Strategies for initial reading instruction

Strategies for Initial Reading Instruction

Linda W. Camp Nancy E. Winbury DanieUe R. Zinna

D e p a r t m e n t o f E d u c a t i o n a l P s y c h o l o g y T h e U n i v e r s i t y o f C o n n e c t i c u t

As teachers of disabled readers we have found it necessary to draw from a wide variety of instructional techniques and materials. As members of a reading research group at the University of Connecticut we have found evidence to support our approach to initial reading instruction. In this paper we shall suggest ways that research-based theories about reading can be translated into practice.

First, we shall discuss pre-reading skills and the development of linguistic awareness. These strategies are applicable to instruction at the pre-school, kindergarten, and remedial primary levels. Second, we shall focus on initial reading instruction, including the description of techniques which are appropriate not only for the reading instruction that takes place in first and second grades but also for remediation at any grade level. Finally, we shall address some theoretical and methodological aspects of beginning reading comprehension.

For most children, listening and speaking develop quite naturally, whereas learning to read requires a considerable amount of formal training. If all of these skills involve language, why is it so much more difficult for a child to learn to read? Perhaps the difficulty lies in the fact that in order to become a proficient reader, the child must be aware of the relationship of the sound system of the language to the writing system. This awareness requires understanding that the spoken language is comprised of linguistic units--words, syllables, and phonemes. Research has indicated that awareness of these units is developmental (Conrad 1971; Ehri 1975; Zhurova 1973) and that the more abstract the unit, the later the awareness of it develops (Fox and Routh 1975; Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer, and Carter 1974; Rozin and Gleitman 1977). In fact,

Bulletin of The Orton Society, Vol. 31, 1981. Copyright © 1981 by The Orton St~oetv, Inc. ISSN 0474-7534

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an investigation of phonemic and syllabic awareness by Liberman et ai. (1974) indicated that the ability to segment a word phonenqically was not evident until the children were in kindergarten. Even then, only 17 percent of the kindergarten children were successful, whereas 70 percent of the first graders could segment phonemically. In contrast, nearly 50 percent of the nursery and kindergarten children and 90 percent of the first graders were able to segment a word into syllables. It appears, therefore, that the syllable is a more accessible unit of speech for the young child.

The question arises as to why the syllable is easier to isolate than the phoneme. Research in speech perception has shown that analyzing words into discrete phoneme units is more difficult because of the merged nature of the acoustic signal (Liberman, Cooper, Shankweiler, and Studdert- Kennedy 1967). These phonemic segments overlap and are encoded at the acoustic level into syllable size units. The one-syllable word bat has three phonemic segments and three graphic segments, but only one acoustic segment. It follows, then, that most syllables cannot be segmented into constituent phonemes without some sound distortion. For example, if you tried saying bat as three separate sounds, Ibuh/-/a/-Ituh/, the finished product would always be a three-syllable nonsense word (buh-a-tuh) and not the original one-syllable word (bat). Since English is an alphabetic language, the phonemic segments are more or less represented by the letters of the writing system. Thus, ifa child is unaware of the phonemes in a word, the relationship between spoken and written language remains obscure and it would seem that learning to read would be difficult.

This hypothesis was borne out by a follow-up investigation of the first graders in the phoneme segmentation study by Liberman et al. (1974) when the same children were in second grade. They found that one-half of the children in the lowest third of the class in reading had failed the phoneme segmentation task the previous June. On the other hand, there had been no failures in phoneme segmentation among the children scoring in the top third in reading ability (Liberman 1973). Others have found a similar correlation between phoneme segmentation skills and reading achievement (Calfee, Lindamood, and Lindamood 1973; Fox and Routh 1975; Helfgott 1976; Rosner and Simon 1971; Treiman 1976; Williams 1980).

For those children who have not developed a conscious awareness of the linguistic components of speech, it may be necessary to provide formal training. Even before the child has entered school or been exposed to the alphabet, linguistic awareness training can be introduced. At home we often engage our pre-school age children in verbal activities, such as

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reciting nursery rhymes, listening to stories with frequent sound repeti- tion, and playing rhyming games. These activities lay a firm foundation for later work with linguistic units by drawing the child's attention to the segments of spoken language.

