1. Complex and Challenging: Understanding Adolescent Literacy Instruction
NJCLD Adolescent Literacy Symposium
June 5, 2009
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

2. The Problem
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3. “Many adolescents with LD transition to secondary education with under-developed language, literacy and executive function skills and struggle to meet grade level expectations” NJCLD, 2008
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4. Increasing literacy demands across the grades…
Adapted Torgeson, 2006
Strategic approaches to varied texts/genres
and sources of information
Breadth and depth of domain knowledge
More complex ideas and higher order thinking skills
Breadth and depth many vocabulary words
Automatic recognition of many words
4th
grade
12th
grade
Content Rules!!!!!
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

5. Have you checked out NAEP Advanced Achievement Levels 2009?
Literary
Grade 4 students at the Advanced level should be able to:
Interpret figurative language
Make complex inferences
Identify point of view
Evaluate character motivation
Describe thematic connections across literary texts
Informational
Grade 4 students at Advanced level should be able to:
Make complex inferences
Evaluate the coherence of a text
Explain author’s point of view
Compare ideas across texts
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

6. Informed instruction= Informed educators and environment
Solution
Informed instruction=
Informed educators and environment
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

7. Informed instruction………..
“The increasing complexity of reading and written expression, beginning in grade four, requires a shared recognition of content literacy demands and responsibility for teaching skills across a continuum of student needs.”
“Instruction at the middle and secondary levels requires a continuum of services that is differentiated according to individual learning needs of the student.”
NJCLD, 2008
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

8. Informed educators………NJCLD, 2008
“ All educators require the knowledge, skills and attitudes identified as critical for literacy instruction…………
Special educators responsible for assessment, diagnosis or delivery of remediation require a thorough understanding of language, reading, and writing development and disabilities as wall as evidence based instructional practices
Content area teachers should have a knowledge of the reading comprehension and writing demands of their subjects…………..
Requirement
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

9. What we and our kids need is Ida the Informed…………….. (Hennessy, 2007)
Voice of evidence
Instruction
Data
Skills
Attitudes
Disciplinary Knowledge
Flexibility
Collaboration
She’s got her
change
shoes on!!!!
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

10. Learning is the Work
Michael Fullan, 2008
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11. Learning theories need to inform practice and research with struggling adolescents…. Such as: The simple view of reading (Hoover & Gough, 1994) Construction-Integration theory (Kintsch, 1994)
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

12. Simple View Equation Reading Comprehension Gough & Tunmer, 1986
Decoding x Language Comprehension =
Reading Comprehension
Reading is the product of decoding (the ability to read words on a page) and language comprehension (understanding those words).
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

13. Scarborough’s Reading Rope (2001)
● Background Knowledge
● Vocabulary Knowledge
● Language Structures
● Verbal Reasoning
● Literacy Knowledge
● Phonological Awareness
● Decoding (and Spelling)
● Sight Recognition
SKILLED READING:
fluent execution and
coordination of word
recognition and text
comprehension.
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION
WORD RECOGNITION
increasingly
automatic
strategic
With advanced audiences, use this slide to illustrate the point that, while based on research, the four processing system is a simplified version of the act of reading. In reality, there are some advanced concepts to acknowledge. Hollis Scarborough created this “rope” analogy in order to illustrate the complexity of the reading process. Major ideas include:
Word Recognition: Once words are processed frequently, they become words that are read as if “by sight.” When we read these types of words, the phonological processor is activated minimally and subconsciously, while the orthographic processor is widely activated.
Language Comprehension: These areas are outlined more specifically in the top portion of the rope diagram, making the important distinction that context and comprehension are more complex than many people appreciate. A student’s knowledge of the topic (background or situation knowledge), vocabulary, knowledge of text structures, and the ability to be metacognitive (consciously reflective) when he or she is confused about what is being read are all crucial components of reading comprehension. As such, these need to be directly taught! LETRS Modules 6 and 11 provide important details to consider with the topic of comprehension.
Reading is a multifaceted skill, gradually acquired over years of instruction and practice.
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

14. Ehri’s Phases of Word-Reading Development
fluently
by sound,
syllable,
morpheme,
whole word,
families,
and
analogies
early sight-
word
learning
letter
knowledge
phoneme-
grapheme
correspondence
incidental
visual cues
partial
phoneme
awareness
complete
phoneme
awareness
Show participants how Linnea Ehri’s phases of word-reading development, created by compiling results of numerous research efforts, further outlines the specific phases students move through in becoming mature readers. Refer participants to pages in the LETRS Module 1 manual to identify specific descriptors for each phase.
Prealphabetic Early Alphabetic Later Alphabetic Consolidated Alphabetic
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

