Greetings, this is Andy Johnson, The Reading
Instruction Show. This is part two of my five
-part series looking at the five core elements
of the National Reading Panel Report. It says
five there instead of two because this is part
of a larger conference presentation. So phonics
instruction, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary,
comprehension, fluency, the big five, the core
five. So we're looking at phonics instruction
and word work. Phonics, well, you'll see why.
Reading is creating meeting with print. It's
not simply sounding out words. As we read, there
is 10 times more information flowing from the
cortex down to the thalamus, that little relay
system in the middle of your brain, than from
the page and the thalamus up. That means we're
using what's in our head to create meaning with
print. It's not just sounding out words and listening
to the sounds in your head as the simple view
of reading would have you believe. And there
are three interacting systems, phonological,
syntactical, and semantic systems. They are interacting
and interdependent. They all work together. Three
-queuing is not something you teach, it's just
an understanding that we use multiple sources
of information when we're recognizing words.
Word recognition is the ability to automatically
recognize a word during reading. Word identification,
which we will cover, it's in your lexicon, the
mental dictionary in your head. You don't recognize
it, so you must consciously apply some strategy.
And in a really, real comprehensive reading program,
we have activities to develop all three cueing
systems. That does not mean we ignore direct
and explicit and systematic phonics instruction.
Here are some activities. Phonics, letter sounds,
letter patterns, direct instruction, word sorts,
that sort of thing. Semantics, we use close and
maze activities, and you can still reinforce
phonics using that. And the same with sentence.
A lot of writing, a lot of sentence anagram.
Not something mysterious. And again, three -queuing
is not a strategy. We teach. It's not an approach.
It's not a method. We don't teach three -queuing
systems. We develop. And I have plenty of research
to support this. You can go to my sub stack.
My book, Making Sense of the Science of Reading,
will be coming out this summer sometime. What
3Qing is not? It's not a strategy to teach. It
doesn't exclude phonics. It doesn't encourage
children to use picture clues to figure out words.
And I laugh because some of these are so silly,
but it's so sad because this is some of the garbage
that people are talking about. It's not an approach.
It's not a method of decoding print. It doesn't
exclude direct, explicit, and systematic files.
What it is is simply understanding that the brain
uses multiple sources of information when creating
meaning with print. So it's using and developing
what the brain naturally does. It's not that
mysterious. And our brain does three things.
It looks for patterns and fills in the blank.
That's gestalt, tries to make sense of stuff,
and it makes predictions and inferences based
on partial data. Gestalt, looks for patterns,
fills in the blanks. You see that and you go,
what? You're making sense of it and you may see
a saber -toothed tiger or some sort of cat and
maybe a hippopotamus and, all right, your brain
is looking for familiar things to create meaning.
Tries to make sense. You see a chalice or you
see two faces looking at each other. You see
a young woman looking away, chin at nose eyes,
or an old woman looking down, mouth, chin, nose.
your brain creates meaning it fills in the blanks
this is three pac -man heads but really you see
a triangle blobs and you see kind of a groucho
march character blobs but you see a dog a guy
playing sax or a guy wearing a tambourine i think
it is three systems to cue the brain is as to
what the word is during the act of creating meaning.
And if you're looking at this PowerPoint, looking
at the words, you're doing it right there. When
you see the word systems, you do not sound out
s -s -t -m -s. You don't do that. You're using
multiple sources of information. And these act
together, not singular. So if you're just teaching
phonics and you're ignoring these two, you're
giving your students one -third of a word recognition
education. And again, they don't work independently.
They work together. Think about it. We don't
encounter single words floating in space. Words
are always found in the context of a sentence,
a sign, or a product of some sort. The only time
you see words in isolation is on a dibbles test,
and they don't make sense. If reading was simply
identifying random words we encountered, well
then just focusing on phonics would make lots
of sense, but it doesn't, and it doesn't. So,
phonics instruction. Everybody believes in phonics
instruction. It's not the how, it's the how much
of phonics in which there are differing views.
But everybody believes that you have to teach
letter -sound associations. Now here's the thing,
phonics instruction has been shown to be more
effective in raising scores on measures of phonics
than no phonics instruction. And the clown says,
oh, this proves it. This proves that all students
need lots of phonics instruction. And that's
the type of research that's used to support these
science of reading mandates. However, that is
wrong. It doesn't mean that all students need
heavy doses of phonics, that students will be
better readers if they get more phonics. There's
no research to support that. That phonics is
the key variable in learning to read. that anything
other than phonics should be excluded, that phonics
should be taught at all ages and levels, and
that phonics skills transfer to authentic reading
situation. And a skills -based program emphasizing
phonics is more effective than a meaning -based
program. And it does not mean that all students
need phonics instruction. and that phonics instruction
is sufficient. Here's the thing. What works for
a student in Blackwater, Arizona struggling with
word recognition doesn't necessarily work for
a fifth grade student struggling with reading,
but struggling with comprehension in Edina, Minnesota.
