3/19/19

3/11/19, AIM Institute

THE MANY STRANDS THAT ARE WOVEN INTO SKILLED READING
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION
BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE inc SKILLED READING:
re SKILLED READING:
fluent execution &
VOCABULARY str asin fluent execution and
LANGUAGE STRUCTURES ate gly coordination of text
gic coordination of text
comprehension and

VERBAL REASONING comprehension and
word recognition.

Hollis Scarborough LITERACY/PRINT KNOWLEDGE

Senior Research Scientist, Emerita

(
( ) ) )
(
Haskins Laboratories
PRINTED WORD RECOGNITION
PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS
sin
gly

SIGHT RECOGNITION rea tic
inc toma
And the subject of the case history is…. DECODING au TIME

The Language Comprehension Strands The Word Recognition Strands

Learning to spell correctly can be
a life-or-death matter at Hogwarts.
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION
Eschewing the vulgate can obfuscate BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE
the lucidity of your rhetoric.
VOCABULARY uv (of)
Time flies like an arrow, but LANGUAGE STRUCTURES
fruit flies like a banana.
VERBAL REASONING Grade 2 PRINTED WORD RECOGNITION
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – STUDENT
LITERACY/PRINT KNOWLEDGE
I took the one less traveled by, DECODING
And that has made all the difference. Alphabetic principle is grasped, but PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS
A woman without her man is nothing. some letter-sound correspondences
are not yet mastered. SIGHT RECOGNITION
A woman without her man is nothing.
So she must already be aware that spoken
Insanity is, perhaps, the absence of punctuation. words are made up of smaller speech sounds.
- W.H. Auden - Many words are not fully decodable. Their word-specific spellings must be learned
by sight, which comes sooner in reading than writing.

Over time and with practice, processing

becomes more tightly interwoven, strategic & automatized.
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION (Scarborough, 2001)
BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE inc
str reasin purposeful (task or goal),
VOCABULARY ate gly building a coherent schema,
LANGUAGE STRUCTURES gic
alert to the unexpected
VERBAL REASONING
LITERACY/PRINT KNOWLEDGE

PRINTED WORD RECOGNITION

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS ly LIKE
s ing
SIGHT RECOGNITION inc
rea a tic DRIVING,
om
aut
SPORTS,
DECODING fast, smooth,
KNITTING,
TIME effortless ETC.

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 3/19/19

:

The rope is the child of scientific research .

It distills the mountain of rigorous work, 1970-1990,
: ~1992 on the reading process, on literacy development, and on understanding
reading/language difficulties.
: ~27 years
The researchers were from diverse academic fields:
: Labor lasted several hours. I made a model
from pipe cleaners, drew it with pencil and
cognitive psychology, educational psychology, perception, psycholinguistics,
early literacy, assessment, genetics, neuroscience, etc., etc.
eraser, traced it in ink, then typed up the
labels and glued them on. (Funding for reading research was abundant then!)

No rope would ever have been created if,

OF THE 1980s – 1990s

at that time, there had been broad consensus about

what skills and knowledge were most important for Phonicators! n the

Ken Goodman dow Louisa Moats
Burn schools!
becoming a good reader, and about the best way to Yetta Goodman Ed Reid Lyon
Frank Smith Teachin Keith Stanovich
teach children to read. g phon
is child a
Hans Grundin ic
buse! s Rudolph Flesch
Richard Allington Jean Chall
But instead of consensus, we had… Regie Routman of Ed Kame’enui
Denny Taylor lural t Isabelle Liberman
The pote” is no
Gay Sue Pinell d
“anecvidence!”
Marilyn J. Adams
“e

My focus then was on preschoolers. When I thought about the reading wars at
all, I saw myself as a centrist who could see merit on both sides.

I was being asked to give talks about reading research to parents and teachers.
And audiences always like a handout to doodle on. I had to make one that was
Emily Hanford, an NPR journalist, reports that systematic phonics
palatable to all, or risk offending someone.
instruction has fallen out of favor in many PA schools, and suggests that
the reading wars may be heating up again! Yikes!
You can read her article on the AIM website. It was with that mindset that I created the rope.

www.apmreports.org/story/2018/09/10/hard-words-why-american-kids-arent-being-taught-to-read

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The rope had a busy and fulfilling early life as a handout

for parents and teachers at workshops that I led.

