Return-Path: <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id i2T35mm00719; Sun, 28 Mar 2004 22:05:48 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 22:05:48 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <004c01c41539$e546fb50$3002a8c0@ben2ut66kkx7o3> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Amy R. Trawick" <atrawick@charter.net> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1221] Re: from Heide, Re: where do you start folks reading X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; Status: O Content-Length: 15122 Lines: 347 I have been enjoying this strand on reading and am especially appreciative of Heide's posting on the way she and her colleagues approach reading assessment. I think getting useable, instructionally-relevant information from reading assessments is incredibly difficult, but the process Heide describes makes a lot of sense. Making this information understandable for students is an even more difficult task, which is why I am particularly taken with the way Heide describes the different levels (e.g., avoidance level, doggedness level). The process that Heide lays out is very similar to one that we've been developing as part of the EFF Reading Project. One component that we include (and which may, in fact, be implicit in the process she describes) is explicit attention to the purpose that readers have for reading. Using the EFF Content Standard Read With Understanding (based on the reading research, research with adult students, and expert review), we feel that everything else that happens in a reading activity begins first with the reading purpose. Thus, a newspaper article could be read for a variety of purposes, each of which evokes a set of reading strategies. One person may "read" an article describing a local political fundraising event to see if it mentions anyone she knows by--and do this by skimming capitalized words for familiar names. Another may skim the article in order to identify any comments in the remarks of the politician that relate to a topic of interest and, once these are found, slow down to focus intently on what these remarks are and how they relate to her point of view. A utility bill provides another example. Reading it might be a high-level task for someone who wants to understand how the amount due is arrived at, the contribution of all the special services to the total bill, and to whom she needs to complain. However, another reader might read the bill with the purpose of identifying how much is due and by when. Both have "read" the bill adequately to meet their purposes. So, one way of informally assessing students is to engage them in reading activities around topics that interest them. A simple approach is to brainstorm questions they have about a topic of interest and then invite them to find and read material that will help them access answers to these questions. (In a multi-level setting, such a process assumes that there is material at multiple levels of difficulty and that students have (been taught) strategies for finding material that they can use.) As they read to find their answers, the teacher can meet informally or more formally with individual students and engage them in conversation about how they are approaching the task. Questions might include: Why did you choose this particular text?/What do you hope to gain from reading this text? How are you approaching it? How is this strategy working for you? etc. The trick here is to be conversational and not interrogational. Through such a conversation (or series of conversations, since a teacher may "check in" with a particular student at several points during the activity), the teacher and student can gain insight into the student's comfort level with identifying a purpose for reading, his knowledge and abilities in employing skills and strategies for reading, and how he draws upon and integrates the content of the reading with his prior knowledge. Inviting students to read aloud passages that they find particularly interesting/troublesome or agree with/disagree with also provides opportunities for assessing print processing, fluency, and vocabulary skills, which are documented in an on-going portfolio of reading performance. Looking across time, teachers and students (because we assume in this process that students are "let in" on what's going on and contribute to decisions about their reading and reading instruction) can see how students develop in their ability to read with understanding. Such evaluation can give the teacher clues as to what is needed to further support the student in developing the student's overall skill to access increasingly varied types of text for increasingly varied purposes in an ever-growing range of settings. We are continuing to wrestle with comfortable and do-able ways of assessing what matters in reading--in order to better inform teaching and learning. I hope folks will continue to share along this topic. This is a great strand! Amy Amy R. Trawick Coordinator, Equipped for the Future Reading Project Center for Literacy Studies, University of Tennessee-Knoxville 336-667-1910 atrawick@charter.net Equipped for the Future Reading Project: http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/collections/eff/EFFRP.