Before alphabet instruction is begun in school, the teacher can introduce exercises which stress the structure of the language. Since the word is probably the least abstract unit for the young child, training should begin with words and proceed to syllables. Both syllables and words can be isolated in speech with no sound distortion, and therefore, they are both easier than the phoneme for the child to grasp.

Word counting activities, such as those described by Engelmann (1969), help to make the word an explicit unit for the child. In these counting games, the teacher orally presents sentences of increasing complexity which the child repeats. In order to indicate recognition of each separate word, the child may hold up fingers or use blocks to represent the number of words.

Once the child understands that spoken language contains word units, the teacher should demonstrate that words are composed of smaller elements--syllables. Activities for segmenting and deleting syllables in words are described by Rosner (1975). At the first stage, it is recommended that compound words be used (e.g., "Say baseball without the ball"). Multi-syllable words can then be used for further practice (e.g., "Say cucumber without the/cuP').

All of these word and syllable segmentation activities should occur prior to phoneme training. From our experiences, we have found that most young children become aware of words and syllables quickly and with little difficulty. In fact, some pre-readers never require formal instruction since they are already aware of these linguistic units.

Whereas word and syllable units are easy for the child to identify or manipulate, the phoneme poses greater problems. Because phonemes are overlapped in the spoken word, it is very difficult to separate them without some articulatory distortion. Nonetheless, phoneme awareness is necessary for the eventual task of associating the sounds with their graphic representations.

During phoneme awareness training, practice should be given for counting, deletion, and insertion of sounds in words. Activities that focus the child's attention on the initial, medial, and final positions of sounds in syllables or words should also be provided. Many kindergarten-level programs now devote some attention to linguistic awareness training, but they usually concentrate on the beginning sounds in words. Rarely are there more than a minimal number of exercises for sounds in medial and

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final positions. After examining two popular kindergarten phonics workbooks, we discovered that there were few, if any, activities focusing on medial and final sounds. In one workbook, three-quarters of the exercises involved initial phonemes and only one-quarter involved phonemes in other positions. In a workbook from another publisher, only initial sound activities were provided.

To select syllables for phoneme segmentation, three helpful rules were suggested by Liberman, Shankweiler, Camp, Blachman, and Werfelman (1980). First, in this early training period, it is recommended that fricatives (/s/,/f/,/v/) or nasal murmurs (/n/,/m/) be the consonants in the initial position, as in man or fat. The advantage of these continuant consonants is that they can be produced and held in isolation without distortion. In contrast, the stop consonants (b,p,d,t,g,k) change in their sound identity when articulated in isolation. Second, segmentation training should begin with two-phoneme syllables (e.g., up, at), since two-segment analysis is easier than three-segment analysis (Helfgott 1976). Finally, research has demonstrated that segmentation is easier when presented in the following sequence: vc (vowel-consonant) syllables (e.g., at), cv syllables (e.g.,fa), and then cvc syllables (e.g.,fat) (Treiman 1976).

There are many stimulating activities for developing phoneme awareness. Both Engelmann (1969) and Rosner (1975) describe several rhyming, alliteration, sound blending, and elision exercises for auditory analysis. An intriguing game was designed by Zhurova (1973) for experimental work with Russian kindergarteners. This game involves a toy bridge and toy animals. In order for each child to get his animal across the bridge he must give the "secret password" to the sentry (the teacher). The password is the initial sound of the name of the animal--for example, Im/ for mouse. This game could be adapted for final or medial phonemes, as well.

Sound elision activities like those developed by Bruce (1964) for research purposes can be adapted for classroom instruction. Using words that can be subdivided into other real words, the teacher asks the child to delete a sound from the word to create a new word. For example, the teacher directs the children to say sheep without the/p/ to find the "mystery word."

An excellent auditory training procedure has been described by the Soviet psychologist, Elkonin (1973). In an adaption of this technique, the child is presented with a drawing of a common object or animal, which he can name automatically. Only one-syllable words in which each letter sound is heard should be selected. Below the drawing is a rectangle divided into sections to represent the actual number of phonemic segments in the

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word. For example, m a n would have three sections, thus making the concept of the individual sounds more concrete. The presence of the picture eliminates the need to rely on memory to recall the item. The diagram provides a visual depiction of the sequence of the sounds of the word. After the child has been taught to say the word very slowly, he is instructed to place a counter or chip in a section of the diagram for each sound as he hears it, moving from left to right in sequence. By using these concrete materials and structured procedures, the relationship of the spoken word to its component segments becomes more understandable.

