Concept Paper: What Literacy Instruction Should Look Like Written in partnership with David and Meredith Liben Introduction This concept paper describes a critical missing element in the national efforts to close the achievement gap. EL s unique approach to literacy curriculum aims to put all students on a pathway to reach 9 th grade ready to read to learn and on track to graduate from high school college- and career-ready. There is a fundamental disconnect between the clear body of research on literacy achievement, and the curriculum available to guide classroom instruction. There is a compelling case made by both the authors of the Common Core State Standards and the research base from which they drew that the causal relationship between a child s knowledge of words and the world the connection between content knowledge and literacy achievement and her chances to succeed academically is startlingly strong. Yet in the five plus years since the Standards were published, this has been the least understood and most neglected part of Common Core implementation. Though research shows the building of vocabulary and content knowledge is essential to students academic performance and success, the great majority of current educational approaches and classroom materials, even several years into the Common Core era, fail to address this need. Time is overdue for a robust response that brings these research-proven strategies to life in American classrooms. Summary of the Research The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (ELA) were written on an extensive body of research that tightly links content knowledge, vocabulary growth, and reading proficiency. The Importance of Content Knowledge to Reading Achievement Content knowledge and literacy skills are inextricably linked; building students knowledge initiates a virtuous circle. Page 33 of the Common Core State Standards for ELA states, Building knowledge systematically in English Language Arts is like giving children various pieces of a puzzle in each grade that, over time, will form one big picture. At a curricular or instructional level, texts within and across grade levels need to be selected around topics or themes that systematically develop the knowledge base of students (CCSS, 33). The more knowledge students have about a topic, the better they can comprehend text about the topic. And in turn, the better they comprehend text, the more knowledge they build. This proficiency and knowledge transfer to the next occasion for reading and learning, creating an upward surge that builds on itself and is both highly rewarding and motivating (Baldwin, R. Scott, Peleg-Bruckner, Z. and McClintock, Ann; Cervetti, Jaynes and Heibert; Kintsch, Eileen and Hampton, Sally; Kintsch, Walter; McNamara, D.S., & O Reilly, T.; Willingham, Daniel.) The Role of Vocabulary Tightly connected to the essential role of knowledge in student achievement is a vast body of research nearly 100 years old that shows the importance of vocabulary to reading proficiency (Cunningham, A.E., and Stanovich, K.E.; National Center for Educational Statistics; National Reading Panel; Perfetti, C.A.; Perfetti, C.A., and Hart, L.; Whipple, G.R.; Wolf, M., et al). The long history of this research (much of it cited in Appendix A of the CCSS for ELA) demonstrates vividly that without the development of vocabulary, proficient reading is likely impossible. 2014 EL Education Inc.- Revised August 2015
In addition to the connection between reading success and vocabulary acquisition, a stunning body of research that spans over 30 years shows those students from less affluent families enter school with far less developed vocabulary and word awareness and they rarely catch up (Biemiller, A.; Cunningham, A.E. & Stanovich, K.E.; Hart & Risley; NY Times; Stanovich, K.E.; The Annie E. Casey Foundation). Most notably, a 2003 study by Hart and Risely shows that students from more affluent families are exposed to as many as 30 million more words than their lower income peers within their first three years of life. Thus we have two cycles: a virtuous one for those students who begin school with far greater vocabulary and knowledge; a vicious one for those who begin with less. This is precisely why the achievement gap increases each year children are in school. Eliminating this requires a curricular and instructional approach that dramatically accelerates the growth of vocabulary and knowledge for the students who most need help. Reading Within a Topic to Develop Academic Vocabulary Heavily influenced by this body of research, the Standards