15. Can not assume that……
…. “Most adolescents have acquired the foundational word recognition and decoding skill associated with early reading instruction……….,some struggling readers still need intervention in this area. Instruction for adolescents should include a bridging strategy (Brasser, Hock & Deshler, 2005) that provides explicit instruction and scaffolds support to help struggling readers with word-level interventions. At the same time and in conjunction with word level interventions, explicit instruction in language comprehension and and reasoning (background knowledge, syntax, vocabulary) should be provided.” Faffella-Luby & Deshler, 2008
There is accumulating evidence that an inadequate ability to decode printed text accurately and fluently may be one reason for students’ failure to meet grade level standards in reading. IES Practical Guide, 2008
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

16. Simple View Equation Reading Comprehension Gough & Tunmer, 1986
Decoding x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension
Reading is the product of decoding (the ability to read words on a page) and language comprehension (understanding those words).
There is accumulating evidence that an inadequate ability to decode printed text accurately and fluently may be one reason for students’ failure to meet grade level standards in reading. IES Practical Guide, 2008
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

17. Given that learning to read in an alphabetically based orthographies entails visual recoding of language in the form of alphabetic characters representing speech sounds and given that both phonological and visual coding are involved to some extent in language acquisition and language processing, we suggest these two abilities are most basic of the various cognitive abilities that underlie the ability to learn to read.
Convergent Skills of Reading Development
Vellutino, Tunmer, Jaccard & Chen, 2007
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

18. Scarborough’s Reading Rope (2001)
● Background Knowledge
● Vocabulary Knowledge
● Language Structures
● Verbal Reasoning
● Literacy Knowledge
● Phonological Awareness
● Decoding (and Spelling)
● Sight Recognition
SKILLED READING:
fluent execution and
coordination of word
recognition and text
comprehension.
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION
WORD RECOGNITION
increasingly
automatic
strategic
With advanced audiences, use this slide to illustrate the point that, while based on research, the four processing system is a simplified version of the act of reading. In reality, there are some advanced concepts to acknowledge. Hollis Scarborough created this “rope” analogy in order to illustrate the complexity of the reading process. Major ideas include:
Word Recognition: Once words are processed frequently, they become words that are read as if “by sight.” When we read these types of words, the phonological processor is activated minimally and subconsciously, while the orthographic processor is widely activated.
Language Comprehension: These areas are outlined more specifically in the top portion of the rope diagram, making the important distinction that context and comprehension are more complex than many people appreciate. A student’s knowledge of the topic (background or situation knowledge), vocabulary, knowledge of text structures, and the ability to be metacognitive (consciously reflective) when he or she is confused about what is being read are all crucial components of reading comprehension. As such, these need to be directly taught! LETRS Modules 6 and 11 provide important details to consider with the topic of comprehension.
Reading is a multifaceted skill, gradually acquired over years of instruction and practice.
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

19. Comprehension of written text involves processing language at many different levels. …At the word level, the reader must decode individual word… access meaning of the words they hear or read. At the sentence level, the comprehender needs to work out the syntactic structure and sense of each sentence. Simply deriving the meanings of individual words and sentences is insufficient. In order to construct a mental model of the text, the comprehender needs to integrate information from different sentences to establish local coherence and to incorporate background knowledge and ideas (retrieved from long term memory) to make sense of details that are only implicitly mentioned.” Cain & Oakhill, 2007
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

20. “language comprehension becomes the dominant process in reading comprehension when the reader has acquired enough facility in word identification to comprehend in written language text which would be normally comprehended in spoken language….” Vellutino, Tunmer, Jaccard & Chen, 2007
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

21. “Adolescents with LD often have persistent receptive and expressive oral language deficits that become more pronounced as demands increase in areas such as vocabulary, content specific knowledge, organizations and retrieval of semantic information, basic and complex syntax and higher order semantic processing (e.g. figurative language, inferencing).” NJCLD, 2008
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

22. Instructional emphasis-some recommendations from experts……………
Instructional emphasis-some recommendations from experts…………….. (Biancarosa & Snow 2004, Gersten et al. 2001, Torgeson et al. 2007…..
Knowledge of text structures
Vocabulary/depth of word meaning
Domain/prior knowledge
Cognitive strategies
Increased motivation/engagement
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

23. Instructional applications………
“Students who continue to struggle, whether with decoding or comprehension, need targeted instruction at differentiated levels of intensity to address specific difficulties.”
“Educators must design and deliver a continuum of differentiated services that focus on specific needs of individual adolescents with LD.”
NJCLD, 2008
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

24. General factors to consider when planning instruction and intervention………NJCLD, 2008
Target areas that are critical to reading & writing proficiency……….
Combine strategy-based instruction with skill-based instruction……… .
Teach literacy strategies within context……..
Provide clearly scaffolded & sequenced instruction……
Provided repeated opportunities……….
Identify and incorporate strategies & tools……
Actively use student performance data……..
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

25. Listening to the voice of evidence & experience!
New materials
New behaviors/practices
New beliefs/understandings
-Michael Fullan
Informed instruction
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.

26. Thank you!
Nancy Hennessy M.Ed.