How to teach children reading and spelling

How to teach children reading and spelling

Dr. Anna M. T. BosmanSpecial Education, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen

The Netherlands

[email protected]

The problem

Reading delays– 10-15% in regular education – 73% in special education

Spelling delays– No data

Main cause– Neither intelligence nor background, but

Quality of instruction

My goal

Prevention of reading and spelling problems in special (and regular) education

through

Effective Instruction

With what?

The method

“How to teach children reading and spelling”(HTCRS; Schraven, 1994/2004)

developed by José Schraven M.Ed.

Research questions

What is the effect of HTCRS?

What level can be reached with HTCRS?

pertaining to students in special education

Participating schools

School Method G / B DSL medicin /diagnosis

X HTCRS 1/10 2 6/6

Y - 7/14 0 0/2

Z - 3/9 4 4/2School 1 year R&S Gr 1 KG reg KG SpEd

X 9% 1 3 7

Y 19% 4 11 6

Z 33% 2 3 7

Mean age & scores on cognitive tasks

Age SPM VOC LTM STM

X 82 21 26 4 20/6

Y 83 20 25 4 19/6

Z 89 21 25 5 20/5

SPM = Nonverbal intelligence; Raven VOC = Vocabulary; ≈ Peabody LTM = Long-term memory; 12-words testSTM = Short-term memory; digit recall and backward digit recall

Test calender

September November March June

Reading

Phoneme blending x x x xReading letters x x x xReading words x x x x

Reading text x x

Spelling

Phoneme segmentation x x x xWriting letters x x x x

8-words dictation x x x xSpelling tests x x

Differences between schools

Phoneme blending (max. = 40)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

september november maart juni

XYZ

Reading letters (max. = 34)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

september november maart juni

XYZ

Reading CVC words (n/min.)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

september november maart juni

XYZ

Reading CCVC words (n/min.)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

september november maart juni

XYZ

Reading multi-syllable words (n/min.)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

september november maart juni

XYZ

Phoneme segmentation (max. = 40)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

september november maart juni

XYZ

Writing letters (max. = 34)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

september november maart juni

XYZ

8-words dictation (max. = 8)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

september november maart juni

XYZ

Spelling tests March (% correct)

92

76

57

83

55

37

80

38

24

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

M1 M2 M3

XYZ

Spelling tests June (% correct)

86

40

59

79

20

33

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

E4 E5

XYZ

School levels

Dutch national norms (Cito)

0

5

10

15

20

25

Level

ABCDE

75%-

100% 50%-

75% 25%-

50%10%

-25%

0%-

10%

Reading CVC-words in June

45

9

18 18

9

0 0

14

29

57

8 8

0

17

67

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

X Y Z

ABCDE

Reading CCVCCC-words in June

36

18

27

0

18

0 05

19

76

0

8 8

17

67

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

X Y Z

ABCDE

Reading multi-syllable words in June

27

18

36

0

18

05 5 5

86

8 8 8 8

67

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

X Y Z

ABCDE

Text-level 1 in June

73

18

9

19

10

71

8

17

75

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

X Y Z

AchievedInstructionFrustration

Text-level 2 in June

64

9

27

10 10

80

17

0

83

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

X Y Z

AchievedInstructionFrustration

Text-level 3 in June

2836 36

0 0

100

8 8

83

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

X Y Z

AchievedInstructionFrustration

Spelling level in March

27

45

9

18

0 0

10

0

52

38

0 0

17

38

68

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

X Y Z

ABCDE

Spelling level in June

36

18

27

9 9

0 0

9

29

62

0 0

17 17

67

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

X Y Z

ABCDE

Conclusions

Reading and spelling is substantially and signficantly better in School X than Y and Z.

Reading performance of School X is at the level of regular education.

Spelling performance of School X is above the level of regular education.

Consistency levels of English and Dutch

Letters

Sounds

[di:r] deer/dear

[par] pair/pear

Tear

WindEnglish 28%Dutch 37%

English 69%

Dutch 86%

S p e l lR e a d i n g n g

What

How

What makes HTCRS effective?

The ‘What’

Structure – of the orthography using a well-defined

framework (meta-cognition)o ruleso ways of thinking

– of exercises based on task analysiso Reading exercises prior to reading (phoneme blending)o Spelling exercises prior to spelling (phoneme segmentation)

The ‘How’ Direct instruction

– Teacher is model– Rows facing the teacher– Differentiation during group lesson

Orientation basis (Russian psychology)– Concrete goal– Practice each of the components – Integration in existing knowledge

Multi-sensory basis– Visual, auditory, and motor

Daily repetition & assessment– Each day same order of exercises– Each day a spelling test

Guaranteed success

Thank you for your attention

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