Category: Professional Development

Reading Development – Stage Three of Cognitive Maturation: Concrete Operations, Ages 7 – 11

The research states that students reach a pivotal stage in cognitive development about the age of seven (Binet & Simon, 1916; Fowler, 1983; Piaget & Inhelder, 1966; Vygotsky, 1934). Students are moving from symbolic to concrete stage of cognitive development. Student cognition connections (networks) are growing in a layered fashion. Students move from processing information externally through discussion to internally processing information. Students are better able to form pictures in their mind and transfer those images on to paper. Students become better able to collaborate and their conversations become heavier in substance as they grow through this stage. Students develop more complex connections about their senses-seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling and moving (Fowler, 1983). Students are better able to concern themselves with other people, than just themselves.

Vygotsky’s (1929) cultural-historical theory of psychological development, particularly in relation to cognitive development suggests that there are two forms of speech, inner and external. Each type of speech has its own function. Processed external speech is purposeful speech for interaction between other people. Inner speech takes place within the brain and is non-verbal. Students move from egocentric, self-centered speech to a more communicative speech that is processed internal. Piaget and Inhelder (1966) also noted that student oral language begins a new role during the concrete phase of maturation. Children begin to have conversations of depth about collaboration. Children begin to understand the concept of working together for the shared purpose of a single cause. The shift from self to team begins the development of operational processing in the brain. Growth in higher mental functions happens through the collaboration between students and the teacher (Vygotsky, 1934).

Student oral language matures using a seriation process that begins during the sensori-motor level of cognitive development around age one. Seriation is the arranging of items in like categories and building the categories in a systematic order (Piaget, 1966). Children have a solid understanding of a one digit or a one item category before understanding two digit or two item categories at age seven. Children will grow cognitively in the ability to process the tasks of classification and numbering parallel to learning seriation, which Piaget (1966) noted involves stretching cognitive processing in order to increase the level of operatory functions. Each level of seriation requires that cognitive skills be stimulated through social interaction.

In addition, students begin to transfer images from within their minds to paper (Piaget, 1966). Their drawings become more defined and increase in complexity around age nine. Children also begin to develop drawings that show depth and correct geometrical proportions to the other objects in the drawing. Students are better able to reverse the order of operations, such as adding and subtracting. Children become able to comprehend and discuss that liquid compounds can change shape and appear to change amount while remaining constant (Piaget, 1966). Students begin processing more abstractly as they move into the next stage of cognitive development, about age 11 – preadolescent stage (Piaget, 1966).

Regarding learning how to read, spell, and comprehend written words. Students are at the beginning of Stage 2 of Chall’s (1983) reading development theory in Grades 2 and 3 or the ages of 7 and 8. Students entering Grade 2 usually know their letter and sound correspondences and are able decode CVC and CVCe words. Students usually know some sight or irregular words. Students are usually beginning to decode more complex words, like multisyllabic. Their fluency begins to increase through practice of familiar stories and genres. Most students are using pictures to produce the correct written word and comprehension of the story. Students are beginning to move from letter-sound correspondences to “chunking” words into syllables and morphemes for better pronunciation and comprehension. Students are comprehending at a higher oral language level than they are able to read and process written language.

Students begin to read for gaining and using information about mid-way through this stage of cognitive development. Students are also reading books of higher complexity that include less pictures, which is often a difficult transition for students. By the end of this stage, student comprehension of written language usually has increased to match their verbal comprehension skills.

Instruction should include “direct instruction in advanced decoding skills” (Chall, 1983). Students should continue to hear books of higher levels to increase their knowledge of vocabulary and other concepts not yet within their own reading ability.

References

Binet, A. & Simon, T. (1916). The development of intelligence in children.             Williams & Wilkins Co.

Birsh, J. R. & Carreker, S., (Eds.). (2018). Multisensory teaching of basic language skills (4th ed.). P. H. Brookes Pub. Co.

Chall, J. S. (1983). Stages of reading development. McGraw-Hill Book Co.

