TEACHING READING AND WRITING

THE CONCEPT AND BENEFITS OF READING AND WRITING...................................................................... 2

THEORIES AND MODELS OF READING.......................................................................................................... 10

COMPONENTS OF READING AND WRITING APPROPRIATE FOR JHS LEARNERS..................................................... 29

STAGES OF READING AND WRITING DEVELOPMENT.............................................................................................. 35

APPROACHES FOR TEACHING JHS READING AND WRITING....................................................................................39

READING AND WRITING PROBLEMS OF JHS LEARNERS.......................................................................................... 49

ASSESSING READING AND WRITING IN THE JHS......................................................................................................54

 THE CONCEPT AND BENEFITS OF READING AND WRITING
READING

Reading is defined as a cognitive process that involves decoding symbols to arrive at meaning.
Reading is an active process of constructing meanings of words. Reading with a purpose helps
the reader to direct information towards a goal and focuses their attention.

TYPES OF READING

Skimming

It’s reading so fast or speedily through a text. That's looking for the gist or overview of the text.
Skimming may help in order to know what the text is about at its most basic level. You might
typically do this with a magazine or newspaper and would help you mentally and quickly
shortlist those articles which you might consider for a deeper read. You might typically skim to
search for a name in a telephone directory. You can reach a speed count of even 700 words per
minute if you train yourself well in this particular method. Comprehension is of course very low
and understanding of overall content very superficial.

Scanning

Scanning is used when a specific piece of information is required, such as a name, date, symbol,
formula, or phrase, is required. The reader knows what the item looks like and so, knows when
he has located what he was searching for. It is assumed then, that very little information is
processed into long-term memory or even for immediate understanding because the objective is
simply matching.

Picture yourself visiting a historical city, guide book in hand. You would most probably just scan
the guide book to see which site you might want to visit. Scanning involves getting your eyes to
quickly scuttle across sentence and is used to get just a simple piece of information. Interestingly,
research has concluded that reading off a computer screen actually inhibits the pathways to
effective scanning and thus, reading of paper is far more conducive to speedy comprehension of
texts. Something students sometimes do not give enough importance to is illustrations. These
should be included in your scanning. Pay special attention to the introduction and the conclusion.

Intensive Reading

Intensive reading is the type of reading that involves learners reading in detail with specific
learning aims and tasks. It’s a kind of reading for academic or professional work in order to
capture something.

You need to have your aims clear in mind when undertaking intensive reading. Remember this is
going to be far more time consuming than scanning or skimming. If you need to list the
chronology of events in a long passage, you will need to read it intensively.
This type of reading has indeed beneficial to language learners as it helps them understand
vocabulary by deducing the meaning of words in context. It moreover, helps with retention of
information for long periods of time and knowledge resulting from intensive reading persists in
your long term memory. This is one reason why reading huge amounts of information just before
an exam does not work very well. Students tend to do this, and they undertake neither type of
reading process effectively, especially neglecting intensive reading. They may remember the
answers in an exam but will likely forget everything soon afterwards.

Extensive reading

Extensive reading involves reading widely for pleasure or aquire more knowledgeable to guide
your life. Because there is an element of enjoyment in extensive reading it is unlikely that
students will undertake extensive reading of a text they do not like. It also requires a fluid
decoding and assimilation of the text and content in front of you. If the text is difficult and you
stop every few minutes to figure out what is being said or to look up new words in the dictionary,
you are breaking your concentration and diverting your thoughts.

STRUCTAGIES OF READING

SQ5R is a reading technique and stands for Survey, Question, Read, Respond, Record, Recite,
and Review. So let’s discuss what these actually represent.

Survey:

• Before you start reading your text, say a textbook chapter, you want to survey the text.
This means skimming through the chapter, reading the introduction and conclusion first, if
available, looking out for definitions and parts of the text highlighted in bold. Also, pay attention
to drawings and graphs illustrating the text. This will give you an idea of what ideas and themes
will be important.

Question:

After identifying the main topic of the text, and before actually reading it, ask yourself questions
about the topic. Essentially, you will ask yourself what you want to find out about the items
identified in the survey. As you have not read the text yet, your understanding might be too
limited to ask specific questions. Instead, focus on broader themes and questions to guide your
reading.

Read:

In the next step, you will get to actually read the text. Don’t be afraid to break it down into more
digestible sections if needed. Depending on where you are studying you might also want to read
the text out loud.

Respond:
After reading and learning about the themes, think back to the questions you asked yourself at
the beginning. Respond to them and apply what you have just read.

Record:

In the next step, you will get your pen and paper out and underline, scribble, take notes -
whatever works for you. You’ll use the text as a tool to record your understanding of the topic.

Recite:

Without looking at your notes or the text, go over what you have learned and try to reproduce the
content - explain to someone else or to yourself what the text covered. When you do this for the
first time, you might not remember all the crucial information. You will go over the text until
you feel comfortable with the material learned.

Review:

After completing these steps, go over the text again and skim through it. Ideally, try to find
someone to explain the material to. At this point, you might want to go over your notes as well to
fill in any missing information or to edit them in a way that will make them more accessible for
later revision etc.

THE SIMPLE VIEW OF READING

The simple view of reading is a scientific theory that a student's ability to understand written
words depends on how well they sound out (decode) the words and understands the meaning of
those words. Specifically, their reading comprehension can be predicted by multiplying their
skill in decoding the written words by their ability to understand the meaning of those words. It
is expressed in this equation:

Decoding (D) x (Oral) Language Comprehension (LC)= Reading Comprehension (RC)

The parts of the equation are:

(D) Decoding: the ability of the student to sound-out or decode the written words using the
principles of phonics (e.g. /k - æ - t/= cat).

(LC) language (listening) comprehension: the ability of the student to understand the meaning of
the words (as if they had been spoken out loud).

(RC) Reading comprehension: the ability of the student to understand the meaning of
the written words.

To be clear, all of this can be done while doing silent reading.

The equation tells us the following:

  If students can decode (i.e. sound-out) the words accurately (so they make sense) and
understand the meaning of those words, they will be able to understand the written words
(i.e. reading comprehension).

 If students can decode the words accurately, but do not understand the meaning of the
words, they will not have reading comprehension. (e.g. A reader who can decode the
word “etymology” but does not know what it means, will not achieve reading
comprehension.)

 If students cannot decode the words accurately, yet understands the meaning of those
words, they will not have reading comprehension. (e.g. A reader who knows what a
tyrannosaurus rex is, but cannot decode the words, will not achieve reading
comprehension.)

 To ensure their students are able to comprehend what they read, teachers and tutors need
to be sure their students can decode the words and understand the meaning of those
words.

It is important to note that the equation has a multiplication sign not an addition sign, so reading
comprehension (RC) is not the sum of the decoding ability (D) plus the language comprehension
ability (LC). Instead, when one element is strong a weak result in the other area will significantly
reduce the reading comprehension score (e.g. .25 (D) x 1.00 (LC)= .25 (RC)). And, if that same
student improves in that weak area, it will result in an equivalent improvement in the reading
comprehension score (e.g. .50 (D) x 1.00 (LC)= .50 (RC).

Researchers tell us that, while the equation may be simple, learning to read is not so simple.
Beginning readers can already understand spoken language. The task, then, is to gain the same
understanding from print. This requires decoding skills and language comprehension. For many
students, learning to efficiently decode is only achievable with proper instruction, feedback and
practice in phonics; and language comprehension is a “multidimensional cognitive activity” that
requires adequate content knowledge.

The simple view of reading was originally described by psychologists Philip Gough and William
Tunmer in 1986 and modified by Wesley Hoover and Philip Gough in 1990; and has led to
significant advancements in our understanding of reading comprehension.

WRITING

Writing is the process of using symbols (letters of the alphabet, punctuation and spaces) to
communicate thoughts and ideas in a readable form. Generally, we write using a pen/pencil
(handwriting) or a keyboard (typing). With a pen/pencil we usually write on a surface such as
paper or whiteboard. A keyboard is normally attached to a typewriter, computer or mobile device.
Voice recognition programs allow those who can't see or use their hands to have their thoughts
transcribed. To write clearly it is essential to understand the basic system of a language. In
English this includes knowledge of grammar, punctuation and sentence structure. Vocabulary is
also necessary, as is correct spelling and formatting.

A writer may write for personal enjoyment or use, or for an audience of one person or more. The
audience may be known (targeted) or unknown. Taking notes for study purposes is an example
of writing for one's self. Blogging publicly is an example of writing for an unknown audience. A
letter to a friend is an example of writing for a targeted audience. As with speaking, it is
important to consider your audience when writing. There are many different styles of writing,
from informal to formal.

TYPES OF WRITING

Expository Writing

The word expository contains the word expose, so the reason expository is an apt descriptor for
this type of writing is that it exposes, or sets forth, facts. It is probably the most common writing
genre you will come across throughout your day. In an expository piece, a topic will be
introduced and laid out in a logical order without reference to the author’s personal opinions.

Expository writing sets forth facts. You can find it in textbooks, journalism (except opinion or
editorial articles), business writing, technical writing, essays, and instructions.

Expository writing can be found in:

Textbooks Journalism (except for opinion and editorial articles) Business writing Technical
writing Essays Instructions

All of these kinds of writing are expository because they aim to explain and inform.

The municipal government of Happyville unanimously approved the construction of sixty-two

miles of bike trails in 2017. Made possible by a new tax levy, the bike trails are expected to help
the city reach its sustainability and clean air goals while reducing traffic and congestion.
Eighteen trailheads with restrooms and picnic areas have been planned at a variety of access
points. The city expects construction to be complete in April 2021.

Because this paragraph supplies the reader with facts and figures about its topic, the new bike
trails, without offering the author’s opinion on it, it is expository.

Descriptive Writing

The aim of descriptive writing is to help the reader visualize, in detail, a character, event, place,
or all of these things at once. The author might describe the scene in terms of all five senses.
Descriptive writing allows the writer a great deal more artistic freedom than expository writing
does.

Descriptive writing evokes images through rich description. You can find it in fiction, poetry,
journal writing, and advertising.

Descriptive writing can be found in:

Fiction Poetry Advertising Journal and diary writing

The children pedalled leisurely down the Happyville Bike Trail, their giggles and whoops
reverberating through the warm spring air. Sweet-scented wildflowers brought an array of colour
to the gently undulating landscape, tempting the children to dismount now and then so they could
lay down in the spring, soft grass.

Through description, this passage paints a vivid picture of a scene on the new bike trail.

Persuasive Writing

The aim of persuasive writing, or argumentation, is to influence the reader to assume the author’s
point of view. The author will express personal opinions in the piece and arm him- or herself
with evidence so that the reader will agree with him or her.

Persuasive writing aims to sway the reader toward the author’s point of view. It is used heavily
in advertising, and can also be found in opinion and editorial pieces, reviews, and job
applications.

Persuasive writing can be found in:

Advertising Opinion and editorial pieces Reviews Job applications

The bike trail is the glittering gem of Happyville’s new infrastructure. It winds through sixty-two
miles of lush landscape, dotted by clean and convenient facilities. If you haven’t experienced the
Happyville Bike Trail yet, ditch your car and head outside! Could life in Happyville get any
more idyllic?

A number of statements in this paragraph are opinion rather than fact: that the bike trail is a
glittering gem, that the facilities are clean and convenient, and that life in Happyville is idyllic.
Clearly, the author’s aim here is to use these depictions to persuade readers to use the bike trail.

Narrative Writing

The purpose of narrative writing is to tell a story, whether that story is real or imaginary. Pieces
in a narrative style will have characters, and through the narrative, the reader learns what
happens to them. Narrative writing can also include dialogue.
Narrative writing tells a story. It can be found in fiction, poetry, biographies, human interest
stories, and anecdotes.

Narrative writing can be found in:

All types of fiction (e.g., novels, short stories, novellas) Poetry Biographies Human interest
stories Anecdotes

As I cycled down the trail, I heard children giggling and whooping just around the bend. I
crested a small hill and coasted down the curving path until I found the source of the noise.
Three little girls sat in the grass by a big oak tree. They were startled to see me, and I smiled
kindly to put them at ease.

“What cha doing?” I asked.

“Nothing,” they chirped in unison.

In this passage, the author sets the scene on the bike trail from his or her own point of view
(which is referred to as narrating in the first person). Using both description and dialogue, the
story that takes place is laid out in chronological order.

Understanding Your Purpose Empowers Your Writing

Simply puzzling out which of these four types of writing best suits your purpose and adhering to
it can help you write more efficiently and effectively.

IMPORTANCE OF READING AND WRITING

Critical thinking

The growth of digital media as a source of information has reduced the ability of children to
critically evaluate the information they are exposed to, says Professor Patricia Greenfield,
director of the Children's Digital Media Center at UCLA. Critical thinking skills are crucial in
helping students achieve more than a cursory understanding of any topic and help them form
their own opinions. Reading requires a person to think and process information in a way that
watching television may not. The more you read, the deeper your understanding becomes of
what you are reading and its application. Greenfield tells parents to encourage their children to
read and should read to their children. Developing writing skills can help you strengthen your
ability to make reasoned arguments on a variety of subjects, which is useful in school and on the
job.

Improved Communication Skills

Improving your reading and writing skills also goes hand in hand with developing your
communication skills. The more you read and write, the more you broaden your vocabulary and
are able to articulate concepts accurately and more effectively to others. Increasing your ability
to communicate also helps make you a better worker or student.

More Opportunities
Studies show that people with advanced reading and writing skills have more opportunities in
school and professionally than those who do not develop these skills. Children who are avid
readers will often find school more appealing. Literary readers are more likely "to engage in
positive civic and individual activities--such as volunteering, attending sports or cultural events,
and exercising" than non-readers, according to the NEA study.

Quenching Curiosity

My brain is already running around with different ideas and thoughts. Reading allows me to
focus my brain for a bit on certain topics I find interesting. This may just be me, but it gives me
some downtime for my brain despite it being an engaging activity. Writing also allows me to put
my messy thoughts into a more coherent piece that I can use to further refine ideas or share them
with others.

Perspective

Reading has given me the perspective of others in different careers, times of their lives, or simply
the perspective of a different century. I’ve been able to put myself in someone else’s shoes
through a book or through any written piece of work and I’ve been able to learn from them. This
ability has allowed my brain to think more creatively and openly about possibilities at work, in
school, in my home life, and any other facet of my life. Writing has also given me this ability to
a lesser degree but writing forces me to think from my reader’s perspective and imagine what
they are thinking or how a sentence may come off to them.

Challenging Myself

Lastly, reading and writing have given me more challenges (but good challenges) than anything
else. Reading a book on a topic I am 110% completely unfamiliar with has challenged me to
really think through the topic and put pieces together to stitch the book together. Writing has also
forced me to become a better writer but also work on something that is not my strongest asset.
 THEORIES AND MODELS OF READING

THEORIES OF READING

So far, there are three main theories which explain the nature of learning to read. First, the
traditional theory, or bottom-up processing, which focused on the printed form of a text. The
cognitive view or top-down processing enhanced the role of background knowledge in addition
to what appeared on the printed page. Third, the metacognitive view, which is based on the
control and manipulation that a reader can have on the act of comprehending a text, and thus,
emphasizes the involvement of the reader’s thinking about what he is doing while reading.

1. THE TRADITIONAL BOTTOM-UP VIEW

The traditional bottom-up approach to reading was influenced by behaviorist psychology of the
1950s, which claimed learning was based upon “habit formation, brought about by the repeated
association of a stimulus with a response” and language learning was characterized as a
“response system that humans acquire through automatic conditioning processes,” where “some
patterns of language are reinforced (rewarded) and others are not,” and “only those patterns
reinforced by the community of language users will persist” (Omaggio 1993, 45-46).
Behaviorism became the basis of the audio-lingual method, which sought to form second
language “habits” through drilling, repetition, and error correction.

