Reading Acquisition: Theory to Practice Sharon Weiss-Kapp CCC-SLP Clinical Assistant Professor MGH Institute of Health Professions Senior Clinical Associate-

Reading Acquisition: Theory to Practice

Sharon Weiss-Kapp CCC-SLPClinical Assistant Professor

MGH Institute of Health ProfessionsSenior Clinical Associate- Communication Disorders

Department Children’s Hospital Boston

Theory Practice Product

Research on Intelligent Agents for Instructional Purposes

Electronic Screen Media Lexia Software-computer based technology/Lexie serves as an intelligent agent

Executive Functioning Theory attention to task

task analysisworking memoryplanningmonitoring of performance

Lexia is designed with a consistent scope and sequence/spiral back exercises/visual scaffolds/reinforcement schedules

Phonological awarenessrhymingfirst/last sound awarenesssegmentation/blending exercisesletter/sound recognition

Lexia Early Reading SoftwareLexia Primary Reading

Phonics instruction6 syllable typesRules for syllabicationIrregular sight wordsAnglo-Saxon/Latin/Greek affixes/roots and suffixes

Lexia Primary ReadingSOS

ComprehensionFluencySyntactic understandingSemantic understanding

SOS /Primary Reading-Cloze Activities

Executive Skill Support

• Attention

• Working memory

• Inhibition of competing stimuli

• Automaticity of skills

• Maintenance of task

• Monitoring performance

• Shifting of task

Intelligent Agents

Broadly defined, an intelligent tutoring system is educational software containingan artificial intelligence component.The software tracks students' work, tailoring feedback and hints along the way.By collecting information on a particular student's performance, the software can make inferences about strengths and weaknesses, and can suggest additional work.

Interferences to Reading Comprehension

MeaningReader’s schemata does not overlap sufficiently with

author’s

LanguageReader’s system

of language does not overlap sufficiently with

author’s.

PrintAccuracyAutomaticityFluency

Reader does not monitor construction of meaning

• From Call of the Wild by Jack London• He had never seen dogs fight as these w___ish c________

f_____, and his first ex________ t____t him an unf______able l____n. It is true, it was a vi_______ ex_______, else he would not have lived to pr___t by it. Curley was the v_____. They were camped near the log store, where she, in her friend__y way, made ad______ to a husky dog the size of a full-_____ wolf, th_____ not half so large as _he. __ere was no w___ing, only a leap in like a flash, a met_____ clip of teeth, a leap out equal__ swift, and Curly’s face was ripped open from eye to jaw.

• Taken from the NICHD Research Program: • What We now Know About How Children Learn to Read• Bonita Grossen 03-27-97• Full report at: www.cftl.org/30years/30years.html

Mapping Print to the Strands of Spoken Language

• Phonology

• Semantics

• Syntax

• Morphology

• Pragmatics

• Discourse

Phonological Awareness:Ability to reflect on and

manipulate the sound structure of one’s own Language

• Word Awareness-Segmenting sentences into words

• Syllable Awareness-Segmenting words into syllables

• Phonemic Awareness-Segmenting syllables into individual speech sounds

Phonological Memory

Codes used to store verbal material for memory span tasks requiring immediate, verbatim and ordered recall (digits, letters, pronounceable non-words)

Phonological Awareness Skills

• Rhyming

• First sound awareness

• Last sound awareness

• Segmentation

• Blending

Memorize these Numbers

1249162536496481

Orthographic Processing

Recognition and use of English spelling patterns

• bake

• lake

• cake

• have

• hav (?)

English Orthography

cups – cups

toys-toyz

Orthographic Processing Skills

• Knowledge of six syllable types

1. Open syllable - “pa”

2. Closed syllable- “pat”

3. Silent e syllable- “bake”

4. R-controlled syllable- “fur”

5. Vowel combination syllable- “bait”

6. Consonant-le – “maple”

Orthographic Processing Skills

• Spelling rules and generalizations e.g., “floss” rule: When a one syllable word containing a short vowel sound is followed by f, l, or s you double the f, l, or s.

• Examples: bull, cuff, floss

Orthographic Processing Skills

• Automaticity- Accuracy and speed in decoding orthographic patterns

• Fluency- Text level fluid reading with appropriate melody, rate, and intonation.

