This article focuses on how parents can help build a child’s vocabulary to align with the academic vocabulary they need to be successful in school- and for that matter in life.

Parents can actively improve reading comprehension by building vocabulary and background knowledge.  Research shows that background knowledge should be considered a foundational element of reading comprehension, along with vocabulary, and vocabulary has the added benefit of also improving fluency and overall comprehension.

How is Vocabulary Related to Reading Comprehension?

For decades, beginning in the 1970s, reading researchers sought to understand why vocabulary instruction had not generally brought about improvement is reading comprehension. A pattern began to emerge in the research that demonstrated that a child’s vocabulary development depended on going beyond simply getting children to associate words with their definitions. In other words, having children look-up words in a dictionary does not work because a simple definition is not generally enough to improve comprehension.

What does work to build the kind of word knowledge that affects comprehension is to build connections between new or unfamiliar with words they already know. These connections make it possible for readers to become aware of the word-meaning information they need as they attempt to comprehend a text.

In addition to making connections between new words and familiar word, it was found that increasing the number of encounters with the new words is essential  for students to actively and deeply process the meaning of new words.

Which Words?

A question I often receive from parents is which words, or what kind of words, are most useful for children to learn and should be given attention. The answer to this question was provided by the research of Isabel Beck and her associates. Beck created the concept of “word tiers.” She organized words into three tiers. Tier one words represented everyday basic words, familiar words; tier three included words that are very rare that often apply to specific domains such as biology. Tier two words are the set of words that are more sophisticated than the basic tier one words-instead of sad, use sorrowful or mournful keeping the new word within the context of the text.

Tips to build students’ background knowledge and vocabulary for reading comprehension

Here are some helpful tips for the classroom:

  1. Pre-teach vocabulary using explicit instruction

    Teach students the words, their meaning and how to use them. You won’t be able to teach every word this way, but it may be useful to identify 1-2 words and teach them ahead of reading the text. Research has shown that using a dictionary to teach vocabulary is inefficient and unlikely to stick so instead, choose words that help students to understand the text they’re about to read but also enhance their understanding of other things they may read. Repeated exposure in the text you read will help reinforce its meaning and then give them a chance to practice using it in context of a discussion or writing.
  2. Use non-fiction and fiction texts

    This will help build students’ knowledge and vocabulary around a topic so that they can better understand what they’re reading. Teaching non-fiction texts will also help build students general, cultural and world knowledge and help prepare them to understand a wider range of topics. You might like to choose news articles and match them with news clips on the same topic, podcasts, audiobooks or even apps such as the National Geographic app to dive into different topics. Use graphic organisers, such as word webs, to show students how different words and ideas are connected. You can draw multiple connections between words and ideas – the more interconnected our webs, the richer our students’ understandings will be.
  3. Focus on building domain knowledge

    Each domain (or discipline, e.g., history or biology) will have its own body of knowledge, vocabulary and sometimes also particular ways of reading or writing. When we build up students’ domain knowledge, we also help teach them the relevant literacy knowledge for that domain, for example, how we might approach reading a historical letter or an annotated diagram, and the key things to look out for. In addition to building webs for new topics, you can teach students to annotate or use graphic organisers to help link new knowledge to ‘existing’ knowledge or show them how different words or ideas connect.

The more we can support our students’ decoding and language comprehension, the more automatic and strategic their reading comprehension will become.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to support students’ reading comprehension, keep an eye out for our course, which will be launched later this year. Register your interest below.

When I began my doctoral studies, I was determined to find “The Answer” for how young readers could become strategic self-regulated readers who could comprehend any text put in front of them. At the time, there was a lot of buzz about comprehension strategy instruction. I jumped in reading every research article I could find about comprehension strategy instruction. I initiated my own research studies in schools where the principals were classmates in my doctoral cohort.

Three years later, I began a lengthy research study exploring comprehension strategy instruction as the final requirement to receive my doctorate. Although my work did lead to some statistically significant findings( a rare occurrence in human research), I was left not with the conclusive answers but rather I was left with more questions.

As a result I continue to search for answers with the children I tutor. I’ve learn a lot about how the brain processes information leading to meaning making, and in this article I present the six strategic actions that really stand out to me. Parents can leverage these strategic moves that proficient readers constantly make to support their children’s reading comprehension.