emphasize the importance specifically of academic vocabulary (words such as communicate or various that are more likely to appear in a variety of formal written texts across subjects as compared to domain words usually restricted to one subject). Recent research shows that the best way to learn such academic words is to read a series of texts within a topic (Adams, Marilyn; Landauer, T.K. & Dumais, S.T.). This allows a child to become a budding expert in that topic and to build up enough of a knowledge base so she can spend time and energy noticing the function of specific words, thus growing her vocabulary and her knowledge. Coherent Curriculum and Comprehension If a coherent series of texts (CCSS, 33) within a topic is the most effective way to learn academic vocabulary and support students ability to read more complex text, it stands to reason that immersing students in a fully coherent, cross curricular topic study (extending literacy curriculum to science and social studies and including activities in writing, reading, the arts, movement, direct exploration, videos, and field trips) would enhance this effect. Though no one has studied the effect of such a coherent curriculum on vocabulary directly, a number of studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach on comprehension (Guthrie, J. et al; Koskinen, et al; Schafer, et al; Wigfield, A., Guthrie, J., & Von Secker, C.; Wigfield, et al.). Increasing student comprehension would of course increase students ability to learn vocabulary as they read. The studies cited above are actually a relatively small sample of the work that has been done showing the effect of a literacy curriculum based on building a coherent body of knowledge. As the titles of the studies reveal, many of these works carefully connect the effects of this approach on improving standardized reading test outcomes as well as improving student motivation and engagement. Changes in our approach to literacy have not taken hold in the United States despite this extensive research base. Current approaches to literacy (e.g., basal readers, guided reading, and balanced literacy) are tenacious despite their poor track record over the course of a quarter century or more. These approaches all emphasize discrete reading strategies and overemploy the use of leveled or just right texts, which tend to freeze frame children into their current reading levels and provide no motivation for students to tackle more challenging texts. These methods have failed collectively to make even a dent in the achievement gap (Baldwin, et al; Belloni, L.F., & Jongsma, E.A.; McKeown, M.G., Beck, I.L., & Blake, R.G.; Morgan, A., Wilcox, B.R. & Eldredge, J.L.; Williams, J.P., et al; Willingham, D.; Zywica, J., & Gomez, K.). 2014 EL Education Inc.- Revised August 2015 2
The evidence vigorously points to the need for a fundamentally different approach to literacy, one emphasizing integration of literacy into science, social studies, and the arts, and careful attention to researchbased literacy instruction as an avenue to student achievement at a college and career readiness level. Appendix: Research Citations Research on the Importance of Content Knowledge to Reading Achievement Baldwin, R. Scott, Peleg-Bruckner, Z and McClintock, Ann. Effect of Topic Interest and Prior Knowledge on Reading Comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Summer, 1985), pp. 497-504. International Reading Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/747856. Cervetti, Jaynes and Hiebert. Chapter 4 of Hiebert, E.H. Editor). Reading more, reading better: Solving Problems in the Teaching of Literacy. NY: Guilford. 2009. Kintsch, Eileen and Hampton, Sally. Supporting Cumulative Knowledge Building Through Reading, Chapter 4 of Adolescent Literacy, Field Tested: Effective Solutions for Every Classroom. Sheri R. Parris, Douglas Fisher, and Kathy Headley, editors. International Reading Association. 2009. Kintsch, Walter. Comprehension: a Paradigm for Cognition, Cambridge University Press. 1998. McNamara, D.S., & O Reilly, T. (in press). Theories of comprehension skill: Knowledge and strategies versus capacity and suppression. In F. Columbus (Ed.), Progress in Experimental Psychology Research. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc. Willingham, Daniel. Critical Thinking: Why is it so hard to teach? American Educator (Summer, 2007). Research on the Role of Vocabulary Cunningham, A.E., & Stanovich, K.E. (1998). What reading does for the mind. 8-17. American Educator. Spring, 2008. National Center for Educational Statistics (2012). The Nations Report Card: Vocabulary Results from the 2009 and 2011 NAEP Reading Assessments (NCES 2013 452) Institute of Educations Sciences, Department of Education. National Reading Panel s review of hundreds of studies; Vocabulary instruction leads to gains in comprehension. National Reading Panel. 