Today, the main method associated with the bottom-up approach to reading is known
as phonics, which requires the learner to match letters with sounds in a defined sequence.
According to this view, reading is a linear process by which readers decode a text word by word,
linking the words into phrases and then sentences (Gray and Rogers, cited in Kucer 1987).
According to Samuels and Kamil (1988: 25), the emphasis on behaviorism treated reading as a
word-recognition response to the stimuli of the printed words, where “little attempt was made to
explain what went on within the recesses of the mind that allowed the human to make sense of
the printed page”. In other words, textual comprehension involves adding the meanings of words
to get the meanings of clauses (Anderson 1994). These lower level skills are connected to the
visual stimulus, or print, and are consequently concerned with recognizing and recalling.

Like the audio-lingual teaching method, phonics emphasizes on repetition and on drills using the
sounds that make-up words. Information is received and processed beginning with the smallest
sound units, and proceeded to letter blends, words, phrases, and sentences. Thus, novice readers
acquire a set of hierarchically ordered sub-skills that sequentially build toward comprehension
ability. Having mastered these skills, readers are viewed as experts who comprehend what they
read.

The bottom-up model describes information flow as a series of stages that transforms the input
and passes it to the next stage without any feedback or possibility of later stages of the process
influencing earlier stages (Stanovich, 1980). In other words, language is viewed as a code and
the reader’s main task is to identify graphemes and convert them into phonemes. Consequently,
readers are regarded as passive recipients of information in the text. Meaning resides in the text
and the reader has to reproduce it.

The ESL and EFL textbooks influenced by this perspective include exercises that focus on literal
comprehension and give little or no importance to the reader’s knowledge or experience with the
subject matter, and the only interaction is with the basic building blocks of sounds and words.
Most activities are based on recognition and recall of lexical and grammatical forms with an
emphasis on the perceptual and decoding dimension.

This model of reading has almost always been under attack as being insufficient and defective
for the main reason that it relies on the formal features of the language, mainly words and
structure. Although it is possible to accept this rejection for the fact that there is over-reliance on
the structure in this view, it must be confessed that knowledge of linguistic features is also
necessary for comprehension to take place. To counteract over-reliance on form in the traditional
view of reading, the cognitive view was introduced.

2. THE COGNITIVE VIEW (TOP-DOWN PROCESSING)

In the 1960s a paradigm shift occurred in the cognitive sciences. Behaviorism became somewhat
discredited as the new cognitive theory represented the mind’s innate capacity for learning,
which gave new explanatory power to how humans acquired their first language; this also had a
tremendous impact on the field of ESL/EFL as psycholinguists explained “how such internal
representations of the foreign language develop within the learner’s mind” (Omaggio, 1993: 57).

Ausubel (cited in Omaggio, 1993: 58), made an important distinction between meaningful
learning and rote learning. An example of rote learning is simply memorizing lists of isolated
words or rules in a new language, where the information becomes temporary and subject to lose.
Meaningful learning, on the other hand, occurs when new information is presented in a relevant
context and is related to what the learner already knows so that it can be easily integrated into
one’s existing cognitive structure. A learning that is not meaningful will not become permanent.
This emphasis on meaning eventually informed the top-down approach to L2 learning, and in the
1960s and 1970s, there was an explosion of teaching methods and activities that strongly
considered the experience and knowledge of the learner.

These new cognitive and top-down processing approaches revolutionized the conception of the
way students learn to read (Smith, 1994). In this view, reading is not just extracting meaning
from a text but a process of connecting information in the text with the knowledge the reader
brings to the act of reading. In this sense, reading is a dialogue between the reader and the text
which involves an active cognitive process in which the reader’s background knowledge plays a
key role in the creation of meaning (Tierney and Pearson, 1994). Reading is not a passive
mechanical activity but purposeful and rational, dependent on the prior knowledge and
expectations of the reader. It is not merely a matter of decoding print to sound but also a matter
of making sense of written language (Smith, 1994: 2). Goodman (as cited in Paran, 1996),
accentuated that reading is “a psycholinguistic guessing game, a process in which readers sample
the text, make hypotheses, confirm or reject them, make new hypotheses, and so forth.”

SCHEMA THEORY

Another theory closely related to top-down processing called schema theory also had a major
impact on reading instruction. It describes in detail how the background knowledge of the learner
interacts with the reading task and illustrates how a student’s knowledge and previous experience
with the world is crucial to deciphering a text. The ability to use these schemata, or background
knowledge, plays a fundamental role in one’s trial to comprehend a text.

Schema theory is based on the notion that past experiences lead to the creation of mental
frameworks that help a reader make sense of new experiences. Smith (1994: 14)
calls schemes the “extensive representations of more general patterns or regularities that occur in
our experience”. For instance, one’s generic scheme of an airplane will allow him to make sense
of airplane he has not previously flown with. This means that past experiences will be related to
new experiences, which may include the knowledge of “objects, situations, and events as well as
knowledge of procedures for retrieving, organizing and interpreting information” (Kucer, 1987:
31). Anderson (1994: 469) presents research showing that recall of information in a text is
affected by the reader’s schemata and explains that “a reader comprehends a message when he is
able to bring to mind a schema that gives an account of the objects and events described in the
message”. Comprehension is the process of “activating or constructing a schema that provides a
coherent explanation of objects and events mentioned in a discourse” (Anderson, 1994: 473). For
Anderson and Pearson (1988: 38), comprehension is the interaction between old and new
information. They emphasize: “To say that one has comprehended a text is to say that she has
found a mental ‘home’ for the information in the text, or else that she has modified an existing
mental home in order to accommodate that new information”. Therefore, a learner’s schemata
will restructure itself to accommodate new information as that information is added to the system
(Omaggio, 1993).

Content and formal schemata

Schema theorists differentiate formal schemata (knowledge about the structure of a text)
from content schemata (knowledge about the subject matter of a text), and a reader’s prior
knowledge of both schemata enables him to predict events and meaning as well as to infer
meaning from a wider context.

Formal schemata refer to the way that texts differ from one another; for example, a reading text
could be a fictional work, a letter to the editor, or a scientific essay, and each genre will have a
different structural organization. Knowledge of these genre structures can aid reading
comprehension, as it gives readers a basis for predicting what a text will be like (Smith 1994).
For example, if a reader knows that the typical format of a research article consists of sections
subtitled Introduction, Theoretical Basis, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion, that
knowledge will facilitate their interaction with the article and boost comprehension. On the other
hand, if he is not familiar with this formal schema, teaching it to him could lead to improved
reading ability with lasting and beneficial effects.

Content schemata refer to the message of the text. One’s familiarity with the content will make
more productive and efficient. As Anderson (1994: 469) explains, “a reader comprehends a
message when he is able to bring to mind a schema that gives an account of the objects and
events described in the message”.

Activating and building schemata

Since the reader plays a fundamental role in the construction of meaning, his age, gender,
experience, and culture are important considerations for teachers who want to select readings that
will motivate their students. Anderson (1994) notes that when readers cannot locate a schema
that fits a text, they may find it incomprehensible. In some cases, readers may not have a schema
that is significant to the text, or they may need help to activate the pertinent schema to be able to
comprehend the text. In such cases, it may not be possible for the reader to understand the text,
and the teacher must be ready to engage in “building new background knowledge as well as
activating existing background knowledge” (Carrell, 1988: 248). In parallel with this, Bransford
(1994) points out that difficulties in comprehension may be caused by the lack of background
knowledge presumed by the text, and he sees the responsibility of instructors as being twofold: to
activate preexisting schemata and to help students to integrate isolated “parcels” of knowledge
into a schema or to build a new one.

If the texts to be read contain a cultural context that is different from the student’s, the issues of
formal and content schemata become even more important. McDonough (1995), explains that, to
a higher extent, this is the reason why ESL and EFL students find it difficult to read in a second
language with texts that contain cultural assumptions of the target culture. They may lack the
culture-specific background knowledge necessary to process the text in a top-down manner. His
reports on several studies demonstrate how people outside a given culture may misunderstand
events with unfamiliar cultural connotations. (Students from different cultural backgrounds
taking standardized tests which assume common schemata for will also face the same problem.)

Applying schema theory to L2 reading

Based on the aforementioned ideas, it is obvious that in order to teach reading effectively, the
teacher’s role to activate and build schemata is paramount. To achieve it, he should in advance
select texts that are relevant to the students’ needs, preferences, individual differences, and
cultures in order to provide meaningful texts so the students understand the message, which
entails activating existing schemata and helping build new schemata. Then, after selecting the
text, he needs to do the three stages of activities proposed by Wallace (1992) to activate and
build the students’ schemata. (1) Pre-reading activities, in which the teacher have students think,
write, and discuss everything they know about the topic, employing techniques such
as prediction, semantic mapping, and reconciled reading. The objective is to make sure that
students have the relevant schema for understanding the text. (2) During-reading activities, in
which the teacher guide and monitor the interaction between the reader and the text. One
important skill teachers can impart at this stage is note-taking, which allows students to compile
new vocabulary and important information and details, and to summarize information and record
their reactions and opinions. (3)Post-reading activities which facilitate the chance to evaluate
students’ adequacy of interpretation, while bearing in mind that accuracy is relative and that
“readership” must be respected as long as the writer’s intentions are addressed (Tierney and
Pearson, 1994). Post-reading activities focus on a wide range of questions that allow for different
interpretations.

While schema activation and building can occur in all three stages, the pre-reading stage
deserves special attention since it is here, during the students’ initial contact with the text, where
their schemata will be activated.

Pre-reading activities

Pre-reading activities are aimed to activate existing schemata, build new schemata, and provide
information to the teacher about what the students know. In their report on the positive effect
various pre-reading activities had on reading comprehension, Chen and Graves (1995, 664),
define them as “devices for bridging the gap between the text’s content and the reader’s
schemata”. Various activities and materials can help the teacher introduce key vocabulary and
reinforce concept association to activate both formal and content schemata. Formal schemata
will be activated by employing devices such as advance organizers and overviews to draw
attention to the structure of a text. The content schemata will be activated by using various pre-
reading activities to help learners brainstorm and predict how the information fits in with their
previous knowledge.

One of the most important pre-reading activities proposed by schematic theorists is

the prediction. According to Goodman (1988: 16), a prediction is important because “the brain is
always anticipating and predicting as it seeks order and significance in sensory inputs”. Smith
(1994, 19–20) defines prediction as “the prior elimination of unlikely alternatives”. According to
him, predictions are questions the readers ask the world and comprehension is receiving the
answers. He emphasizes that it is the prediction that makes skilled readers effective when
reading texts that contain familiar subject matter. “Prediction brings potential meaning to texts,
reducing ambiguity and eliminating in advance irrelevant alternatives. Thus, we are able to
generate comprehensible experience from inert pages of print” (Smith 1994, 18).

Another pre-reading activity is previewing, where students look at titles, headings, and pictures,
and read the first few paragraphs and the last paragraph; these activities can then help students
understand what the text is about by activating their formal and content schemata and making
them familiar with the topic before they begin reading in earnest. Semantic mapping is another
pre-reading activity that Carrell, Pharis, and Liberto (1989: 651) describe as a useful way to pre-
teach vocabulary and to “provide the teacher with an assessment of the students’ prior
knowledge or schema availability on the topic”. This activity asks students to brainstorm about
the reading topic as the information is displayed on a graphic “map.” As students make
associations, the map becomes a thorough summary of the concepts and vocabulary that they
will encounter in the reading. It can also help build schemata and vocabulary that students do not
yet possess. Again, it is important to know something about the students so the selected texts
contain the type of material that is likely to be familiar and interesting to them.

Reutzel (1985) proposes another type of pre-reading activity called reconciled

reading lesson, which reverses the sequence presented by many textbooks where the text is
followed by questions. Instead, the teacher develops pre-reading questions from the questions
that appear at the end of the reading. Smith (1994) criticizes comprehension exercises presented
at the end of a reading because they are like memory tests. He argues that using prior knowledge
efficiently contributes to fluent readers, and he believes that there is a reciprocal relationship
between visual and non-visual (prior knowledge) information; the more the readers have of the
latter, the less they need of the former. Although not all the post-reading questions can be easily
turned into pre-reading ones, this strategy can be invaluable to activate schemata.

3. THE METACOGNITIVE VIEW

According to Block (1992), there is now no more debate on “whether reading is a bottom-up,
language-based process or a top-down, knowledge-based process.” It is also no more problematic
to accept the influence of background knowledge on readers. Research has gone even further to
define the control executed by readers on their trial to understand a text. This control is what
Block has referred to as meta-cognition.

In the context of reading, meta-cognition involves thinking about what one is doing while
reading. Strategic readers do not only sample the text, make hypotheses, confirm or reject them,
and make new hypotheses while reading. They also involve many activities along the process of
reading, whose stages can be divided into three, i.e. before reading, while reading, and after
reading. The activities the readers involve before reading are to identify the purpose of the
reading, identify the form or type of the text. In the second stage (while reading), they think
about the general character and features of the form or type of the text—such as trying to locate a
topic sentence and follow supporting details toward a conclusion, project the author’s purpose
for writing the text, choose, scan, or read in detail, make continuous predictions about what will
occur next based on information obtained earlier, prior knowledge, and conclusions obtained
within the previous stages. Finally, in the last stage, they attempt to form a summary, conclude,
or make an inference of what was read.
GUIDELINES FOR EFFECTIVE TEACHING OF READING

After discussing the ideas and concepts presented in the three reading theories, let’s see how they
are implemented in the tips for helping learners develop their reading competence proposed by
Vaezi (2006). The tips are arranged in three sections which are parallel with the three
consecutive reading stages: before reading, during reading, and after reading (Wallace, 1992).

Pre-Reading Tips

Before the actual reading act on a text starts, some points should be considered for making the
reading process more comprehensible. First, teachers should ensure that the words and
grammatical structures in the texts to read are familiar to the learners. Suppose the texts have
unfamiliar words, they could be introduced in pre-reading activities focusing on language
awareness, such as finding synonyms, antonyms, derivatives, or associated words. Second,
teachers need to make certain that the topics of chosen texts are in accordance with the learners’
age range, interests, sex, and cultural background. If they are not, necessary background
information should be provided to the reader to facilitate comprehension. Assigning the class
members to brainstorm ideas about the meaning of a title or an illustration and discuss what they
know are recommended to conduct this activity.

The followings are some activities teacher can use during the pre-reading stage. These activities
do not necessitate a long time to conduct. But, they are very effective to overcome the common
urge to start reading a text closely right away from the beginning.

Teacher-directed pre-reading, which is directed to explain some key vocabulary, ideas in the text,
and the text type. In this approach, the teacher the information the students will need, including
key concepts, important vocabulary, and appropriate conceptual framework are directly
explained. The reason for introducing the text types is that texts may take on different forms and
hold certain pieces of information in different places. The students’ familiarity of the text types
they are reading will develop their understanding of the layout of the material. Such familiarity
will, in turn, enable them to focus more deeply on the parts that are more densely compacted
with information. Paying attention to the author’s name and the year of publication, if applicable,
may even help the reader in assuming the text meaning.

Interactive activities, in which the teacher leads a discussion by drawing out the information
students already have and interjects additional information considered to be necessary to an
understanding of the text to be read. The teacher can also overtly link the students’ prior
knowledge and important information in the text.

Reflective activities, which is directed to guide the students to realize the purpose and objective
for reading a certain piece of written material. This can be done at the initial stages, but this
strategy can be left to the students when they have become better readers. For example, the
students may be guided to ask themselves, “Why should I read this text? What benefits can I get
after finished reading this? Their awareness of the purpose and goal to read, later—in during-
reading activities—will enable them to determine the correct skill(s) to employ: skimming,
scanning, reading for details, or critical reading.

During-reading tips

The activities carried out in during-reading stage include taking notes, reacting, predicting,
selecting significant information, questioning the writer’s position, evaluating, and placing a text
within one’s own experience. Due to the fact that most attention is often paid to dictionaries, the
text, and the teacher in English reading classes, these processes can be the most complex to
develop in a classroom setting,. To encourage active reading, the teacher is recommended to let
the students to practice the followings are tips.