As the child develops an awareness of the phonemic structure of the language through these activities, instruction in sound-symbol associations can be initiated. Note, however, that for the school-age child, training in linguistic awareness should not preclude initiation of reading instruction. Rather, initial instruction in word recognition and decoding should incorporate aspects of those activities suggested for the pre- reading child. When direct instruction of sound-symbol associations has begun, the child's knowledge of those correspondences might be integrated into segmentation activities such as those described by Elkonin (1973).

Many remedial approaches provide techniques for teaching sound- symbol correspondences (Engelmann 1969; Gillingham and Stillman 1956; Schmerler 1973: Slingerland 1971). Although some approaches encourage the children to begin associating the sounds they are learning with words that begin with those sounds, we feel the consistency of a standard key word for each sound-symbol correspondence is essential. Slingerland (1971) has developed a strategy for teaching the child to associate the letter name with its corresponding sound(s) and key word(s). The key word functions as a mnemonic device for sound recall, and gives the child continued practice in identifying and isolating sounds within words. For example, when the letter s is present, the child recites, "s, sun,/s/". As new sounds are introduced, the teacher should provide daily review of previously taught sounds through the use of a "sound pack" (Gillingham and Stillman 1956; Slingerland 1971; Gallistel, Fischer, and Blackburn 1977). A "sound pack" consists of cards which have a single letter or letter combination written on them. As each card is presented, the child responds by giving the sound(s) for the written symbols. If the Slingerland procedure for initial teaching of sounds has been utilized, the child would be expected to give the letter name and the key word, as well.

Learning to provide a sound for a visually-presented letter is only half of the task of learning sound-symbol associations. It is also important for the child to develop automatic responses to orally-presented sounds. This

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can be done in two ways: first, by having the child say the letter name(s) and second, by having the child select the appropriate letter symbol(s) to represent that sound. Another sound pack has been designed by Slingerland (1971) for the first purpose. Each card in this pack corre- sponds to a particular sound and lists all of the possible spellings for that sound. If, for example, the teacher presents the sound/~ , the child would recite the spelling(s) which he has been taught for that sound. After the child responds, the teacher displays the card which lists all of the spellings. The child then reads each spelling as it is listed on the card.

The second task, that of identifying sounds by selecting the corresponding symbol, enables the child to construct a representation of a word with letter symbols. By using letter cards or letter tiles, the child is able to construct words without having to produce a written response. Although many educators have used such techniques, Slingerland (1971) has developed a special method and set of materials. Children segment or spell words using letter cards and a pocket chart. One-syllable words are pronounced by the teacher and repeated by the child. The child isolates and identifies the vowel sound orally, selects the appropriate sound pack card to represent that sound, and then places the card in the pocket chart. The child completes the spelling task by choosing the appropriate letter symbol for each sound in sequence, and by placing the cards in the pocket chart in that order. Each child could have his own pocket chart and letter cards. The individual charts can be made from oaktag with construction paper pockets or a classroom seating chart can be used.

During initial stages of reading instruction, we have found that it is not unusual for a child to segment and spell a word accurately, yet be unable to read the word seconds later. In order to decode a word, more than segmenting skills and knowledge of sound-symbol correspondences is necessary. If the child employs a letter-by-letter decoding strategy, he frequently produces a multisyllabic nonsense word, as in the earlier example of bat, /buh/-/a/-/tuh/. In order to minimize the distortion problem that is inherent in blending sounds, the child can be taught to cluster certain letters together. For example, prior to reading cvc words, children are taught to read lists of consonant-short vowel clusters, represented by ~ , such as ba~ , p a ~ , ra__ (Liberman et al. 1980). Such training might be followed by exercises requiring the child to read cvc words which retain the initial two-letter cluster, but in which the final sound has been varied as in bat, bad, and bag.

