. Topic of today's podcast is 00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:16.100 what elephants can teach us about reading instruction. 00:00:17.019 --> 00:00:21.179 Now here's a word, high school. Right now your 00:00:21.179 --> 00:00:24.420 brain is connecting with things in your memory 00:00:24.420 --> 00:00:28.059 related to high school. Even though you may not 00:00:28.059 --> 00:00:31.359 be conscious of your doing so, it's connecting 00:00:31.359 --> 00:00:35.000 to your memories of events, people, episodes, 00:00:36.159 --> 00:00:39.460 circumstances, things, and places that you've 00:00:39.460 --> 00:00:43.219 experienced. Now if you were to encounter the 00:00:43.219 --> 00:00:46.640 words high school band, a more specific set of 00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:49.439 memories and associations would begin to surface. 00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:53.509 And if you were to encounter high school sports, 00:00:53.890 --> 00:00:56.649 a different set of memories and associations 00:00:56.649 --> 00:01:01.130 would surface. However, these subset of memories 00:01:01.130 --> 00:01:04.090 would be connected to the initial high school 00:01:04.090 --> 00:01:09.670 memories in some way. The big idea here is that 00:01:09.670 --> 00:01:13.790 the things we encounter aren't just randomly 00:01:13.790 --> 00:01:17.170 thrown into long -term memory all higgly -piggly. 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:22.000 No, the things are stored with or connected with 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:26.700 related things. And when I say stored or connected, 00:01:27.180 --> 00:01:30.319 I'm referring to the neurons in your brain that 00:01:30.319 --> 00:01:33.260 form the three -dimensional dot -to -dot picture 00:01:33.260 --> 00:01:38.120 called neural networks. These connections are 00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:41.200 used to help recognize words during reading. 00:01:42.260 --> 00:01:45.439 These are the micro -predictions to which Ken 00:01:45.439 --> 00:01:48.510 Goodman was referring. when he used the term 00:01:48.510 --> 00:01:53.109 psycholinguistic guessing game. When we encounter 00:01:53.109 --> 00:01:57.189 a word in text, we've usually already made unconscious 00:01:57.189 --> 00:02:02.030 connections to the word based on what came before 00:02:02.030 --> 00:02:05.750 the title, the context of the sentence, or the 00:02:05.750 --> 00:02:11.009 context of the text. Very rarely, if ever, do 00:02:11.009 --> 00:02:14.689 we encounter isolated words floating in space. 00:02:16.050 --> 00:02:20.150 they are always found in the context of a sentence, 00:02:20.689 --> 00:02:25.949 sign, product, or situation. Well, almost always. 00:02:27.430 --> 00:02:30.389 If you were to see the word elephant written 00:02:30.389 --> 00:02:33.370 on a piece of plywood floating in the middle 00:02:33.370 --> 00:02:36.810 of a lake in Grantsburg, Wisconsin, you'd have 00:02:36.810 --> 00:02:40.030 to rely solely on letters and letter patterns 00:02:40.030 --> 00:02:43.050 stored in long -term memory to recognize the 00:02:43.050 --> 00:02:46.990 word. But how often have you encountered the 00:02:46.990 --> 00:02:50.389 name of a large land mammal floating on a piece 00:02:50.389 --> 00:02:54.930 of plywood in the middle of a lake? To recognize 00:02:54.930 --> 00:02:58.569 this word, you most likely use some letter clues 00:02:58.569 --> 00:03:02.430 to match the word stored in your long -term memory. 00:03:03.530 --> 00:03:06.210 You may have also identified the word by sounding 00:03:06.210 --> 00:03:10.909 out each letter. However, you'd have to remember 00:03:10.909 --> 00:03:15.419 that pH makes the F sound. You'd have to sound 00:03:15.419 --> 00:03:18.219 out each letter's sound and listen to the sounds 00:03:18.219 --> 00:03:21.840 as you put the parts together. You'd hear the 00:03:21.840 --> 00:03:24.719 word elephant as you sounded out each letter, 00:03:24.780 --> 00:03:28.639 and then you'd say, ah, the word is elephant. 