Making predictions: Students should be guided to master the skill to predict what is going to
happen next in the text because it is necessary to enable them to integrate and combine what has
come with what is to come.

Making selections: Proficient readers are more selective in what to read.

Integrating prior knowledge: To facilitate comprehension, the schemata activated in the pre-
reading section are required to be called upon.

Skipping insignificant parts: The more proficient a person reads, the more he will concentrate on
important pieces of information and skip unimportant pieces.

Re-reading: Students should be made aware of the importance of re-reading to increase their
comprehension.

Making use of context or guessing: encouraging students to define and understand every single
unknown word in a text is necessary. They should also be taught to use the context to guess the
meaning of unfamiliar words.

Breaking words into their component parts: To read more efficiently, students should analyze
unknown words by breaking them into their affixes or roots. Such analysis can help them guess
the meaning of a word so that they do not need to consult a dictionary and keep the process of
comprehension continuing.

Reading in chunks: To read faster, students should practice reading groups of words together.
Such an act will also improve comprehension.

Pausing: Good readers do not read with the same speed from the beginning to the end. At certain
sections, he will pause to absorb and internalize the material being read and sort out information.

Paraphrasing: Some parts of texts might need to be paraphrased sub-vocally to verify what it
means.
Monitoring: Good readers always check their understanding to evaluate whether the text or the
reading of it, is meeting their goals.

After-reading tips

Post-reading activities are essentially determined by the reading purpose and the information
type extracted from the text. According to Barnett (1988), post-reading exercises first monitor
students’ comprehension and then lead them to a deeper analysis of the text. In the real world,
the reading is not directed to summarize a text content or to memorize the author’s viewpoint.
The true goal of reading is to see into the author’s mind or to engage new information with what
one already knows. To let the students check the information they did not comprehend or
miscomprehended, holding a group discussion is recommended.

Vaezi (2006) accentuated that post-reading can stage generally take the form of these activities:
(1) discussing the text: written/oral, (2) summarizing: written/oral, (3) making questions:
written/oral, (3) answering questions: written/oral, (4) filling in forms and charts (5) writing
reading logs (6) completing a text, (7) listening to or reading other related materials, and (7)
role-playing.

MODELS OF READING

RUMELHART'S AND MCCLELLAND'S INTERACTIVE MODEL (1977/81)

Components

Sources of orthographical, lexical, syntactic and semantic information. Mental synthesiser of

mental processes and message center.

Process

It emphasizes flexible processing and multiple information sources, depending on contextual

circumstances, showing that the perspective of the way information is processed lies in the field
of reading.

The processing of the text and its final interpretation are influenced by orthographic, lexical,
semantic and syntactic information. All these factors join together as a synthesizer of mental
processes which, through the message center, accepts keeps and distributes information
according to its needs.

The message center has several functions. It stores information received in the short term
memory; it opens up to the different sources for data analysis; and confirms, denies, takes out or
adds to the hypothesis of the corresponding subject areas, according to the results of the analysis.
The procedure keeps going until the 'supposed' right decision is reached.
The message center ensures that a bidirectional relationship is maintained between the levéis.
Although the high level processes in this model depend on the knowledge acquired at the lower
levies, the first enables speed in recognition and assimilation of the second.

Therefore the processing of information occurs in both directions that is bottom-up and top-down.

In short, the mind activates individual features (letters, groups of letters, context, syntax,
semantics, topic, previous knowledge, etc.) to select the meaning and word comprehension.
When the activation of different sources increases, the lexis which is not affected by any of the
sources is blocked and only one or two words reach awareness level.

The process is quicker than the conscious experience. The automatism of the processing allows
concentration on comprehension more than on active selection or word prediction.

- Comments

This model was devised to overcome the deficiencies of linear models which transmit
information in one direction only without allowing information from a higher level to affect that
of a lower level. The authors indicate five factors of the reading process which can be explained
by this mutual influence.

The first deals with the fact that more letters can be learnt in a period of time if they appear in a
common word, eg. 'Classroom', than if they are disordered and do not make a proper word, eg.
'mclosrsao', (Huey 1908/1968), or if you try to learn the letters of a nonsense word, but arranged
in a conventional way, i.e. 'pertangle', compared with the same letters arranged in a non-
conventional manner, eg. 'rtlnaeepg', (Miller, Bruner and Postman 1954). It shows that, although
letter recognition is a typical lower level information process, some mechanism must be
activated on letter perception to grasp both the lexis and the orthography contained in higher
levéis. It can also explain why we Spaniards, for instance, tend to be better and faster at learning
languages with Latin roots rather than languages of Saxon origin.

The second refers to the syntactic effects on word perception. When we fail to recognize a word,
there is a strong tendency to substitute it with another which maintains the same syntactical
function in the sentence (Kolers 1970; Weber 1970).

The third considers the influence that semantic knowledge exerts on word perception.

Various experiments show that, compared with disordered words, i.e. 'dbrae, ttberu, rtodoc,
usnres', word orders are more easily formed when they are semantically related, eg.'bread-butter,
doctor-nurse', than if they are not, eg. 'bread-doctor, nurse-butter' (Meyer, Schvaneveldt and
Ruddy 1975), or that the recognition of a word is faster if parts of the sentences in which it
appears are given, rather than if the word is shown in isolation (Tulving and Gold 1963).
The fourth, refers to the way that ambiguity is minimized in the syntactic perception of words if
we have the context in which they belong. In 'they are eating mushrooms', the issue of whether
'eating' refers to the action of eating, verbal function, or to a type of mushrooms', a noun
attributive function, is deduced better in a wider context, such as

'What are these people doing? They are eating mushrooms' or ' What type of mushrooms are they?
They are eating mushrooms'.

The fifth states that the interpretation of what we read depends on the context in which the
segment of language is included. For example, if we interpret the word 'tree' in:

A number of operations may be carried out on trees. Two binary trees may be joined to an
additional node, which becomes the root of a larger binary tree, with the original trees or sub
trees. Trees have a number of applications in computing. We would take the meaning as being in
a computing context. On the other hand, in:

A number of operations may be carried out on trees. After cutting down, trees are usually pruned,
peeled and left drying. Then they are taken to factories to build furniture, doors, windows or
boxes. The term refers to the tree as being a wood producer. The meaning, then, is not taken
from the individual segment we are processing, but from the environment that surrounds it. From
all of this we can infer that orthographic, lexical, syntactic and semantic information affects our
perceptions. In each case, higher level knowledge affects the analysis of the lower one. Therefore,
all these sources of knowledge influence the processing and final interpretation of the text.

According to Rumelhart, this is how information from sources converges in the mind, where it is
accepted, retained and allocated according to needs. The information received is temporarily
stored, ready for use when required by one or more of the other sources. For example, lexical
knowledge may require back-up information in order to check, spell or just for syntax. By means
of this interaction, higher level stages can influence lower level ones.

GOODMAN'S PSYCHOLINGUISTIC MODEL (1970-88)

The factors that play a part in the reading process are optical, perceptual, syntactic and meaning.
Each fuses with the following one to be able to arrive at the meaning as soon as possible, which
is constantly the reader's goal.

Factors of the Reading Process in Goodman’s Model

From a psycholinguistic point of view, that is, interdisciplinary science concerned with how
language and thought are interrelated, the information that the model uses comes mainly from
the analysis of oral errors ('miscue' analysis) and is characterised by belonging to the spatial
symbols (sounds - letters), to the arbitrary structure of language (grammar and syntax) and to the
semantic system of memory (concepts and conceptual structures).
Process

The reader follows a constant attention cycle in the building of meaning through the following
steps:

Starting and recognition. The brain identifies the graphic sample in the visual field and starts
reading. If there are any interruptions (graphs, illustrations, etc.), the phase will start again.

Prediction. The brain is constantly anticipating and predicting because it is always searching for
order and meaning in the sensorial stimuli.

Confirmation. If the brain is predicting, it also has to verify its predictions. Therefore with every
new stimulus, it checks whether or not its expectations were correct.

Correction. The brain rest

Ending. The brain will cease the reading activity for the following reasons: the text ends, the
activity is not productive, little meaning is derived from the text, the meaning does not interest
the reader or is not appropriate for the purpose intended, etc. In any case, the ending stage is an
option open at any moment.

Although the steps have an intrinsic sequence, by means of which prediction precedes
confirmation and confirmation precedes correction, the same information can be used to confirm
previous predictions, and to create new ones.

During the process, short-circuits can appear, which impedes being able to obtain a meaning
when reading the text through. This is due to use of the wrong strategies, which are acquired by
the individual or through poor teaching, such as spelling out unknown words to oneself,
matching written and spoken codes without assigning them any meaning, recognising of deep
and surface structures without getting the meaning, etc. The result is the acquisition of a
fragmented meaning as opposed to the ideal of complete understanding.

Comments

The model is based on an exhaustive collection of data which the author uses to support and
evaluate it. Known as 'Reading as a psycholinguistic guessing game', it is characterised by its
procedural preferences which allow the reader to rely on the structures of semantic and syntactic
knowledge, minimising its dependence on graphics and sounds associated with it.

Readers do not need to use all the textual clues to achieve understanding; in fact, the better the
prediction, the less textual ‘confirmation required (Goodman 164). According to this view, the
meaning of written language is reconstructed by using the grapho-phonemic, syntactical and
semantic systems of language. In short, then, the process followed by the reader is to:

 search for the most direct way to find meaning

  use strategies that reduce uncertainty
 select keys to interpretation
 use his conceptual and linguistic knowledge

Although Goodman (1981) refuses to class his model as being top-down, renown theoretical
writers classify it as being conceptual, where higher level processes interact with lower ones and
direct the flow of information across them. In this way, an L2 reader becomes an active partipant
in the reading process, when he makes and confirms predictions, making use of his existing
knowledge of the different linguistic levéis (graphophonemic, syntactical and, above all,
semantic).

The model does not prevent the reader from going from symbol to meaning through sound, but it
admits that the intermediate stage of using sound can be eliminated when one has become
perfectly familiar with the graphic/sound relationship or by means of the educational process.

Goodman uses the term 'decodification' to describe what the reader does when he turns a
graphemic or phonemic element into meaning, as opposed to those who state that it is equivalent
to translating graphemic into phonemic, which is called 'recodification' because both oral and
written language are codes. In this way, the transformation can either be direct, from grapheme
to meaning, or go through an intermediate stage, from grapheme to meaning through phonemes.

In short, Goodman's model is unique (infinite macro-model), psycholinguistic (interaction of

language and thought), sociolinguistic (working in a social context) and global (it addresses
every stage of the reading process).

LABERGE & SAMUELS'S SERIAL MODEL (1974-77)

Components

The elements of the process are visual memory (visual traits, letters, syllables, words, group
onwards), phonological memory (sound of the syllables, words, group of words) and the
semantic memory (meaning of words and of groups of words).

Process

The reader activates the corresponding codes in order to recognize and link together the
components and the field in a hierarchical pattern. Visual perception, the first level of processing,
provides the base for the following one, the recognition of letters; this, in turn, is a base for the
syllabic integration stage and so on, until the whole text is semantically processed.

The components of each field are analytically processed from lower to higher levies in every
component and field, that is, bottom-up and from left to right (figure 3), giving rise to
automation when the processing of one or more of the components becomes clear for the reader.
According to the diagram, the meaning is built upwards, without having a functional dependence
in the opposite direction. Thus, the speed of processing the words would be unaffected by the
syntactic or semantic processing.

The authors analyse in detail the sequential processes which take part in visual, phonological and
semantic perception, assigning them different functions. In the first one, they join together the
graphic and letter codes, syllables, words and groups of words; in the second, the phonetic codes
of syllables, words and groups of words; in the third, the codes of word meaning and groups of
words.

- Comments

The exacting nature of the structural elements does not imply that the model is inflexible; on the
contrary, depending on the texts and the reading skills of the individual, the linking process can
vary in each case and cause jumps (automatisms) if the reader does not require these elements
during the activity of mental processing.

In my view, the expert reader tends to skip the visual perceptive processes as soon as possible,
although in reality they serve as an intermediate stage in many circumstances.

For example, if the reader finds an unknown word he may need to activate the visual and
phonological codification stages before reaching the semantic level.

In conclusion, LaBerge and Samuels state that learning the reading skills is a process of
automating the visual, phonologic and semantic levéis. In this way, a beginner reader keeps his
attention on the lower levéis, but with practice the majority of these become automatic, thus
freeing the attention and allowing for more intensive concentration on semantic and
interpretative levies.

The model was revised by Samuels himself in 1977, admitting that the original linear conception
would allow interactions between stages of different levies. This modification brings it nearer to
the interactive types of model.

COMPENSATORY MODEL (STANOVICH 1980/84)

Components

These are the same as in the previous one, supplemented with a compensatory mechanism.

Process

For the serial models, the processing of reading tends to represent the flow of information in a
series of discrete stages; at each stage, the input is transformed and the non- registered
information goes to the next one to be transformed and re-coded again. The sequence of
processing is, then, bottom-up, from the input of data up to codification at higher levéis.
Due to lack of feedback, these models do not explain what sort of mental mechanism allows the
further processing of the stages when a gap appears in a lower stage. This is why it is difficult to
explain with these models, for example, the effects of context in the sentence or the role of
possessing background knowledge of the subject, which are both variables that facilitate the
recognition of words and their meaning.

Models in favour of top-down processing consider the reading process to be interactive. The
reader simplifies textual information to check his hypothesis and predictions; reading is
conceptually driven by the higher level stages, typically final processing stages, interacting with
previous sequences for these operations. Moreover, high level stages seem to drive and direct the
process by doing the most difficult work.

Therefore, top-down models begin with hypothesis and predictions and try to verify them by
moving down to the written stimuli, while bottom-up processes base the processing on an
analysis of lower stimuli.

Both ideas have limitations. I have already mentioned some of these in connection with bottom-
up procedures; with regard to top-down models, it can be said that if the reader does not have
previous knowledge of the topic in a text, he will not be able to generate predictions; or that,
even if someone is a good reader and able to generate them, if it takes longer to predict than
generate words, he will opt for reading. Hence, though the beginning of reading can be explained
by lower level word recognition, top-down models do not provide a precise description of
behaviour involved in advanced reading.

Stanovich tries to bring in his interactive-compensatory model to solve this problem.

A key concept in his theory is that "... processes at any level can compensate for deficiencies at
any other level." (Stanovich 1980: 36). In this way, if there is a deficiency in a lower stage, the
reader will try to compensate for it by means of higher level knowledge structures. For the
poorer reader, who experiences difficulty in word recognition and in speed of reading, but with a
good knowledge of the subject he is reading, top-down processing can provide him with the
information he needs.

On the other hand, if the reader has little trouble in recognizing the words but lacks knowledge of
the subject, he may find it easier to use bottom-up processing to help him. Stanovich states that
the interactive models allow the synthesis of a norm based on the information which is
simultaneously received from various sources of knowledge. The compensatory assumption
states that a lack of any type of knowledge leads to a dependence on the others, without
considering which level they belong to in the hierarchy of processing (Grabe 1988). Therefore
his model is interactive in that any stage, independently of its position in the system, can
communicate with another; and it is compensatory because any reader is able to make use of the
knowledge source which is the best developed for his purposes, when other sources which are
less familiar to him are more difficult to use, even if they are normally the more common ones.
In addition, it incorporates the concept of the initiation of the activation process by means of
which, when reading, it is possible to have words which are already in one's mind automatically
at one's disposal when they have a very cióse semantic relationship.

This sort of activation, since it is automatic, does not require any attention, therefore it is a
contextual factor that the reader does not control.

- Comments

In short, I think that Stanovich's contribution to reading models explains, from a theoretical point
of view, the apparent anomaly that in certain circumstances, some lower level readers are more
sensitive to textual difficulties than good readers. If the determinants were, for instance, a poor
source of lexical and/or orthographic knowledge as opposed to syntax and semantics, the reason
for good readers being less aware of contextual effects could be due to having less knowledge
about sources of lower level processing.