Just because something works for one population
for a certain purpose, does not mean that all
struggling readers need something, and that's
the mistake of these standardized programs like
Orton Gillian Ham and Wilson Reading and some
of these other boondoggles. Now, some claim that
the National Reading Panel provides irrefutable
evidence that phonics should be the center of
all reading instruction. It's irrefutable! Well,
people that say those things haven't actually
read the National Reading Panel report. This
is what it says. Systematic phonics is more effective
in helping students read single words out of
context and nonsense words, pseudo words, than
unsystematic phonics or non -phonics. Something
is always better than nothing, but this is just
reading single words and pseudo words. That's
not reading. We always encounter words in the
context of a sentence, a sign, or a product.
But this is what the National Reading Panel Report
actually said. Wait for it. Wait for it. Boom
goes the dynamite. Impact on comprehension is
limited. Contributes only weekly, if at all,
in helping poor readers. apply these skills to
read actual texts. And what good is a skill if
we can't apply it and use it to read? Insufficient
data to draw any conclusions about the effects
of phonics instruction with normally developing
readers above first grade. Sound that out very
carefully for you phonics fanatics. Normally
developing and Phonics instruction fails to exert
a statistically significant impact on poor readers
in second through sixth grade. This isn't me
saying it, it's the National Reading Panel. If
this is to be your holy book, you must read the
holy book, because that's what it says. And what
do we do with struggling readers? We give them
a whole bunch more phonics. And if phonics doesn't
work, we give them more phonics, so it cannot
work to an even greater degree. It doesn't make
sense, does it? Now the National Reading Panel,
not me, said there are, they identified six ways
of teaching phonics and they also said each is
equally effective. Equal means the same. Synthetic
phonics, that's what we normally think, putting
letters and sounds together to create words.
Analytic phonics, analyzing the words children
already know, they see. Here's the word run.
What's the last sound in run? Find the word that
has v in the middle. Analytic phonics. Embedded
phonics in the structure of what, context of
what they're reading. If you're doing guided
reading or shared reading or language experience
approach. Or if you're using treasure hunts,
they've read a book and then you create a data
retrieval chart and you say, find the short a
words you and a friend. Large unit phonics, teaching
the most common phonograms or word families or
prefix, suffix, and roots and using those to
identify words. Onset rhyme, word building, yes,
onset beginning sound. Rhyme is the word family.
Cap is cap, that's onset rhyme. Some teachers
use Scrabble letters for this so children can
manipulate in the early grades. Phonics through
spelling, dictated sentences, and we'll look
at that later. Spelling practice and. temporary
spelling, invented spelling. People get worked
up about the word invented, so temporary spelling.
Use a couple letters to hold the idea. We'll
come back and edit later, you say. We teach the
child, not the program. So we need a little of
each. Use what works. And here is a good teacher
being what Yetta Goodman calls a kid watcher.
At all levels, reading instruction should include
authentic writing. Authentic is not your cute
story starter or prompt. It's children describing
their ideas or their writing about their experiences.
Writing is multimodal. Get some working. It reinforces
letter sound patterns, and writing is the best
way to develop syntactic knowledge. That's grammar
and word order. How can you develop literacy
by ignoring half of literacy? And writing is
an essential part of literacy. And again, daily,
need not be long, two to five minutes, and then
share with a friend. Get responses. And again,
authentic writing. write their ideas and experiences.
And I love this picture. You see the little guy
there laughing as he's thinking about what he's
going to write. Love that picture. All right.
Here's a strategy. Simple strategy. Dictated
sentences for spelling and word identification.
You design one to six short sentences. Use the
sentences to reinforce a target letter sound
or a spelling pattern or a sight word and then
create sentences with meaningful connections.
I always like to have sentences about students'
lives or maybe a book that you're reading as
a class. Instead, you dictate sentences to students
one at a time. Eventually, you can do this in
pairs and small groups as well as large group.
The students write that sentence without worrying
about spelling. Just say, give it your best shot,
and you skip a line between sentences because
after each sentence, you say, all right, look
for words that don't look right. Are there any
words that don't look right? And if they're working
with a partner, they can do this with their partner.