While this technique assists the child in clustering letters together, it fails to expose the child to alternate vowel sounds (e.g., bad vs. bake). Results from studies investigating children's errors in reading single

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words suggest that children make the greatest proport ion of errors on the vowel sound (Fowler, Liberman, and Shankweiler 1977; Shankweiler and Liberman 1972). While it is not clear as to the precise cause of such an error pattern, it is evident that the order and pattern of letters within a word determine the sound of the vowel within each syllable (Venezky and Weir 1966). Therefore, a child who has been taught to read the unit pa__ as /p~/ may be operating under the false assumption that a particular vowel has only one sound. Consider a list of words beginning with thepa unit, such aspat, paint, pare, andparty. If that same child read each word on the list without looking at the letters following thepa unit and accounting for their effects on the vowel sound, he would read only one of the four words correctly (Elizabeth Gallistel, personal communication).

The child's awareness of the effect of the surrounding letters on the vowel sound has been the subject of considerable study (Gibson, Osser, and Pick 1963; Ackerman 1973). To simplify instruction in the relationship of the consonants to the vowel sound and make the resulting effect more explicit for children, educators have identified six basic word structures which they have labeled "syllable types" (Steere, Peck, and Kahn 1971; Gallistel et al. 1977; Schmerler 1973). Words such as bag, in, and chest have been labeled "closed syllables." The words of the closed syllable type category end in a consonant and have only one vowel. This structure is a signal for a short vowel sound. The "silent-e" or "vce" syllable type is exemplified by the words broke, ate, and Mike. For each of these words, the vowel-consonant-e pattern is a signal for a long vowel sound. Another long vowel sound category is referred to as the "open syllable" and includes such words as be and cry, as well as syllable units within

words such as the na in nation and the ta in table. In contrast to closed syllables which always end in a consonant, open syllables always end in a vowel. Vowels in open syllables are usually long. Syllables which have combinations of vowels with the letter r are identified as "vowel-r syllables." The child should be taught to cluster the vowel-r unit together and to provide the appropriate sound for the unit. When dusters of several vowels or certain vowel-consonant combinations appear, such as those in bread, taught, and wild, the words are classified as "vowel team/special vowel-consonant combinat ion syllables". Once again, children are taught to cluster letters together and provide the sound for the entire unit. The sixth category consists of "consonant-le units" such as the -ble in table, as well as "suffix and prefix units" like -tion, -tial, re-, and pre-. These units appear in words of more than one syllable.

In a study where two methods of teaching beginning decoding skills were compared, acquisition of the ability to use the above syllable type rules

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for determining the vowel sound was investigated (Fischer 1976). Those children taught to provide sounds for various symbols, identify several syllable types, and give the appropriate vowel sounds for each, performed significantly better on all decoding and transfer tests. In addition, they made significantly fewer vowel errors than children taught to read words by more conventional methods.

To teach the child to attend to the structure of a syllable type, questions can be directed to the child which enable him to form a strategy which he can later apply to the decoding of unfamiliar words (Fischer 1976). The teacher provides alist of words which demonstrates the syllable type rule being taught. The distinctive features of that pattern are pointed out to the child. For example, if the child is learning to recognize silent-e syllables, he must be alerted to the vowel-consonant-e pattern of each word on the list, and is taught to label such words as silent-e syllables. When the labeling response is fluent, a list which includes examples of several syllable types is presented. The child has to distinguish the silent-e syllable types from other words of other syllable types. Finally, the child is taught that the silent-e syllable type is a signal for the long vowel sound (Gallistel et al. 1977).

Automatic recognition of the various syllable types and the resulting rapid identification of the vowel sound is accomplished through an activity in which the child quickly categorizes or sorts word cards into syllable categories while pronouncing the vowel sound (Gallistel et al. 1977; Fischer 1976). The goal of this activity is fast, automatic processing of the word structure and identification of the vowel sound.

The child should be given many opportunities to apply his knowledge of sound-symbol associations and syllable types in the decoding of new words. With these skills the child will be able to read words accurately; however, continued practice in reading words of each syllable type is suggested until the reading becomes automatic and there is no longer a need for the child to verbalize a rule. To provide the practice necessary to reach an automatic level, "speed drills" can be used (Gallistel et al. 1977). The drills consist of particular type words presented in rows which are read by the child from left to right as rapidly as possible. If the child is timed during each drill and the number of words read accurately per minute is tabulated, the child's reading rate should improve and his progress can be charted, as well. Charting the child's performance can be motivating for the child as well as providing a means of monitoring his progress.

