Heartland AEA Literacy Newsletter

In the November edition of the newsletter, the Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively Practice Guide was highlighted as a means to bridge research with practice. For a shortened version, check out the Practice Guide Summary which introduces the recommendations and supporting evidence described in the full practice guide. The next three articles explore practical applications of the examples for how to carry out each evidence-based recommendation outlined in the Practice Guide for implementation in secondary classrooms across disciplines.

Recommendation 1. Explicitly teach appropriate writing strategies using a Model-Practice-Reflect instructional cycle.

“Teaching students cognitive strategies is one way to develop strategic thinking skills […] Strategies help students direct their thinking as writers as they implement each component of the writing process” (Summary 2).

Achieve the Core offers resources that bring complexity, evidence, and knowledge into the ELA/literacy classroom with ready-to-use lessons, materials, and digital tools. In their Peers and Pedagogy feature, an interdisciplinary PLC develops common strategies and rubrics to support student writing in the blog post, High Impact Strategies for Writing With Evidence at the High School Level. Their key findings include:

1. Use quotations to cite textual evidence in support of claims.

2. Employ common language and strategies across disciplines.

3. Use templates and tools that allow for scaffolding.

While at the secondary level, it is valuable for teachers to attend to foundational literacy skills like summarizing information, generating claims, and using evidence and experiences to support claims, it is equally important to carefully consider the specific disciplinary literacy skills students need to engage in complex, literate acts within that discipline.

The WRITE Center features the blog post, The What and Why of Disciplinary Literacy where authors respond to the following questions:

1. What is disciplinary literacy?

2. Why do differences in disciplinary literacies matter?

The post concludes with a brief overview of Project READi, a multi-institution, multi-disciplinary collaboration designed to develop instructional interventions that support adolescent learners in developing reading for understanding in three content areas – literary analysis, history, and the sciences and across grades 6 – 12. The Project READi approach focuses on reading for understanding as the capacity to engage evidence-based argumentation drawing on content from multiple texts. Texts are broadly defined as including the multiple modalities and genres of information sources typical in these disciplines. Find instructional support to build a disciplinary-literacy instructional approach: https://readingapprenticeship.org/ located under the “Resources” tab.

Additional Resources:

• Achievethecore.org

• Introduction to Argument Writing: How to Design Strong Writing Instruction

• Small Pivots to Access Complex Text Across the Curriculum - Reading Strategies that Help Secondary Students in all Content Areas

• Iowa Department of Education

• Content Area and Disciplinary Literacy in Social Studies

• Building Literacy in Social Studies Webinar Series

• AEA Learning Online - Search for "Building Literacy in Social Studies Year 1: Disciplinary Literacy" Module

• Read. Inquire. Write - A process that structures inquiry and argument writing through a set of disciplinary literacy tools.

• Arizona Department of Education - Disciplinary Literacy in Science:

• Middle School

• High School

• Wisconsin Department of Education - Disciplinary Literacy in Science

Recommendation 2: Integrate writing and reading to emphasize key writing features.

“Combining reading and writing together in an activity or assignment helps students develop knowledge and important text features [...] Reading exemplar texts, or those that illustrate specific features of effective writing, can help students become familiar with important features of writing, which they can then emulate” (Summary 5).

The Learning Network, a resource provided by publishers of The New York Times, offers a flexible, seven-unit program based on the real-world writing found in newspapers, from editorials and reviews to personal narratives and informational essays. According to the website, the curriculum “is both a road map for teachers and an invitation to students.” For teachers, it includes writing prompts, mentor texts, contests and lesson plans, and organizes them all into seven distinct units. Each focuses on a different genre of writing that are not just in The Times but also in all kinds of real-world sources both in print and online. These resources all use content from The Times — articles, essays, images, videos, graphics and podcasts — as teaching tools across subject areas.

As part of the Mentor Texts series, Times journalists annotate their articles to let students in on their writing, research and editing processes. Journalists demystify the writing process via examples students can learn from and emulate. The website outlines resources in the series, which include guided practice with mentor texts: “Each unit we publish features guided practice lessons, written directly to students, that help them observe, understand and practice the kinds of “craft moves” that make different genres of writing sing. From how to “show not tell” in narratives to how to express critical opinions, quote or paraphrase experts or craft scripts for podcasts, we have used the work of both Times journalists and the teenage winners of our contests to show students techniques they can emulate.” While the intended audience is middle and high school teachers and students (age 13 and up), the content is also used in elementary schools and colleges, and much of it is appropriate for both.