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "jataylor" <jataylor@utk.edu> To: "Multiple recipients of list" <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Sent: Friday, March 26, 2004 1:49 PM Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1211] from Heide, Re: where do you start folks reading > Hi, Andrea > > Just to clarify - I'm not actually teaching myself these days but working with > teachers and outlining certain strategies as part of a research and > demonstration project - > > As you probably realize there is no way to talk about reading assessment in a > thoughtful way without getting into long discussions of what it means to read > and how to assess the mental process that is part of meaning making. Then > there's reading the word and reading the world, which I will skip over as well > > So without getting overly analytical, let me see if I can sort out what we do > in the Youth Literacy program, which I think reflects what good teachers do > automatically in trying to "know what students know" - > > Here's what we try to do with the new reading assessments. We know that > readers approach different kinds of texts differently, so we try to work with > functional texts (flyers, labels), informational texts(prose) and narrative > and expository texts in different ways, so try to have a few of each around to > see what students gravitate toward. We try to get a sense of > > 1. what gives students hives and they don't want to deal with (avoidance > level) that means computer manuals for many of us; or things like instructions > on how to change the vacuum cleaner bag) > > 2. what they would like to read but just stymies them (frustration level) > > 3. what hey can read with some help or scaffolding (instruction level) > > 4. and what they like to read and have very little trouble with (comfort > level) > > 5. and then there are those materials that students shouldn't be able to read > given their test scores but that interest them so much or they have sufficient > background knowledge to pick up the major ideas (doggedness level) > > After that, we get a bit more scientific. We draw from (1) the research on > what proficient readers do and what novices have trouble with and (2) on the > research on initial reading - > We all agree that phonemic awareness is necessary but not sufficient and have > thrown our collective weight towards approaches that start with meaning making > and familiar texts that are interesting and fun to read or look at. We then > either move forward to more difficult texts or spend time filling in some of > the gaps that students have on the basic print processing side. > > And, by the way, we are very tired of the reading wars and no longer want to > play the phonics vs. whole language game. The point of reading is > comprehension, and you can't understand what you read if you don't have the > underlying skills. However, not having all the underlying skills doesn't mean > you are an idiot who can't get any meaning from print although you may get > stuck here and there cause coping skills and background knowledge will only > get you so far and if you haven't learned to decode you could probably use > some help but that doesn't mean you have to spend the next few weeks only (or > mostly) on phonics since systematic instruction in phonemic awareness is not > synonymous with sequential instruction. > > But I digress, back to reading assessment > > In sorting out what it takes to read, here are some of the elements we try to > look at: > > 1. Big picture: Can the student get the big picture and an overall sense of > what a text is about. On the functional side that might mean telling a phone > bill from an electricity bill (or recognizing a bill at all) or being able to > tell that something is an ad rather than a review of a product (getting harder > and harder these days - so cf the discussion on critical literacy earlier on > the list) > > 2. Strategy use: Does the student use strategies that open up meaning or are > the strategies that are being used counterproductive and need to be > "relearned" For example, a lot of the Vancouver kids confuse "predicting > meaning from context" with wild guessing or they may be quick to say "I don't > know" without trying to see connections. > > So we watch what kids do as they try to make meaning and we ask questions that > tell us if they can "activate background knowledge" or "make connections > between prior knowledge and current reading" (those strategies are listed on > our scale with rubrics for each) - and of course, all of those strategies are > addressed in the literacy curriculum so they keep coming around in different > ways. > > 3. We also look at skills and strategies related to basic print processing > (making sense of what's on the page by using linguistic knowledge or phonemic > awareness). As the kids read aloud (or as we read with them), we try to > identify where they get stuck - do they have strategies of unlocking words, > such as "sounding out" or breaking the word into its component parts or > realizing they know other words that have a similar pattern (we may draw some > analogies for them to see if they get to "aha". Why do we spend time on > assessing and then teaching "word awareness"? We know