Ehri, L.C. (2022). What teachers need to know and do to teach letter-sounds, phonemic awareness, word reading, and phonics. The Reading Teacher, 0(0),1-9. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2095

Fowler, W. (1983). Potentials of childhood (Vol. I). D.C. Heath & Co.

Healy, J. (1987). Your child’s growing mind. Broadway Books.

Johnson, G. (2010). Internet use and child development: validation of the ecological techno-subsystem. Educational Technology & Society, 13(1), 176-185.

Piaget, J. & Inhelder, B. (2000). The psychology of the child. Basic Books.

Vygotsky, L. (1934). Thought and language. MIT Press.

Observation – A Powerful Tool

Teacher observation is a powerful tool available to assist educators in providing the best instructional practices for a student or groups of students. Teachers usually keep anecdotal notes to help ensure accuracy of their observation. An anecdotal note is a written account of a person’s perspective of what they have witnessed through a variety of different venues. The notes are then used to create a more valid picture of student abilities, both socially and academically. Educators will have a clearer view of those differences when we take the time to write down our observations.

Teachers might take notes of social interactions, classroom environment, and student personalities. This piece of the observation pie is critical to the success of student outcomes. Some students have interventionist at home, some don’t. Some students may be able to sit for instruction longer than others. Some students may need more movement to accomplish the task placed before them. Some students work better with other students than their neighbor. Some students love science, but dislike all other subjects. These differences should become part of teacher considerations for instructional practices in the classroom.

In addition, teachers might take notes about traits that they witnessed during instruction or when students are independently working. They might take notes about their letter knowledge or decoding skills. Teachers might take notes about comprehension of passage read or ability to use the information read. They might also take notes about their reading fluency, like are they stopping to sound out each word or are they skipping and adding words.

Teacher observations are a vital part of the response to intervention (RTI) or multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) process. Anecdotal notes assist in writing academic goals for Tiers 1, 2, and 3. Anecdotal notes assist in the decision process of whether a student should be given a diagnostic assessment(s) and what types of these measurements would be most viable for this student. Written notes also assist in progress monitoring as they work towards their goal(s).

Teachers might establish key traits to watch for during the day-to-day practices in the classroom. Student learning level will help establish the traits to look for, like in kindergarten students should know their phoneme and grapheme correspondences. Student learning goals will also assist in the development of the key traits that you may look for during the school day.  Observing and making note of which students are able to name each letter and its sounds or not being able to decode words will help to establish which students will need additional instruction or have mastered the skill in this area. Teachers might use this information to establish small group instruction or further assess student capabilities in this area.

Teacher observations usually help to validate different types of assessments that educators use for a variety of reasons. They might use them to measure student growth overtime. Assessments may also be used to measure teachers’ ability to develop and deliver student instruction. They might also be used to find students who may be struggling in literacy acquisition. Assessments may also be used as a diagnostic measurement to dive deeper into student learning abilities. Unfortunately, these assessments are just a picture of student knowledge (on a particular day and time, this student is capable of reading or writing at this level). Students have good and bad days. Their absorption and use of taught skills may adjust during their good and bad days. Usually, students who have ownership of their skills will be able to use them on bad days, but not always. This often creates false-negative data that needs to verified.

Teacher observation is a form of validity to validate assessment outcome. Research supports the use of this tool to validate student progress and best instructional practices. Teacher perceptions of student social behaviors may play a significant role in the preparation and delivery of instructional lessons and in the prediction of later reading achievement (Wanzek, et al., 2013). When teacher observations of student reading abilities are combined with student assessment data the validity of the assessment results increase (Snowing et al., 2011; Speece et al., 2011; Wanzek, et al., 2013).

Teacher’s knowledge and experience usually have a play in the strength of their observations. Educators gain their knowledge:

  • through their environment – both past and present
  • during environmental interactions
  • participating in professional development – personal research, attending conferences, college courses, or teacher collaboration, reading
  • while making observations
  • through creating and developing purposeful instructional opportunities for students

Each person snaps pictures of moments throughout their daily journey. People use those moments to make quick or more well thought-out decisions. Educators may use the power of their snap shots to increase student academic success.

