1

• Academic literacy assumes grade-level proficiency.
• On the 2007 Reading NAEP, 33% below basic in G4; 26% below basic in G8.
• For minorities, the % below basic on the 2007
Reading NAEP are: 53% in G4 & 45% in G8 for Blacks; 50% in G4 and 42% in G8 for
Hispanics.
• NCLB requires that students at-risk for reading disability receive intervention.
2

 Explain relation of academic literacy to academic language
 Definitions of reading comprehension
 Characteristics of text difficulty
 Measuring text difficulty
 Assessing academic literacy
3

Word Meanings
Text a. because it allows literate people to discuss literary products; previously referred to as extended discourse or decontextualized language.
b. because contextual cues and shared assumptions are minimized by explicitly encoding referents for pronouns, actions, and locations
4

13 higher-
SES children
(professional)
23 middle/lower-
SES children
(working class)
6 welfare children
Age of child in months
5
Hart & Risley, 1995

Language Experience
Professional
Working-class
Welfare
Age of child in months
6
Hart & Risley, 1995

(Snow et al., 2007)
• Rare words
• Ability to listen to children and to extend their comments
• Tendency to engage children in cognitively challenging talk
• Promotes emergent literacy & vocabulary & literacy success in middle grades
7

Home & School experiences: ages 3-6 Skills developed: ages 3-6 School performance
Literacy
Print focus
Understanding literacy
Print
Kindergarten and first grade reading
Conversation
Extended discourse forms and nonfamiliar audiences
Conversational language
Decontextualized language
Instruction and
Practice in reading
Reading comprehension
In Grade 4
(Snow, 1991)
8

Table 3
50
40
30
20
10
2
% Independent
98
90
80
70
60
Reading
Minutes Per Day
65.0
21.1
14.2
9.6
6.5
4.6
3.3
1.3
0.7
0.1
0.0
Words Read Per
Year
4,358,000
1,823,000
1,146,000
622,000
432,000
282,000
200,000
106,000
21,000
8,000
0
Variation in Amount of Independent Reading

(Snow et al., 2007)
For adolescents, oral language and literacy skills need to be adequate, but also need:
• Caring adult(s) at home
• Caring adults at school who provide guidance about how to meet goals (often need smaller school)
• Minimal risk: Not many school transitions; minimal family disturbances.
10

• “the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language” (RAND, 2002, p. 11)
• “Reading is an active and complex process that involves
– Understanding written text
– Developing and interpreting meaning; and
– Using meaning as appropriate to type of text, purpose, and situation” (NAEP Framework,
2009) 11

Text structure, vocabulary, genre discourse, motivating features, print style and font
Word recognition, vocabulary, background knowledge, strategy use, inference-making abilities, motivation
TEXT READER
ACTIVITY
Environment, cultural norms
Purpose, social relations, school/classroom/peers/ families
A heuristic for thinking about reading comprehension (Sweet & Snow, 2003).
12

Understanding what has been read; the application to written text of:
(a) nonlinguistic
(conceptual) knowledge
(b) general language comprehension skills
(Rayner, Foorman, Perfetti, Pesetsky, &
Seidenberg, 2001)
13

Skilled Reading
(NRC, 1998 )
Speed and ease of reading with comprehension
Print Awareness & Letter
Knowledge
Motivation to Read
Oral Language including
Phonological Awareness
Fluency
Comprehension
Conceptual
Knowledge/vocabulary
Strategic processing of text
Word Recognition
Emergent Reading
Decoding using alphabetic principle
Decoding using other cues
Sight Recognition
14

15

Components of Reading Comprehension
(Perfetti, 1999)
Comprehension Processes
General Knowledge
Situation Model
Text Representation
Linguistic System
Phonology
Syntax
Morphology
Parser
Meaning and Form Selection
Word
Representation
Word Identification
Lexicon
Meaning
Morphology
Syntax
Orthographic
Units
Phonological
Units
Orthography
Mapping to phonology
Visual Input
16