Leslie Rescorla remembers first seeing it at an
Act 48 session at Bryn Mawr College in 1994.

to illustrate to a non-researcher the
complexity of reading and how skilled reading is acquired, according to
research to date.
Since then, there has been a steady flow of requests for permission to
reproduce it, mainly in materials for teacher professional development.
So the rope’s original role has been maintained over the years, although
NB: Act 48 is the statute that governs continuing professional education in the audience is wider.
Pennsylvania.

HOW STRONGLY DO START-OF-K MEASURES PREDICT FUTURE

Predicting Future Reading from Kindergarten Skills: A Meta-Analysis
(Results from 61 studies published 1976-1996)
READING PROFICIENCY? (1998 META-ANALYSIS)
.00 .10 .20 .30 .40 .50 .60
Letter Identification PRINT
Concepts of Print
SKILLS
Expressive Vocab.
Sentence/Story Recall
Phonol. Awareness
I had gotten interested in the prediction of reading outcomes from Rapid Serial Naming
ORAL
differences among kindergartners on various measures. Receptive Language
LANGUAGE,
Receptive Vocabulary
In part, this involved conducting a “meta-analysis” to average the results Expressive Language including some
of the 61 available studies from which appropriate data could be Full-Scale/Verbal IQ PHONOLOGICAL
extracted. Word/Digit Memory
Visual Memory
The AVERAGE PREDICTIVE STRENGTH of 16 kinds of kindergarten Performance IQ
Why did these results
predictors is shown on the next slide. Speech Production
Speech Perception make me happy?
The results should not surprise you. Visual & Motor Skills

YAY! CONVERGING EVIDENCE!

Predicting Future Reading from Kindergarten Skills: A Meta-Analysis
A different set of studies identifies the same key strands.
(Results from 61 studies published 1976-1996)
TOP 5 PREDICTORS FROM THE .00
Predictor .10
META-ANALYSIS .20 .30 .40 .50 .60
Letter Identification
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION
Concepts of Print
BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE
Expressive Vocab.
Sentence/Story Recall VOCABULARY
Phon. Awareness LANGUAGE STRUCTURES
Rapid Serial Naming VERBAL REASONING
Receptive Language
LITERACY/PRINT KNOWLEDGE IT’S HARDER TO CREATE A STRONG ROPE
Receptive Vocabulary
Expressive Language
FROM FRAYED STRANDS.
Full-Scale/Verbal IQ PRINTED WORD RECOGNITION Weakness in one strand can potentially disrupt reading.
Word/Digit Memory
Visual Memory
PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS Given the interconnectedness of strands, that could
SIGHT RECOGNITION
Performance IQ hold other strands back from developing.
DECODING
Speech Production Weakness in several strands can be especially disruptive.
Speech Perception
Visual & Motor Skills The severity of the fraying also matters.

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esearch nto ractice

Dilbert

DO
I admit to ignorance
about the practical
side of education,
and would not dare
to tell anybody how
to teach reading.
Philadelphia Inquirer, 1/22/19

Many Factors that Influence Reading

THE MANY STRANDS THAT ARE WOVEN INTO SKILLED READING Are Not in the Rope
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION
BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE SKILLED READING:
inc The rope is intended to illustrate the knowledge and skills that the reader brings
VOCABULARY re fluent execution &
str asin coordination of text to the situation, and that are specific to reading (rather than, say, to math).
LANGUAGE STRUCTURES ate gly comprehension and
gic word recognition.
VERBAL REASONING So one must always think of the rope as being “woven” in a particular context
LITERACY/PRINT KNOWLEDGE that could affect the growth of some or all of the strands. Potential influences:

PRINTED WORD RECOGNITION preschool experiences

SLI, ESL, ADD, other EF weaknesses
PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS gly
sin family history
rea tic
SIGHT RECOGNITION inc toma
DECODING au TIME adequacy of prior instruction Did you know…?
Plus socioeconomic (SES) differences

