A Primer on Reading:
What ARE the
“Big Five in Reading”?
5
Dr. Robert B. Cooter, Jr.
Bellarmine University
The National Reading Panel’s
“Big Five”
• Phonemic
Awareness
• Phonics
• Vocabulary
• Reading
Comprehension
• Reading Fluency
#1 Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness (PA) refers to the understanding that
spoken words are made up of individual speech sounds
(Pikulski & Templeton, 1997; Burns, Griffin, & Snow, 1999).
• For example, "no" and "she" each have two speech sounds, or
phonemes. Phonemes are not the same as letters, by the way;
letters represent phonemes in the spelling of words.
• Before children learn to read print, they need to become aware
of how the sounds in words work and, as mentioned, that
spoken words are made up of phonemes (National Reading
Panel, 2000; Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2001).
Research on PA
Phonemic awareness is an important factor in
beginning reading success, and in learning
to spell (Lyon, 1997; Snow, Burns, & Griffin,
1998; National Reading Panel, 2000).
About 20% of students lack phonemic
awareness (Adams, 1990), a problem that
can be easily resolved through classroom
instruction.
Assessing Phonemic Awareness: Examples
Phoneme isolation- Recognizing individual sounds in words.
Teacher: What is the first sound in boy
Student: The first sound in boy is /b/.
Phoneme identity- Hearing the same sound in different words.
Teacher: What sound is the same in boy, bake, and butter ?
Student: The first sound /b/ is the same.
Phoneme categorization- Recognizing a word having a different sound
in a group of three or four words.
Teacher: Which word doesn't belong? run, rake, toy
Student: Bed doesn't belong because it begins with /t/.
#2 Phonics
Analogy Phonics—Teaching students unfamiliar words by analogy to known words
(e.g., such as reading brick by recognizing that -ick is contained in the known word kick,
or reading stump by analogy to jump).
Analytic Phonics—Teaching students to analyze letter-sound relations in previously
learned words to avoid pronouncing sounds in isolation.
Embedded Phonics—Teaching students phonics skills by embedding phonics
instruction in text reading, a more implicit approach that relies to some extent on
incidental learning.
Phonics through Spelling—Teaching students to segment words into phonemes
and to select letters for those phonemes (i.e., teaching students to spell words
phonemically).
Synthetic Phonics—Teaching students explicitly to convert letters into sounds
(phonemes) and then blend the sounds to form recognizable words.
#3 Vocabulary
Recognizing and understanding written vocabulary is
essential to reading. Indeed, unless children are able
to understand word meanings as they read, the
process is reduced to mindless decoding (Fountas &
Pinnell, 1996; Reutzel & Cooter, 2005).
Children who come to school with thousands of
“words in their head”—words they can hear,
understand, and use in their daily lives—are already
on the path to learning success (Allington &
Cunningham, 1996).
Similarly… children who have small listening,
speaking, and reading vocabularies—from
what could be termed “language deprived
backgrounds”—must receive immediate
attention if they are to have any real chance at
reading success.
-- National Research Council, 1998; Johnson, 2001; Reutzel & Cooter, 2005
There Are Four Types of Vocabulary
• Listening vocabulary, the largest, is made up of
words we can hear and understand. All other
vocabularies are subsets of our listening vocabulary.
• The second largest vocabulary, speaking
vocabulary, is comprised of words we can use when
we speak.
• Next is our reading vocabulary, words we
can identify and understand when we read.
• The smallest is our writing vocabulary,
words we use in writing.
Levels of Word Knowledge
Level
Definition
Unknown
The word is completely unfamiliar and its meaning is unknown.
Acquainted
The word is somewhat familiar; the student has some idea of its basic
meaning.
Established
The word is very familiar; the student can immediately recognize its
meaning and use the word correctly.
#4 Reading Comprehension
Comprehension is the very
heart and soul of reading…
Three Avenues of Promise…
•Questioning (Higher Levels)
•Graphic Organizers (G.O.)
•Retelling (3 levels)- oral, G.O.,
written summaries
#5 Reading Fluency
Decoding
Comprehension
Attention
Fluency Skills
Automaticity involves translating letters-to-sounds-to-words
effortlessly and accurately.
Quality refers to the reader’s ability to use proper intonation
or expression (i.e., "prosodic features"-- pitch, juncture, and
stress) in one's voice.
Rate involves attaining appropriate reading speed according
to the reader’s purpose or the type of passage.
Oral Reading Fluency End-of-Year Goals for Grade Levels 1-5:
Words per Minute (wpm)-- Instructional Level (Adequate) Text
Grade
Level
Minimum Words per
Minute* (wpm)
Fluent Oral Reading
(wpm)
Grade 1
60 wpm
80 wpm
Grade 2
70 wpm
100 wpm
Grade 3
80 wpm
126 wpm**
Grade 4
90 wpm
162 wpm**
Grade 5
100 wpm
180 wpm
*Adapted from the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (2002-2002). Source: Texas Education
Agency website-- http://www.tea.state.tx.us/.
** Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Listening to Children Read Aloud, 44.
Washington, DC: 1995.
123
I CAN READ
Balanced Literacy K-6
C Marrin
READING
•
•
•
•
•
Mini lessons
Phonemic awareness
Alphabetic Principle
Elkonin boxes
Word Study
• Teacher read alouds
• Language to Literacy Charts
• Shared Reading/warm-ups
•Concepts about print
•Cueing systems
•Text Structure
• Comprehension Workshop
• Retelling
• Guided reading
•Teacher prompts
•Teaching points
•Running Records
•Silent Reading
•Reading for meaning
• Fix-up strategies
• Reader’s Workshop
•
•
•
•
•
•
Book boxes
SSR/DEAR time
Reading/Literacy centers
Buddy reading
Literature circles/Book clubs
Inquiry/Research
• Author’s chair/group sharing
INSTRUCTIONAL METHODOLOGIES
WITHIN A LANGUAGE RICH ENVIRONMENT
WRITING
•Classroom Management
•Room Arrangement
Skills Instruction and Practice
Oral Reading/Writing
Instructional Level
Reading/Writing
Independent Reading/Writing
Developmental Writing
456
READING TO LEARN
• Mini lessons
• Spelling stages & strategies,
word work, making words,
mechanics, word walls
• Handwriting
• Writing aloud
•Morning Message
•Daily News
•Model process writing
• Graphic organizers (Go
Charts)
• Book extensions
• Guided writing
• Writer’s workshop
•Writing Process
•Genre Study
•
•
•
•
•
Writing/literacy centers
Journals/Response logs
Writer’s Notebook
Book making/extensions
Independent writing
• Writing stages
• Interactive writing
• Shared writing
ONGOING ASSESSMENT
(TPRI/TEJAS LEE = K-2, DSP = 3-6, DLP/PLED = K-3)
May you live in exciting times.
- Jewish proverb