Vocabulary Demands in 6 G1 Basals (Foorman et al., 2004)
Table 4
Representation of Oral and Written Vocabulary in Program (Types)
A B C1 C2 D E
LWV
Levels
2
4
6
8
10
12
13
16
Total
Freq. % Freq. % Freq. % Freq. % Freq. % Freq. %
889 (51.99) 897 (52.55) 891 (52.72) 1101 (48.96) 196 (64.47) 586 (55.44)
609 (35.61) 575 (33.68) 592 (35.03) 785 (34.90) 102 (33.55) 375 (35.48)
104 (6.08) 107 (6.27) 113 (6.69) 197 (8.76)
47
18
(2.75)
(1.05)
35
24
(2.05)
(1.41)
33
16
(1.95)
(.95)
64
28
(2.85)
(1.24)
2
1
1
(.66)
(.33)
(.33)
53
17
8
(5.01)
(1.61)
(.76)
25
9
9
1710
(1.46)
(.53)
(.53)
41
11
17
1707
(2.40)
(.64)
(1.00)
23
14
8
1690
(1.36)
(.83)
(.47)
45
15
14
2249
(2.00)
(.67)
(.62)
2
304
(.66) 10
6
2
1057
(.95)
(.57)
(.19)
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
SF1 53.24 (10.29) 52.64 (10.83) 53.78 (9.72) 51.91 (10.06) 61.42 (9.12) 55.38 (10.10)
Note. LWV = Living Word Vocabulary (Dale & O’Rourke, 1981).
SFI = Standard Frequency Index Zeno et al., 1995).
17

Relation of Frequency in Corpus to
Grade 1 Frequency in Zeno et al. (1995)
18

generally greatly hooks hops horned household illness jersey kingdom layer leash least lights
WORD craft due elk exhausted fifth fins flung gathering
LWV Level
6
6
6
6
12
12
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
8
8
8
8
6
6
6
13
Basal f/100 Lit. f/1,000,000
.001684892 4.952
.002813969
.002813969
.002813969
11.638
7.429
7.429
.002813969
.002813969
.002813969
.002813969
.002813969
.002813969
.002813969
.002813969
.002813969
.002813969
.001684892
.002813969
.002813969
.002813969
.001684892
.002813969
.002813969
20.800
25.257
11.390
139.904
97.314
5.200
5.200
5.200
10.648
5.695
10.648
23.029
5.448
13.371
16.343
11.886
12.133
19

Total
12
13
16
6
8
10
LWV Level
Number of Programs
1 2 3 4
Total
87 33 9 0 129
14 12 4 2 32
11 2 3 0 16
22 2 5 0 29
3 1 0 1 5
4 1 0 0 5
141 51 21 3 216
20

bronze burrow career cement chops chowder clam clippers clumsy cocoon con ad amuse creak creamy glossary perch gown phrase arch attract create crib granite grief backwards determination gust poetry sped spoiled squad poisonous squire porcupine sturdy blues blur boar boast bony breed device display doe dose driftwood elk haze holly horned illness item jumper potter pox prey prickly pueblo pulp survive swap swoop brilliant celebrated typical coral draws dune elegant fins gerbil tattered gruff thankful hermit ties heron timid vacuum vegetation gracious yourselves handles alas bog brute cam cove flahing foal fro hatching heather hooks hops mantis dialogue mats plankton ticking establish exhausted fangs fearless fig flapped fled foil conservation galley construction garlic contented genius craft gigantic kicks leapt lent listener llama frisky meter furthermore mi gallery mobile mold outdoor packet radar relate relay magnificent rhythm marine rover mercury rum sculpture seller shack shaken shrug overcome slimy sow towering turquoise twinkle walrus wee whaling returns whew whoa wraps wrestle yelp zoom huff lance polar reed reef ribbons rushes scurry si stated stirring thud flora framework minded guinea resist veterinarian promises hangs rhinoceros wag ramp senora hemisphere slanted lulu ping squid stripes taps blasted boa buster chameleon digs chi maze rio sneaking stacks swish tad taro taut twinkling amazon splitting
21