00:03:29.439 --> 00:03:33.819 Or so they say. However, if you were to encounter 00:03:33.819 --> 00:03:37.460 the word elephant at a zoo or in the jungle, 00:03:38.139 --> 00:03:41.740 you'd be able to identify the word microseconds 00:03:41.740 --> 00:03:45.120 faster, than you would on the floating piece 00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:49.479 of plywood. And why is this? Because elephants 00:03:49.479 --> 00:03:54.259 belong in zoos and jungle. Same word, different 00:03:54.259 --> 00:03:58.219 context. But to really understand how you came 00:03:58.219 --> 00:04:00.840 to recognize the word elephant on a floating 00:04:00.840 --> 00:04:04.599 piece of plywood, we need to understand what's 00:04:04.599 --> 00:04:09.039 going on inside your head. Now the eyes tell 00:04:09.039 --> 00:04:12.590 us a little bit about your intracranial activity 00:04:12.590 --> 00:04:17.129 during reading. Now, if you were to see the word 00:04:17.129 --> 00:04:21.569 ELEPHANT written by itself in the middle of a 00:04:21.569 --> 00:04:25.889 paper, notice how your eyes move. Even though 00:04:25.889 --> 00:04:28.810 you knew what the word was, when you looked at 00:04:28.810 --> 00:04:32.449 ELEPHANT in isolation, your eyes most likely 00:04:32.449 --> 00:04:39.649 fixated on ELE, PH, and NTS. and then back to 00:04:39.649 --> 00:04:43.569 the beginning of the word and re -read it. Now 00:04:43.569 --> 00:04:46.610 let's put a little bit more information around 00:04:46.610 --> 00:04:50.050 the word. Let's put some context around the word 00:04:50.050 --> 00:04:53.769 elephant. Notice the difference in your eye movement 00:04:53.769 --> 00:04:56.930 when you see the same word in the context of 00:04:56.930 --> 00:05:00.490 a sentence. At the zoo, the elephant was next 00:05:00.490 --> 00:05:04.129 to the tiger. If you were to see this, your eye 00:05:04.129 --> 00:05:07.740 movement would be quite different. The information 00:05:07.740 --> 00:05:11.120 in your head would be directing your eyes. Your 00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:14.779 brain would say, stop wasting our time. We don't 00:05:14.779 --> 00:05:18.459 need to stop on every stinking word. We can fill 00:05:18.459 --> 00:05:22.199 in the blanks, for goodness sakes. In the sentence, 00:05:22.220 --> 00:05:25.920 you probably fixated on the words at, zoo, and 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:29.079 the L in elephant before skipping to next and 00:05:29.079 --> 00:05:33.040 tig in tigers. And then zip back and forth a 00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:37.670 few words after tiger. Your eyes never actually 00:05:37.670 --> 00:05:42.069 stopped on the words the, the, was, to, and the. 00:05:42.610 --> 00:05:45.050 In that sentence at the zoo, the elephant was 00:05:45.050 --> 00:05:49.050 next to the tiger. Eye movement studies show 00:05:49.050 --> 00:05:53.209 that most readers skip 20 to 40 % of the words 00:05:53.209 --> 00:05:59.209 on the page. Now let's look at this from a cognitive 00:05:59.209 --> 00:06:02.889 perspective. You have a file folder in your head 00:06:02.889 --> 00:06:07.769 related to elephants. not a literal file folder, 00:06:08.189 --> 00:06:11.470 rather a cognitive structure called a schema. 00:06:12.949 --> 00:06:17.009 Schema means thinking. It's a thought structure 00:06:17.009 --> 00:06:22.269 or an imaginary file folder in your head. All 00:06:22.269 --> 00:06:26.730 your elephant information is stored here. As 00:06:26.730 --> 00:06:30.370 you learn more about elephants, the imaginary 00:06:30.370 --> 00:06:35.180 file folder becomes larger. The things in your 00:06:35.180 --> 00:06:38.459 elephant file folder are also connected with 00:06:38.459 --> 00:06:42.300 things in other folders like your jungle, mammal, 00:06:42.560 --> 00:06:46.600 and zoo folders. And things that are closely 00:06:46.600 --> 00:06:50.439 associated with elephants are stored closer in 00:06:50.439 --> 00:06:55.180 your file folder with lots of connections. These 00:06:55.180 --> 00:06:59.420 come to mind the quickest when activated by an 00:06:59.420 --> 00:07:04.439 encounter with similar words or things. Things 00:07:04.439 --> 00:07:07.560 that are vaguely associated with elephants are 00:07:07.560 --> 00:07:10.959 stored further away, with very narrow neural 00:07:10.959 --> 00:07:16.060 pathways leading to them. These things may surface 00:07:16.060 --> 00:07:19.740 in time, but they would take a little bit more 00:07:19.740 --> 00:07:25.060 prompting to become activated. And activation 00:07:25.060 --> 00:07:28.860 here means that your brain becomes aware of them, 00:07:28.980 --> 00:07:33.370 often in the periphery of consciousness. you're 00:07:33.370 --> 00:07:36.750 not consciously aware of them. This means that 00:07:36.750 --> 00:07:39.810 once you realize that you're reading about elephants, 00:07:40.689 --> 00:07:44.449 a whole bunch of elephant things get activated. 