On Sequences of Instruction
-
29 November, 2009
12 Comments
Blast from the Past: This entry first posted on November 29, 2009, and was reposted on May 30, 2020. These days there is a great deal of interest in the science of reading. That science certainly makes it clear that students need to learn to perceive sounds, decode words, and connect those orthographic-phonemic units with word meanings. While that might reassure teachers about what to teach, many are still uncertain as to the sequence of instruction recommended by a science of reading. Though this entry was published more than a decade ago, it is still up-to-date with regard to the science of reading.
This weekend I received an interesting question from a third-grade teacher in Frankfort, KY. She writes, “In my district we do not have a specific scope and sequence for teaching vocabulary, nor phonics. I have tried to find something that I feel is research-based and comprehensive. I want to help my strugglers and my above-level students. Can you help?”
Those are two pretty important questions: What should the sequence of instruction be in phonics and vocabulary? And do you need a prescribed sequence to be successful?
Let me answer the easier of the two questions, first.
Yes, I think it is important to have a clearly established sequence of instruction in both phonics and vocabulary. In phonics, the question has been tested directly in several research studies, and always with the same result: teachers who were teaching a pre-established regimen of phonics were more successful than those who were winging it. I know of no direct tests of the question in the vocabulary literature, but all of the studies where success was accomplished in improving reading comprehension had a clear plan for the teacher.
So, what is the research-based comprehensive curriculum that teachers need to follow? Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t know. When I look at phonics and vocabulary studies, it is clear that pretty much all sequences work. For example, the National Reading Panel looked at 38 studies on something like 19 different sequences of phonics instruction, and though those differed greatly in the inclusion and ordering of skills, all the approaches seemed to confer a learning advantage. The same kind of thing was true for vocabulary.
That doesn’t mean sequence doesn’t matter. Perhaps direct tests of different sequences could sort out some small learning differences. What I think it really means is that most of the schemes tested in research are pretty reasonable. Most try to teach the most important or largest skills first or have some kind of logic to their plan. Most don’t emphasize minor or later developing skills. But all provide sufficient coverage and structure to make sure the kids have a chance of succeeding.
Yes, indeed, your school or district should have an agreed upon systematic plan for what is to be taught in each grade level so that teachers will have a clear idea of what to do. This plan, whether purchased or developed internally, may be somewhat arbitrary but I bet it won’t be ridiculous. (In other words, you’ll probably spend more time on the m or s sounds than the z sound. Or, you’ll be more likely to teach vocabulary words like “contain” or “reluctant” rather than “quidnunc.” Without such a plan, important words or spelling patterns may not be taught at all, and some concepts or skills may be covered again and again. In such a case, the most successful kids may progress anyway, but this kind of laissez-faire curriculum plan is a disaster for the strugglers.
That there isn’t a single research-proven sequence gives your district latitude. They could buy one of the many commercial programs aimed at supporting systematic instruction or could convene a group of teachers to come up with a district plan. Apparently, within reason, it doesn’t matter that much what the exact plan is, just that there be one and that teachers follow it (we don’t teach alone – we build on what the previous teacher accomplished and prepare students for what is to follow). When a specific instructional sequence exists, you usually see more teaching than when it is left up to each teacher to work this out herself; and that is a big benefit for kids. Of course, if there is a plan, the teacher (and mom and dad) can tell how a child is doing—the instructional sequence becomes a point of comparison for determining who is not doing well.
There are 40 sounds for US English. For "phonemic awareness" truespel phonetics spells each of these sounds only one way, so it's truly an easy to use phonetic notation based on phonics as much as possible. Thus phonetics can be taught to k-1 children prior to phonics for a very easy "spelling" system with complete phoneme awareness. Kids merely need to translate their sounds to letters. This is a technique that is proven to work by IBM's Writing to Read system in the 1980's and did not negatively affect learning regular spelling. See the science behind truespel at http://justpaste.it/truescience .
Truespel is being used for ESL instruction and speech therapy. It is free as my gift with tutorials and a converter at http://truespel.com. Much phonics frequency information is there as well for teachers to know.
Are the citations for the research studies mentioned here found in the 38 NRP reviewed studies or elsewhere? Many thanks,
"Yes, I think it is important to have a clearly established sequence of instruction in both phonics and vocabulary. In phonics, the question has been tested directly in several research studies, and always with the same result: teachers who were teaching a pre-established regimen of phonics were more successful than those who were winging it."
I have used a number of different structured phonics programs throughout my years as a reading teacher, and it is true, in my anecdotal experience, that different sequences can work. I see a problem, though, when struggling readers have to adapt to different sequences and programs due to moving schools or districts or when districts allow many different programs within a school or across a district. Children who are already struggling do not need the additional stress of trying to adopt a new structure or sequence. IMHO - and no, I have not done a research study on this -a consistent & coordinated approach, no matter which one chosen, seems to provide a better road to success.
Re: vocabulary sequence. Highest frequency Greek and Latin roots and affixes make sense to me as does the Tier 2 Academic Word List.
Dr. Averil Coxhead, senior lecturer at the Victoria University of Wellington School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies developed and evaluated The Academic Word List (AWL) for her MA thesis. The list has 570 word families which were selected according to certain criteria:
The word families must occur in over half of the 28 academic subject areas. “Just over 94% of the words in the AWL occur in 20 or more subject areas. This principle ensures that the words in the AWL are useful for all learners, no matter what their area of study or what combination of subjects they take at tertiary level.”
“The AWL families had to occur over 100 times in the 3,500,000 word Academic Corpus in order to be considered for inclusion in the list. This principle ensures that the words will be met a reasonable number of times in academic texts.” The academic corpus refers to a computer-generated list of most-frequently occurring academic words.
“The AWL families had to occur a minimum of 10 times in each faculty of the Academic Corpus to be considered for inclusion in the list. This principle ensures that the vocabulary is useful for all learners.”
What Are your thoughts?
Leave me a comment and I would like to have a discussion with you!
Copyright © 2024 Shanahan on Literacy. All rights reserved. Web Development by Dog and Rooster, Inc.
Comments
See what others have to say about this topic.