Additionally, Achieve the Core provides access to the “In Common” project which offers annotated student writing samples that illustrate the integration of content understanding and writing in the three types of writing expected by college- and career-ready standards, including the CCSS: argument/opinion writing, informative/explanatory writing, and narrative writing. This bank of annotated student work can provide a foundation for analysis and discussions that lead to a deep and nuanced understanding of the writing standards.

Recommendation #3: Use assessments of student writing to inform instruction and feedback.

“By regularly assessing student performance—not just students’ final written products, teachers learn about progress on key learning objectives and can tailor their instruction accordingly” (Summary 7).

The Chief Council of State School Officers defines formative assessment as a planned, ongoing process used by all students and teachers during learning and teaching to elicit and use evidence of student learning to improve student understanding of intended disciplinary learning outcomes and support students to become self-directed learners. Effective use of the formative assessment process requires students and teachers to integrate and embed the following practices in a collaborative and respectful classroom environment:

• Clarifying learning goals and success criteria within a broader progression of learning;

• Eliciting and analyzing evidence of student thinking;

• Engaging in self-assessment and peer feedback;

• Providing actionable feedback; and

• Using evidence and feedback to move learning forward by adjusting learning strategies, goals, or next instructional steps.

Why is formative assessment so important in the writing classroom?

The Carnegie Report, Informing Writing: The Benefits of Formative Assessment found that providing feedback on students' writing had a strong (0.77) average effect size on learning. Providing feedback to students allows them to compare their work with a target, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and guide action for improvement. The writing process is naturally formative. Students learn best when creating sequential drafts of their work and incorporating meaningful feedback from peers and teachers into their revisions.

However, the timing of feedback matters. Frey and Fisher note in A Formative Assessment System for Writing Improvement'' that “when feedback focuses on a summative task, such as an essay or research paper, there is no opportunity for students to redo, or re-think, their work” (p. 66). If all feedback about a written piece is provided to the student after the work has been completed, the feedback is too late, and there is no guarantee that this feedback will be utilized in subsequent work. If formative assessment can be presented in a concise and timely fashion, students can better benefit from it.

This recommendation also includes engaging students in evaluating and reflecting upon their own and peers’ writing: “[...] have students provide feedback to peers, as students may be able to identify problems in peers’ writing more easily than they can in their own. Additionally, when students provide written feedback and assessment to peers, their comments and observations may enhance their understanding of their own writing” (Summary 7).

The free, open-sourced EL Education ELA Curriculum offers a creative way to engage students in a Speed Dating Protocol to think critically about writing - their own and that of their peers. This 5-minute video shows students spend ten minutes in pairs, offering each other specific feedback on a high-stakes writing assignment, before moving on to another partner for another round of critique. This protocol, as well as the resources listed below, can be used at various grade levels and no matter what curriculum you implement.

Additional Resources:

• EL Education - Protocols for Critique & Feedback

• Achieve the Core - Providing Feedback on Student Writing

Reading science emphasizes two critical pieces in systematic early reading instruction: securing foundational skills and building knowledge and vocabulary. These "Early Reading Accelerators" are essential content that all readers need access to in order to become proficient. While each student and their experiences are unique, we can accelerate the development of reading proficiency for all students by implementing these practices strategically through classroom instruction and materials.

How do we ensure that we are teaching Early Reading Accelerators’ content to all students, while also centering students whose academic needs are not being met by school?

Early Reading Accelerators Quick Start Guide. Explore this guide for an overview of what the Early Reading Accelerators are and how we can implement them equitably.

If you click on the Early Literacy Accelerators K-2 link above, you will see a Prezi that provides a more dynamic presentation, including sample videos of classrooms engaging in this work and additional resources you can use to build your knowledge of these Accelerators.

Many students need support with reading, but students of color, students from families experiencing poverty, and English learners are less likely to have access to resources that support reading success, including: effective instructional practices, appropriate individualized supports, or teachers and materials that reflect their identities. To implement the Early Reading Accelerators equitably, we must consider student supports, culturally relevant content and practices, and aligned instructional materials. This means that we have a deep knowledge of the Accelerators’ content and instruct in ways that value all students’ backgrounds, languages, cultures, points of view, knowledge, and skills.

Most words students encounter in school texts come from a small group of about 2,500 word families, which are groups of words related via a common root (e.g., walk, walked, walkable, etc.). Many are likely to be known orally to children entering kindergarten. Others, even if not known, are easily taught. Two word features help account for the familiarity of words and how teachable they are: age of acquisition and concreteness.