  1. Activate Prior Knowledge. I expect kids that I tutor to search for clues and think about the clues before they begin reading and during reading. Actions such as reading the title, heading, blurs, taking a walk through the texts noticing key or repeat vocabulary, illustrations, charts, etc. all help activate prior knowledge. This work also helps the reader know that they may need more background to fully comprehend the text that leads to building new background knowledge.
  2. Monitor Understanding. Too many kids read on when the text isn’t making sense. Teach your child to chunk the text into paragraphs or phrases asking themselves if the text is making sense.
  3. Text Structures. Teach readers to notice and utilize the patterns and features of a text that show relationships throughout the text. Explain that narrative text has a rather consistent structure- a character has a problem or wants something, events describe the character’s actions for finding a solution. Notice the characters feeling and relationships and any changes that may occur. Much is not directly stated by the author about the character’s behaviors, feeling, interactions but are instead implied or shown through the words on the page. For expository text, I teach kids to convert heading to the questions listed in 4 below. Doing such helps identify the key ideas and facts.
  4. Interrogate the Text. I tutor kids to ask and find answers to Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How questions as they read to build knowledge as they read.
  5. Fill-in What the Author Doesn’t State Directly. Pay attention to what the author is not saying and make an inference.
  6. Stop to Summarize. Show your child how you stop periodically to summarize and think about what you read.

Although this is not a comprehensive list of thinking moves, these six have shown to provide the most mileage for making sense of text.

Whether a child is reading for fun or for information, reading to understand is what it is all about. Unfortunately,  little is known about how to develop reading comprehension because most reading gurus have avoided tackling the topic because there are too many variables making it a mine field to study.

To illustrate, when the congressionally appointed National Reading Panel(2000) reviewed the research for what works for teaching reading, they found only 2or 3 studies that explored reading comprehension. Remarkably, they found literally hundreds of research studies that addressed teaching the reading sub-skills such as phonics or vocabulary for example .

For that reason, my work with young readers has concentrated on how to fully explain to a child how to activate, blend, and combine the skills that make up reading comprehension. I’ve tried to reduce the explanation into simple strategies that kids can understand. This is  ongoing research and I don’t have all the answers but I’m finding that the kids I work with know what they know and know how they know.

The most frequently asked question that I get from teachers that I am training is how to teach reading comprehension. My response is that you don’t teach reading comprehension.Rather, comprehension is an outcome of the development of its component skills. The skills that contribute to reading comprehension are decoding and linguistic comprehension-each encompasses many other elements.

Linguistic comprehension includes background knowledge, vocabulary, syntactic abilities and verbal reasoning. Decoding includes phonemic awareness, knowledge of the correspondence between letters and their sound, and both accuracy and automaticity with reading and spelling words. Both contribute equally and are incredibly important.The art of helping children learn to be solid comprehenders of text is to first determine which of these is causing the break- down of comprehension.

Parents play an important role in the development of linguistic comprehension beginning at birth. Linguistic comprehension can and should be explicitly taught through focus on direct experiences for the child, emphasis on development of vocabulary, and attention to grammar by reading aloud and discussing  each of these elements as they are encountered in books. Showing interest during the read-aloud for word meanings and how authors turn a phrase goes a long way towards developing a child’s curiosity and life long reading habits.

For pre-school children, learning the alphabet is the most helpful area of concentration. It should begin by teaching letters in the child’s name. Asking questions during the read-aloud such as “what letter is this (point to a letter)? Write this letter, What sound does (any letter) make?

Start with the letters that have the letter sound as part of their names.i.e., the letter B is pronounced “bee.” Research demonstrates these teaching moves assist children to remember letter names and sounds. Playing games such as letter hunts(find the letter A on this page) is fun and builds automaticity for letter identification. Adding what sound the letter makes extends the practice.

The next article will look at the letter names that make remembering the letter sound difficult and other foundational reading skills associated with letters, letter sounds, and other necessary alphabet knowledge.

 

Space limitations preclude providing a scope and sequence for teaching the alphabet. Email me at mario1206@att.net for learning more about teaching the alphabet.

Developing Reading Grit

I’ve been playing around with a theory for some time that becoming  a good reader is a lot like becoming a good baseball player. Becoming a good baseball player takes time, effort, and grit. It’s the grit part of the equation that’s  intriguing to me.

 

Perseverance and passion are the cornerstones of grit, a person’s beliefs and attitudes determine if they can cultivate grit long-term. Grit comes from believing you can succeed, even when you fail-and not giving up when you inevitably fail. It takes deliberate practice.

 

We’ve all seen it. Loving parents spend countless hours each week teaching their kids how to  throw, bat, and catch. They teach  baseball speak and take their kids to Astro games. Through parental enthusiasm and passion they cover all the bases so to speak.

 

For many kids learning to read is the first time they have to struggle to become competent. It’s the first time that mom or dad can’t do enough to help them be a better. reader. As a result they find it easier to give up and not try.

 

If you find that reading to and with your children isn’t paying off try another tactic. Model struggling and not giving up. Deliberately take on a challenge in the presence of your child. Model persistence and passion for getting better. That might sound crazy to you, but it works.

HOW?