Why Teach Spelling?

Spelling knowledge is a gateway to higher student achievement in literacy. Individuals begin learning how to spell, as they begin manipulating sounds. Individuals begin to encode words as they begin writing symbols that represent sounds. Individuals are not initially wired to encode words they must be taught how the sounds are represented in print – for any language.

Spelling instruction enables students to become better skilled at decoding and encoding written words, which usually increases student reading fluency. Students also increase their lexicon, building depth and width of knowledge about different subjects. Students also increase their ability to write and use higher level words within their writing. Students also build or strengthen their synthesizing skills and become more self-assured.

Spelling instruction should encompass several different components that are known to increase student retention of how individual words are spelled. These different components assist students in completing “word studies” of how words are encoded. Spelling instruction should increase in complexity as students grow academically—moving in a systematic, sequential manner. Spelling instruction should include the following components:

• Phonology – “the study of spoken sounds (phonemes)—rules of how sounds are encoded, such as why these sounds follow this pattern to form this sound(s). Individuals should have phoneme awareness skills before learning how to read. This is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulated individuals sounds in spoken words. Phoneme awareness is part of phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is the ability to process and manipulate letter sounds, rhyming words, and segmenting of sounds within words. The study of phonology usually increases student ability to spell, pronounce, and comprehend written words” (Ray, 2019).

• Morphology – the study of the smallest units of meaning. Word analysis helps students understand how the smallest units of meaning dictate a word meaning. The word meaning determines spelling pattern. Morphology increases student lexicon and comprehension abilities of both oral and written language.

• Syllabification or syllable knowledge – how words are divided into different chunks or parts. There are six major syllable types in the English language. Understanding how words are divided into syllables usually increases student decoding and encoding skills. Syllable knowledge also increases the accuracy of language pronunciation and comprehension.

  • Orthography – the rules of how letters form written words. The internal structure of a word in print. Encoding words requires knowledge of how the letters and letter patterns of a word dictate its sound and meaning. In some cases, the same sound within words is generated by different letters, for example the long /ā/ sound is generated using these different letters or combination of letters:
  • -eigh (weigh)
  • ai (rain)
  • a – e (cake)
  • a
  • ei (vein)
  • -ay (stay)

Another example is the letter k that uses different single or combination of letters to create the /k/ sound, for example:

  • c (cut)
  • ck (back, chick)
  • k (kick)
  • ke (bake)
  • Orthography Mapping – “the mental process we use to store words for immediate, effortless, retrieval. It requires phoneme proficiency and letter-sound proficiency, as well as the ability to unconsciously or consciously make connections between the oral sound in spoken words and the letters in written words.” (Redding, 2023, slide 6). Instruction in orthography usually leads to faster retrieval of how words are spelled, which typically increases student reading fluency rates. Students memorize the letter layout of words and store them to be retrieved for later use—sight words.
  • Etymology – the study of word origins. English is deprived of many different languages that may have different rules of how letters are ordered within a word to create the same sounds. For example, words of the German or Latin language use different letters to form the same sounds of different origin. Some languages are more transparent than other languages. English is less transparent than other languages.

Students often resist being taught purposeful lessons about how to accurately encode letters into the “right” word. Students usually show less resistance to spelling instruction when it is embedded within other lessons.

Spelling should be taught systematically and explicitly. Students begin learning how to spelling written words through oral language. Students increase their knowledge of how to spell words when they begin bridging their oral language to written letters or combination of letters.

References

Redding, N. (2023). The importance of spelling instruction. Presentation International Dyslexia Conference (IDA).

Ray, J (2019). Structured literacy teacher, instructional knowledge. The Literacy Brain. https://theliteracybrain.com/category/structure-literacy-instruction/page/2/

Rosenberg, D. (2023). The forgotten skills needed for literacy success: spelling and handwriting. Presentation International Dyslexia Conference (IDA), Wilson Language Training.