EYE MOVEMENT MODEL (JUST AND CARPENTER 1983-1987)

- Components

These authors take the following elements into account in the description of their model:

a) Patterns of eye movement.

b) A computer program to measure reading time.
c) Statistical techniques of multiple regression, where the dependent variable is the
length of looking time and the independent one is the consideration of the number of
syllables, frequency, semantic value, integrative value, etc. (up to seventeen).
d) The presuppositions of immediacy (the reader tries to extract the most out of each
word, interpreting it immediately, though at times they are only provisional guesses)
and the one of the mind-eye (the eye focuses attention on a word until it is completely
processed, so that the duration of the looking process reflects the time taken by the
cognitive processes. Only the words projected in the folic area by means of the retina
are processed; the words reflected in the corner of the eye are not semantically
processed).
e) Long term memory: this retains the reader's general knowledge about orthography,
phonology, syntax, semantics, discourse structures, situational schemata, etc.
f) Short term memory: this has a limited capacity; it retains the representations activated
during the execution of the-operations involved in the reading process.

Process

Readers are exposed to a text and stop at every word with a meaning, they seldom skip over
words. The length of looking time is very variable because it is sensitive to the underlying
cognitive processes.
Due to the limitations of the short term memory, it processes the information in cycles.

Each cycle begins with a visual movement to the next word of the text and this continues while
looking is focused, which is the amount of time necessary to process the word in all the possible
levies. These levies are:

 Word coding and lexical access.

 Syntactic coding and semantic determination.
 Integration of clauses.
 Construction of sentences.

- Comments

The authors construct a wide-ranging model that overcomes some of the limitations in
Rumelhart's model and shows that the duration of time spent looking at the words of

a text is extremely sensitive to linguistic parameters of several levéis of processing.

The computer automatically registers the amount of time spent reading long or new words, or
those used to expand linguistic units, integrative sentences in paragraphs, or paragraphs in a
discourse, and it is shown to be longer than the time taken for words that are not displayed by
these characteristics. In particular, the ending words of both clauses and paragraphs and those
appearing for the first time are the ones that require a larger amount of processing and looking
time.

The seventeen independent variables used, corresponding to all the levies of processing, explain
72% of the variance of the duration of looking times. Some critics say that many of the variables
are interrelated and that it is not possible to separate their effects.

With a very new methodology and background, Just and Carpenter produce their model by using
a computer program, READER, in their 1987 publication. This model is able to operate at the
described processing levies and mime the patterns of eye movements.

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING READING MODELS

Although we do not have a pattern at our disposal to evalúate them, four parameters can be
identified to classify current reading models. These are:

 The scientific paradigm in which they appear,

 Their defining categories,
 The experimental factors from which they come, and
 How well they match the features of a good model.

The influence of science

The scientific philosophy at the time when they appear is essential in the configuration of the
model.

Those which appeared prior to the 60s are said to be behaviourist, and they try to describe how
stimuli and answers are associated (the printed text and the response to its recognition), and do
not pay much attention to the reaction of the individual's mind during this process; in contrast,
those which appeared after the 60s are concerned with the mental processes (memory, attention,
etc.) that play a part in the reading process, according to cognitive psychology.

However, classification remains difficult. The mentalist character of the models exposed here
sometimes shows signs of previous scientific views such as in the case of LaBerge and Samuels's
serial-analytical model, and at other times, displays the advances of the new cognitive paradigm
of computational processing of information, as in the case of Just and Carpenter's 'READER'.

Defining Categories

There is no general agreement regarding the theoretical categories that define a reading model.
DeBeaugrande (1981) has mentioned up to sixteen which describe them; Moshental (1984) adds
environmental factors which help to define every specification of the model more precisely.
Some of the more salient categorizations would be: the type of processing (serial/parallel,
bottom-up, top-down), memory (abstract, constructive, reconstructive, operative, long term),
socio-politic-cultural factors, the contribution of statistics and logic, the áreas that the model
refers to, etc.

Underlying Experimental Factors

There are at least four main spheres likely to have an influence on the information of the
experimental phase. These are: age and knowledge of the individuals concerned, activities they
wish to accomplish, materials they use and the context of the study (class, type of school,
laboratory, etc.). A change in any of them can alter the results of the study and, consequently, the
author's view of the process.

Therefore, their range constitutes a key factor in the assessment process. Questions to be
answered are:

 Does the model describe initial reading as much as fluent reading?

 Does the description of the model prove to be useful both for multiple tasks and aims?
 Does the model describe the comprehension of words in the comprehensive model?
 Is it valid for different materials and contexts? etc.

It is inferred from the possible answers that none of the current models can satisfy all these
requirements; so it is necessary to undertake a careful study of each one and weigh up their
potential.
Conditions of a Good Model

We can identify three conditions:

 That they are able to summarise the past,

 Have an understanding of the present, and
 Can predict the future.

A model satisfies the first condition when it synthesises large amounts of relevant information
produced about it in the past.

The second condition requires that in spite of the complexity that usually accompanies any
phenomenon, the model aids understanding by eliminating secondary aspects and showing
clearly how its basic components interrelate and function.

It fulfils the third one if it enables the formulation of verifiable hypotheses. Throughout history,
there have been models that have failed because they did not go beyond previous hypotheses, eg.
that the earth was believed to be fíat and that it was at the centre of the universe. Checking the
models will help us to eliminate useless information and keep valid items for current and future
investigations.

These circumstances indicate that most reading models are subject to constant revision, as stated
for some of the cases already mentioned; it is frequent that the authors themselves, in successive
studies, have modified some of their previous views. For example, LaBerge and Samuels, who
produced a strictly linear model at the beginning, where the higher level stages were unable to
influence lower ones, admit in their 1984 publication that interaction between the different stages
of their model is, in fact, possible.
 COMPONENTS OF READING AND WRITING APPROPRIATE FOR JHS LEARNERS

COMPONENTS OF READING

PHONICS

Phonics is the connection of different sounds with different letters, or different groupings of
letters. For example, the letter‘s’ gives an /s/ sound, but adding an ‘h’ gives the different sound
of /sh/.

IMPORTANT OF PHONICS AS COMPONENT OF READING

Phonics forms the nuts and bolts of the reading process. It allows students to connect arbitrary
symbols on a page to verbally expressed language. Even if a child has no understanding of what
a word means, they will still be able to phonetically sound it out.

Phonics also develops students’ ability to ‘read by sight’, i.e. register whole words at a glance
without sounding out each individual letter. Even within an unfamiliar word, students will be
able to quickly sight-read phonic patterns (e.g. ‘however’ as a whole might be new, but ‘how’
and ‘ever’ will be sight words).

Both of the above developments translate to reading fluency. Students are able to read much
faster and more efficiently without having to stop and process the letters each time they are
confronted by a new piece of vocabulary.

WAYS TO TEACH PHONICS FOR READING

There are different approaches to phonics instruction, but these activities will suit any classroom.

1. Rhyming games: Any activity that requires students to rhyme words will develop their
phonic understanding. This might be writing a poem as a class or mixing and matching
pairs of rhymed words.

2. Flexi words: Have students break down a word into its individual phonemes, each of
which go onto a decorated piece of card. Students then attach the phonemes (in order) to
an elastic band. Stretching out the band will separate the phonemes and helps students to
view a slow sounding out of the word. Relaxing it will reveal the word as it appears in
regular speech.

3. Phonics hopscotch: Draw hopscotch but substitute the numbers with graphemes (the
letters representing phonetic sounds). Students have to jump between the different letters
as they hear them from a teacher or partner.
 4. Guess the word: Students write down a set of 5 words, then place them in the middle of
the table. The teacher or nominated student then has to pick a word and give clues (e.g.
“it ends with -ig”) while the others guess what it is.

5. Word mix up: Put individual graphemes on separate cards, and then task students with
manipulating them to create as many words as possible.

PHONEMIC AWARENESS

Phonemic awareness is an understanding of how individual phonemes (consonant or vowel

sounds) can be manipulated and arranged to create words. This may sound similar to phonics,
but there is a difference. Phonics concerns letter–sound knowledge, whereas phonemic
awareness refers to sound–word knowledge. Phonemic awareness is therefore aimed
on auditory understanding, as opposed to words on a page.

Why is phonemic awareness an important component of reading?

English is written using an alphabetical system, where every letter corresponds to an individual
phoneme. This might sound obvious, but it’s not the case in other languages where characters
represent whole syllables (e.g. Japanese) or even whole words (as with certain Chinese
characters).

This means that students need an awareness of phonemes themselves before they can make sense
of words on a page. For example, to read the word ‘cat’ aloud, students have to know what the
phonemes /c/, /a/, /t/ sound like when put together. And it’s not easy either — phonemes have to
overlap and flow together to form fluent speech.

For this reason, studies have identified phonemic awareness as the best early indicator of a
student’s reading potential. It sets the stage for phonics, and virtually every other component of
literacy.

WAYS TO DEVELOP PHONEMIC AWARENESS FOR READING

1. Phoneme isolation: Students identify individual phonemes in words, e.g. “What is the
first sound in ‘boat’?” (/b/)

2. Phoneme identity: Students identify the common sound in different words, e.g. “Tell me
the sound that is the same in ‘bike’, ‘boy’, and ‘bell’.” (/b/)

3. Phoneme categories: students identify the word with the odd sound in a sequence, e.g.
“Which word does not belong? Bus, bun, rug.” (rug)

4. Phoneme blending: Students listen to a sequence of separately spoken sounds and

combine them to form a recognizable word, e.g. “What word is /s/ /k/ /u/ /l/?” (school)
Phoneme deletion: Students find the word that remains when a specified phoneme is removed,
e.g. “What word do we get when we remove /s/ from ‘smile’?” (mile)

VOCABULARY

Vocabulary is the range of words a student is able to understand and use in context. More of a
toolbox than a skill, students’ vocabularies grow as they read and are introduced to new words.

Why is vocabulary an important component of reading?

You can only take meaning from words you understand. Students with broader vocabularies are
more confident when reading challenging or unfamiliar material. When they encounter unknown
words, they can figure it out based on context clues or resemblance to familiar pieces of
vocabulary.

You can grow students’ vocabularies with regular reading in and out of the classroom.

WAYS TO DEVELOP A STRONGER VOCABULARY FOR READING

1. Word of the day: Create a daily roster for students to share a newly discovered or
unusual word with the class. They could explain the word by providing an original
definition, acting it out, or compiling a list of synonyms.

2. Creative writing: Compile all the ‘words of the day’ gathered over the week and then
task students with writing a story that uses as many new words as possible. This ensures
they learn how to use new vocabulary in context.

3. Class glossary: When reading a text or studying a topic, compile a list of unfamiliar
words, and assign them to students. Each student must create a glossary page with a
definition, pronunciation guide, sentence example, mnemonic (memory aid), and an
image representing the word.

4. Opposites attract: Assign each student a card with a new word and its definition. They
then have to find and pair up with a classmate who has a word with the opposite meaning.

5. Vocab bookmarks: Have students design and create a bookmark with a space to write
down any new words they discover while they read. Laminate them so students can reuse
them with a dry-erase marker.

FLUENCY

Fluency is the ability to read with speed, understanding, and accuracy. Yet it’s more than
information extraction — it’s the skill that allows us to ‘follow’ a text, picture its descriptions,
and hear the auditory expression of words in our heads even when reading silently.

Why is fluency an important component of reading?

Fluency is what lets students feel the ‘flow’ of a text. Struggling readers, for example, read aloud
in a jerky, clipped fashion as if a new sentence begins with every word. Others might be
oblivious to the shifting tone and pace of a text, reading it in a steady monotone with no
expression. In both cases, the process of reading becomes painful and awkward — even if
students can successfully decode individual words.

Fluency and comprehension are closely tied. A student cannot fully understand the meaning and
ideas behind a text without the ability to read it fluently.

WAYS TO DEVELOP READING FLUENCY

1. Teacher modelling: regularly reading aloud to students serves as a model for reading
fluency. Be expressive and vary your pace so that students get a sense of the flow. If
possible, have students read along with their own copy of the text, so they can link it to
the words they hear aloud.

2. Phrase identification: Take a single sentence and read it aloud while students refer to
the written version. Ask them to identify distinct phrases with an underline by listening
carefully to the pauses. Can they separate the sentence into groups of words that run
together? Model it first to give students a clear idea.

3. Choral reading: Read a short text aloud to your students, and then have them read it
aloud in unison. Matching the flow and pace of the group develops fluency.

4. Paired reading: Having children read aloud to one another encourages them to develop
the expression and flow needed for fluency. Pair students of different ability levels for
more powerful learning, but make sure the disparity is not too great.

5. Use audiobooks: Audiobooks paired with text allow students to link the words on the
page with fluent and expressive reading. You can find engaging audio titles in the
Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress Library, which contains over 2500 student eBooks.

COMPREHENSION

Comprehension is a student’s understanding of the information being imparted by a text, such as:

Who, what, when, where, ideas and meanings.

Why is comprehension an important component of reading?

Comprehension allows students to draw meaning and information from a text, and it also
transforms reading from a purely functional activity into one that inspires thought and feeling.

WAYS TO DEVELOP COMPREHENSION SKILLS FOR READING

 1. Drawing: Ask your students to draw or paint a scene from a written text. This
encourages them to imagine the concrete details being represented by the words
themselves.

2. Questioning: Follow up reading time with open-ended questions that prompt students to
think deeply about the text. For example, if reading a narrative, you might ask students
how a character changed over the course of a story, or how a central problem influenced
the action.

3. Encourage reflection: Ask students for their opinions on the text in order to encourage
deeper reflective thinking about the ideas. For example, you might ask what emotions
were evoked by a setting, or whether a character’s actions were right or wrong.

4. Make connections: Encourage students to make connections to their own lives and other
texts that they have read. Weave this into your discussion or questioning after reading in
order to link comprehension with real-world concepts your students can relate to.

5. Make reading a habit: The more students read the more confident and astute their
comprehension skills will become.

COMPONENTS OF WRITING

1. CENTRAL IDEA

This element of good writing involves focusing on a clear, manageable idea, argument, or thesis
around which to organize your material. It includes selecting subordinate ideas that support and
reinforce your central idea.

Checkpoints:

 Purpose or central idea is sufficiently limited for meaningful discussion.

 Central idea is clearly stated, normally in the opening.
 All subordinate ideas relate clearly to the central idea.

2. ORGANIZATION

This element of writing has to do with coherent arrangement of material. It involves keeping the
reader oriented to the central and subordinate ideas. Good organization is logical and sequential.
It guides the reader between divisions of the material.

Checkpoints:

 Introduction orients the reader to the central idea and the line of reasoning.
 Material is arranged in a logical and coherent sequence; subordinate ideas are effectively
identified.
  Transitions are clear and helpful.
 Conclusion or closing summarizes the argument, emphasizes the central idea, and leaves
the reader with a sense of completion.

3. SUPPORTING MATERIAL

Explanations, examples, statistics, and quotations make the ideas and information presented
meaningful and memorable for the reader. In exposition, the role of supporting material is to
clarify; in argument, to persuade.

Checkpoints:

G Examples are relevant, specific, detailed, sufficient, and persuasive.

G Quotations support the argument.

4. EXPRESSION, WORD CHOICE, AND POINT OF VIEW

Language is clear, specific, accurate, and appropriate to the audience, purpose, and material.

Variety in sentence structure and length creates emphasis.

Checkpoints:

 Word choice is clear, specific, accurate, unassuming, and free of clichés and misused
jargon.
 Sentences are free of wordiness and ambiguity.

5. SPELLING, GRAMMAR, AND PUNCTUATION

This element of good writing counts only when it’s wrong. Fair or not, your reader will notice
your spelling, grammar, or punctuation only when you make a mistake.

Checkpoints:

 Spelling, including technical terms and proper names, is correct.

 Correct words are used to convey the intended meaning.
 Generally accepted rules of grammar and syntax are followed, including

Pronoun/noun agreement, subject/verb agreement, appropriate verb tense, pronoun case,

possessive forms, parallel construction, etc.