If a child is able to read a word, through whatever strategy he uses, why are speed drills important? By using speed drills, word recognition

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becomes more rapid, which will facilitate comprehension of sentences and paragraphs. In order to comprehend what one is reading, the recognition of each word must be rapid-- that is, automatic. Many researchers have emphasized the importance of reading's being automatic (Fries 1963; Laberge and Samuels 1974; Perfetti and Hogaboam 1975).

There are two reasons why word recognition must be automatic. The first could be referred to as the forgetting factor. I fa child is slowly, painfully laboring over each word, by the time he finishes reading a sentence the beginning of the sentence will be forgotten. So, while decoding slowly, the child may be forgetting the words which he has already decoded. The second reason could be labeled the no room to think factor. If word recognition is slow and difficult, all of the reader's attention is directed toward the decoding process. Therefore, little or no attention can be paid to understanding or thinking about the text.

The relationship of rapid decoding and reading comprehension was investigated by Perfetti and Hogaboam (1975). Their results indicate that children who performed poorly on reading comprehension tests were slower at single word decoding than the children who were skilled comprehenders. Although all of the children could read the individual words, the children who read them faster were those who demonstrated better understanding when reading connected text. It seems, then, that when a child is able to rapidly decode, he is able to attend to the meaning of the text rather than focusing all of his attention on the decoding process.

To encourage fast decoding there are many activities in addition to speed drills that are effective. For example, a gameboard activity could be designed where the words to be read are printed on individual cards. Each player moves his playing piece the same number of spaces as the number of words that he reads in fifteen seconds. Also, tachistoscopic devices, either homemade or commercial, can be used with changing word lists.

Of course, decoding rapidly is only a means to the goal of understanding what has been read. Therefore, the teacher should avoid misleading the child into thinking that reading fast is their only goal. To prevent this misconception, opportunities for reading for information should be provided. At the single word level this could be achieved by requiring categorization of the word. An excellent example of this type of activity is a game described by Beck (1977) as part of her New Reading System. The game is an adaptation of the card game of "war" where instead of playing cards, word cards were used. A category is chosen by the teacher (e.g., animals). If one player has a word that fits the category, such as dog, and the other player has a word that is not an animal, such as lamp, the player

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with the card that fits the category gets to take the other player's card. When all of the cards have been played, the player with the most cards wins.

To encourage rapid reading of sentences other games can be devised. A treasure hunt, with clues hidden around the classroom, is an exciting way to reinforce rapid reading for information. Other stimulating and fun games which were designed for the New Reading System have been found to be successful (Beck 1977). For example, a gameboard activity was created with fill-in-the-blank sentences and word cards to complete the sentences. In order to win, a player must complete all o f his sentences correctly before any of the other players.

It should be emphasized that the ability to decode a word quickly does not ensure good comprehension, because reading comprehens ion is a very complex process which requires semantic, syntactic, and cognitive knowledge. Most of the theoretical issues in reading comprehens ion are beyond the scope of this paper but we believe that unless the child has frequent and successful exposure to connected text, higher level reading comprehension skills cannot develop.

Before a child is expected to read aloud, new vocabulary which the child cannot and/or does not understand should be introduced. This is a com m o n practice among teachers and is suggested in most teaching manuals for basal reading series. But, often the presentation is done in a cursory fashion, which may be sufficient for most of the children but may be insufficient for some. When these children encounter the same words in the text, they may not be able to decode the words; so a more extensive introduction to new vocabulary may be necessary.

If the passage to be read consists of words which have regular patterns that have been taught, as with phonetically-based reading programs, the new vocabulary introduction is usually limited to new sight words and perhaps a word which follows the regular pattern but has an unfamiliar meaning. For example, with the word pack, many of the children may know the word as averb, as in "Pack your own suitcase" but not know it as a noun, as in "Hispack was full of books." Thus, meanings of words can be discussed. To be sure that the children are able to recognize the word in print, however, a technique adapted from Slingerland ( 1971 ) is useful. The new words are printed on the blackboard and on small cards for each child. As the teacher points to a word on the board and reads it, the children find the matching word card while repeating the word, and show it to the teacher. This procedure is repeated for each of the words. Then the teacher says a word without pointing and the children have to find the

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correct word while repeating the word and hold it up for the teacher to see. Finally, the teacher points to a word for an individual child to read. After the child reads the word, each person in the group finds his matching word card and repeats the word. Although this word preparation procedure may seem complicated, it does not take much time and the teacher can be sure that each child has had repeated successful practice finding and reading new vocabulary words. With the use of word cards, which can be easily made on mimeograph paper, the teacher can monitor each student's performance. In addition, the word cards can be kept by the children for that most important, but often forgotten, factor in learning-- review.