Semantics-Aspect of language that governs meaning of words and

word combinations

Schematic Understanding:

• Background knowledge

• World Knowledge

• Procedural knowledge

Vocabulary

• Lexical –specific dog

• Categorical- all dogs have critical features that group them into a category

• Lexical meaning for “hospital”

• Categorical meaning for “hospital”

• Schematic meaning for “hospital”

Syntax: How Words are Combined into Meaningful Units of Phrases,

Clauses and Sentences

• Word order

• Sentence organization

• Relationships between words, word classes, and sentence constituents such as noun phrases and verb phrases.

Syntax (cont’d)

Knowledge of syntax allows the individual to make judgments about meaning:

“Please sit in the chair”Versus“Chair the sit please in”

Knowledge of grammar assists in comprehension

Syntax Skills

• Explicit Instruction of rules of grammar in the spoken language system

• Explicit instruction in the rules of grammar in the written language system

Published Programs that Provide Explicit Instruction

• Project Read

• Story Grammar Marker

Morphology-Groups of words and inflections that convey subtle

meaning and serve grammatical and pragmatic functions

• Free morphemes-words that independently carry meaning

• Bound morphemes-inflectional endings that carry meaning, such as –ed,-s, ing

Morphology Skill Development

Explicit Instruction in Structural Analysis

• Anglo-Saxon roots and affixes

• Latin roots and affixes

• Greek roots and affixes

Pragmatics-Use of language in context, serving a variety of

communicative functions

• Declaring

• Greeting

• Requesting information

• Answering questions

Pragmatics (cont’d)

Pragmatics includes the rules that govern conversation:

• Initiating conversation

• Turn taking

• Maintaining topics

• Changing topics

• Conversational repairs

• Requesting clarification

Pragmatic Skill Development to Enhance Comprehension

Fluency Activities

• Scooping

• Intonation activities

• Multiple perspective discussions

Discourse-level Comprehension

World knowledge

1. Specific content domains, e.g., academic subjects

2. Procedural, e.g., how to bake bread

3. Interpersonal knowledge, e.g., human needs, motivation, attitudes, emotions, relationships

Discourse-level Comprehension

• Referential knowledge- Language cues that assist the reader in identifying the referent of the utterance, such as pronouns of gender and number, and synonyms

• Script knowledge- Knowledge of familiar events, such as a birthday party, or going to a restaurant

Discourse-level Comprehension

• Story-schema knowledge- Mental framework that contains slots for each story component, such as setting, goal, obstacle and resolution

• Making inferences- Inferences by taking information already processed, and combining it with world knowledge and script schema

Narrative Form

• Character• Setting• Initiating event• Internal response• Plan• Attempts• Resolution• Internal response

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Theory Practice Product

Research on Intelligent Agents for Instructional Purposes

Electronic Screen Media Lexia Software-computer based technology/Lexie serves as an intelligent agent

Executive Functioning Theory attention to task

task analysisworking memoryplanningmonitoring of performance

Lexia is designed with a consistent scope and sequence/spiral back exercises/visual scaffolds/reinforcement schedules

Phonological awarenessrhymingfirst/last sound awarenesssegmentation/blending exercisesletter/sound recognition

Lexia Early Reading SoftwareLexia Primary Reading

Phonics instruction6 syllable typesRules for syllabicationIrregular sight wordsAnglo-Saxon/Latin/Greek affixes/roots and suffixes

Lexia Primary ReadingSOS

ComprehensionFluencySyntactic understandingSemantic understanding

SOS /Primary Reading-Cloze Activities

Early ReadingExecutive Function (Puzzle)

Early Reading – Rhyming

Early Reading – First Sound

Early Reading – Final Sound

Early Reading – Segmentation

Primary Reading – Sound/Symbol

Primary Reading – Silent e

Primary Reading – Sight Words (level 5)

SOS – Anglo-Saxon root/affix

Primary ReadingSemantic Categories

Primary ReadingSemantic Categories (2)

Primary Reading Cloze Paragraph

Intelligent Agent – Progress Report

Intelligent Agent – Branching