They identify words that don't look right. Then
you show the complete sentence on a screen or
a poster and students don't erase. They simply
draw a line through the incorrect word and write
the correct spelling on top. So the students
see both the incorrect and the correct. And when
all is finished, they reread the sentences. until
fluency is achieved. For example, this is one,
the dog is a stray. I'm reinforcing the ay. Do
that. See the sentence. Line, right. Second,
third. And then afterwards, we would reread until
fluency is achieved. So here I am reinforcing
grammar and word order. reinforcing the ay phonogram
and fluency by rereading until fluency is achieved.
Word sorts, a powerful learning strategy, a form
of inductive analysis to reinforce letter patterns
and word parts. and it's part of large unit phonics.
You give them a series of words with young children.
I like to have them written on cards so they
can manipulate. And they look at the group, and
ideally this is done with two or three students,
and they organize them in groups related to vowel
sounds or letters. Sometimes I have the same
sound with different letter patterns. These are
all long A spellings. or semantic groups. And
that's where this strays into vocabulary. This
is a powerful form of learning, inductive analysis.
James Bruner described this as part of discovery
learning. Here it is with older students. Shared
reading for phonics. You start step one, shared
reading. You read the book aloud to students.
or with students. This is for primary age. Students
then read independently with a buddy, buddy reading
every other. Then students identify interesting
or important words that they found. So they're
choosing words from the context of a book. Teacher
collects their words, writes on three by five
cards, and the next day students use these cards
to create groups. This could be based on letter
sounds, patterns, or meanings. And it's nice
to have word walls. If these words are taken
from a book, the classroom becomes the book with
these word walls. And you can do writing prompts
and bingo and scrabble. For older students, We'd
do it. We'd adopt and adapt. Read a book using
shared reading or close reading. With a partner,
they would choose five to eight words, collect
them all, and then students used to create groups.
Adopt and adapt. This is powerful. Replay analysis.
Adopted from Yetta Goodman's retrospective MISCU
analysis. Students given three to six sentences
on a sheet of paper, they read the sentences
into an audio recorder, then they listen. With
a buddy, the student underlines the trouble words
or the stumble words, then they go back and they
reread until fluency is achieved. Usually, two
no more than three times is taken for this. Here's
an example, and I'm reinforcing again the AY
phonogram. Which word looks right? English's
language is not consistent. Too many aberrations.
Give them a set of words, letter patterns, and
One of the words doesn't look right. You know,
neat, neat, neat, neat, neat. These are all letter
patterns used to create the long E sound. And
these are short three to eight minutes a day.
Three to eight minutes a day. I will ride my
bike. Which word looks right? It gets them looking
at and noticing letter patterns. It's all about
the patterns. It's all about the patterns. No
single activity, but all of them. Usually when
I'm tutoring a kid, it's usually 30 minutes,
four to six minutes an activity, pause and process,
four to six to the next, four to six to the next,
a series of short activities. No single strategy
works best, learning. occurs over time. No single
strategy should be your only strategy. Here are
some ideas for semantics. That means using context
to recognize words, not identify, but recognize.
Close is a sentence with one word missing. Maze
is a sentence with either two or three words
choices. and story close our maze is using close
our maze to create a story again six to ten minutes
you can create a pre -reading maze pre -reading
activities are designed to get students ready
to read the story and this develops semantic
queuing this is the first grade book related
to bees it's called bees to honey bees to honey
reading level one bees make blank and you help
them. Sometimes you have to sound out the words
for the younger readers. Bees make honey help.
Which one fits? And then they see the correct
one. Bees live blank a beehive. What word makes
sense here? Bees blank fly. Then they see the
complete paragraph or sentences, and they reread
until fluency is achieved, this then should get
them ready to read the book independently. That's
what a pre -reading scaffold does. Analytic phonics.
Show them the sentences. Teacher might ask, find
the word with the v sound in the middle. That's
analytic phonics. Sentence mix -up for comprehension
and syntax. Cut the sentences into individual
words. Mix up each sentence and students have
to put them back in order again. Close. I had
a b - dream. The answer should be abundantly
obvious with these. We're not trying to trick
students, we're trying to develop what their
brain does naturally. And when we read, our eyes
don't go like this. Our eyes go like this. So
I say, I ask them, say blank and finish the sentence.
I had a blank dream. And see if you can figure
it out. Sometimes I say, look on both sides for
clues. I had a blank dream. I had a bad dream.
