Learning to Read
Fill in the Blank Anticipatory
Set/Bluebook
 Presentation Evaluation Form
Development
 Learning to Read
 Reading to Learn (Comprehension)

Relationship between
Schooling and Income
U.S. Bureau of
the Census, 2000
"CHILDREN ARE MADE READERS ON
THE LAPS OF THEIR PARENTS.“
— EMILIE BUCHWALD
Outcomes of Early Exposure

Number 1 predictor of success in
school is how much a child is read to
prior to entering Kindergarten

Age 7 reading ability predicts school
achievement in High School
Literacy

Learning to Read

Reading Fluency (Ch 2)
Early Literacy: Concepts of Print
 Phonemic Awareness
 Decoding skills
 Accessing word meaning
 Sentence Integration
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Reading to Learn
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Reading Comprehension (Ch 3)
Prior knowledge
 Inference making
 Comprehension monitoring

Literacy: Learning to Read
Reading Fluency
Acquiring skills
"Babies are born with the instinct to
speak, the way spiders are born with the
instinct to spin webs. You don't need to
train babies to speak; they just do. But
reading is different."
— Steven Pinker
Early Literacy in the Home
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Lists
Entertainment
School-related
tasks
Sunday
activities
Communication
Story Time
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Shopping, Things to Do
Magazines, TV guide, Rules for
Games
Sibling homework, playing
school
Bible reading, Sunday school
activities
Letters, notes, messages,
holiday cards
Children’s books, pre-reading
Learning to Read
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Prereading: Must realize that there is a correspondence
between printed page and spoken language
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“Concepts of Print”
Phonemic awareness: Must establish
letter-sound correspondences

English has 26 letters,
but 42 basic phonemes
Learning to Read

Prereading: Must realize that there is a correspondence
between printed page and spoken language


Phonemic awareness: Must establish
letter-sound correspondences


“Concepts of Print”
English has 26 letters,
but 42 basic phonemes
Decoding: Must realize that a
printed word corresponds to
specific combination of sounds
Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down

Bottom-up: start with the basic units and build up
 Bottom-up models operate on the principle that the
written text is hierarchically organized (i.e., on the
grapho-phonic, phonemic, syllabic, morphemic, word,
and sentence levels) and that the reader first
processes the smallest linguistic unit, gradually
compiling the smaller units to decipher and
comprehend the higher units (e.g., sentence syntax).”
(Dechant 1991)
 letters  units of sound  words 
phrases  sentences  etc.
 Emphasizes “word-attack skills”,
use texts that emphasize phonemic
analysis…
Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down


Bottom-up: basic units and build up
 Phonics first
 letters  units of sound  words 
phrases  sentences  etc.
 Emphasizes “word-attack skills”,
use texts that emphasize phonemic analysis…
Top-down: proceeds from information already stored in
memory (prior knowledge) to decipher unit level input
 Using meaning and syntax to figure out unfamiliar words
 Whole language: meaning first
 Emphasizes many rich opportunities to experience
written language (e.g., authentic literature, song)
Learning to Read

Prereading: Must realize that there is a correspondence
between printed page and spoken language


Phonemic awareness: Must establish
letter-sound correspondences



“Concepts of Print”
English has 26 letters,
but 42 basic phonemes
Decoding: Must realize that a
printed word corresponds to
specific combination of sounds
Meaning Making: Must
understand what they read

Semantic and syntactic knowledge
Reading: A Challenging Task
I’m trying hard to learn to read
But what’s a kid to do
When there’s a NO and a GO and a SO and a HO
And then there’s a word like TO?
Reading BONE and CONE and LONE and TONE
Can almost be kind of fun.
But I get upset when I have to believe
That D-O-N-E spells DONE!
It’s plain to see a kid like me
Sure needs a helping hand.
No matter how much I really try,
I just don’t understand
I’m trying hard to learn to read
Somehow that’s what I’ll do.
But for now if you’ll just read to me,
Someday I’ll read to you.
Tomorrow was the annual,
one-day fishing contest
and fisherman
would invade the place.
Some of the best bass
guitarists in the country
would came to this spot.
The actress received praise for
being an outstanding _______.
performer
Jack and Jill ran up the ______.
stairs
Happy _______!
Holidays!
Be my _________ .
Avocado
Study Results
Time to read in milliseconds
(Tulving & Gold, 1963)
100
90
80
70
Inappropriate
Appropriate
60
50
40
30
1
2
4
number of context words
8
Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down
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
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Bottom-up: basic units and build up
 Phonics first
 letters  units of sound  words 
phrases  sentences  etc.
 Emphasizes “word-attack skills”,
use texts that emphasize phonemic analysis…
Top-down: proceeds from information already stored in
memory (prior knowledge) to decipher unit level input
 Whole language: meaning first
 Emphasizes many rich opportunities to experience
written language (e.g., authentic literature, song)
Main issue: How to combine these two
processes effectively
Learning to Read

Prereading: Must realize that there is a correspondence
between printed page and spoken language


Phonemic awareness: Must establish
letter-sound correspondences



English has 26 letters,
but 42 basic phonemes
Decoding: Must realize that a
printed word corresponds to
specific combination of sounds
Meaning Making: Must
understand what they read