2003. Perfetti, C. A. (2007). Reading ability: Lexical quality to comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading. Vol.11 (4), 357-383. Perfetti, C.A, & Hart, L. (2001). The lexical bases of comprehension skill. In D. Gorfien (Ed.), On the consequences of meaning selection (pp. 67-86). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. 2014 EL Education Inc.- Revised August 2015 3
Perfetti, C & Hart, L. (2002). The Lexical Quality Hypothesis. University of Pittsburg Press. 2002. Whipple, G.R. (1925). Report of the National Committee on Reading. Bloomington, IL: Public School Publishing. Wolf, M., et al.(2009). The importance of rich, flexible semantic knowledge for word reading and comprehension. Abstract presented at the Society for the Scientific Study for Reading. Boston, MA. Research on Word Acquisition for Lower-Income Children Before a Test, a Poverty of Words NY Times October 5, 2012 Biemiller, A. (2001). Teaching Vocabulary: Early, Direct, and Sequential. American Educator. Cunningham, A. E. & Stanovich, K. E. (1998). What reading does for the mind. American Educator, 22(1&2), 8-15. Hart and Risley 2003). The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3, American Educator Spring. Stanovich, K.E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360-407. The Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2012). Double Jeopardy: How Third Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation. Baltimore, MD: Hernandez, Diana. Retrieved from http://gradelevelreading.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/double-jeopardy-report-030812-forweb1.pdf. Research on Reading within a Topic to Develop Academic Vocabulary Adams, Marilyn (2011). Advancing our Students Language and Literacy The Challenge of Complex Text American Educator Winter 2010-11. Adams, Marilyn J. (2011). Reading, Language, and the Mind. Brown University Landauer, T. K., & Dumais, S. T. (1997). A solution to Plato's problem: The latent semantic analysis theory of acquisition, induction, and representation of knowledge. Psychological review, 104(2), 211. Research for Coherent Curriculum and Comprehension Guthrie, J. et al (2004). Increasing Reading Comprehension and Engagement Through Concept Oriented Reading Instruction Journal of Educational Psychology 2004 Guthrie, J. et al (2006). Reading Motivation and Reader Comprehension Growth in Later Years. Contemporary Educational Psychology. Koskinen, et al (1993). Developing engaged readers through concept-oriented instruction. Reading teacher, 47(4), 338-340. 2014 EL Education Inc.- Revised August 2015 4
Schafer et al (2001). Contribution of Instructional Practice to Reading Achievement in a Statewide Improvement Program. Journal of Educational Research. Wigfield, A. Guthrie, J., Von Secker, C. (2000). Effects of Integrated Instruction on Motivation and Strategy Use in Reading. Journal of Educational Psychology. Wigfield et al (2008). Role of Reading Engagement in Mediating the Effects of Reading Instruction on Reading Outcomes Psychology in the Schools. Research on the Failure of Current Methods of Literacy Instruction Baldwin et al, Effect of Topic Interest and Prior Knowledge on Reading Comprehension Reading Research Quarterly Summer 1985. Belloni, L. F., & Jongsma, E. A. (1978). The effects of interest on reading comprehension of low-achieving students. Journal of Reading, 106-109. McKeown, M. G., Beck, I. L., & Blake, R. G. (2009). Rethinking reading comprehension instruction: A comparison of instruction for strategies and content approaches. Reading Research Quarterly, 44(3), 218-253. Morgan, A., Wilcox, B. R., & Eldredge, J. L. (2000). Effect of difficulty levels on second-grade delayed readers using dyad reading. The Journal of Educational Research, 94(2), 113-119. Williams, J. P., et al (2009). Embedding reading comprehension training in content-area instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101(1), 1. Willingham, D. (2007). The Usefulness of Brief Instruction in Comprehension Strategies American Educator Winter 2006/2007. Zywica, J., & Gomez, K. (2008). Annotating to support learning in the content areas: Teaching and learning science. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy,52(2), 155-165. 2014 EL Education Inc.- Revised August 2015 5