Age of acquisition is the average age at which a child can recognize a word in oral language and use it correctly. Because children learn these words before the age of three, on average, words like mom, dad, yes, and no have an age of acquisition below 3. The age of acquisition for microscopic and ban is around 10, and for sanguine and interminable, over 16, as these words are typically learned later in the school career. The lower the average age of acquisition, the higher the likelihood that a child will be familiar with the word.

Concreteness is the property of having a physical referent—so many words with the highest concreteness ratings are nouns. Ear, sand, and frog can all be easily represented by things or images and thus have the highest concreteness rating of 5. Verbs and adjectives can be represented through physical action or a physical quality, so rained has a concreteness rating of 4.97, and fat is rated 4.52.

About 54% of the 2,500 word families are familiar to entering kindergarteners, or they are highly concrete, or both. The Venn diagram below shows the interaction between familiarity (with an age of acquisition below 5) and concreteness at the kindergarten level.

The familiarity and concreteness of these word families facilitates their instruction when student start learning to read. Recent research suggests that these word features not only help students learn to recognize and decode, but that a student’s knowledge of a particular word’s meaning can help predict whether the student can successfully read the word1. One way a beginning reader might recognize a word is by first attempting to decode it using phonics skills and then checking the pronunciation against known words. For instance, if a reader pronounces a word bay-nay-nay, she can compare the sounds to words she knows and self-correct. If she doesn’t know what a banana is, however, she is less likely to recognize the word and correct the mispronunciation.

Other studies have shown that concreteness or, similarly, imageability (the ease with which a word’s meaning can be imagined) can also help students learn to read and recognize words. For example, one study found that students trained to imagine the meaning of a word when reading it learned to recognize and read words, especially those with irregular spellings, faster than students without the training2. Additional research has suggested that words with higher concreteness ratings are more easily recognized than words with low concreteness rating, and that a word’s concreteness rating can be a good predictor of whether a child will recognize it3.

If teachers can focus reading instruction on these familiar, concrete words during kindergarten and early elementary school, they will have helped students master more than half of the words they will read most often at the primary and secondary levels.

Sources:

1 Kearns, D. M., & Al Ghanem, R. (2019). The role of semantic information in children’s word reading: Does meaning affect readers’ ability to say polysyllabic words aloud?. Journal of Educational Psychology, 111(6), 933. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000316

2 Steacy, L. M., & Compton, D. L. (2019). Examining the role of imageability and regularity in word reading accuracy and learning efficiency among first and second graders at risk for reading disabilities. Journal of experimental child psychology, 178, 226-250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.09.007

3 Balota, D. A., Ferraro, F. R., & Connor, L. T. (2013). On the early influence of meaning in word recognition: A review of the literature. In The psychology of word meanings (pp. 199-234). Psychology Press.

Oregon Response to Instruction and Intervention (ORTIi) is pleased to announce that registration is now open for the 2022 ORTIi Virtual Reading Symposium. This day of learning, focused on supporting effective reading instructional practices, will take place on December 8th, 2022 from 8:00 AM – 12:15 PM PT and will be completely virtual, and completely free!

Following a keynote from journalist Emily Hanford, breakout sessions will address a variety of topics related to ensuring effective and equitable reading instruction for our students. Breakout session presenters will include:

• Claude Goldenberg

• Holly Lane

• Kim St. Martin

• Margie Gillis

• Resha Conroy

• Susan Brady

All sessions will be presented via Zoom. The digital program for the conference will be available at the end of November, & will include full session titles & descriptions, as well as zoom links for all sessions. We recognize the schedule may not work for everyone.

If you are unable to attend the live conference, please know that sessions will be recorded and available on-demand from the ORTIi website, following their completion.

Join us in 2023 for our 11th Annual Research to Practice Symposium

Why is Reading Comprehension So Difficult to Comprehend?

Monday, March 13, 2023

8:30 AM - 3:30 PM ET

Moderator: Nancy Hennessy, Author of The Reading Comprehension Blueprint Presenters Include:

Hollis Scarborough Award Recipient: Dr. Laurie Cutting, Associate Director, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor, Vanderbilt University

• Dr. Hugh Catts, Director of FSU School of Communication Science & Disorders, Florida Center for Reading & Research

• Dr. Amy Elleman, Director, Literacy Studies Ph.D. Program, Middle Tennessee State University

• Dr. Tiffany Hogan, Director of the Speech and Language (SAiL) Literacy Lab, MGH Institute of Health Professions

• Dr. Lakeisha Johnson, Assistant Professor, School of Communication Science Disorders, Florida State University and Creator of Maya's Book Nook.