“Concepts of Print”
Semantic and syntactic knowledge
Sentence Integration:
Automaticity
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The key to effective reading is automaticity
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The more automatic our reading and recognizing
words, the less space taken in working memory.
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Then the mind can spend more time on meaning and
context,
as well as making inferences about the text or passage,
leading to comprehension
Scaffolding the Beginning
Reader
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How do we help students obtain automaticity?
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Assess first (running record)
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Teach students to attend to cues by prompting
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Mediators in the form of spoken language
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Phonics- “get your mouth ready” or “sound it out”
Semantic- “what makes sense” or “look at the picture”
Syntactic- “skip it, read on and then go back” or “go back and
reread”
“Once you learn to read,
you will be forever free.”
-Frederick Douglas
Literacy: reading to Learn
Reading Comprehension
Academic Outcomes
Learning
Perception-Knowledge Cycle
• Many view learning as a bottom-up
process; starting from the basic unit
of perception and building upon it
The Perception-Knowledge
Cycle
top
up
Knowledge
(memory)
• Efficient learning requires extensive
use of top-down processing or the
use existing knowledge to facilitate
new learning (expectations, aims,
goals)
Perception
bottom
down
Reading to Learn
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Prior Knowledge: Influences what is
remembered (learned)
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Priming exercise
Memory Demonstration
Perceptual Priming as
Expectation Bias
Study
Test
Expectations can
influence what
you perceive!
Reading to Learn
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Prior Knowledge: Influences what is
remembered (learned)
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Priming exercise
Topic Priming
Topic Priming: Title of Text
Comprehension and Recall Scores for the Passage
No Topic Topic
After
Topic
Before
Maximum
Score
Comprehension
ratings
2.29
2.12
4.50
7.00
Number of Idea
Units recalled
2.82
2.65
5.83
18.00
Bransford and Johnson (1972)
Learning
Perception-Knowledge Cycle
• Problem: Most view learning as a
“bottom-up” process
• Efficient learning requires extensive
use of top-down processing
(expectations, aims, goals)
The Perception-Knowledge
Cycle
up
Conceptual Learning
Knowledge
(memory)
top
• Involves the interplay between
bottom-up and top-down
processing
• Knowing what you expect to learn
(goals, aims) will facilitate learning.
Perception
bottom
down
Using Prior Knowledge
Using prior knowledge
provides us with context
and meaning while we
are reading.
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Background knowledge is
imperative to effective
learning.
Class discussions and
activity increases
comprehension.
If we have no prior
knowledge to “hook” our
new information into, we will
be challenged to
understand, comprehend,
or learn.
What people know
influences what they will
remember about a passage
Therefore, we must provide
background knowledge.
•Make sure it is appropriate
•Make sure it is interesting
•At grade level
Reading to Learn
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Prior Knowledge: Influences what is remembered
(learned)
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Priming exercise
Topic Priming
Inference Making: Drawing conclusions beyond the
text
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Background Knowledge
Making Inferences
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This is the cornerstone of reading
comprehension
Keys:
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This skill improves as children develop
It improves with TRAINING and assisted
performance
Teach students to begin to generate their own
questions about a passage
It helps for them to practice and explain how
inferences are made
[Gregory, A. & Cahill, M.A.(2010) K-schema,
connections, visualize, ask questions, infer]
Reading to Learn

Prior Knowledge: Influences what is remembered
(learned)
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Inference Making: Drawing conclusions beyond the
text
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Priming exercise
Topic Priming
Background Knowledge
Comprehension
Monitoring:

Teach strategies
Reading and Vocabulary
Development
Content
Rare words/1000
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Comic Books
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53.5
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Children’s Books
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30.9
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Preschool Books
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16.3
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Prime-time Adult TV
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Prime-time Children’s TV
22.7

20.2
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Conversation College
Grad (spouse/friends)

17.3
Reading and Academic
Achievement
Minutes/Day
Words/Year
Rank (standardized
65
4,358,000
98%
21.1
1,823,000
90%
9.6
622,000
70%
4.6
282,000
50%
1.3
106,000
30%
exams)
Reading and Literacy
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Early exposure predicts school success
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Reading as both Bottom-Up and Top-Down
Processing
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Comprehension comes with experience and training
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Reading strongly promotes Vocabulary Development
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Direct relationship between time spent reading and
standardized achievement
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Take Home Message
10 Ways to Get Your Child to
READ and READ and READ
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Let your child see you read and read and read
Read to you child every day
Make reading for pleasure part of your daily routine
Read to your child every day
Make books available to your child
Read to your child every day
Talk about books with your child
Read to you child every day
Take your child to the public library on a regular basis
Read to your child every day
(thanks to Dr. Bohlmann for use of some of her lecture slides, 2010)
Learning to Read

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Fill in the Blank Anticipatory Set/Bluebook
Presentation Evaluation Form Development
Learning to Read
Reading to Learn (Comprehension)
Group Presentation planning (if time)
For Tuesday: Read Chapter 4
“To learn to read is to
light a fire; every syllable
that is spelled out is a
spark.”
-Victor Hugo, Les Miserables