• Publishers need to provide teachers with cumulative vocabulary lists
• These need to be made available electronically to textbook adopters and should include information on:
– Frequency in text and lesson number
– Separate entry for each definition used
– Derivational forms
– Printed word frequency in other relevant corpora
22

• Instruction needs to target oral language development from pre-school through high school
• Printed word frequency and age of acquisition are useful tools for guiding selection of lexical entries to be taught
• Assessment of vocabulary for the purpose of Reading First should focus on the link between assessment and instruction
23

• Programs differ substantially in the composition of their print materials for Grade
1 students
• Length of texts, grammatical complexity, numbers of unique and total words, repetition of words, coverage of important vocabulary
• Differences exist in the decodability of types and tokens
– Generally there is greater decodability for tokens than types,
– most programs show improvements for types later in the year
24

Programs vary in the approach they take to achieve decodability and in the degree to which materials can be expected to yield accuracy in reading.
- Vary in phonic elements taught
- Vary in opportunity to practice words containing these elements
- Within 6-week blocks, 70% of words are singletons in 4 of the 6 basals
- Vary in reliance on holistically-taught words
25

• “…for dysfluent readers, the texts that are read and reread for fluency practice need to have sufficiently high percentages of words within…the word zone fluency curriculum and low percentages of rare words, especialy multisyllabic ones” ( p.
18)
• “Repetition of core words makes science text ideal for fluency practice in the primary grades” (p. 11)
Hiebert (2007)
26

High-Freq Words Phonics/Syllable Morphological
A 300 most freq accuracy rate of 40% in first grade in
Seymour et al., 2003).
B 500 most freq
Short/long vowels
Short & long & rcontrolled vowels
All monosyllabic
Simple, inflected endings
(ed, ing, s, es,’s)
C 1,000 most freq
D 1,000 most freq 2-syllable compound words with at least 1 root from 1,000 most frequent words
Prefixes: un, a
Suffixes: er, est, ly, y (doubling)
E 2,500 most freq
F 5,000 most freq
27

(Lewis Carroll, 1872)
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
And four more stanzas From Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There

You know how to pronounce the words in
Jabberwocky; some are real English words.
1. Which ones are real English words?
2. What is the distinction between those that are actual English words and those that aren’t?
3. Do the two paragraphs differ in these distinctions?
29

“It seems very pretty,” she said when she had finished it, but it’s rather hard to understand!” (You see she didn’t like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.) “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas —only I don’t exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something : that’s clear at any rate —”
30

31

Literary Text
● Fiction
● Literary Nonfiction
● Poetry
Informational Text
● Exposition
● Argumentation and Persuasive
Text
● Procedural Text and Documents
Cognitive Targets Distinguished by Text Type
Locate/Recall Integrate/Interpret Critique/Evaluate
32

Achievement Levels for Grade 4 NAEP Reading
Literary Informational Achievement
Level
Advanced G4 students at the Advanced level should be able to :

Interpret figurative language

Make complex inferences

Identify point of view

Evaluate character motivation

Describe thematic connections across literary texts.
G4 students at Advanced level should be able to:

Make complex inferences

Evaluate the coherence of a text
 Explain author’s point of view

Compare ideas across texts
Proficient G4 students at the Proficient level should be able to:

Infer character motivation

Interpret mood or tone

Explain theme

Identify similarities across texts
 Identify elements of author’s crafts
G4 students at Proficient level should be able to:
 Identify author’s implicitly stated purpose

Summarize major ideas

Find evidence in support of an argument

Distinguish between fact and opinion

Draw conclusions
Basic G4 students at the Basic level should be able to:

