1. Reading Acquisition: Theory to Practice
Sharon Weiss-Kapp CCC-SLP
Clinical Assistant Professor
MGH Institute of Health Professions
Senior Clinical Associate- Communication Disorders Department
Children’s Hospital Boston

2. Theory
Practice
Product
Research on Intelligent Agents for Instructional Purposes
Electronic Screen Media
Lexia Software-computer based technology/Lexie serves as an intelligent agent
Executive Functioning Theory
attention to task
task analysis
working memory
planning
monitoring of performance
Lexia is designed with a consistent scope and sequence/spiral back exercises/visual scaffolds/reinforcement schedules
Phonological awareness
rhyming
first/last sound awareness
segmentation/blending exercises
letter/sound recognition
Lexia Early Reading Software
Lexia Primary Reading
Phonics instruction
6 syllable types
Rules for syllabication
Irregular sight words
Anglo-Saxon/Latin/Greek affixes/roots and suffixes
SOS
Comprehension
Fluency
Syntactic understanding
Semantic understanding
SOS /Primary Reading-Cloze Activities

3. Executive Skill Support
Attention
Working memory
Inhibition of competing stimuli
Automaticity of skills
Maintenance of task
Monitoring performance
Shifting of task

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

5. Interferences to Reading Comprehension
Meaning
Reader’s schemata does not overlap sufficiently with author’s
Language
Reader’s system
of language does not overlap sufficiently with
author’s.
Print
Accuracy
Automaticity
Fluency
Reader does not monitor construction of meaning

6. From Call of the Wild by Jack London
He had never seen dogs fight as these w___ish c________ f_____, and his first ex________ t____t him an unf______able l____n. It is true, it was a vi_______ ex_______, else he would not have lived to pr___t by it. Curley was the v_____. They were camped near the log store, where she, in her friend__y way, made ad______ to a husky dog the size of a full-_____ wolf, th_____ not half so large as _he. __ere was no w___ing, only a leap in like a flash, a met_____ clip of teeth, a leap out equal__ swift, and Curly’s face was ripped open from eye to jaw.
Taken from the NICHD Research Program:
What We now Know About How Children Learn to Read
Bonita Grossen
Full report at:

7. Mapping Print to the Strands of Spoken Language
Phonology
Semantics
Syntax
Morphology
Pragmatics
Discourse

8. Phonological Awareness: Ability to reflect on and manipulate the sound structure of one’s own Language
Word Awareness-Segmenting sentences into words
Syllable Awareness-Segmenting words into syllables
Phonemic Awareness-Segmenting syllables into individual speech sounds

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

10. Phonological Awareness Skills
Rhyming
First sound awareness
Last sound awareness
Segmentation
Blending

11. Memorize these Numbers

12. Orthographic Processing
Recognition and use of English spelling patterns
bake
lake
cake
have
hav (?)

13. English Orthography
cups – cups
toys-toyz

14. Orthographic Processing Skills
Knowledge of six syllable types
Open syllable - “pa”
Closed syllable- “pat”
Silent e syllable- “bake”
R-controlled syllable- “fur”
Vowel combination syllable- “bait”
Consonant-le – “maple”

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

16. Orthographic Processing Skills
Automaticity- Accuracy and speed in decoding orthographic patterns
Fluency- Text level fluid reading with appropriate melody, rate, and intonation.

17. Semantics-Aspect of language that governs meaning of words and word combinations
Schematic Understanding:
Background knowledge
World Knowledge
Procedural knowledge
Vocabulary
Lexical –specific dog
Categorical- all dogs have critical features that group them into a category

18. Lexical meaning for “hospital”
Categorical meaning for “hospital”
Schematic meaning for “hospital”

19. Syntax: How Words are Combined into Meaningful Units of Phrases, Clauses and Sentences
Word order
Sentence organization
Relationships between words, word classes, and sentence constituents such as noun phrases and verb phrases.

20. Syntax (cont’d)
Knowledge of syntax allows the individual to make judgments about meaning:
“Please sit in the chair”
Versus
“Chair the sit please in”
Knowledge of grammar assists in comprehension

21. Syntax Skills
Explicit Instruction of rules of grammar in the spoken language system
Explicit instruction in the rules of grammar in the written language system
Published Programs that Provide Explicit Instruction
Project Read
Story Grammar Marker

22. Morphology-Groups of words and inflections that convey subtle meaning and serve grammatical and pragmatic functions
Free morphemes-words that independently carry meaning
Bound morphemes-inflectional endings that carry meaning, such as –ed,-s, ing

23. Morphology Skill Development
Explicit Instruction in Structural Analysis
Anglo-Saxon roots and affixes
Latin roots and affixes
Greek roots and affixes

24. Pragmatics-Use of language in context, serving a variety of communicative functions
Declaring
Greeting
Requesting information
Answering questions

25. Pragmatics (cont’d)
Pragmatics includes the rules that govern conversation:
Initiating conversation
Turn taking
Maintaining topics
Changing topics
Conversational repairs
Requesting clarification

26. Pragmatic Skill Development to Enhance Comprehension
Fluency Activities
Scooping
Intonation activities
Multiple perspective discussions

27. Discourse-level Comprehension
World knowledge
Specific content domains, e.g., academic subjects
Procedural, e.g., how to bake bread
Interpersonal knowledge, e.g., human needs, motivation, attitudes, emotions, relationships

28. Discourse-level Comprehension
Referential knowledge- Language cues that assist the reader in identifying the referent of the utterance, such as pronouns of gender and number, and synonyms
Script knowledge- Knowledge of familiar events, such as a birthday party, or going to a restaurant

29. Discourse-level Comprehension
Story-schema knowledge- Mental framework that contains slots for each story component, such as setting, goal, obstacle and resolution
Making inferences- Inferences by taking information already processed, and combining it with world knowledge and script schema

30. Narrative Form Character Setting Initiating event Internal response
Plan
Attempts
Resolution

31. Title ________________________________________________________________

32. Theory
Practice
Product
Research on Intelligent Agents for Instructional Purposes
Electronic Screen Media
Lexia Software-computer based technology/Lexie serves as an intelligent agent
Executive Functioning Theory
attention to task
task analysis
working memory
planning
monitoring of performance
Lexia is designed with a consistent scope and sequence/spiral back exercises/visual scaffolds/reinforcement schedules
Phonological awareness
rhyming
first/last sound awareness
segmentation/blending exercises
letter/sound recognition
Lexia Early Reading Software
Lexia Primary Reading
Phonics instruction
6 syllable types
Rules for syllabication
Irregular sight words
Anglo-Saxon/Latin/Greek affixes/roots and suffixes
SOS
Comprehension
Fluency
Syntactic understanding
Semantic understanding
SOS /Primary Reading-Cloze Activities

33. Early Reading Executive Function (Puzzle)

34. Early Reading – Rhyming

35. Early Reading – First Sound
Sharon – both this slide and the previous slide are first sound – this one is matching two pictures rather than matching to a vocalized sound

36. Early Reading – Final Sound

37. Early Reading – Segmentation

38. Primary Reading – Sound/Symbol

39. Primary Reading – Silent e

40. Primary Reading – Sight Words (level 5)
Sharon – I gave you two different Sight Words shots – one from an easier level and another more difficult one

41. SOS – Anglo-Saxon root/affix

42. Primary Reading Semantic Categories

43. Primary Reading Semantic Categories (2)
One last choice – this is a matching task for categorization, the first slide is a sorting task.

44. Primary Reading Cloze Paragraph

45. Intelligent Agent – Progress Report

46. Intelligent Agent – Branching