The Necessary Components of Learning How to Spelling

Writing is often hard for students. Writing in general requires a higher level of cognitive skills. Writing requires students to synthesize known information. This is easier to accomplish orally. Individuals often speak (especially young children) at a higher cognitive level than they can write. Oral language is usually developed naturally through one’s environment, whereas writing words on paper requires instruction. Students often orally convey their thoughts in fragments, whereas most thoughts on paper must be put into complete sentences. One piece of the writing pie is correctly spelling or encoding words on paper. Students will often use lower-level words that they might be able to spell correctly. Students who struggle in spelling words correctly usually avoid writing words on paper. This is when creative instruction needs to be brought in play.

English is not a transparent language; it has stable rules and many exceptions to those stable rules. In transparent languages like, Finish or Italian the graphemes and phonemes are more consistent, with little expectations of the graphemes changing sounds within words. English is derived from multiple languages. Most American English words are derived from Latin, Greek, and Anglo-Saxon languages. These languages have stable rules that can be learned through studying letter-sound correspondences, syllable patterns and morpheme patterns. When a student knows where the word is derived from and the “rules” of that language assist in spelling the word accurately.  Webster brought more constancy in how we spell American English, while he creating the first instructional spelling books in the early 1800s.

Spelling requires students to know about phonology, orthography, and morphology to correctly encode a word. Phonology is the study of the sounds of letters that develop words. Students need to know the one-on-one grapheme-phoneme correspondences of the 26 letters in the English alphabet. During the study of phonology students begin learning how each letter may change its sound depending upon where the letter is placed in a word. Students should know these norms by Grade 2. They will use this information throughout their lifetime.

Orthography is the “rules” of how words are spelled within a language. The rules dictate if a letter will remain a one-on-one correspondence or change based on other letters within a word. Orthography is the visual representation or graphemes that represent words spoken orally. Students should have background knowledge of the “norms” of how letter placement creates the sounds of words. Orthographic knowledge increases student lexicon, which increases student reading fluency.

Morphology is the study of the meaning of the smaller parts of words, such as re- meaning again and -ing meaning an action. These different parts usually dictate its meaning. Students need to know the meaning of how something is spelled as American English has many words that are spelled differently, but sound the same (homophones).

Phonology, orthography, and morphology should be taught simultaneously. Phonemic awareness or oral language ability is the prerequisite in which these vital elements of learning how to decode and encode words is built upon. Some students will need to review some or all of the parts of phonemic awareness to effectively learn how to decode and encode words. Decoding is an easier skill for most students to grasp and use, than encoding words. Each of these components of learning how to spell words correctly increases with complexity as students mature. Teaching lessons about semantics along with lessons of morphology, usually increases student ability to effectively spell words that convey a more accurate meaning. These components are part of the Structured Literacy Method of effectively teaching students how to read and write.

References

Redding, Nancy. (2023). The Importance of Spelling Instruction. Presentation International Dyslexia Conference (IDA).

Rosenberg, Dee. (2023). The Forgotten Skills Needed for Literacy Success: Spelling and Handwriting. Presentation International Dyslexia Conference (IDA), Wilson Language Training.

 

 

 

Teaching Phonics Gives Students a Navigational Tool of Written Words

Would you allow a child to jump into the deep end of a pool without having instruction in how to swim? Some children might be able to surface and survive, most would need assistance to navigate the deep waters. Why put any child through the anxiety or possible drowning?  Students should be taught how to swim systematically to avoid a possible drowning. This should be the same for students navigating or learning how to read written words.

Instruction should begin at the basics or foundation to give students the tools to rescue themselves as they navigate the deepening waters of written verbiage. Instruction should be systematic moving students from basic to complex. Students use their knowledge of phonemic awareness to learn how to encode and decode written words. Phonemic awareness is the knowledge of how to manipulate sounds to develop words and sentences. Students examine the sounds of oral language and how the arrangement of letters within words represent unique sounds to convey meaning.  Oral language knowledge provides the initial layer of the foundation for reading written language.

