[Saxon Phonics Program Lesson 45
Tilo Chopin
And yet, results from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading exams showed that only 35 percent of fourth-grade students and 34 percent of eighth-grade students scored proficient or higher in reading. For both age groups, the 2019 reading scores show a decrease of 2 percent from the 2017 scores of 37 percent and 36 percent, respectively. Furthermore, for both age groups, the decline in NAEP reading scores from 2017 to 2019 was steeper for minority students than it was for white students (U.S. Department of Education, 2019). Results from the 2016 administration of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) assessment, which provides a comparison of reading achievement of U.S. fourth-grade students and students from 57 countries around the world, showed similarly disappointing results (Warner-Griffin et al., 2017).
There are many costs to the lack of reading proficiency. Research has shown that the inability to read proficiently in third grade is linked to difficulties learning in other subject areas, difficulties reading in later grades, and decreased likelihood of attending college (Tennessee Department of Education, 2016). Recent studies of college enrollment statistics have found that up to 60 percent of students in the United States are unprepared for college-level work in reading, math, or both. College-bound students and families across the country spend an estimated $1.3 billion on remedial coursework every year (Jimenez, Sargrad, Morales, & Thompson, 2016). An estimated 93 million adults in the United States read at or below basic levels and face challenges finding living wage jobs as a result (Tennessee Department of Education, 2016).
According to the Simple View of Reading, a prominent and widely accepted theory of reading development, reading comprehension is the product of word recognition and language comprehension (Gough & Tunmer, 1986). In order to read with comprehension, readers must simultaneously decode the words on a page while drawing on their knowledge of language to access the meaning of the text. Decoding involves connecting the spellings in words to their sounds and putting them together in order to read.
In addition to word recognition skills, readers need background knowledge, vocabulary, knowledge of language structures, verbal reasoning, and print concepts to comprehend text. Skilled reading entails the fluent execution and coordination of word recognition and language comprehension ability (Scarborough, 2001). Reading with comprehension occurs when children can convert the meaning represented by words in print to a meaning that they can readily understand.
Structured Literacy is a systematic, explicit, incremental, and cumulative approach to reading instruction that is based on evidence from research studies. Systematic means that the organization of material follows the logical order of the language. The sequence must begin with the easiest and most basic concepts and elements and progress methodically to more difficult concepts and elements. Explicit means that instruction includes the deliberate teaching of all concepts with continuous student-teacher interaction. It is not assumed that students will naturally deduce these concepts on their own. Incremental means that small amounts of information are presented each time. Cumulative means each step must be based on concepts previously learned.
Explicit. Research has shown that using a Structured Literacy approach that combines explicit literacy instruction with appropriate practice activities has significant, positive effects for beginning readers and writers, even those considered at risk for later struggles (Fien et al., 2015). Additionally, research has also demonstrated the value of differentiated instruction in improving literacy achievement for most students (Al Otaiba et al., 2009).
Cumulative. Cognitive science research has shown that learning is cumulative. Complex cognitive skills can be broken into simpler skills, which can in turn be broken into even simpler skills, and lower-level skills must be mastered before higher-level skills can be mastered (Gagne & Briggs, 1974).
The Resources for Differentiation booklet suggests games of varying difficulty levels that children can play in small groups. These games use the Kid Card Decks to review letter names, sounds, keywords, blending, rhyming, and spelling. As with the Review Decks, children should use only those cards containing concepts they have been taught so it provides additional review of the concepts learned. The lesson number on each card indicates when its concept is introduced, and therefore allows the students to align their practice with the associated skill.
Carlson and colleagues (2011) found evidence that, when implemented validly and reliably at scale, data- driven reform efforts can result in substantively and statistically significant improvements in achievement outcomes. For students with disabilities, it is particularly important to use student performance assessment data to monitor progress in order to determine ongoing instructional and interventional needs (National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities, 2008).
Not only do assessment data inform teachers the knowledge and skills that students have acquired and their level of mastery, but the practice of consistently taking low-stakes performance assessments, coupled with high expectations, and meaningful feedback help all students become assessment capable learners (Frey, Hattie, & Fisher, 2018).
If an assessment indicates a deficiency in concept knowledge, teachers can follow the recommended remediation activities that accompany the assessment. Teachers are encouraged throughout the program to conduct informal assessments on a regular basis. This may be through observation, while students complete worksheets in class, or by having students read their decodable readers aloud to the teacher.
The pace of the program can be adjusted to meet individual needs. The teacher may take two days to teach a lesson instead of one or may pause instruction to reteach a concept. The Resources for Differentiation booklet provided in the program offers activities to help reinforce skills while engaging students
There are Oral and Written Phonics and Spelling Assessments to evaluate mastery of concepts and skills that have been practiced. Students are considered successful if they answer at least 80 percent of the questions correctly. If children do not achieve 80 percent accuracy on any given assessment, teachers can identify the concepts that students found difficult, and spend extra time reinforcing them. Each assessment lesson provides recommendations for practice and remediation activities to address specific issues. Directions for these activities, as well as additional information, are located in the Resources for Differentiation booklet.
Effective reading instruction in the early grades focuses on helping students understand the role that phonemic awareness plays in learning to read and write. Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to identify and manipulate individual speech sounds in oral language (NICHD, 2000). A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a given language that can be recognized as being distinct from other sounds in the language. For example, the word cap has three phonemes (/k/, /a/, /p/), and the word clasp has five phonemes (/k/, /l/, /a/, /s/, /p/). Phonemic awareness is essential to reading because hearing the individual sounds in words is key to matching them with the letters when learning to decode.
The importance of phonemic awareness in learning to read has been well documented. The National Reading Panel reviewed decades worth of reading research and concluded that phonemic awareness and letter knowledge are the two best indicators of how well children will learn to read during the first two years of instruction. Recent research also shows that phonemic awareness is an essential precursor to reading, and that listening to and using language helps many though not all students gain this awareness prior to entering school (Brady, Braze, & Fowler, 2011).
In addition to teaching phonics skills explicitly with detailed explanations, modeling, and practice, effective reading teachers also include instruction in syllable structure, which can help guide pronunciation of a written word, and morphology (knowledge of word parts like roots and affixes), which can also provide reliable information about pronunciation and meaning. Mastering advanced decoding skills like syllable structure and morphology can facilitate reading multisyllabic words.
Effective reading instruction helps students master sound-symbol associations in two directions: visual to auditory (reading) and auditory to visual (spelling). Reading requires segmenting of whole words into the individual sounds, while spelling involves the blending of sounds and letters into whole words. As such, learning to spell reinforces learning to read; spelling and reading are the productive and receptive sides of the same coin.
Research also shows that teaching students to read by using decodable and strictly controlled text is highly effective for beginning reading success. Using controlled, high-frequency text provides practice with the words found in most beginning reading materials through third grade (Adams, 1990).
Coding is one tool used to help create successful readers. Children are taught how to code words by marking common vowel patterns and letter clusters, which helps them identify the sound of each letter/letter cluster and thus read the words. This method gives children the ability to approach new words confidently. Children should use coding as a tool only until the phonetic principles become automatic for them.
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