Yes. Had a bad dream. What did you say? Yes.
Now some of you phonics, penguins are freaking
out here. Here's the thing, I had a student third
grade struggling reader working with her online
and she would come to a word she didn't understand
and she would stop and sound out every single
letter and it would take her about 10 seconds
and then she would guess dinosaur and I say yes
dinosaur and she'd keep going on. So I tried
a strategy. I said, well, just say blank and
continue reading on. I said, try that once or
twice. So she would do that. And in two seconds,
she'd go back and she knew what the word was.
Ten seconds versus two seconds. This does not
mean that I do not teach phonics. I'm simply
giving another strategy. I'm developing what
the brain does best. And she said, Dr. A, that's
what she called me. Your magic, the words just
pop into my head, she said. May's same thing.
He had a blank day at school. This invites them
to look carefully at the letter patterns. It's
all about the patterns. I liked using May's mini
stories. This is about a six to eight sentence
story. The first sentence is complete, followed
by May's sentences. Come back here, blank yell,
and you can do this together or in large group.
This is one short activity. And then at the end,
you see the complete story, short story, little
paragraph, and you reread, tell, fluency is achieved.
And if you want to do, you can use this for analytic
phonics, analytic phonics. There's a long a word
in this sentence. See if you can find it. Syntax,
which has to do with grammar and word order,
and these all involve writing. These can be used
as pre or post reading activities used to reinforce
phonograms, sounds, sight words, done orally
or in writing. Group edits. You put a sentence
on the board with edits, with errors, grammar,
word order, punctuation, and in large groups
students are asked to come up one at a time and
make a correction. And here's where you have
the little mini lesson. And these sentences should
be about student's lives, what they're experiencing,
or maybe what they're reading about. You want
to make reading connections to the greatest extent
possible. Did you see them big dog outside? You
get the idea. Sentence combining. This has a
strong research base for grammar. Jill is strong.
Jill is a soccer player. Jill is a strong soccer
player. They must combine the two sentences while
retaining the initial meaning of both. And here
I'm reinforcing the short I sound or the I -L
-L phonogram. Sentence combining, sentence mix
-up, sometimes called sentence anagrams. And
this develops an important thing called metacognition.
Does it make sense? Online, I can't have them
rearrange letter cards or word cards, so I show
them a mixed up sentence and say, tell me when
you think you know what this sentence is. Ran
away the cat, and it's usually right about here,
they know. These are short, three to six minutes,
and I can reinforce a letter sound if I get all
worked up. I like students doing this in groups.
You can cut a sentence into three by five words,
keep them in an envelope for use later on, and
they rearrange the sentences. If I'm reading
Winnie the Pooh, I have a whole bunch of Winnie
the Pooh sentence mix -up things in an envelope,
and I can get them out and use them from year
to year. write the sentences in first grade and
kindergarten in front of students, cut them up,
and then mix them up and create order. Sentence
mix -up or sentence anagram. And the level of
support you give, of course, is related to the
students. Sometimes with some very low -functioning
students, I show them the complete sentence.
Sometimes I keep the complete sentence up there.
Cookie sentences. Here are three sentences. Only
one of them makes sense. See if you can find
the one that makes sense. And again, develops
metacognition. Does this make sense? That's an
important cognitive skill to have for beginning
readers. Does this make sense? Sentence alteration.
This is for older students. Give them a sentence
and see if they can say the same thing using
different words. This is a fun activity. This
can be used to reinforce vocabulary or letter
sounds. What you want to do is stop correcting
oral reading mistakes. I know there's a tendency
when a kid is reading out loud to jump in there
or to say, sound it out, and if the kid could
sound it out he wouldn't have stopped or she
wouldn't have stopped. So if you jump in there
the student becomes reliant on you and the student
doesn't develop the ability to ask what makes
sense here. So be patient, stop jumping in, stop
telling them to sound it out. Now here's the
thing. A buzzword is a word used to elicit an
emotional response instead of transmitting information.
And academic buzzwords are buzzwords used in
education, and they create the illusion of something
important. But they are buzzwords. And take a
look at these. These are common academic buzzwords.
And if you want to have some fun, go to a reading
league meeting, have this list of words, and
ask, give, give, put them on a sheet of paper
and ask every participant to write a definition
of the words and then see if their definitions
match. Evidence -based. Well, there's evidence
and it's based on it. Oftentimes these are buzzwords
just used to create the illusion of something
important. Oh, we are evidence -based. We use
direct and explicit instruction. Okay. Okay.