Phonics instruction relies on student oral communication skills in particularly their ability to synthesize, comprehend, and mimic spoken sounds. Oral language usually develops naturally through an individual’s environment. They learn to mimic sounds of spoken language within their environment. Toddlers usually babble or play with individual sounds before they produce words and practice voicing a few words at time before moving to a full sentence. Written language is not a natural occurrence gained through their environment; it is a learned experience. The skill is best learned through an explicit, systematic format.

Phonics is the study of words, in particular the individual sounds that make a particular word and the symbols that represent those sounds of that word. The order of the letters dictates the individual sounds of a word. English Language has approximately 44 sounds that are used to develop written words. These sounds of are comprised of only 26 letters. Phonics instruction usually begins during the pre-school years of formal education. Not all students will gain the skills taught on the same timeline. Skipping this instruction is similar to throwing students into the deep end of the pool.

Written words composed into sentences have set doctrine that allows for comprehension. Words are read in a set pattern, from left to right. How the letters are arranged in a word dictate the pronunciation and meaning of the word. Explicit instruction teaches students this doctrine without confusion. Typically, students who are learning to read think concretely (black and white). Abstract thinking usually doesn’t begin to make an appearance until around age 7, when most students are already reading full sentences. Students who are learning how to read also benefit from visual or pictures of a new concept. Systematic instruction of written words helps students to learn new skills from basic to complex, such as learning about individual vowel sounds before learning about vowel digraphs.

Phonics instruction shouldn’t end in Grade 1, but continue until student(s) are able to automatically decode and encode words.

Why Reflection?

Reflection is part of professional development. The learning is imbedded and personalized to the educator’s current instructional situation. This is a natural opportunity for teachers to learn from their instructional experiences. This a way for educators to naturally improve their craft, specialty, or expertise. Educators might focus on one piece of an instructional lesson that may be included in several or one instructional lesson to reflect on. Educators should be continually learning how to improve their development and delivery of an instructional lesson.

Each educator may have a different way of reflecting on an instructional lesson. Many individuals complete this task naturally in relation to their personal activities. Some need a routine to ensure that reflection takes place. Some need to write notes about their analysis. Some might use a positive, negative t-chart about a lesson. Some educators may have a journal dedicated to write their analysis—reflection of instructional lessons and possible options for future lessons. These notes may also be used as anecdotal data. Some will analyze and jot notes as we move through the lesson. Some will wait until the end of the lesson. Others need to wait for a quiet uninterrupted moment to analyze aspects of a lesson. The actual reflection may take place during a quiet walk or it might take place in quiet moment during the instructional day. There are no set rules to follow, only that you take a few minutes to ponder about an event that has taken place.

During reflection teachers might ask the following questions. Did the lesson bring the intended outcome? What did I notice about students throughout the lesson? How may I increase student agency during this type of lesson? Why did this student struggle? What were the hiccups or bumps during the lesson? How might I improve the lesson next time?

Through questioning your conclusion might reveal:

  • a new instructional method that went surprisingly smooth
  • a small or large piece that may need to be addressed, like altering how long students should read-to-self
  • this group of students struggles to work in small groups
  • this group of students needs more background knowledge or practice

Each group of students is unique and may have different needs to soak in the information being presented.

Each carefully planned instructional lesson will have some positive and negative outcomes. At times the positive outcomes may show through and at other times the negative aspects will shine brighter. The goal would be to create a lesson that will produce more positive vibes. Students tend to embrace and participate in an activity that they enjoy (intrinsic motivation). For example, an instructional lesson about how to properly use commas is often dry, laborious, boring. Maybe the lesson would be better embraced if students wrote the sentences that need commas? What if this lesson was taught within an interesting science lesson? What if students were allowed to develop those sentences in small groups? What if the students were allowed to present their findings? What if they were able to work in pairs?

Reflection is a vital component in the process of developing instructional lessons. Reflection is a “mini” analysis of a past event. Reflection helps teachers evaluate what took place during an instructional lesson. Reflection also helps educators to wonder about which direction they might take next in developing an instructional lesson. Reflection also assists educators to organize and bring clarity to their thoughts or evaluation of instruction. This is especially true when they choose to write about the reflection. The process of writing usually deepens their analysis of the topic.

 

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