Many reading teachers have observed that despite good vocabulary preparation, there are children who read sentences orally in a choppy, word-by-word manner. What they read sounds like a string of unrelated words rather than phrases. Since normal inflection is lost in word-by-word reading, it is not surprising that comprehension of sentences is minimal. In order to eliminate this problem Slingerland (1971) suggested two helpful strategies: (1) that the children be given practice reading phrases selected from the passage, as in the previously described word preparation, and (2) that the children be allowed to prepare for oral reading by first reading the passage silently.

For phrase preparation, four or five phrases are selected from the passage to be read and the same procedure that was described for the word preparation is employed. To focus on the meaning of the phrases after this preparation has been completed the children can be given directions such as: "show me the words that tell where something might be" and they would hold up their phrase card "in the woods." Or if the teacher said, "show me the words that tell what you might buy at the store" they would choose their "some milk" phrase card. The directions could involve all of the question words including who, what, where, when, why, and how, depending on the phrases selected.

In phrase reading practice the child is better able to attend to the importance of function words such as articles and prepositions on which poor readers make many errors. Furthermore, when the child encounters the prepared phrases within the passage, it will be easier for him to chunk the words of the phrase together with appropriate inflection, thus enhancing comprehension.

To direct the children's attention to the meaning of the phrases in the passage, the teacher can guide the reading as Slingerland (1971) suggests. For example, if tile first sentence was, "Ted was playing at Nan's house,"

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the teacher would direct the group to silently read the first three words to find out what Ted was doing, after which one child would read aloud the first three words; then the teacher would tell the group to silently read the last three words to find out where Ted was playing.

For initial reading comprehension, focusing the child's attention back to the text is necessary prior to expanding on the content presented. Thus, after a story or passage has been read, the questions asked should demonstrate to the child that the information is located in what they have just read. At this level, then, the teacher would ask the children to find the specific words that answer the who, what, when, where, why and how questions. This type of questioning emphasizes the information available in the text.

Unfortunately, many comprehension questions suggested in basal reader teacher manuals or in the children's workbooks can be answered without reading the text. When given a workbook page assignment that includes a picture, a passage to be read, and several comprehension questions, it is not unusual to see childen answer the questions immedi- ately. They have discovered that many questions can be answered from their own knowledge or simply by looking at the picture.

We are not advocating that questioning should be limited to the concrete level, because then higher level thinking would not be facilitated. But, if a reader cannot extract basic information from the text, perhaps emphasis on higher level questioning is misplaced in a beginning reading lesson. Instead, listening comprehension skills with questioning beyond the concrete level can be emphasized.

During the reading lesson, many teachers may think that they are going beyond the concrete level by replacing factual questions with questions involving common knowledge and related information. If the subject of a passage was a grocery store, teachers often ask questions such as, "Do you ever go to the store?" or "What different kinds of stores can you name?" Questions of this type asked before reading a passage develop a conceptual framework, but if they are posed after the reading instead of questions which direct the child's attention back to the text, one may reinforce ignoring of the text. Often, it is the poor reader who is the recipient of the above type of question. This may assure that the poor reader will be able to answer a question in the reading group successfully. In the long run, it is a disservice to poor readers because they need to learn how to get information from what they read and then learn how to think about it. They can be asked related questions at any time to develop their language skills, but these should not replace the types of questions that necessitate a careful reading of the passage.

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S u m m a r y

Whi le the strategies we have p resen ted do no t cons t i tu te a comple t e

ins t ruc t ional p rog ram for b e g i n n i n g reading, the t echn iques can be

integrated into a wide variety of initial r ead ing approaches . Teachers can

selectively use any or all of these t echn iques to mee t the par t icu lar needs of

the ind iv idua l reader or group. We h o p e that the ideas p re sen t ed here will

encourage fur ther explora t ion of approaches for bo th init ial a nd r emed ia l

r ead ing ins t ruct ion.

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Strategies for initial reading instruction