SES of the SCHOOL matters a lot. SES of the FAMILY doesn’t. What research CAN often do is prune out the weeds. % of
teachers
Did you know that rigorously obtained scientific evidence indicated that the
The average socioeconomic status (SES) of the following popular myths and longstanding ways of thinking are false?
student body of the school that children (will) attend
r =
strongly predicts the average reading .64-.70 “Bonding” between infant and parent in the first few
days of life is crucial for the child’s well-being.
achievement of the school’s students.
High sugar intake raises children’s activity levels. 50%
However, prediction is much weaker from the r = A common sign of dyslexia is reversing
SES of an individual child (family) to the
reading score outcome of the individual child. .23-.27 letters (seeing them backwards).
Reading instruction is more effective if it is tailored
to a child’s particular “learning style.” 76%
This has been known for almost 40 years (White, 1982) and
replicated more recently (Sirin, 2005). Nonetheless, Skilled readers don’t actually read most of the words
the distinction continues to be widely ignored. on a page because they can use context so well.
Why do people cling to such myths despite the clear science?
Macdonald et al. (2017): www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.s017.01314/full

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INERTIA? I’m all for progress. It’s change I can’t stand. (Mark Twain)
SHORTCOMINGS OF TEACHER TRAINING?
SHORTCOMINGS OF TEACHERS?
DEFINITIVE EVIDENCE IS TOO SPOTTY?
POOR COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF RESEARCHERS?
ALL OF THE ABOVE?
I heartily applaud the attempts at AIM to develop more
evidence-based educational policies and practices.
I look forward to observing their progress in doing that,
and feel privileged to have a front row seat.

AGE 2 AGE 42
was a pioneer in the study of language
development, and kindled my interest in it.
His family background of
has long shared reading difficulties, and his
my interest in language acquisition, and atypical early language,
brought me into the Bryn Mawr family. inspired my longitudinal study of preschoolers at risk for RD.
The at-risk youngsters showed deficits in language proficiency at ages 2 – 5 years,
has been a and by the end of Grade 2, 65% of them were a
year or more behind in reading (vs. just 5% of the control group).
close friend for decades. We
disagree a lot, but arguing is fun! I’m proud to say that the study has been replicated
(and improved on) by many other researchers around the world
at AFT and I began from Finland to Australia.
JW’s in finance and makes more in a year than I made in a lifetime.
our study of dialect differences 20 years He’s happily married and adores his 2 young daughters.
ago, and have remained friends ever since. Despite RD, he became a decent reader, but his spelling is atrocious.

(
( ) ) )
(
Haskins Laboratories MY RESEARCH “HOME”

SINCE 1996
Speakers at a 2008 symposium to honor Don Shankweiler Vanderbilt U, Psych Educational
Chuck Perfetti David Share Dick Olson Hugh Catts Maggie Brian comprehension, EF, Testing Service
Snowling Byrne neuroscience adult literacy, models

UC-Santa Barbara, Sociolinguistics

dialect differences

Ken Pugh Me Ruth DON Carol Susan

Milliken SHANKWEILER Fowler Brady
Florida State University
dialects and reading
The stellar researchers in the back Psychologist in private practice
Anne Len row are not at Haskins Labs. Carsten late emerging reading disabilities
Fowler Katz Elbro

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I am also deeply indebted to the countless:

-- research PARTICIPANTS and their families for their Nat’l Institute for Child Health
patience and generosity;
-- the STUDENTS and ASSISTANTS who worked so diligently and Human Development
and enthusiastically on my team; (and some other government sources)
-- and the SCHOOLS and TEACHERS who generously and
graciously let us carry out research in their
classrooms, hallways, closets, and nurses’ offices.
and the

Special thanks to the MYSTERY EDUCATOR who asked me about 5th graders
with no record of earlier difficulty in reading who were coming to her clinic.
That question inspired the LERD study, and I’d like to thank you by name.

NJIDA
Georgette & Society for the Scientific Study of Reading
Emerson Dickman
Many connections with
fellow researchers, like

BARBARA NANCY
WILSON HENNESSY DON KATE
COMPTON CAIN

HSScarborough@verizon.net

Kendal-Crosslands Retirement Community in Kennett Square