Locate textually explicit information, such as plot, setting, and character

Make simple inferences

Identify supporting details
 Describe character’s motivation

Describe the problem

Identify mood
G4 students at the Basic level should be able to:

Find the topic sentence or main idea

Identify supporting details
 Identify author’s explicitly stated purpose

Make simple inferences
33

text type
English Mathematics History literary informational or technical, symbolic, diagrams expository, argumentative, persuasive
Science
Informational or technical, diagrams text structure author’s craft plot, setting, characterization, point of view, verse, rhyme sequence, cause and effect, problem and solution, supporting ideas and evidence, graphical features diction, dialogue, symbolism, imagery, irony, figurative language rhetorical structure, examples, logical arguments sequence, cause and effect, problem and solution, author’s perspective supporting ideas and evidence, contrasting viewpoints, graphical features figurative language, rhetorical structure, examples, emotional appeal sequence, cause and effect, problem and solution, supporting ideas and evidence, graphical features rhetorical structure, examples, logical arguments
34

35

• W score cutpoints on NAEP and state tests communicate grade-level proficiency or benchmark performance.
• State curriculum standards need to be aligned with benchmarks/proficiency levels.
• Are states’ proficiency levels comparable to
NAEP’s?
36

% Proficient on State vs NAEP Reading 2005
State 4-state 4-NAEP DIFF 8-state 4-NAEP DIFF
ME
MO
WY
53
35
47
35
33
34
-18
- 2
-13
44
33
39
38
31
36
- 6
- 2
- 3
TX
GA
NC
79
87
84
29 -50 83
26 -61 83
29 -55 89
26
25
27
-57
-58
-62
[Porter, 2007] 37

• 26 states require students to pass an exam before they graduate high school.*
• Yet most states have testing systems that do not measure college and work readiness.**
*Source: Center on Education Policy, State High School Exit Exams: States Try Harder, But Gaps Persist, August 2005.
**Source: Achieve Survey/Research, 2006.
38

Figure reads: Alaska has a mandatory exit exam in 2005 and is withholding diplomas from students based on exam performance. Arizona is phasing in a mandatory exit exam and plans to begin withholding diplomas based on this exam in 2006. Connecticut does not have an exit exam, nor is it scheduled to implement one.
Source: Center on Education Policy, based on information collected from state departments of education, July 2005.
39

• Achieve conducted a study of graduation exams in six states to determine how high a bar the tests set for students.
• The results show that these tests tend to measure only 8th, 9th or 10th grade content, rather than the skills students needs to succeed in college and the workplace.
40

State
Florida
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Jersey
Ohio
Texas
Grade
Given Reading Writing Math
10th • •
End of course
10th •
•
•
•
•
•
First
Graduating
Class Facing
Requirement
2003
2009
2003
• 11th
10th •
•
•
• 2003
2007
11th • • • 2004
Source: Achieve, Inc., Do Graduation Tests Measure Up? A Closer Look at State High School Exit Exams, 2004.
41

FL
MD
MA
NJ
OH
TX
ACT
(11th/12th)
ACT EXPLORE
(8th/9th)
ACT PLAN
(10th)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Source: Achieve, Inc., Do Graduation Tests Measure Up? A Closer Look at State High School Exit Exams, 2004.
42

(Level 3 and above)
Grade
3
6
7
4
5
8
9
10
2001
57
53
52
52
47
43
28
37
2006
75
66
67
64
62
46
40
32
Difference
18
13
15
12
15
3
12
-5
43

th
• The St. Petersburg Times article (4/15/07) concluded correctly that the 10 th Grade
FCAT is harder than the 10 th grade NRT.
• Conclusion based on fact that Level 3
(proficient) performance is 56 th %ile nationally at Gr 7; 80 th %ile at Gr 10
• Or “Why wait until high school to implement world class standards?”
44

10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
Absolute level of reading proficiency nationally
Grade level standard on the
FCAT
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
45