that for kids (or > anyone) who has trouble reading, context clues often only go so far and it > becomes frustrating when teachers keep asking "what do you think the word > means", if they can't even say the word and don't recognize it (even if it is > in their oral vocabulary). > > > 4. FLUENCY As the kids (teenagers in our case) read aloud we also look at how > fluently they are able to process print(in terms of both accuracy and speed) > and to what extent they can use expression in their voice that matches the > meaning on the page - i.e., questions sound like questions and dialogues sound > natural. For that part of the assessment to work we clearly need prose texts > that are at least somewhat interesting - so we pick pieces of fiction to read > together - sometimes we mark on the page, the words and phrases that give the > kids trouble (similar to the old miscue analysis) but for the most part, we > just use the novice to expert scale to situate the kids on a continuum in the > "fluency" domain. > > 5. VOCABULARY: We also try to get a sense of their vocabulary - are they > familiar with the concepts that are encoded in the key words in the text (this > gives us a good sense of their background knowledge) or are words like > "revolution" just empty words to them that they can pronounce (may-be) but > that they don't relate to a whole spade of ideas. We also probe for other > kinds of word awareness skills such as recognizing that homo-cide and sui-cide > are related (as is sperm-cide which is always exciting when that clicks) > > 6. COMPREHENSION And then there's that whole comprehension skills piece (as > opposed to the strategy piece which is more about ways of approaching the > text). In the beginning of the course, we may ask them some questions about > the text, some literal questions, some inferential ones, some related to their > opinions or assessment of the situation. We also ask the students to tell us > what they have just read in their own words, which is a great way to find out > how they make sense of things. > > Finally, there is the discussion about their stance on reading and motivation > to read some things and stay away from others and where interests may lie. > > It's not about ASSESSMENT, it's about TEACHING. While we try to do one > assessment that is rather formal and where we record the scores for the > various elements we assess, all these strategies and skills are really > integrated into the literacy course so kids become familiar with what it takes > to be a good reader. We try to help them get a good sense that reading is not > something that happens to some people or that, for any number of reasons > eludes you. We work with the kids so that they can see that there are ways to > make reading happen and that there are people in the program (peers, teachers, > tutors) who can help you get there. > > SO WHERE'S THE FUN? One of the things that troubles me about reading as part > of adult literacy is that it is all so deadly serious and, as a result, often > deadening. We try to build competence and performance and often forget that > one reason to teach reading is to share the joy that comes from discovering a > cool phrase and from reading a piece of writing that just takes you breath > away (and "who will take care of the frog hospital? as one story asks - and > thank you Janet Isserlis. So we try to get into poetry that speaks to > teenagers and encourage them to write their own (and they do). Sometimes we > use song lyrics for poetry (the River by Bruce Springsteen was a big hit > although the kids did not know the song - Bruce who????) and And we had fun > with "Read my Shorts" (the contest out of Britain) and were amazed that > Hemingway could write a whole short story, with plot and character, and > internal conflict in just one line > > "For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never been worn" > > Thanks for you time > > Heide > > Heide Spruck Wrigley > Somewhere over the Atlantic A > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: nifl-aalpd@nifl.gov [mailto:nifl-aalpd@nifl.gov] On Behalf Of > AWilder106@aol.com > Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2004 8:50 AM > To: Multiple recipients of list > Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1187] Re: where do you start folks reading > > Thanks, Heide--I can see your classroom through your description. Thanks also > for introducing the relationship aspect between teacher and student. > > Now, when you are with a student and the student is reading aloud, you are > doing mental gymnastics (based on a lot of experience) in analysing what > skills your student has mastered, and what skills she needs help with. > > Could you describe for me please what you go through in decoding and > comprehension? Do you have a hierarchy of mastery in your mind? Do you note > certain types of skills, errors, repetitions, and so on? What is your mental > sorting process? > > I realize this is awfully detailed, but I hsve a feeling skilled teachers have > worked out methods of grouping, analysing, classifying, that lead to more > effective teaching and learning over time. > > Thanks for your help, thanks for taking the time. > > Andrea >
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