Another cornerstone of grit is having fun and enjoying knowing that you are improving. Like teaching baseball, helping kids learn to read must be fun and it begins at a very early age. It all begins by showing a high level of enthusiasm for reading by reading in the presence of your children and talking excitingly about what was read. By modeling how you solve an unfamiliar word and demonstrating the patience to understand challenging  or unfamiliar ideas in a text are key moves to showing your child how to build reading grit.

 

Regularly research and read topics that your children are curious about. Show tenacity and grit about going deep into your study of the topic. Return often to making reading a priority. Gaining reading grit is like building muscles-make and execute a comprehensive work-out plan that goes well beyond just reading to your children.

The summer break is quickly escaping and many parents have reached out to me asking for a quick fix for the reading work that their child didn’t do during the summer. If your child didn’t read for 20 or more minutes most days this summer you”re not alone.

Well… I am sorry to tell you that there is no quick fix. But there is a shortcut that may help.

Research shows that reading volume-how much a child reads- matters. If kids haven’t read much during the summer they are at risk of losing as much as 2-3 reading levels when they return to school. If your child didn’t put in the reading work for the past two months they will be behind when the bell rings.

But what is a parent to do?

Fortunately, while there is no quick fix, there is  a shortcut that will help. Reading aloud to and with children has a solid research base to support better reading performance and can prove to be just what is needed to help get back on track.

Here are just a few of benefits of read-alouds that research has shown to support improved reading:

  1. Expands Vocabulary. Massaro (2017) research showed that the vocabulary in children’s picture books are three times more likely to encounter new words during read-alouds than in regular conversation. ** Stop and talk about unfamiliar words. Don’t simply read the unfamiliar words without defining the word in context.
  2. Enhances Listening Skills: Morrow & Gambrell’s(2002) work documents that listen comprehension precedes reading comprehension, and the child’s ability to understand spoken words a precursor to reading and using the words. ** Ask your child to repeat the word immediately when encountering the word. At the conclusion of the read-aloud review the words again. Ask your child to write a sentence using the word.
  3. Develops Syntactic Skills: Lane & Wright(2007) found that exposure to diverse sentence structures and grammatical patterns improve the learners ability to use complex language constructs and supported grasping the rules of language. ** Point out and discuss interesting sentence structure and the author’s word choice.
  4. Supports Word Recognition: Stahl(2003) points out that exposing children to a wide range of vocabulary in different contexts allows them to become familiar with  the appearance and sounds of words.** Have your child keep a personal  dictionary of words and phrases they encounter during the read-aloud.
  5. Encourages Imagination and Creativity: The read-aloud(Beck, 2020) is a gateway to realms of imagination and creativity. Through stories children are transported to other worlds and cultures.** Have your child create a story based on the read-aloud changing story element, characters, problem, resolution.

The critical consideration when reading aloud to children is to make the experience interactive. Simply reading the text limits the inherent  benefits and potential power of the read-aloud. If your child hasn’t read much this summer try scheduling two or more read-aloud sessions each day, if possible, before school starts. Sessions should be short-about 10-15 minutes.

You will be pleasantly surprised what a difference multiple read-alouds sessions will make.

** Parent tips to incorporate in read-alouds

It’s time to make certain that all our children can read at or above grade level. The single most successful method for raising the reading performance of our kids is one-on-one tutorials. Our children do not receive the amount or level  of personal tutoring in school, and the cost for services charged by  commercial tutoring centers is prohibitive with results often spotty at best.

 

When only 40% of U.S. fourth graders are reading at grade level according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress(NAEP)-the nation’s’s report card- the facts scream loudly that what we are doing to help our children to be better readers isn’t working. The NAEP results clearly illuminates that as a nation we are going in the wrong direction. Something needs to be done and done quickly because kids who have difficulty reading, or those who don’t want to read, rarely catch up.

 

To be clear, the NAEP data informs us that classroom based reading instruction ALONE  isn’t enough, or  worse, doesn’t work for many kids. This is not intended as a  criticism of teachers, rather it is a reflection of the realities of the classroom. In most classrooms of 20 plus students, there  isn’t enough time for the needed one-on-one attention  that ALL students need. Moreover, it is likely that disruptive students impact reading instruction, and there are other daily interruptions during the reading block that  also interfere with instruction.

 

Over several years, my core business The Literacy Group has provided tutorial services to school districts. Hundreds of tutors were trained and worked in classrooms using the reading methods that I researched and developed. Many of the tutors never taught or had experience tutoring young readers.Testimony to the success of the services is that schools contracted with The Literacy Group year and year.

 

Recently, I began a pilot program  in my private tutoring practice to train parents to be reading tutors for their children to advance their child’s reading performance. The action research project utilized the same successful tutoring methods implemented in schools and  also identified how parents can become personal coaches for their children. I concept center around how parents could provide the same type of personal coaching that top athletes enjoy. Results have been extraordinary with children improving their overall reading. Children who struggled or previously failed high stakes reading tests passed-some with top rated scores.