5
6
7
8
3
4
Grade FCAT range FCAT average NAEP range NAEP average
100-700
100-900
200-900
200-1000
300-1100
300-1100
350
400
450
500
600
700
200-800
400-1000
9
10
300-1400
300-1700
800
900 500-1500 (12)

7
8
9
10
5
6
Grade FCAT Literary
Texts
3
4
60%
50%
50%
50%
40%
40%
30%
30%
FCAT Informational Texts
40%
50%
50%
50%
NAEP Literary
Texts
NAEP Informational Texts
50% 50%
60%
60% 45% 55%
70%
70% 30% (12) 70% (12)
47

• Cognitive Complexity (Webb’s Depth of
Knowledge)
• Content Categories for Reading
- Words & phrases in context
Main idea, plot, & author’s purpose
- Comparison; cause/effect
- Reference & Research – locate, organize, interpret, synthesize, & evaluate information
48

• Agree on target for proficiency (e.g., college readiness)
• Align elementary, middle, and high school targets
• Align curriculum standards
• Evaluate dimensionality of tests and prepare instruction accordingly
• Equate state tests with NAEP to guarantee comparability and equity
49

From Barbara Tuckman’s The Zimmerman Telegram…
The first message of the morning watch plopped out of the pneumatic tube into a wire basket with no more premonitory rattle than usual. The duty officer at the
British Navel Intelligence twisted open the cartridge and examined the German wireless intercept it contained without noting anything of unusual significance. When a glance showed him that the message was in non-navel code, he sent it in to the Political Section in the inner room and thought no more about it. The date was
January 17, 1917, past the halfway mark of a war that had already ground through thirty months of reckless carnage and no gain.
50

• Consider the text type and structure
• Consider prior knowledge
• Consider the vocabulary
• Consider the discourse features—linguistic markers for coherence, coreference, deixis
• Other factors?
51

• Text Type/Structure
– persuasive text
• anti-war sentiment, “thirty months of reckless carnage and no gain”
• indictment of war bureaucracy
– narrative structure
– historical non-fiction
• Prior Knowledge
– World War I
• text references: war, 1917, British, German, duty officer
– early 20 th century communications
• text references: telegram, pneumatic tube, wire basket, wireless intercept
– Zimmerman telegram
• text references: German wireless, non-naval code
52

53

(continued)
• Vocabulary
– academic language
• examined, significance, “ground through”
– generative words
• premonitory, carnage, intercept
– Tier 3 vocabulary (military domain)
• “morning watch,” non-naval code, German wireless, pneumatic tube
• Linguistic Markers (Coherence Relations)
– pronouns
• duty officer = he, him
– co-references
• German wireless intercept = the message
– deixis
• “in the inner room”
– chronology
• “When a glance showed him that the message was in non-navel code,…”
54

• Model strategies (activating background knowledge, questioning, searching for information, summarizing, organizing graphically, identifying story structure (e.g.,
Guthrie et al., 2004; Brown, Pressley et al., 1996)
• Keep the focus on the meaning of the text through high quality discussion.
• Model “thinking like an historian” (e.g., sourcing) to provide a purpose for reading
(Biancarosa & Snow, 2004).
55

• Teacher judgment
• Readability: Tuchman passage ranges from
8.4 on Dale-Chall to 13.3 on the Flesch-
Kincaid & Fry; 13.5 on Lexiles.
• Latent semantic analysis
• Natural language processing (e.g.,
McNamara, 2001)
• Text equating to control passage difficulty
56

• Circular use
• Capture surface features only
• Measurement error on specialized text
- Primary grade text
- Poetry
- Technical documents (e.g., train schedules; tax forms)
57

58

• What are the important knowledge and skills to assess in K-3?
• What are the important knowledge and skills to assess in 4-12?
• What kind of text should be used?
• What kind of outcome measures should be used?
59







Valid and reliable predictors of risk for reading difficulty are:
Print concepts (early K)
Letter name knowledge (early K)
Phonological awareness and letter sounds (K-1)
Rapid naming of letters (end of K to early G1)
Word recognition (G1 and beyond)
Vocabulary

