John raises a series of questions about the low literacy learners, asking
"do you think that such skills can be improved to high, automatized skill
levels such as one sees in an average college student - automatized, fluent,
ease?" That's a lofty goal, but the answer really is, "it depends". It
depends on a variety of things. Is the low literacy learner there because of
English language learning issues? Then yes, certainly, because we have to
remove the barrier of the English learning and the learner catches up to the
proficiency in L1. In the ABE world, we have another set of issues. In the
world of Literacy Volunteers, we have seen amazing breakthroughs where we
have seen students realize that there was a system of decoding they never
understood and slowly apply the rules to systematically learn to read. It's
a slow process to catch up.

 

Four years ago we discussed the Plateau Effect on the ALE Wiki
(http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/AlePlateau) posing lots of
hypotheses. Since then, I've seen new research including something in the
ARCs study that mentions that "among the learners in the ARCS
<http://www.nifl.gov/readingprofiles/ARCS_MC_Pop.htm> RR 100% of those who
tested below fifth grade level (21% of our sample) did not know all the
consonant sounds, the basic building elements of word analysis and word
recognition." (http://www.nifl.gov/readingprofiles/MC_Print_Skills.htm) I
know that ABE students are like Swiss Cheese and believe that taking more of
a diagnostic/prescriptive approach lets us figure out where the holes are in
their learning to help plug them. 

 

I don't think it's a matter of classroom instruction in vocabulary lessons,
or comprehension skills, or going through a workbook, though that certainly
will help in some ways. In lots of ways that's like throwing spaghetti on
the wall and hoping  some of it will stick. For our lowest level learners,
we need to provide targeted, differentiated instruction, specific to their
skill gaps. Sometimes we will have multiple students with the same issues
and we can group them. Sometimes it will be assisted by software. It's not
an easy process, but it's an effective one. The trick is to find the
appropriate diagnostics, then correct remediation material.

 

Will we get every learner up to college level fluency? Not tomorrow. In our
world, the goal is progress, not perfection.

 

 



 <http://www.applestar.org/> 


Jean Marrapodi, PhD, CPLP

teacher by training, learner by design
 <mailto:rejoicer at aol.com> jmarrapodi at applestar.org
mobile:
<http://www.plaxo.com/click_to_call?lang=en&src=jj_signature&To=401%2E440%2E
6165&Email=rejoicer at aol.com> 401.440.6165
 <http://www.applestar.org/> www.applestar.org 

 

	

 

 

 

 

From: assessment-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:assessment-bounces at nifl.gov] On
Behalf Of Sabatini, John
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 8:10 AM
To: The Assessment Discussion List
Subject: [Assessment 1941] Re: Last Day for Reading Discussion

 

Hi,

 

The discussion during this week has focused mostly on reading fluency.  I'm
also interested in folks thoughts about the decoding/word recognition skills
of low level readers.  Specifically, do you think that such skills can be
improved to high, automatized skill levels such as one sees in an average
college student - automatized, fluent, ease?  Or is it too late? Has anyone
met success?  Does anyone try?  Do you think reading fluency training is
sufficient to improve a poor, slow decoder and word recognizer?  Will
vocabulary instruction be sufficient?  Do you think there is a useful
distinction to be made between decoding (sounding out novel words) and word
recognition (quickly recognizing words one has seen before).

 

A lot of questions, but all just one theme.  

 

If that theme seems tired to you, a focus on comprehension skills - are you
completely satisfied with the measures you have to help you understand how
well students comprehend?  And what is your definition/concept of reading
comprehension?

 

Thanks,

 

John

 

  _____  

From: assessment-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:assessment-bounces at nifl.gov] On
Behalf Of Marie Cora
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 7:43 AM
To: Assessment at nifl.gov
Subject: [Assessment 1940] Last Day for Reading Discussion

Hi everyone,

 

Today is our final day of our guest discussion on Low Level Reading and the
NAAL results.  

 

I sent out a series of questions yesterday that asks people to focus in more
on the report itself:  methodology, the results it discusses, and the like.
Please take a look back at those questions from yesterday and see if there
isn't a question or two that sparks your interest.  

 

Also - please feel free to carry on with any other topics - such as the ones
on fluency and DIBELS.

 

For full information on this discussion, go to:
http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/discussions/assessment/09readingskills.html

 

Marie

 

Marie Cora

Assessment Discussion List Moderator

 

 

 
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