00:07:45.850 --> 00:07:48.569 The result is that you need far fewer letter 00:07:48.569 --> 00:07:52.769 clues to recognize words. Yes, you also have 00:07:52.769 --> 00:07:56.170 a file folder for letter pattern things, along 00:07:56.170 --> 00:08:00.199 with grammar and word order things. tick information, 00:08:00.699 --> 00:08:04.199 but when you're recognizing words versus identifying 00:08:04.199 --> 00:08:08.199 words, elephant things are more important than 00:08:08.199 --> 00:08:13.540 the letter pattern and grammar things. Now, analogies 00:08:13.540 --> 00:08:20.399 and metaphors, activating elephants. Analogies 00:08:20.399 --> 00:08:23.500 and metaphors are useful in helping us connect 00:08:23.500 --> 00:08:28.620 a new thing with a known thing. We're able to 00:08:28.620 --> 00:08:32.080 picture the known thing and then shoehorn the 00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:36.120 new thing right inside of it. And suddenly the 00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:40.059 new thing makes a bit of sense. And did you notice 00:08:40.059 --> 00:08:45.220 how I just used the shoehorn metaphor? Now picture 00:08:45.220 --> 00:08:49.100 a harp in a large indoor football stadium like 00:08:49.100 --> 00:08:51.379 the stadium where the Minnesota Vikings play. 00:08:52.940 --> 00:08:56.750 Think. of long -term memory is a multi -dimensional 00:08:56.750 --> 00:09:00.950 harp that fills up the entire Vikings football 00:09:00.950 --> 00:09:05.269 stadium. Harp strings here go off in all sorts 00:09:05.269 --> 00:09:09.269 of directions. Each harp string is connected 00:09:09.269 --> 00:09:13.929 to related harp strings. And when you pluck one 00:09:13.929 --> 00:09:18.309 string, the vibration moves outward to the connected 00:09:18.309 --> 00:09:22.269 harp strings. Now, connected strings that are 00:09:22.269 --> 00:09:27.330 closer to the initial pluck vibrate sooner and 00:09:27.330 --> 00:09:30.230 with stronger vibration than strings that are 00:09:30.230 --> 00:09:35.009 further away. For example, if you plucked a string 00:09:35.009 --> 00:09:38.990 on the 50 -yard line that was connected to a 00:09:38.990 --> 00:09:43.409 string in the upper balcony, that vibration may 00:09:43.409 --> 00:09:47.350 eventually get there, but not as quickly and 00:09:47.350 --> 00:09:51.320 with a much weaker vibration. then a connected 00:09:51.320 --> 00:09:55.879 string on the 49 -yard line. And the strings 00:09:55.879 --> 00:10:00.980 not connected wouldn't vibrate at all. When reading, 00:10:01.340 --> 00:10:04.639 each encountered word is a small pluck on the 00:10:04.639 --> 00:10:08.519 strings. This activates other related strings, 00:10:09.039 --> 00:10:11.440 meaning that strings connected to the next word 00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:15.200 on the page have often been activated before 00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:19.639 you get there. This is part of the top -down 00:10:19.639 --> 00:10:22.820 flow of information that occurs during reading 00:10:22.820 --> 00:10:27.059 that was described in an earlier chapter. Thus, 00:10:27.559 --> 00:10:30.820 you've got all these good vibrations going on 00:10:30.820 --> 00:10:36.120 before you encounter a word. This is the social 00:10:36.120 --> 00:10:39.200 psycholinguistic guessing game described by Ken 00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:43.919 Goodman years ago. This does not prevent you 00:10:43.919 --> 00:10:46.759 from using letter clues or letter patterns stored 00:10:46.759 --> 00:10:51.559 in long -term memory. It just minimizes the need 00:10:51.559 --> 00:10:56.240 to do so. Now replace the harp strings with a 00:10:56.240 --> 00:10:59.720 neural network and electrochemical signals zipping 00:10:59.720 --> 00:11:04.279 back and forth. And there you have it, the social 00:11:04.279 --> 00:11:08.559 psycholinguistic guessing game. Word possibilities 00:11:08.559 --> 00:11:12.950 are activated before the word is encountered. 