Systematic simply means a general plan, not a
rigid adherence or pre -described order. It is
not a specific set of skills taught in a predetermined
order and in a specific way. That would be absolutely
silly because students are not standardized products.
Instead, you document when you teach a skill
and when students have mastered a skill. Something
simple like this. Document, put the date when
you teach it, and you could have one of these
for every student, the date when they mastered
it. Here are sight words. This would be, again,
kindergarten, first grade, and phonograms. Keep
it simple. And I ask unto you, is there research
evidence to demonstrate that teaching a whole
bunch of reading subskills in a specific order
is more effective than teaching some skills in
a general order? There is not. And the onus is
not on me to disprove a negative. The onus is
on those who are making the claim that this is
research -based to demonstrate some research
to support that teaching all these subskills
in this order is more effective than a general
set of skills as needed. Direct and explicit
instruction is another one of those buzzwords.
Everybody believes in direct and explicit instruction.
Everybody agrees with this. I'm the holiest of
whole language practitioners. I believe in direct,
explicit, and systematic instruction. It is a
strategy, a pedagogical strategy that should
be in every teacher's toolbox. It's not a method.
It's not an approach. It simply consists of the
elements of effective skills instruction. This
is what direct instruction is. It has a purpose
to teach a letter and a sound the input. This
is the letter A. It makes this sound, ah. That's
the short sound. Here are some examples. C -at
-a -ple -ant -m -at. Guided practice with scaffolding.
You do a few together, a few with a partner,
gradual release of teacher responsibility, and
then a few by yourself, and I can see who's got
it. And then independent practice of what has
just been learned. And you learn nothing with
a single encounter, so you review and revisit
several times. Direct instruction is very effective
in teaching low -level skills. Everyone agrees
with that. So let's define our terms. Direct
instruction is a pedagogical strategy that includes
purpose, input, guided practice, independent
practice. These are the elements of effective
skills instruction. Explicit, clearly defining
what you're teaching and teaching it. Who doesn't
believe in this? You want implicit instruction,
implied instruction, vague instruction. Everybody
agrees that explicit instruction is important.
And systematic, simply a system in place to document
what skills are taught, when they're taught,
and when students have mastered the skill. This
does not mean you need to use a commercial program.
This is all related to phonics. A balanced approach
to literacy includes direct, systematic, and
explicit phonics instruction. Balanced literacy
is not an approach. It's not a singular approach.
It simply says there's a balance between teaching
skills and practicing them in authentic context.
And with every class and every student, there's
a continual. Some need more of this and less
of that. Some need more of that and less of that.
It varies on the students. It looks a little
different in every teacher's classroom. Teachers
aren't standardized products and neither are
their students. So what does the National Reading
Panel say? about direct instruction. Students
need to apply their skills in daily reading and
writing activities. If you focus too much on
phonics, with little time spent practicing, that
instruction is likely to be ineffective. Ooh,
they actually use the term balanced reading program.
Hmm. Systematic phonics integrated with other
reading. That's on page 2 -97. You can look it
up. They said balanced. Phonics should not become
the dominant component in a reading program,
neither in the amount of time devoted to it nor
the significance attached. And again, 2 -97.
Balanced. Balance. And word identification. different
from recognition. You see the word in print,
it's in your lexicon, but you don't recognize
it, so you must consciously apply a strategy.
Hmm, I don't recognize you. I think I will apply
this strategy. And there are four of these, and
we teach the strategies explicitly, directly,
and systematically. to develop the skill, meaning
that so we don't think about them as we're doing
that. We do it automatically. We use direct and
explicit instruction. Here's how you teach analogy.
Step one, read the sentence and say blank for
the target. Look for word parts you recognize.
Use word parts to experiment, make a guess, reread
to see if your guess makes sense. One group said,
you should change the word to experiment instead
of make a guess, because some science of reading
people freak out with the term make a guess,
not realizing that even with explicit phonics,
students experiment or make a guess. Dinosaur,
they say. They see if it makes sense. Experiment.
Morphemic analysis. Here are the steps. Say blank
for the target. Look for prefixes, suffixes,
and words you recognize. Use them to experiment.
Reread to see if your experiment makes sense.
Context clues, say blank. Look for clues on both
sides. Experiment. Reread to see if your experiment
makes sense. And phonics. Oh, look at, I'm experimenting
again. Say blank for the target. Use letter clues
to sound it out. Experiment. Reread to see if
your experiment makes sense. All right, that
has been phonics and word identification.