 Punctuation, particularly comma placement, reflects standard usage.

 Copy is free of mechanical errors and mistakes in proofreading
 STAGES OF READING AND WRITING DEVELOPMENT

STAGES OF READING

Stage 0: Pre-Reading

Stage 0, otherwise known as pre-reading or “pseudo-reading,” includes children ages 6 months

to 6 years. In this stage, children often “pretend” to read, meaning they can recognize signs and
stories previously read to them on a page and can therefore point them out and exhibit an
understanding of the content. Children master this stage by being read to by a parent, guardian,
teacher or other adult and through interactive, dialogic reading.

Stage 1: Initial Reading and Decoding

Stage 1 typically includes children ages six and seven, or children in 1st grade and the beginning
of 2nd grade. In this stage, children develop the skills necessary to interpret the relationships
between written words and spoken words. Children in this stage begin to learn letter-sound
relationships (phonics), and to read simple text containing phonetically regular words. Generally
this happens through direct instruction. At the end of this stage, children can usually read up to
600 different words.

Stage 2: Confirmation and Fluency

Children in Stage 2 are generally 7-8 years old and can read easy, familiar texts by using basic
decoding, sight vocabulary and context clues. Children can develop and acquire new reading
skills through advanced reading instruction and by listening to others read at higher levels.

Stage 3: Reading for Learning the New

Stage 3, which is made up of Phase A and Phase B, describe children ages 9-13. Phase A
includes intermediate children in grades 4-6 and Phase B includes middle school/high school
children in grades 7-9. In this stage, children read in order to gain ideas and knowledge, and to
experience new feelings and attitudes as a result of what they read. Children in Phase A are
typically still more efficient at learning through listening comprehension over reading
comprehension, but by Phase B are equally proficient in both.

Stage 4: Multiple Viewpoints

Stage 4 includes individuals ages 15-17 who demonstrate reading skills in a broad range of
subjects with a variety of different viewpoints.

Stage 5: Construction and Reconstruction

Stage 5, includes adults, age 18 and up, who read for their own purpose, gain knowledge and
integrate new knowledge with prior experiences. They can read quickly and efficiently.

WHAT ARE WRITING SKILLS?

Writing skills include all the knowledge and abilities related to expressing ideas through the
written word. The ability to clearly communicate ideas through writing is in high demand for
employers in any industry. Well-written documents, emails and posts can persuade customers to
purchase a product or convince investors to partner with a company.

Technical knowledge about writing conventions, style guides and formatting for different
situations are also an important part of writing skills. Knowing what situations call for different
styles of writing and being able to set an appropriate tone over text are both important writing
skills that any person can use at work.

WHY ARE WRITING SKILLS IMPORTANT?

Writing skills are important because they allow people to get a point across without being
physically present. Many employers get their first impression of future employees through the
writing skills they display in their resume, cover letter and email communications.

Writing skills influence the quality of your work and how others perceive your professionalism,
which can have a direct effect on your ability to get an interview and excel at work. Writing
skills are transferrable, so developing a strong understanding of writing processes allows you to
maintain clear communication and accurate documentation in any workplace.

EXAMPLES OF WRITING SKILLS

Professional writing is a complex process that involves different skills for planning, drafting and
editing. Great writers must be able to quickly learn new concepts and translate ideas into original
content.

Some areas of writing are highly specialized and require extensive knowledge in a single area,
like scientific or legal writing. Others use broad soft skills to relate to an audience through
creative writing or blogging. Some of the best writing skills include:

 Research
 Outlining
 Editing
 Reading comprehension
 Time management

Research
Research allows writers to find accurate information and best practices related to writing in a
particular style or about a particular piece of content. Writers often have to write about subjects
that they are not familiar with, so finding quality sources quickly is an important skill.

Outlining

Outlining is creating a plan for the structure and flow of a piece of writing. Good writing needs
to have a logical structure in order to make sense to a reader. Your ability to organize sentences
and paragraphs in the most compelling way influences how others perceive you and understand
the point of your writing.

Editing

After writing the first draft of your piece, you need to be able to edit. From checking an email for
spelling errors to re-writing a grant proposal, all writing should undergo some level of editing.
Editing involves reading your own writing from another perspective and considering how well it
suits your goals. When editing your own work, think about your word choice and tone, removing
any irrelevant phrases.

Reading comprehension

Reading comprehension skills help you respond to prompts, reply to messages and learn about
new content. People use reading comprehension skills to assess the tone and main idea of a piece
of writing. Having good reading comprehension also helps you edit your own work by
determining if your point comes across from the perspective of a reader.

Time management

Time management is key when writing anything beyond a simple message or email. You should
be able to spend your time efficiently when writing and accurately plan for how long it will take
to write and edit your piece. Many writers over-edit their work and end up wasting time without
improving the quality of their writing, so a good writer must recognize when to step away from a
piece of writing.

IMPROVING WRITING SKILLS

While some people are naturally talented at writing, anyone can develop their writing skills over
time. Once you understand the different types of writing skills, you can focus on how you use
them in the workplace and improve over time. Identify your strongest writing skills and develop
strategies to improve those skills to a professional level:

 Take grammar quizzes.

 Know your audience.
 Read your writing aloud.
 Vary your sentence structure.
  Practice daily.
 Read regularly.

Take grammar quizzes.=

Even the most experienced writers have trouble with grammar, and taking grammar quizzes or
playing games online is a great way to hone your knowledge of spelling and sentence structure.

Know your audience

Practice writing one prompt for different audiences and notice how your tone shifts. Before you
begin writing, consider what your audience values and how you can use your word choice and
sentence structure to appeal to them.

Read your writing aloud

Read your writing aloud during the editing process to catch any errors that you might not have
noticed otherwise. Reading aloud also helps you hear any awkward phrasing and get an idea of
your overall tone and effectiveness.

Vary your sentence structure

As you write, try to vary your sentence structure to give your writing rhythm. A mix of short and
long sentences with different literary devices can keep the reader interested and create a natural
flow that guides them through your writing.

Practice daily

Even if you don't have to write every day at work, practice writing in some way every day. Focus
your time on the types of writing where you most need to improve. Give yourself writing
prompts and challenge yourself to try out different skills.

Read regularly

One of the best ways to improve your writing is to read a variety of writing styles daily. The
more exposure you have to quality writing, the better you will be able to produce great writing
yourself. Reading helps you understand how to apply the writing skills you have learned.
 APPROACHES FOR TEACHING JHS READING AND WRITING

APPROACHES TO TEACHING READING

A. PHONETIC APPROACH

Many of us were taught to read and write by starting with the sounds of letters. We would repeat
consonants or vowel sounds until the letter and the sound were well associated in our minds.
Educators call this a phonetic approach. In this approach memorizing the shape of the letter and
its sound is the first activity that must take place in the learner's brain. This approach has been
around for so many years, that many people are convinced that it is the only way that reading can
be taught.

In many literacy primers, learners are introduced to the symbols for each unit of sound in their
language. Some primers begin with individual letters (a, b, c, d) while others introduce
consonants and vowels together to form syllables (ba, be, bi, bo, bu). These units of sound are
called "phonemes" taken from the Greek word "phone" which means sound. Hence the name
"phonetic" refers to the sound of written symbols. The phonetic approach focuses on teaching
learners to recognize the written symbol for each phoneme or sound. In some literacy primers,
the learners study each phoneme one by one before they learn to read and write words. For
example, in Nepali language, school children are expected to learn 36 consonants and 12 vowels
so that they can read a matrix chart that shows all the ways consonants can be joined with vowels.
The following chart shows just a few of the phonetic symbols that must be mastered in Nepal
before beginning to read and write words. The matrix helps the learner recognize the different
syllables that can be formed to represent sounds such as ka, kaa, ki, ki i, or gyan, gyaan, gyin,
gyiin.

Once learners have mastered the syllables, they are taught to form words, and then to form
sentences with words. Finally the learners read a passage from the primer that uses the words
they have learned to identify. Phonetic primers usually start with easy words and symbols and
then slowly introduce more difficult words and sentences. Often rather useless sentences are
created to help the learners practice the symbol and sound connections. (For example, "The cat
sat on the mat.") When learners assume that they must work through so many confusing symbols
and sounds, you can see why the Nepali \-vomen who wanted a sewing class were discouraged
by the idea that they must learn to read and write first. In the phonetic approach, learning starts
with the smallest parts of language and adds the pieces together until the learner understands
how to decode every symbol to read or write a message. This method often doesn't work very
well when people are not familiar with books and printed words. The symbols are too abstract
and have no meaning in the lives of people who have not had opportunities to see others using
the symbols to read and write. Notice on the following chart that the phonetic approach focuses
on mastering separate parts of language before introducing organized language that contains
meaningful information. Some educators refer to the phonetic approach as moving from the part
to the whole.

Many people who come from non- literate homes or villages do not easily make the connection
between ritually memorizing symbols and using those symbols to communicate with others
through writing. Children from literate homes often do better in schoo1 because they know from
the very beginning how they will eventually use these symbols. They have seen their family
members reading and writing these symbols on a regular basis. Adults who live and work in an
oral culture may only see written words in their children's school books or in government
documents. The written words represent another world that is not necessarily connected to the
world they live and work in every day.

Like the women in the sewing class, people want to gain information, knowledge and directions,
but it is not always clear what role reading and writing will play. The phonetic approach used by
itself delays the learning process for some people by starting with pieces of language rather than
a whole meaningful message. For adults who want to direct their learning toward a certain goal
this approach can feel like a tunnel with no light at the end. Thus, when they are offered literacy
classes, they simply refuse to join, saying, "Half of my life is already gone, why do I need to
learn to read and write? I have sent my children to school, they will learn to read and write."

For many of the adults who drop out of literacy programs, the phonetic approach does not offer
the flexibility to connect their literacy lessons to a personal goal or familiar information.
However, it is still necessary for learners to recognize the symbols and sounds of written
language. Phonetics activities need to be integrated with other literacy approaches. As an isolated
approach, phonetics is not very effective. The strategies in Section II introduce many ways to
connect literacy activities to the lives and interests of the learners. Strategy# 11 includes ways to
learn letters, words and spelling through meaningful activities rather than the repetitive drills of
symbols and sounds usually associated with the phonetic approach.

B. KEY WORD APPROACH

As educators became dissatisfied with the ineffectiveness of the phonetic approach, they began
to analyze the learning process. Paulo Frere, the author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, developed
a clear analysis of the problem. He believed that people needed to learn to read the world as well
as the word. This meant that they should discuss and analyze the world of their own lives and
learn to read and write words that are full of meaning from their own experience. He taught that
adult learners are not empty vessels waiting for the teacher to fill them with knowledge from
books. They have their own knowledge and understanding which can be brought to the literacy
class. His goal was to teach literacy in a way that people could use reading and writing as tools to
analyze and change their world.

The key word approach, which is based on these concepts, stems with issues or problems from
people’s daily lives and organizes literacy lessons based on learning to read and write key words
and sentences associated with these issues. Many programs throughout the world have adapted
these ideas and are using a key word or key sentence approach in adult literacy classes.

In the key word approach, problems or ideas are introduced to the learners through showing a
picture, telling a story, or dramatizing an event. Presenting important issues to the class in this
way generates many responses such as interest, anger, debate, hope, ideas, humor, etc. If a
picture is used, the learners begin by looking at the picture and talking about how it is related to
their lives and how it impacts what they want to do in the future. Stories, dramas and other things
can also be used to start the discussion. As this approach depends on activities and discussion, it
is more effective when learning in a small group. The discussion connects learning to people's
experience and provides motivation for using reading and writing skills to solve the problems of
daily life.

The key word approach builds on the belief that discussion reinforces skills of listening and
speaking which help learners prepare mentally for reading and writing. Discussing the issue
orally builds learners' confidence in their own knowledge and experience. When they approach
the task of reading, they do not come with an empty mind waiting for the printed page to teach
them what to think. They have demonstrated that they have important knowledge from life
experience that brings meaning to the symbols on the page. Once they are mentally prepared to
read, the key word is introduced. They learn to read the word with help from the facilitator.

Then the keyword is broken into syllables and the learners create new words by mixing and
matching the syllables. Some programs encourage the learners to identify their own key words or
sentences which the facilitator writes down for them to study. The facilitator then develops
reading and writing activities together with the learners. This approach will be discussed in more
detail in Section II.

Other programs use a primer with pre-planned pictures and keywords followed by exercises and
readings that have been researched and developed by experts. Look at the exan1 pl e in the
appendix (pp. 6 3-64) from the facilitator guidebook for Nepal's national literacy program to see
how various activities are used to teach syllables, words, and sentences. In this example, the
keyword ispaani (water). It will be broken into two syllables, paa and ni. Learners repeat these
two syllables until they recognize them. Next the learners are introduced to a discovery chart
where they learn more words by combining the new syllables with ones they have learned in
previous lessons. For example, the syllables used in the sample lesson are:

pa paa pi

na naa ni

ka kaa ki

ma maa mi
Learners combine the syllables from this chart to create new words, for example, kaa + na =
kacma (eat). Gradually they learn to put words together into sentences and to read a story.

Although the key word approach breaks the words into syllables and teaches sound and symbol
relationships, it is a big change from the phonetic approach. This approach stairs with a
discussion of meaningful issues and introduces key words related to the lives of the learners.

After the phonetic reading and writing activities, the learners return to discussing the problems
and talk about ways they can take action to improve their lives. The following chart lists the
various elements of the key word approach and shows how it surrounds instruction on the parts
of language with whole ideas and relevant information.

The KEY WORD APPROACH starts by discussing real-life problems before introducing
words and syllables. It also connects literacy to taking action in real-life situations.

The main strength of the key word approach is that it uses topics that are meaningful to people's
lives. The approach builds on people's existing knowledge through discussion of issues before
introducing written words, phonetic information and literacy skills. The example from the Nepal
facilitator guidebook shows how the learners are engaged in the various activities of listening,
thinking, and discussing the very relevant topic of water.

However, in application, many educators have found that the key word approach runs into the
same problems as the phonetic approach when the learners move from discussing the key words
to working with the syllables. When inexperienced facilitators use the discovery chart, it reminds
them of how they learned to read with the phonetic approach in school. Many of them slip back
into the comfortable routine of drilling the phonemes ka, kha, ma, etc. for the major portion of
their class. The facilitator guidebook for the Nepal primer encourages facilitators to use games
and other activities rather than drills to learn the parts of language. But many still find it easier to
drill.

In the Nepali primer, each lesson includes a list of words created from the letters and syllables
learned in previous lessons. Unfortunately, many of these words are not familiar to learners who
speak limited Nepali as their second language. When the new words have no meaning for them,
the learners fall into the trap of mind! Easily repeating sound and symbols.

Thus the less desirable aspects of the phonetic approach gain power over the discussion of
impo1iant issues and the learning of meaningful words. When this happens, the literacy class
also finds it difficult to achieve the original goal of their literacy lessons-taking action on real life
problems.

The central purpose of the discussion in the key word approach is to help people identify
common problems and plan activities to solve the problems as a group. The keyword approach is
most effective for helping a group to take action when the words are chosen from issues or
problems that come from the community of the learners. However, when the key words and
problems are pre-established in a book, the learners and facilitator are often more motivated to
move on to the next lesson rather than to use their reading and writing skills to so I’ve a local
problem.

Finally, the key word approach is most effective if it is developed locally rather than nationally.
For example, literacy workers in the di verse regions of Nepal discovered that key words and
pictures cannot be standardized for the whole country. Because a single primer was being
produced for everyone, materials developers became concerned that the book must introduce
each letter of the alphabet in a systematic order. As a result, key words were sometimes chosen
for their syllables or letters rather than for their usefulness or relevance for learners' lives in
various parts of the country. Furthermore, the country is so diverse that some of the key words
became meaningless and the pictures were not even recognized in some regions. Literacy
workers in many areas learned from experience that literacy materials must be based on local
knowledge, interests and issues if they are to be successful.