00:11:14.210 --> 00:11:17.450 Semantic, syntactic, and phonological information 00:11:17.450 --> 00:11:21.649 are all used together to recognize words in the 00:11:21.649 --> 00:11:26.970 larger context of creating meaning. Now this 00:11:26.970 --> 00:11:31.590 idea of things activating related things is known 00:11:31.590 --> 00:11:37.370 as spreading activation. This theory posits that 00:11:37.370 --> 00:11:40.529 semantic memory, memory of facts and information, 00:11:40.970 --> 00:11:45.409 is organized by semantic distance or relatedness 00:11:45.409 --> 00:11:50.590 of the things. This in turn facilitates more 00:11:50.590 --> 00:11:54.029 efficient and effective processing of new information 00:11:54.029 --> 00:11:58.090 and faster responses for things like recognizing 00:11:58.090 --> 00:12:01.330 words or responding to saber -toothed tigers. 00:12:02.919 --> 00:12:06.620 and McClellan and Rummelhart's parallel processing 00:12:06.620 --> 00:12:11.860 model demonstrates that a person can take in 00:12:11.860 --> 00:12:15.620 and understand lots of different stimuli at the 00:12:15.620 --> 00:12:21.299 same time. For reading, this means you're using 00:12:21.299 --> 00:12:25.259 a lot of different information to create meaning 00:12:25.259 --> 00:12:31.330 with print, not just the code. Now, picture an 00:12:31.330 --> 00:12:34.090 elephant playing a harp in the middle of a football 00:12:34.090 --> 00:12:37.470 stadium. Just messing with you. Don't do that. 00:12:37.990 --> 00:12:40.509 But you would notice, if you had that sentence 00:12:40.509 --> 00:12:43.029 in front of you, the difference in your eye movement 00:12:43.029 --> 00:12:47.809 as you read that seemingly meaningless, nonsensical 00:12:47.809 --> 00:12:52.149 sentence. Your eyes most likely would have zipped 00:12:52.149 --> 00:12:56.059 over it at least two times. and all your strings 00:12:56.059 --> 00:12:59.379 related to harps, elephants, football stadiums, 00:12:59.480 --> 00:13:03.399 and reading would have been vibrating, but the 00:13:03.399 --> 00:13:07.879 song was out of tune. It wasn't making sense. 00:13:08.639 --> 00:13:11.679 And your brain knew this, and in a desperate 00:13:11.679 --> 00:13:15.539 attempt to tune it up or create meaning, it ran 00:13:15.539 --> 00:13:21.539 over that sentence a couple times. So, based 00:13:21.539 --> 00:13:25.929 on the elephant harp theory, I present three 00:13:25.929 --> 00:13:30.029 recommendations for emergent and struggling readers. 00:13:30.690 --> 00:13:33.669 Number one, students need to read about familiar 00:13:33.669 --> 00:13:38.450 things. Learning to read is facilitated by reading 00:13:38.450 --> 00:13:42.870 about known things. Early readers and struggling 00:13:42.870 --> 00:13:45.809 older readers should be provided with books, 00:13:46.350 --> 00:13:49.909 characters, events, and language that are similar 00:13:49.909 --> 00:13:56.039 to their own. This enables them to focus on recognizing 00:13:56.039 --> 00:13:59.200 words. Also, they've got lots of connections 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:03.039 to their vibrating harp strings. This provides 00:14:03.039 --> 00:14:07.159 a scaffold as their human brains try to make 00:14:07.159 --> 00:14:11.500 sense of the squiggly shapes on the page. Second, 00:14:12.039 --> 00:14:14.919 language experience activity should be used with 00:14:14.919 --> 00:14:19.610 emerging and struggling readers. Being able to 00:14:19.610 --> 00:14:22.649 read their own words that are used to describe 00:14:22.649 --> 00:14:27.470 familiar things or experiences facilitates word 00:14:27.470 --> 00:14:31.289 recognition. And more space and short -term memory 00:14:31.289 --> 00:14:34.529 can be devoted to word recognition, to creating 00:14:34.529 --> 00:14:38.049 meaning with print, when they're not also struggling 00:14:38.049 --> 00:14:42.450 with meaning. And third, the use of decodable 00:14:42.450 --> 00:14:47.139 text should be limited. Sentences like Nan and 00:14:47.139 --> 00:14:54.360 Pap sat in a pan just don't make sense. We ask 00:14:54.360 --> 00:14:56.899 emerging and struggling readers to make sense 00:14:56.899 --> 00:15:00.919 out of nonsense with these decodable texts. And 00:15:00.919 --> 00:15:05.679 notice how I said limited, not eliminated. Decodable 00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:10.039 texts can be a valuable tool, but the value of 00:15:10.039 --> 00:15:14.529 any tool is dependent on how it's used. used 00:15:14.529 --> 00:15:18.710 in the context of lots of authentic reading material, 00:15:19.629 --> 00:15:22.590 decodable text can sometimes be effective for 00:15:22.590 --> 00:15:25.450 some students to reinforce letter patterns and 00:15:25.450 --> 00:15:30.850 sounds in some situations. But the really big 00:15:30.850 --> 00:15:35.210 point of this podcast is this. It's the semantic 00:15:35.210 --> 00:15:37.830 connections that are most important, not the 00:15:37.830 --> 00:15:42.090 orthographic, graphemic, or phonemic connections. 