• Use various formats to assess:
--multiple choice
--cloze
--maze
--question/answer
--constructed response
--retelling
--sentence verification
• Report achievement in language proficiency levels to chart ELLs progress (Francis, 2008)
61

• Instructionally useful; free to FL schools in 2009-2010
• Includes vocabulary and comprehension
• Computer administered in grades 3-12
• Screening, progress monitoring, & diagnostic assessments; data available in the Progress Monitoring & Reporting
Network (PMRN)
• Screen is empirically linked to the Florida Comprehensive
Assessment Test (FCAT) or outcome measure
• Targeted diagnostic inventories administered to students not meeting expectations are linked to Florida standards and provide information for guiding instruction
• Reading comprehension & oral reading fluency passages are equated for difficulty to allow for accurate progress monitoring
• Instructional level passages provided
62

• PK: print knowledge, phonological awareness, vocabulary, math (linked to K screening)
• K-2: phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, decoding, encoding, fluency, vocabulary, listening or reading comp.
• 3-12: adaptive complex & low level reading comp., fluency, word analysis, skill assessment
• K-12: Informal reading inventories
• Lexile scores in grades 3-12 allow matching students to text and access to online libraries
• Identifies risk of reading difficulties and reading disabilities
63

64

65

• Biancarosa, G., & Snow, C.E. (2004). Reading next —A vision for action and research in middle and high school literacy: A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York . Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent
Education.
• Brown, R., Pressley, M., Van Meter, P., & Schuder, T. (1996). A quasi-experimental validation of transactional strategies instruction with low-achieving second grade readers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88 ,
18-37.
• Foorman, B.R., Francis, D.J., Davidson, K., Harm, M., & Griffin, J. (2004). Variability in text features in six grade 1 basal reading programs. Scientific Studies in Reading, 8 (2), 167-197.
• Guthrie, J.T., Wigfield, A., Barbosa, P., Perencevich, K.C., Tabada, A., Davis, M.H., Scafiddi, N.T., & Tonks,
S. (2004). Increasing reading comprehension and engagement through Concept-Oriented Reading
Instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology , 96 (3 ) , 403-423.
• Hiebert, E.H. (2007). A fluency curriculum and the texts that support it. In P. Schwanenflugel & M. Kuhn
(Eds.), Creating a literacy curriculum: Fluency instruction. New York: Guilford Press.
• National Assessment Governing Board (in press). 2009 NAEP Reading Framework . Washington, D.C.:
Author. Retrieved March 26, 2007 from http://www.naepreading.org/ .
• National Research Council (1998). Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. Committee on the
Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children, Commission on Behavioral and Social Science and Education . In C.E. Snow, M.S. Burns, and P. Griffin (Eds.). Washington, DC: Nat’l Academy Press
• Perfetti, C.A. (1991). Representation and awareness in the acquisition of reading competence. In L. Rieben &
C. Perfetti (Eds.), Learning to read: basic research and its implications (pp. 33-44). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Porter, A. (2007). NCLB lessons learned: Implications for reauthorization. In A. Gamoran (Ed.), Will “No Child
Left Behind “ help close the poverty gap?
Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
• RAND Reading Study Group (2002). Reading for understanding: Toward a R&D program in reading comprehension.
Arlington, VA: RAND.
• Snow, E., Porche, M., Tabors, P., & Harris, S. (2007). Is literary enough?
Baltimore, MD: Brookes.
• Snowling, M.J., & Hulme, C. (2005). The science of reading: A handbook . NY: Blackwell.
• Sweet, A.P., & Snow, C.E. (2003). Rethinking reading comprehension . NY: The Guilford Press.
• Zeno, S.M., Ivens, S.H., Millard, R.T., Duvvuri, R. (1995). The educator’s word frequency guide. NY:
Touchstone Applied Science Associates, Inc.
66