Many literacy workers throughout the world as well as in Nepal are realizing that they cannot
rely on a centrally produced primer to meet all of their needs. They are recognizing that literacy
workers in each region or ethnic community must have the skills to identify local key words and
to create materials in local languages or dialects. For this reason, the strategies provided in
Section II focus on how to develop local materials.

C. WHOLELANGUAGEAPPROACH

The whole language strategies are introduced in this manual to help you connect the process of
learning to read and write with local needs, interests and resources. Whole language is not a
specific method. It is a philosophy of education that describes how we view language, literacy,
teaching and learning. Its major assertion is that language is "whole." This means that if we take
it apart to focus on letters, lists of words or grammar patterns, we lose the essence of what
language is. Reading should not be taught as the isolated skill of connecting symbols and sounds.
Learning to read must also be connected to life experience, meaningful activities and the
learner's goals through discussion, speaking, listening, and writing.

Who le Language was chosen as the name of this reading approach because it is based on all
aspects of language learning. Listening, speaking, thinking, remembering, reading, and writing
take place together in this approach. All of these aspects are interrelated and interactive with
each other. People develop language skills by exchanging infom1ation with others about their
own experiences and ideas. Reading and writing are social activities just like listening and
speaking. If we work on al 1 of these skills together, we can learn more effectively.

Whole language is based on the learners' knowledge of the language they already speak.

In the first lessons, the facilitator invites the learners to say something that can be written down.
The learners create the meaning and the structure of their first sentences orally. The facilitator
then helps them understand how the written language is made by helping them see and read their
own words in writing.

Many people have a very narrow definition of literacy. They see it as a personal skill that is used
by schooled individuals. But literacy is a social skill as well as a personal skill; people participate
in reading and writing activities together. At a minimum, there are two people involved ina
literacy activity- a writer and a reader. For example, someone writes a letter and sends it to
someone who reads it.

But often many people are involved in a simple reading and writing activity. For example, when
a man dictates a letter to his son, the man composes the letter and his son acts as scribe.

Which one is creating the letter? The letter may be sent to a relative who reads it out loud to his
whole family. Both literate and non-literate people participate in interpreting and discussing the
meaning of the message. The ability to read and write extends our ability to think and talk and
listen. Literacy provides one more way to communicate with others.

The skill for reading and writing does not begin with the letters of the alphabet. It begins with the
desire to get information, send messages, record knowledge and develop ideas. The preparation
for literacy begins when people begin to participate in activities that rely on written materials.
They recognize the importance of saving a document. They ask someone to write a message for
them. They listen to someone read a newspaper. In some families where there are many literacy
activities, children may often learn to read without ever being directly taught. They pick it up by
watching, listening and imitating others.

The skill for reading and writing does not begin with the letters of the alphabet.

It begins with the desire to get information, send messages, record knowledge and develop
ideas.

The people who developed the whole language approach got their ideas from observing how
children picked up literacy skills from their environment. Ken Goodman, one of the creators of
the whole language approach, identified the conditions for learning to read and write that are
listed on the next page.

WHOLE LANGUAGE SEES LITERACY AS A SOCIAL ACTIVITY

Literacy learning is easy when the following social conditions exist:

-- Reading materials are chosen by the learner.

-- The reason to read and write is real and natural.

-- The information to be read is whole, not just parts of words.

-- The process for reading is· sensible.

-- The information is interesting.

-- The information and process of reading are relevant.

-- The ideas and words belong to the learner.

-- Reading and writing are part of a real event.

-- Reading and writing have social utility.

-- The learner has a purpose for reading and writing.

-- Written information is accessible to the learner.

-- The facilitator gives the learners power to use their own ideas and skills to make a written text.

APPROACHES STRENGTHS MISSING

Phonetic -- sound-symbol connection -- experience of the learners
-- discussion
-- reading and writing for
meaningful communication
-- action
Key Word -- thinking, speaking and -- development of writing
listening as the foundation for skills
reading
-- discussion for group action
and social change
-- sound-symbol connection

Whole Language --reading and writing in a -- discussion for group action

meaningful context
-- based on learners'
knowledge of oral language
-- use of local materials
-- development of writing
skills
-- based on learners' needs,
interests, skills, and progress

APPROACHES TO WRITING/ WRITING PROCESS

A PRODUCT APPROACH
This is a traditional approach, in which students are encouraged to mimic a model text, which is
usually presented and analyzed at an early stage. A model for such an approach is outlined below:

Stage 1

Model texts are read, and then features of the genre are highlighted. For example, if studying a
formal letter, students' attention may be drawn to the importance of paragraphing and the
language used to make formal requests. If studying a story, the focus may be on the techniques
used to make the story interesting, and students focus on where and how the writer employs
these techniques.

Stage 2

This consists of controlled practice of the highlighted features, usually in isolation. So if students
are studying a formal letter, they may be asked to practise the language used to make formal
requests, practising the 'I would be grateful if you would…' structure.

Stage 3

Organisation of ideas. This stage is very important. Those who favour this approach believe that
the organisation of ideas is more important than the ideas themselves and as important as the
control of language.

Stage 4

The end result of the learning process. Students choose from a choice of comparable writing
tasks. Individually, they use the skills, structures and vocabulary they have been taught to
produce the product; to show what they can do as fluent and competent users of the language.

A PROCESS APPROACH
Process approaches to writing tend to focus more on the varied classroom activities which
promote the development of language use: brainstorming, group discussion, re-writing. Such an
approach can have any number of stages, though a typical sequence of activities could proceed as
follows;

Stage 1
Generating ideas by brainstorming and discussion. Students could be discussing qualities needed
to do a certain job, or giving reasons as to why people take drugs or gamble. The teacher remains
in the background during this phase, only providing language support if required, so as not
inhibiting students in the production of ideas.

Stage 2
Students extend ideas into note form, and judge quality and usefulness of ideas.
Stage 3
Students organise ideas into a mind map, spidergram, or linear form. This stage helps to make
the (hierarchical) relationship of ideas more immediately obvious, which helps students with the
structure of their texts.

Stage 4
Students write the first draft. This is done in class and frequently in pairs or groups.

Stage 5
Drafts are exchanged, so that students become the readers of each other's work. By responding as
readers, students develop an awareness of the fact that a writer is producing something to be read
by someone else, and thus can improve their own drafts.

Stage 6
Drafts are returned and improvements are made based upon peer feedback.

Stage 7
A final draft is written.

Stage 8
Students once again exchange and read each other's work and perhaps even write a response or
reply.

A SUMMARY OF THE DIFFERENCES

Process-driven approaches show some similarities with task-based learning, in that students are
given considerable freedom within the task. They are not curbed by pre-emptive teaching of
lexical or grammatical items. However, process approaches do not repudiate all interest in the
product, (i.e. the final draft). The aim is to achieve the best product possible. What differentiates
a process-focused approach from a product-centered one is that the outcome of the writing, the
product, is not preconceived.
Process writing Product writing

 Imitate model text

 Text as a resource for comparison
 Organization of ideas more important
 Ideas as starting point
than ideas themselves
 More than one draft
 One draft
 More global, focus on purpose, theme, text
 Features highlighted including
type, i.e., reader is emphasized
controlled practice of those features
 Collaborative
 Individual
 Emphasis on creative process
 Emphasis on end product
 READING AND WRITING PROBLEMS OF JHS LEARNERS

JHS LEARNERS READING AND WRITING PROBLEMS

LACK OF VOCABULARY

Vocabulary plays a fundamental role in the reading process, and contributes greatly to a reader's
comprehension. A reader cannot understand a text without knowing what most of the words
mean. Students learn the meanings of most words indirectly, through everyday experiences with
oral and written language. Other words are learned through carefully designed instruction.

HOW TO HELP

With the help of parents and teachers, kids can overcome vocabulary limitations that affect their
reading. Below are some tips and specific things to do.

What kids can do to help themselves

 Find books to read on your own. The more you read, the more new words you'll see, and
the more you'll learn about the words.

 Look ahead in textbooks to learn new vocabulary and concepts before your teacher goes
over the section in class.

 Keep a list of key vocabulary and transition words.

 Practice telling stories using the words first, then, and finally.

What parents can do to help at home

 Engage your child in conversations every day. If possible, include new and interesting
words in your conversation.

 Read to your child each day. When the book contains a new or interesting word, pause
and define the word for your child. After you're done reading, engage your child in a
conversation about the book.

 Help build word knowledge by classifying and grouping objects or pictures while naming
them.

 Help build your child's understanding of language by playing verbal games and telling
jokes and stories.

 Encourage your child to read on his own. The more children read, the more words they
encounter and learn.
What teachers can do to help at school

 Help build language skills in class by playing oral and written word exercises and games.

 Teach students about the important, useful, and difficult vocabulary words before
students read the text. This will help them remember the words and improve
comprehension.

 Offer students many opportunities to encounter target vocabulary words beyond the
context in which they are taught.

 Have students use taught vocabulary words often and in various ways both orally and in
writing so they are better able to remember the words and their meanings.

 Teach vocabulary via explicit instruction and also through independent readings.

 Help students learn to use context clues to determine the meanings of words. Teach them
that some context clues are more helpful than others and provide examples of helpful and
less helpful clues.

 Read to your class each day. When the book contains a new or interesting word, pause
and define the word for your students. After you're done reading, engage your students in
a conversation about the book.

 Engage your students in conversations every day. If possible, include new and interesting
words in your conversation.

 Explicitly teach the meanings of common prefixes, roots, and suffixes.

 Draw students' attention to common roots in a variety of words (for example, the similar
roots and meanings of the words vision, visual, visible, invisible) and lead a discussion of
the meanings of the words and how they tend to be used.

LACK OF FLUENCY

Fluency is defined as the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. In order to
understand what they read, children must be able to read fluently whether they are reading aloud
or silently. When reading aloud, fluent readers read in phrases and add intonation appropriately.
Their reading is smooth and has expression.

Children who do not read with fluency sound choppy and awkward. Those students may have
difficulty with decoding skills or they may just need more practice with speed and smoothness in
reading. Fluency is also important for motivation; children who find reading laborious tend not
to want read! As readers head into upper elementary grades, fluency becomes increasingly
important. The volume of reading required in the upper elementary years escalates dramatically.
Students whose reading is slow or labored will have trouble meeting the reading demands of
their grade level.

How to help

With the help of parents and teachers, kids can learn strategies to cope with fluency issues that
affect his or her reading. Below are some tips and specific things to do.

What kids can do to help themselves

 Track the words with your finger as a parent or teacher reads a passage aloud. Then you
read it.

 Have a parent or teacher read aloud to you. Then, match your voice to theirs.

 Read your favorite books and poems over and over again. Practice getting smoother and
reading with expression.

What parents can do to help at home

 Support and encourage your child. Realize that he or she is likely frustrated by reading.

 Check with your child's teachers to find out their assessment of your child's word
decoding skills.

 If your child can decode words well, help him or her build speed and accuracy by:

o Reading aloud and having your child match his voice to yours

o Having your child practice reading the same list of words, phrase, or short
passages several times

o Reminding your child to pause between sentences and phrases

 Read aloud to your child to provide an example of how fluent reading sounds.

 Give your child books with predictable vocabulary and clear rhythmic patterns so the
child can "hear" the sound of fluent reading as he or she reads the book aloud.

 Use books on tapes; have the child follow along in the print copy.

What teachers can do to help at school

 Assess the student to make sure that word decoding or word recognition is not the source
of the difficulty (if decoding is the source of the problem, decoding will need to be
addressed in addition to reading speed and phrasing).
  Give the student independent level texts that he or she can practice again and again. Time
the student and calculate words-correct-per-minute regularly. The student can chart his or
her own improvement.

 Ask the student to match his or her voice to yours when reading aloud or to a tape
recorded reading.

 Read a short passage and then have the student immediately read it back to you.

 Have the student practice reading a passage with a certain emotion, such as sadness or
excitement, to emphasize expression and intonation.

 Incorporate timed repeated readings into your instructional repertoire.

 Plan lessons that explicitly teach students how to pay attention to clues in the text (for
example, punctuation marks) that provide information about how that text should be read.

LACK OF COMPREHENSION

Reading comprehension disorder is a reading disability in which an individual has trouble

understanding the meaning of words and passages of writing. Sometimes, a reading
comprehension disorder is diagnosed by specialists as specific reading comprehension deficit (S-
RCD).

Some students with reading comprehension disorder have trouble learning to read and pronounce
words, but grasping meaning from text is their main challenge.1 However, many students with
this learning disability are fluent readers who just have trouble understanding what they are
reading. If your child is able to read a passage out loud but can't tell you much about it afterward,
they might have specific reading comprehension deficit.

Strategies To Help A Child With Reading Comprehension Disorder Include:

 Pre-reading tasks and exercises

 One-on-one reading instruction

 Graphic organizing of written passages

 Oral language training: Children who received such training, which includes lessons in
vocabulary, figurative language, and listening skills, had an overall improvement in their
ability to comprehend written language

LACK OF BASIC GRAMMAR

Understanding the proper use of grammar not only helps your child read and understand written
and oral material, it also helps them to communicate more clearly. As your child moves into
higher grades, having the tools of proper grammar and punctuation becomes even more
important. They will be required to communicate effectively on a variety of topics. For instance,
if they are asked to write a book report, they will need to be able to communicate their thoughts
on the subject, as well as, their perception of author’s intended meaning. Without the solid
foundation, this will be challenging for them.

How to Help

The ability to communicate clearly is essential for success. So, what can you do if you feel that
your child is falling behind? First, you should always model good grammar in your child’s daily
life. Encourage them to correct mistakes that they make so that they become more comfortable
with saying what they mean. For instance, instead of ‘me want that’, they should use ‘I want
that’. Reading together is another way to build language strength. Lastly, consider the benefits
of an after-school enrichment program, such as Math Genie, to further your child’s language
skills. Math Genie gives your child the opportunity to learn in a fun environment while
receiving the personal attention that they need. At Math Genie, they will be able to build that
solid foundation in the language arts and confidence in their communication skills that will
benefit them throughout their lives.

LACK OF CONTENT KNOWLEDGE AND ORGANIZATION

 ASSESSING READING AND WRITING IN THE JHS

TYPES OF READING ASSESSMENT TOOLS AND THEIR USES

FLUENCY IN READING

While the National Reading Panel's definition of fluency as the ability to read text with accuracy,
appropriate rate, and good expression (NICHD, 2000) is widely accepted among fluency
researchers, these experts continue to debate the more subtle aspects of fluency (Stecker, Roser,
and Martinez, 1998; Wolf and Katzir-Cohen, 2001). However it is defined, this much is certain:
Fluency is necessary, but not sufficient*, for understanding the meaning of text. When children
read too slowly or haltingly, the text devolves into a broken string of words and/or phrases; it's a
struggle just to remember what's been read, much less extract its meaning. So it's important that
teachers determine if their students' fluency is at a level appropriate for their grade. If not, how
should it be developed? If a student is appropriately fluent for her grade level, how does a
teacher help maintain that student's fluency? And, how does a teacher make these determinations?
This process begins with assessments of the component pieces of fluency: prosody, accuracy,
and rate.

The exact role of expression and phrasing — or prosody — in fluency and comprehension has
not yet been determined, but it certainly is one element that signifies whether or not a student is
truly a fluent reader. To measure the quality of a student's reading prosody, some educators rely
on the four-level scale first developed for the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP) in reading (Daane, Campbell, Grigg, Goodman, and Oranje, 2005). This scale focuses
on the level of skill a student demonstrates in phrasing and expression while reading aloud (see
below). After listening to an individual student read aloud, the educator rates the student's
reading according to the level that best describes the student's overall performance.

National Assessment of Educational Progress Fluency Scale

Reads primarily in larger, meaningful phrase groups. Although some

regressions, repetitions, and deviations from text may be present, these do
Level
Fluent not appear to detract from the overall structure of the story. Preservation of
4
the author's syntax is consistent. some or most of the story is read with
expressive interpretation.