00:15:42.639 --> 00:15:46.759 When you encounter the word elephant, you don't 00:15:46.759 --> 00:15:51.379 connect it with short E words. You don't activate 00:15:51.379 --> 00:15:55.700 words containing the A -N -T, ant, letter pattern, 00:15:56.019 --> 00:16:01.039 or words with silent P -H blends. You connect 00:16:01.039 --> 00:16:06.419 it with elephant things, regardless of the letter 00:16:06.419 --> 00:16:11.360 sounds or patterns. Just hearing the word elephant 00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:14.480 brought some of the elephant things in your elephant 00:16:14.480 --> 00:16:19.080 schema to consciousness. Meaning that if elephant 00:16:19.080 --> 00:16:23.240 were followed by the words sock, trunk, squallow, 00:16:24.120 --> 00:16:27.659 you'd be able to identify the word trunk microseconds 00:16:27.659 --> 00:16:32.360 faster than the other non -related words. This 00:16:32.360 --> 00:16:36.500 is called priming. Priming looks at how something 00:16:36.500 --> 00:16:41.419 that comes before primes or impacts what follows. 00:16:42.360 --> 00:16:45.480 The very word elephant primed the pump so that 00:16:45.480 --> 00:16:49.059 I would be able to identify elephant words quicker 00:16:49.059 --> 00:16:52.399 and more efficiently. And I'll be looking at 00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:55.360 some of these research studies in another podcast. 00:16:56.519 --> 00:17:00.559 Now I know what some of you are thinking at this 00:17:00.559 --> 00:17:05.579 point. You're thinking, how can we activate elephants 00:17:05.579 --> 00:17:08.759 if we don't know what we're reading, if we don't 00:17:08.759 --> 00:17:11.940 know we're reading about elephants? It just makes 00:17:11.940 --> 00:17:15.599 sense that decoding must precede meaning. You 00:17:15.599 --> 00:17:18.680 have to decode before you can activate anything. 00:17:20.400 --> 00:17:24.160 Now, what makes good science and what makes good 00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:27.990 sense are often two different things. If you 00:17:27.990 --> 00:17:31.289 relied on a single word recognition system, the 00:17:31.289 --> 00:17:34.589 phonological system, to read, you would indeed 00:17:34.589 --> 00:17:40.869 be correct. But you don't, and it isn't. When 00:17:40.869 --> 00:17:44.029 you start reading, there's usually a title or 00:17:44.029 --> 00:17:46.369 a picture related to what you'll be reading. 00:17:47.230 --> 00:17:50.369 People generally have some sense of what they'll 00:17:50.369 --> 00:17:54.720 be reading. And even if you don't, the very first 00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:57.640 time you encounter the word elephant, you may 00:17:57.640 --> 00:18:01.259 indeed need to use more letter clues than semantic 00:18:01.259 --> 00:18:05.819 clues, yes, but you already have a sense of syntax, 00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:08.480 sentence structure, and the nature of the text 00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:13.700 being read. This information is all used to some 00:18:13.700 --> 00:18:18.630 degree before you use letter clues. All this 00:18:18.630 --> 00:18:22.230 information is used along with lettered clues 00:18:22.230 --> 00:18:28.950 to recognize words. And once your elephant schema 00:18:28.950 --> 00:18:35.390 kicks in, you're off to elephant land. Again, 00:18:35.630 --> 00:18:39.329 this does not mean that you ignore lettered clues. 00:18:41.259 --> 00:18:44.700 It means that, and this does not mean that phonics 00:18:44.700 --> 00:18:48.819 is unimportant or that direct systematic instruction 00:18:48.819 --> 00:18:53.240 should not be used. It does mean, however, that 00:18:53.240 --> 00:18:57.099 if we can develop what the brain does naturally, 00:18:57.960 --> 00:19:01.119 students will learn to read faster and become 00:19:01.119 --> 00:19:04.740 better readers. This is The Reading Instruction 00:19:04.740 --> 00:19:07.160 Show. I've been your host, Dr. Andy Johnson.