 

The program for parents employed the same training methodology developed for my tutors who worked so successfully in schools. Parents were taught all the alphabet tricks that make reading challenging for readers of all ages plus specific strategies to meet their child’s needs. Not surprisingly, parents who received proper training and ongoing support from me produced better results than the school tutors I had trained.Students reading below level caught up and began to choose to read not avoid reading outside of school.

 

I encourage all parents to consider becoming personal reading coaches for their children using a systematic program that will produce results.

The summer slump is a real phenomenon. Some kids loose as much as 2-3 reading levels during the summer. If you want to make certain that your child is not afflicted with the summer reading slump, focus 20 minutes each day on reading connected text. And, also, focus another 10 minutes on breaking words into syllables. When readers learn to break words into chunks, fluency and comprehension improve. It has been my experience that many young readers actually know the meaning of words but are unable to read them or sound them out.

Without a strategy for chunking longer words into manageable parts, students may look at a longer word and simply resort to guessing what it is — or, worst, skipping it altogether.  Familiarity with syllable-spelling strategy helps readers know whether a vowel is long, short, a diphthong, r-controlled, or whether endings have been added. Familiarity with syllable patterns helps students to read longer words accurately and fluently and to solve spelling problems — although knowledge of syllables alone is not sufficient for being a good speller.

Most English language words can be broken down into smaller parts, making these words easier to read. There are six syllable types that make this possible: closed, open, silent e, vowel pair, r-controlled, and final stable syllable.Every word has at least one vowel. can be counted by putting your hand under your chin and feeling the number of times the jaw drops for a vowel sound. This helpful hack works well. There are several syllable types noted below that you should address with your child during the summer break.

Closed syllables

The closed syllable is the most common spelling unit in English; it accounts for just under 50 percent of the syllables in running text. When the vowel of a syllable is short(doesn’t say its name)the syllable will be closed off by one or more consonants..Two or more consonant letters often follow short vowels in closed syllables (dodge, stretch, back, stuff, doll, mess, jazz). T

Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe) syllables

Also known as “magic e” syllable patterns, VCe syllables contain long vowels spelled with a single letter, followed by a single consonant, and a silent e. Examples of VCe syllables are found in wake, whale, while, yoke, yore, rude, and hare. Every long vowel can be spelled with a VCe pattern, although spelling “long e” with VCe is unusual.

Open syllables

If a syllable is open, it will end with a long vowel sound spelled with one vowel letter; there will be no consonant to close it and protect the vowel (to-tal, ri-val, bi-ble, mo-tor). A few single-syllable words in English are also open syllables. They include me, she, he and no, so, go. In Romance languages — especially Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian — open syllables predominate.

Vowel team syllables

A vowel team may be two, three, or four letters; thus, the term vowel digraph is not used. A vowel team can represent a long, short, or diphthong vowel sound. Vowel teams occur most often in old Anglo-Saxon words whose pronunciations have changed over hundreds of years. They must be learned gradually through word sorting and systematic practice. Examples of vowel teams are found in thief, boil, hay, suit, boat, and straw.

Sometimes, consonant letters are used in vowel teams. The letter y is found in ey, ay, oy, and uy, and the letter w is found in ew, aw, and ow. It is not accurate to say that “w can be a vowel,” because the letter is working as part of a vowel team to represent a single vowel sound. Other vowel teams that use consonant letters are -augh, -ough, -igh, and the silent -al spelling for /aw/, as in walk.

Vowel-r syllables

Common r-controlled” examples include (er, ir, ur, ar, or). Vowel-r syllables are numerous, variable, and difficult for students to master; they require continuous review. The /r/ phoneme is elusive for students whose phonological awareness is underdeveloped. Other examples for vowel-r syllables are found in perform, ardor, mirror, further, worth, and wart.

Consonant-le (C-le) syllables

Also known as the stable final syllable, C-le combinations are found only at the ends of words. If a C-le syllable is combined with an open syllable — as in cable, bugle, or title — there is no doubled consonant. If one is combined with a closed syllable — as in dabble, topple, or little — a double consonant results.

Some words cannot be sounded out. These words, often known as sight words, are not decodable because the sounds do not predictably correspond with the letters in the word. Sight words, such as said, who, come, does, need to be memorized because they cannot be sounded out. However, Single-letter words, such as I and a, are vowel only words. Every syllable has one vowel sound. Single-syllable words, like clump, she, and fine, each have one vowel sound. Therefore, words with multiple syllables will have one vowel sound for each syllable. A closed vowel has a short vowel sound. There is a consonant after the vowel. Students can learn the following author-created chant: “A consonant after a vowel make the vowel short.”