Level Reads primarily in three- or four-word phrase groups. Some small

Fluent groupings may be present. however, the majority of phrasing seems
3
appropriate and preserves the syntax of the author. Little or no expressive
 interpretation is present.

Reads primarily in two-word phrases with some three- or four-word

Non- Level
groupings. Some word-by-word reading may be present. Word groupings
Fluent 2
may seem awkward and unrelated to larger context of sentence or passage

Reads primarily word-by-word. Occasional two-word or three-word phrases

Non- Level
may occur but these are infrequent and/or they do not preserve meaningful
Fluent 1
syntax.

A checklist developed by Hudson, Lane and Pullen (2005, p. 707) provides a more detailed
assessment of a student's prosody:

1. Student placed vocal emphasis on appropriate words.

2. Student's voice tone rose and fell at appropriate points in the text.

3. Student's inflection reflected the punctuation in the text (e.g., voice tone rose near the end
of a question).

4. In narrative text with dialogue, student used appropriate vocal tone to represent
characters' mental states, such as excitement, sadness, fear, or confidence.

5. Student used punctuation to pause appropriately at phrase boundaries.

6. Student used prepositional phrases to pause appropriately at phrase boundaries.

7. Student used subject-verb divisions to pause appropriately at phrase boundaries.

8. Student used conjunctions to pause appropriately at phrase boundaries.

Although most researchers consider prosody important, the subjectivity of judging students'
prosody makes it a difficult component of fluency to study. Many researchers have focused on
the more easily quantifiable components of fluency (rate and accuracy) and, therefore, some
basic questions about prosody — like what should be expected in second grade versus sixth
grade — have not been answered. Nevertheless, students' prosody is an extra piece of
information for making instructional decisions. When students' speed and accuracy are at
appropriate levels, reading with proper phrasing, expression, and intonation should be the next
goal.

To measure students' oral reading speed and accuracy, researchers have developed a simple and
very brief procedure that uses regular classroom texts to determine the number of words that
students can read correctly in one minute. To obtain a words-correct-per-minute (WCPM) score,
students are assessed individually as they read aloud for one minute from an unpracticed passage
of text.

To calculate the WCPM score, the examiner subtracts the total number of errors from the total
number of words read in one minute. An error includes any word that is omitted, mispronounced,
or substituted for another word. Words transposed in a phrase count as two errors (e.g., reading
"laughed and played" instead of "played and laughed"). Each time a word is read incorrectly it is
counted as an error. Words read correctly that are repeated more than once, errors self-corrected
by the student, words inserted by the student that do not appear in the text, and words
mispronounced due to dialect or speech impairments are not counted as errors. They do, however,
impact the final score since they slow the student down and, therefore, reduce the number of
words that are read correctly in one minute (Shinn, 1989).

If the passage is randomly selected from a text or trade book, an average score should be taken
from readings of two or three different passages to account for any text-based differences. If
standardized passages are used (in which the text has been carefully controlled for difficulty), a
score from a single passage may be sufficient (Hintze and Christ, 2004). Standardized passages
can be found in the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills-DIBELS (Good and
Kaminski, 2002), the Reading Fluency Benchmark (Read Naturally, 2002), or
Edformation's AIMSWeb materials.

To determine if the student's score is on target, the examiner compares it to the oral reading
fluency norms (see Screening, Diagnosing, and Progress Monitoring: The Details). My colleague
Gerald Tindal and I (2006) developed these national norms for grades one to eight by analyzing
data that were collected using the procedures just described with over 200,000 students from 23
states. It's critical to understand that a WCPM score can be an alarm bell, a canary in a coal mine.
If the WCPM is very low, the student is not sufficiently fluent and an intervention is merited.
However, a low WCPM score may be the result of weak fluency skills or other reading
weaknesses, for example, in decoding, vocabulary, sight words, etc.— so administering some
diagnostic assessments may be necessary to determine exactly what type of intervention a
student needs.

EARLY READING DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT

Diagnosing a child’s reading ability is essential to providing effective instruction. By accurately

determining a child’s reading strengths and weaknesses, a classroom teacher can develop an
instruction strategy that best serves the child’s needs.

ERDA provides a comprehensive diagnostic tool that measures the five research-based building
blocks of reading at kindergarten through third grade.

ERDA diagnoses understanding of phonemic and phonological awareness through a series of

subtests that assess the child’s ability to hear sound units in spoken language: phonemes, rhymes
(kindergarten only), rime, and syllables. A child’s understanding of phonemes occurs when the
child first identifies the missing phonemes in a series of given words and then omits given
phonemes from another series of words. The understanding of rimes is assessed by a child being
asked to say a word with a targeted sound (rime) omitted—say “ball” without /all/. A child’s
proficiency with syllables is assessed by instructing the child to say a word with a targeted
syllable omitted—say “playful” without /ful/.

Letter recognition and pseudo word decoding are subtests that assess understanding and the use
of the alphabetic principle. In kindergarten and grade one, ERDA assesses letter recognition by
showing children a letter and then asking them to point to the letter or say the letter name.
Syllable assessment is administered for kindergarten through grade three and uses a format
similar to the one used in diagnosing phonemic awareness. Pseudo word decoding is
administered in grades one through three. The child is provided with a list of pseudo words,
which the child is asked to pronounce as quickly and as accurately as possible.

Word reading and passage fluency subtests at all grades, and RAN (Rapid Automatized
Naming)-letters, RAN-words, and RAN-digits at grades two and three, assess automaticity and
fluent reading. Word reading is assessed by presenting the child with a list of words that are read
aloud. Passage fluency is assessed by listening to the student read aloud a series of brief, grade-
appropriate narrative and informational passages. The passages are in ascending order of
difficulty and scored for time and accuracy. Scores are also converted to one of the following
reading levels: independent, instructional, or frustration. The RAN subtest predicts a student’s
response to reading instruction.

Seven different subtests are used to assess vocabulary. For example, receptive vocabulary is
assessed by showing a student a set of pictures, saying a word, and asking the student to point to
the picture that represents the word. Other indicators of the student’s vocabulary are also
provided by an assessment of synonyms, word opposites, word definitions, and multiple
meanings of words.

ERDA employs three types of reading comprehension to accurately diagnose a student’s

comprehension skills: word items, sentence items with target words in context, and passage
items. Word items at the kindergarten and first-grade level assess comprehension by having the
student read one or two words and then point to a picture that correctly reflects what the word or
words are describing. Sentence items with target words in context require the student to read
aloud a sentence composed of high-frequency words and, in some instances, respond to a
comprehension question. ERDA assesses reading comprehension by having the student read
aloud functional, narrative, and informational passages and then answer different types of
comprehension questions about the passage. ERDA also assesses listening comprehension. Table
1 summarizes the assessments used at each grade level for each component of reading measured
by ERDA.
Reading Grade K Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3
Component
Concept of Observation Observation
Print Checklist Checklist
Phonological Phonemes Phonemes Rimes Phonemes Rimes Phonemes Rimes
and Phonemic Rhyming Syllables Syllables Syllables
Awareness Syllables
Phonics Letter Letter Pseudo word Pseudo word
Recognition Recognition Decoding Decoding
Pseudo word
Decoding
Fluency Passage Fluency Passage Fluency Passage Fluency Passage Fluency
Target Words in Target Words in Narrative Narrative
Context Context Word Informational Informational
Reading Target Words in Target Words in
Context Word Context Word
Reading RAN- Reading RAN-
Digits, Letters, Digits, Letters,
Words, and Words, and
Words and Digits Words and Digits
Vocabulary Receptive/ Receptive/ Receptive/ Receptive/
Expressive Expressive Word Expressive Word Expressive
Opposites Opposites Multiple
Synonyms Word Meanings
Definitions Synonyms Word
Definitions
Comprehension Story Retelling Listening Listening Listening
Reading Comprehension Comprehension Comprehension
Comprehension Reading Reading Reading
Comprehension Comprehension Comprehension

SIMPLE WAYS TO ASSESS THE WRITING SKILLS OF STUDENTS WITH

LEARNING DISABILITIES

A teacher's first responsibility is to provide opportunities for writing and encouragement for
students who attempt to write. A teacher's second responsibility is to promote students' success in
writing. The teacher does this by carefully monitoring students' writing to assess strengths and
weaknesses, teaching specific skills and strategies in response to student needs, and giving
careful feedback that will reinforce newly learned skills and correct recurring problems. These
responsibilities reveal, upon inspection, that assessment is clearly an integral part of good
instruction. In their review of the existing research on effective instruction Christenson,
Ysseldyke, and Thurlow (1989) found that, in addition to other factors, the following conditions
were positively correlated to pupil achievement:

 The degree to which there is an appropriate instructional match between student

characteristics and task characteristics (in other words, teachers must assess the student's
prior knowledge and current level of skills in order to match them to a task that is
relevant and appropriate to their aptitudes);

 The degree to which the teacher actively monitors students' understanding and progress;
and

 The degree to which student performance is evaluated frequently and appropriately

(congruent with what is taught).

Assessment, therefore, is an essential component of effective instruction. Airasian (1996)

identified three types of classroom assessments. The first he called "sizing-up" assessments,
usually done during the first week of school to provide the teacher with quick information about
the students when beginning their instruction. The second type, instructional assessments, are
used for the daily tasks of planning instruction, giving feedback, and monitoring student progress.
The third type he referred to as official assessments, which are the periodic formal functions of
assessment for grouping, grading, and reporting. In other words, teachers use assessment for
identifying strengths and weaknesses, planning instruction to fit diagnosed needs, evaluating
instructional activities, giving feedback, monitoring performance, and reporting progress. Simple
curriculum-based methods for assessing written expression can meet all these purposes.

Process, product, and purpose

Curriculum-based assessment must start with an inspection of the curriculum. Many writing
curricula are based on a conceptual model that takes into account process, product, and purpose.
This conceptual model, therefore, forms the framework for the simple assessment techniques that
follow.

Simple ways to assess the process

The diagnostic uses of assessment (determining the reasons for writing problems and the
student's instructional needs) are best met by looking at the process of writing, i.e., the steps
students go through and strategies they use as they work at writing. How much planning does the
student do before he or she writes? Does she have a strategy for organizing ideas? What seem to
be the obstacles to getting thoughts down on paper? How does the student attempt to spell words
she does not know? Does the student reread what she has written? Does the student talk about or
share her work with others as she is writing it? What kind of changes does the student make to
her first draft?
In order to make instructionally relevant observations, the observer must work from a conceptual
model of what the writing process should be. Educators have reached little consensus regarding
the number of steps in the writing process. Writing experts have proposed as few as two (Elbow,
1981) and as many as nine (Frank, 1979). Englert, Raphael, Anderson, Anthony, and Stevens
(1991) provided a model of a five-step writing process using the acronym POWER: Plan,
Organize, Write, Edit, and Revise. Each step has its own substeps and strategies that become
more sophisticated as the students become more mature as writers, accommodating their style to
specific text structures and purposes of writing. Assessment of the writing process can be done
through observation of students as they go through the steps of writing.

Having students assess their own writing process is also important for two reasons. First, self-
assessment allows students an opportunity to observe and reflect on their own approach, drawing
attention to important steps that may be overlooked. Second, self-assessment following a
conceptual model like POWER is a means of internalizing an explicit strategy, allowing
opportunities for the student to mentally rehearse the strategy steps. Figure 1 is a format for both
self-observation and teacher observation of the writing process following the POWER strategy.
Similar self-assessments or observation checklists could be constructed for other conceptual
models of the writing process.

Figure 1. Using a five-step conceptual model for student and teacher observation of the
writing process

POWER Looking at How I Write

My Comments Teacher Comments

Plan

I chose a good topic Yes No

I read about my topic Yes No

I thought about what the readers will want to know Yes No

I wrote down all my ideas on a "think sheet" Yes No

Organize

I put similar ideas together Yes No

I chose the best ideas for my composition Yes No

I numbered my ideas in logical order Yes No

Write

I wrote down my ideas in sentences Yes No

When I needed help I…

____did the best I could
____looked in a book
____asked my partner
____asked the teacher

Edit

I read my first draft to myself Yes No

I marked the parts I like Yes No

I marked the parts I might want to change Yes No

I read my first draft to my partner Yes No

I listened to my partner's suggestions Yes No

Rewrite

I made changes to my composition Yes No

I edited for correctness Yes No

I wrote the final draft in my best writing Yes No

Simple ways to assess the product

An effective writing process should lead to a successful product. A writing product fulfills its
communicative intent if it is of appropriate length, is logical and coherent, and has a readable
format. It is a pleasure to read if it is composed of well-constructed sentences and a rich variety
of words that clearly convey the author's meaning. When various conceptual models of writing
are compared side by side (Isaacson, 1984) five product variables seem to emerge: fluency,
content, conventions, syntax, and vocabulary. Too often teachers focus their attention primarily
on surface features of a student's composition related to the mechanical aspects of writing, or
conventions. A balanced assessment should look at all five aspects of a student's writing. The
following are simple methods for assessing each product variable. In some instances quantifiable
measures are used; in others, qualitative assessments seem more appropriate.

Fluency

The first writing skill a teacher might assess with a beginning writer is fluency: being able to
translate one's thoughts into written words. As concepts of print and fine motor skills develop,
the student should become more proficient at writing down words and sentences into
compositions of gradually increasing length. The developmental route of very young writers
involves trying to understand what written language is about as they look at books, become
aware of environmental print, and put pencil to paper (Clay, 1982). Then children try to relate
their experiences in writing using invented spelling. As they begin to construct little stories they
explore spelling patterns and develop new language patterns. Clay (1979, 1993) recommends a
simple rating scale for emerging writing skills that focuses on language level (from only letters
to sentences and paragraphs), message quality, and directional principles (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Rating a child's early attempts at writing (Clay, 1993)

Language Level

Record the highest level of linguistic organization used by the child:

1. Alphabetical
2. Word (any recognizable word)
3. Word group (any two-word phrase)
4. Sentence (any simple sentence)
5. Punctuated story (of two or more sentences)
6. Paragraphed story (two themes)

Message Quality

Record the number for the best description on the child's sample:
1. He has a concept of signs (uses letters, invents letters, used punctuation
2. He has a concept that a message is conveyed
3. A message is copied
4. Repetitive use of sentence patterns such as "Here is a…"
5. Attempts to record own ideas
6. Successful composition

Directional Principles

Record the number of the highest rating for which there is no error in the sample of the
child's writing:
1. No evidence of directional knowledge
2. Part of the directional pattern is known: start top left, move left to right, or return down left
3. Reversal of the directional pattern (right to left and return down right)
4. Correct directional pattern
5. Correct directional pattern and spaces between words
6. Extensive text without any difficulties of arrangement and spacing of text

A simple curriculum-based measure of fluency is total number of words written during a short
writing assignment. When fluency is the focus, misspellings, poor word choice, and faulty
punctuation are not considered. Attention is only directed to the student's facility in translating
thoughts into words. A baseline of at least three writing samples should be collected and the total
number of words counted for each. For the purpose of evaluation, this total can be compared
with those of proficient writers of the same age or grade level. However, total words may be
used best in monitoring the student's progress, comparing performance with his or her own
previous fluency.

A resulting IEP objective might be written like this: After a group prewriting discussion with the
teacher, Daniel will write original narrative compositions of [40] words or more. A rough
guideline for setting the criterion can be established from research reported by Deno, Mirkin, and
Wesson (1984) and Parker and Tindal (1989):

 If the total number of words is less than 20, aim for doubling it by the end of the school
year.

 If the number of words is between 25 and 30, aim for a 50% increase.

 If the number of words is between 35 and 45, aim for a 25% increase.

 If the number of words is greater than 50, choose another objective.

Content

Content is the second factor to consider in the writing product. Content features include the
composition's organization, cohesion, accuracy (in expository writing), and originality (in
creative writing). General questions the classroom teacher can ask regarding a composition's
organization include:

 Is there a good beginning sentence?

 Is there a clear ending?

 Is there a logical sequence of subtopics or events?

