Return-Path: <nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id iAOEaEQ06701; Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:36:14 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:36:14 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <593F4B26.06468D18.0A349A3F@aol.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: AWilder106@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:771] Re: Adult new reader assessments, "plateaus" X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Mailer: Atlas Mailer 2.0 Status: O Content-Length: 1529 Lines: 19 Dear David, The "plateau" effect is reported for child readers, also. My guess is that it could be a matter of vocabulary,the introduction of new words that are not in the reader's vocabulary. Chall has reported this for slightly older children However, adults know more words than children, have bigger vocabularies, so here is an alternate hypothesis: it may also be that the learner has run out of sight words, those that are visually memorized, and now has to tackle new words with new tools, phonics. These are two possibilities. Here is an idea that I introduced on the LD list, and I wonder if anyone has tried it or would be interested in trying it. Have your student dictate to you a short story or song or memorized piece, something that they carry around with them in their mental lexicon. Write this down, and have your student go over it enough so it is virtually memorized. Now, write the story/song etc. in columns, and have your student read down. Do this until the student is fluent. Now have the student read the story/song, etc. across the columns; the words are now completely decontextualized. My guess is that new vocabulary words could be worked into this format. David Furr now at Indiana State (I think) suggests having students read small books until they are virtually memorized,then have the students read the books backwards, starting from the final page. This is a similar exercise. If anyone tries either of these exercises, I would like to know how they work out. Thanks. Andrea
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