 Cohesion questions include:

o Does the writer stick to the topic?

o Is it clear what words like it, that, and they refer to?

o Does the writer use key words that cue the reader to the direction of the discourse
(First… , Then… , Therefore… , On the other hand… )?

 Originality is assessed through questions like:

 Did the writer attempt humor?

 Did the writer present a unique point of view?

Analytical scales are the best way to lend some objectivity to evaluation of content. One can
choose from a general rating scale, appropriate to almost any writing assignment, or one tailored
to a specific genre or text structure. Spandel and Culham (1993) developed an analytical trait
scoring guide for six aspects of writing, three of which address content: Ideas and content,
organization, and voice. (Voice refers to the author's own unique personality, style, and honesty
reflected in the writing.) Each of these traits is scored on a five-point scale. For example,
organization is scored using the following guidelines:
  5 The organization enhances and showcases the central idea or storyline. The order,
structure or presentation of information is compelling and moves the reader through the
text.

 3 The organizational structure is strong enough to move the reader through the text
without undue confusion

 1 The writing lacks a clear sense of direction. Ideas, details or events seem strung
together in a loose or random fashion-or else there is no identifiable internal structure.
(Spandel & Culham, 1993)

To promote agreement between raters, each of the guidelines above is further defined by specific
criteria (or rubrics). A rating of 3, for example, requires these attributes:

 The paper has a recognizable introduction and conclusion. The introduction may not
create a strong sense of anticipation; the conclusion may not tie up all loose ends.
Sequencing is usually logical, but may sometimes be so predictable that the structure
takes attention away from the content.

 Pacing is fairly well controlled, though the writer sometimes spurts ahead too quickly or
spends too much time on details that do not matter.

 Transitions often work well; at other times, connections between ideas are fuzzy.

 The organization sometimes supports the main point or storyline; at other times, the
reader feels an urge to slip in a transition or move things around. (Spandel & Culham,
1993)

A composition that is somewhat better organized than described by the guidelines for 3 but does
not quite fit the descriptors for 5 would receive a rating of 4. Similarly, a rating of 2 falls
between the descriptors for 1 and 3.

Analytical scoring guidelines such as these are used in many state writing assessments. There are
two limitations to scales such as these. First, teachers must spend many hours learning the
rubrics and discussing student compositions in order to establish any degree of integrater
reliability. Second, these scales may not be sensitive enough to measure growth in students with
emerging literacy skills who are unable to achieve a rating above 1 or-at the most-2.

For many students, writing instruction begins with smaller units of discourse, such as a
paragraph. Welch and Link (1992) recommended an informal paragraph assessment that focuses
on each of a paragraph's three parts: topic sentence, supporting sentences, and clincher sentence
(Figure 3). Each part can receive a point for its existence, its form (grammatical correctness), and
its function (relevance to the topic). Both topic sentence and clincher sentence can earn only one
point for each of the three criteria, but up to three supporting sentences can be scored for
existence, form, and function. This scale could be used to evaluate almost any kind of paragraph.

Figure 3. Informal assessment of a paragraph composition

Source: Welch, M. & Link, D.P. (1992) Informal assessment of paragraph composition.
Intervention in School and Clinic, 27(3), 145-149.

Saguaro Cactus

The large cactus you see in pictures the desert is saguaro cactus. The Squaro cactus is very
painfull if you toutch it. But it isn't as painful as being stabbed with a knife. It is against the
law kill saguaros in the desert. I have seen som with about therty arms.

TOPIC SENTENCE:

Existence 1

(A topic sentence was written, but it was

Form 0
not grammatically correct.)

Function 1

SUPPORTING SENTENCES:

Existence 1 1 1
(Scored on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th
sentences.)
Form 1 1 0
(The 3rd sentence does not support the
topic. The 4th is not grammatical.)
Function 1 0 1

CLINCHER SENTENCE:
Existence 0

Form 0 No clincher sentence was written.

Function 0

TOTAL POINTS EARNED = 9

TOTAL POINTS POSSIBLE = 15

TOTAL POINTS EARNED

TOTAL POINTS POSSIBLE X 100 = 60%

Writing instruction for students with special needs also may focus on specific text structures. An
example of a structure-specific scale is one that Isaacson (1995) devised for evaluating factual
paragraphs written by middle school students (Figure 4). Isaacson's scale reflects the conceptual
definition of fact paragraphs taught to the students: (a) A fact paragraph has more than one
sentence; (b) The first sentence tells the topic; (c) All other sentences are about the topic; (d)
Sentences tell facts, not opinions; and (e) The most important information is given first.
Judgments of factual accuracy and fact vs. opinion make the scale specific to factual paragraphs.

Figure 4. Analytical scale for factual paragraphs

Content

Does the first sentence tell the topic? 0 1

Are all the other sentences about the topic? 0 1

Do the sentences tell about facts, not opinions? 0 1

Are the facts accurate? 0 1 2

0 = Some facts are clearly inconsistent with source material
1 = Some facts are questionable (content not covered in source material
2 = All facts seem accurate

Is amount of information sufficient? 0 1

0 = Very little information given to reader or information is of trivial nature

1 = Sufficient information is provided

Is information presented in logical order? 0 1 2

0 = Random or stream-of-consciousness order

1 = Some improvement possible
2 = Clear, logical order

Is the most important information or main idea first? 0 1

TOTAL SCORE ____/ 9

Harris and Graham (1992) provided another example of a structure-explicit measure for
assessing the inclusion and quality of eight story elements in stories written by students with
learning disabilities: introduction of the main character, description of the locale, the time in
which the story takes place, a precipitating event (or starter event), the goal formulated by the
character in response to the starter event, action(s) carried out in an attempt to achieve the goal,
the ending result, and the final reaction of the main character to the outcome. Each story element
receives a numerical score for its inclusion and quality of development. The validity of the scale
was demonstrated by its correlation with Thematic Maturity scores on the Test of Written
Language and holistic ratings of story quality (Graham & Harris, 1986).

A resulting IEP objective for content might read: Using a story map, John will plan, write, and
revise a story which includes a description of the character, setting, problem or goal, two or more
events, and conclusion. (A story map is a planning sheet that prompts students to think about and
write down their ideas concerning the character, setting, and other components of a good story
before they write.)

Conventions
In order to fulfill the communicative function of writing, the product must be readable. Writers
are expected to follow the standard conventions of written English: correct spelling, punctuation,
capitalization, and grammar and legible handwriting. Consequently, even if the message is
communicated, readers tend to be negatively predisposed to compositions that are not
presentable in their form or appearance. Teachers traditionally have been more strongly
influenced by length of paper, spelling, word usage, and appearance than by appropriateness of
content or organization (Charney, 1984; Moran, 1982).

Counting correct word sequences is one quantitative method of measuring and monitoring
students' use of conventions. Correct word sequences (CWS) are two adjacent, correctly spelled
words that are grammatically acceptable within the context of the phrase (Videen, Deno, &
Marston, 1982). Capitalization and punctuation also can be considered within the sequence. To
calculate the proportion of CWS:

1. Place a caret (^) over every correct sequence between the two words that form the
sequence.

2. Place a large dot between every incorrect sequence. Place dots before and after
misspelled words.
Example: o my ^ dog o chasd o the ^ ball^.

3. The first sequence is not comprised of two words but marks how the sentence was begun.
(Sentence beginning to first word my is marked as an incorrect sequence because the M
is not capitalized.) The last sequence is the last word to period, question mark, or other
appropriate ending punctuation.

4. To control for length of composition either (a) time the writing sample for 3 minutes (the
student may continue writing after a mark is made indicating the last word written in the
3-minute period) and/or (b) divide the number of CWS by the total number of sequences
(correct and incorrect), which gives the proportion of CWS.

Proportion of correct word sequences, however, does not in itself pinpoint specific concerns
about the student's spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, or handwriting. The diagnostic
function of assessment will only be met if the teacher also notes the student's strengths and
weaknesses as in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Diagnostic analysis of conventions

About Sell My Cow

I go to the Ranch at 5:30 in morning. I Ride my Horse with My Dad. get my Cow in the Barn.
I Leave My cow and Calf. My DaD gave Shot to Calf. We took My Calf to Downtown. My
fReind ride my horse. My horse is Black. My freind have red horse. But I need my cow to
Born in feB 1st 1992. I am sell my Cow to calf for town But I have fun in Ranch in town. But
I Like my money Back to for sell my Calf. But I need money Back to me. My Dad Siad no
money back now Wait to little to me.

Convention Strengths Errors

Almost all words spelled Reversals in vowel combinations: ie/ei

Spelling
correctly (friend), ai/ia (said)

Irregular use of uppercase where not

Begins all sentences but one
Capitalization required and even in middle of words.
with uppercase letters.
Month ("feB") not capitalized.

Correct ending punctuation in No comma in date (feB 1st 1992) or

Punctuation every sentence but one. Use of before the word but in compound
colon for time (5:30). sentence.

Inconsistent use of past tense. Missing

Simple sentences are articles ("My DaD gave Shot to Calf.")
Grammar
grammatically correct. Problems with gerunds ("am sell"/am
selling).

Legible. Good spacing and

Handwriting
alignment.

Like the other assessments discussed in this article, these methods can be useful for instructional
planning. A resulting IEP objective addressing conventions, for example, might read: Using a 4-
step editing strategy, Kevin will reread his composition checking for correct capitals, punctuation,
spelling, and overall appearance, writing a final draft with 2 or less mechanical errors.

Syntax

As discussed previously, a child's early attempts at writing move from writing single words to
writing word groups and sentences (Clay, 1993). Beginning writers often produce sentences that
follow a repeated subject-verb (S-V) or subject-verb-object (S-V-O) pattern. The composition in
Figure 5 was written by a ten-year-old female deaf student. The beginning of the composition
reveals this typical repetitious pattern to a certain degree in its first few sentences: "I go… I Ride
my Horse… [I] get my Cow… I Leave My cow…" A more mature writer will vary the sentence
pattern and combine short S-V and S-V-O sentences into longer, more complex sentences.

Powers and Wilgus (1983) examined three parameters of syntactic maturity: (a) variations in the
use of sentence patterns, (b) first expansions (six basic sentence patterns formed by the addition
of adverbial phrases, infinitives, and object complements, and the formation of simple compound
sentences), and (c) transformations that result in relative and subordinate clauses. Adapting
Power and Wilgus's analysis of patterns suggests a simple schema for evaluating the syntactic
maturity of a student's writing:

 Fragment : A group of words that does not make a complete sentence

Examples: His old shirt. Nina and Fred too.

 Level 1 Repetitious use of a single pattern (simple sentences)

Example: I like my horse. I like my dog. I like my kitty. I like to feed my kitty.

 Level 2 Use of a variety of simple sentence patterns.

Examples: I have a new toy. (S-V-O) It is big. (S-Vbe -Adj) It came in the mail. (S-V-PP)

 Level 3 First expansions: (a) addition of an adverbial or gerund phrase, or (b) the making
of a compound sentence by combining two simple sentences with the word and.

Examples: Our baby sitter sleeps all the time. To go faster, we push it. I ate the cookie and my
brother ate the candy bar.

 Level 4 Complex sentences (transformations in which one sentence is embedded within

another as a subordinate clause)

Examples: The man wants to live where there is no pollution. Since John was late, we had to
start without him.

Seldom does a student write sentences at only one level of syntactic maturity. One determines a
syntactic level by analyzing all the sentences in the sample and summarizing them according to
the type most often used. Occasionally one might characterize a student's syntactic level as being
a transitional Level 2/Level 3 or Level 3/Level 4.

A resulting IEP objective for syntax might read: Daniel will plan, write, and revise a descriptive
paragraph using mature sentences, at least half containing embedded clauses or adverbial phrases.

Vocabulary
The words used in a student's composition can be evaluated according to the uniqueness or
maturity of the words used in the composition. Both quantitative and qualitative methods can be
used to evaluate vocabulary. Quantitative methods include calculating the use of unrepeated
words in relation to the total number of words, such as Morris and Crump's (1982) corrected
type-token ratio. A simpler classroom-based method of looking at vocabulary is to simply make
note of words used repetitiously (over-used words) as well as new and mature words the student
uses.

Example: Over-Used Words: New Mature Words

 awesome

 inspiring

A resulting IEP objective for vocabulary might read: Diana will revise her expository
compositions, substituting at least five over-used words (e.g., is) for more interesting action
words.

Taking into account the purpose

Being skilled is not just knowing how to perform some action but also knowing when to perform
it and adapt it to varied circumstances (Resnick & Klopfer, 1989, p. 4). Being a skilled writer
requires knowing how to employ the writing process across a range of writing tasks and adapt
the process to the specific purpose for writing.

Instruction often begins with story structures because they represent the genre most familiar to
children. Children also use and depend upon narrative as their principal mode of thinking
(Moffett, 1983). However, several educators (Hennings, 1982; Sinatra, 1991; Stotsky, 1984)
have called for more emphasis on descriptive and expository text structures which relate more
closely to real life writing tasks.

Different purposes for writing call for different text structures. Writing a story calls for a
narrative text structure that includes a character, setting, problem, etc. Writing about one's beliefs
calls for a persuasive text structure that includes discussion of the problem, statement of belief,
two or three reasons for the belief, facts and examples that support the reasons, etc.

Assessment of writing skills, therefore, should take into account a variety of purposes and text
structures. Purposes and genres to consider include: personal narrative (my trip to the state fair),
story narrative, descriptive, explanation of a process (how to give your dog a bath), factual report,
letter, compare-contrast (compare the Allegheny Mountains with the Rocky Mountains), and
persuasive.

Summary
Simple curriculum-based assessments can be used to assess the writing process and products of
students with learning disabilities, as well as take into account purpose. The assessments
recommended in this article also adequately fulfill the purposes of assessment as discussed at the
beginning of the article: identifying strengths and weaknesses, planning instruction to fit
diagnosed needs, evaluating instructional activities, giving feedback, monitoring performance,
and reporting progress. A teacher might use these methods at the beginning of the year to do a
quick sizing-up of student instructional needs. The process checklist in Figure 1 gives the teacher
important diagnostic information about the strategies a student does or does not use when writing.

A quick assessment of product variables from the first two or three writing assignments also
gives the teacher important diagnostic information about skill strengths and weaknesses. The
teacher then should use the initial assessment to identify instructional targets. Some students, for
example, may do pretty well at planning their composition, but do little in the way of effective
editing. Other students may have creative ideas, but need considerable work on conventions.
Some students may do pretty well with writing stories, but need to learn how to write factual
paragraphs.

All classroom-based assessment should involve the student. Self-assessment helps students take
ownership for their own writing and helps them internalize the strategies they are learning. The
teacher's feedback should be given judiciously: generous in the encouragement of ideas and
improved skills, but cautious in correction. Corrective feedback should only focus on those few
skill targets that have been addressed in instruction.

Simple classroom-based methods also can be used to monitor student performance and report
progress. Figure 6 is an assessment summary sheet that could be used to give a profile of a
student's skills across a variety of writing purposes and genres. In an assessment portfolio the
summary sheet would be accompanied by representative samples of a student's writing with both
the student's and teacher's evaluations. After an initial assessment of student strengths and
weakness across fluency, content, conventions, syntax, and vocabulary, the teacher would not
necessarily need to monitor all the product factors, just those that focus on the student's greatest
challenges and priority instructional objectives.

Figure 6. Assessment summary sheet

Writing Portfolio Summary

Student: Teacher:

Date: Genre:
Fluency

Number of Words

Approximate Time

Content

Structure (Beginning, middle, end; story schema or

other text structure)

Cohesion (Adherence to topic; use of key words)

Originality (Unique point of view; attempts at humor)

Conventions

% Correct Word Sentences

Spelling Problems, punctuation or capitalization errors,

grammar, other

Syntax

% Fragments

Level 1 (simple repeated)

Level 2 (simple varied)

Level 3 (expansions)
Level 4 (complex)

Vocabulary

Unique/Mature Words
PREPARING EFFECTIVE READING AND WRITING MATERIALS FOR JHS