Most recent public comments by Dr. James Erekson https://nowcomment.com/users/88360 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185655 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185655 I don't think I have an argument with this conclusion. Comprehension and fluency for readers in our clinics tend to benefit from knowledge of how to decode words. HOWEVER, we frequently have to teach kids to see English words in chunks rather than sequences of single letter-sounds. They don't struggle with words like 'pop' and 'cat'-- they struggle with words like 'frighten' 'separate' 'willfully' or 'thorough'. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 17:21:18 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185651 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185651 This is where experience in the clinical courses comes in again for me. I see repeatedly that kids have word difficulties when they read for obedience, for the teacher. When we shift them to reading for interest, then we see them bring problem-solving to word reading that wasn't there before. Likewise, we often see kids who have learned decoding shortcuts that are inadequate--they read the first letter or two, and then substitute something (often nonsense or partial sense). When we teach them to read for interest, then they start using metacognition as they look at words ("does it make sense"--did I look at all the parts of the word is a strategy to help them succeed at the 'does it make sense' question). So IRA didn't emphasize the idea of 'sequence' strongly enough. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 17:17:44 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185643 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185643 Reading assessment Reading assessment must reflect recent advances in the understanding of the reading process. IRA is concerned that instructional decisions are too often made from assess- ments which define reading as a sequence of discrete skills that students must master to become readers. Such assessments foster inappropriate instruction. IRA should therefore promote professional development programs to focus on as- sessment research and on promoting teachers and administrators as evaluation ex- perts. The Board of Directors of the International Reading Association encourages the development of special institutes and seminars, Gertrude Whipple Professional De- velopment programs, publicatio Thu, 05 Nov 2020 17:13:38 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185609 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185609 How clearly is this stated in the IRA piece? Thu, 05 Nov 2020 17:13:38 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185590 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185590 If they could read all the computer words & baseball words on the list, they had high comprehension of the passage and listening comprehension. To me this is confounded by vocabulary knowledge. They would need a list of pseudo-words that look and feel like baseball/computer words. Fri, 06 Nov 2020 11:05:39 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185588 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185588 Does it count as measuring decoding if you give people a list of real words they have just read in context? I thought he already insisted that decoding needed to be tested separately from context/comprehension, and this list reading makes it into a dependent variable, not an independent variable. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 16:54:57 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185581 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185581 Don't we know far more about this now? The SAT data disaggregated by race/cultural background are some that come to mind. Poverty & race in NAEP data are also significant correlates of reading failure, as is the NAEP survey items on number of books in the home and how often they read for fun. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 16:52:44 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185578 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185578 In 1990 this was most likely measured by high IQ test, or other high test score (Woodcock-Johnson?) but low reading. We had better look. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 16:49:21 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185568 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185568 Thu, 05 Nov 2020 16:40:45 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185564 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185564 This is another modality moment. I almost need a diagram that honors what is known about semiotics, because there are a pile of assumptions here about how signs work. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 16:38:55 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185562 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185562 If comprehension is super easy, effortless for a group of kids in first grade, then the curve of reading success in the same group for the easy book could be fully explained by the child's newer ability to decode words. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 16:37:33 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185558 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185558 This is pretty convincing on first blush. If a separate test of nonsense word decoding was high, then so was a separate test on reading comprehension. If nonsense words were low, then so was reading comprehension. We should look closely at the SEDL study--is that the 1986 article? Thu, 05 Nov 2020 16:34:26 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185552 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185552 This is important, because this is the historical origin of nonsense word testing. It's a little strange, however, because when you separate an activity from its motive, you may not be assessing the activity itself. If reading words is motivated by social or personal functions, then changing the function to 'because the teacher told me' may change the outcome. What other practical situations are like that, where if you separate the components from their functional purpose, you wouldn't expect the components to work the same way? Thu, 05 Nov 2020 16:31:49 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185542 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185542 This should be a good use of multivariate statistics. Can one create a design that adequately examines an outcome where word reading skills can be separated from comprehension effects? Fri, 06 Nov 2020 10:42:20 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185537 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185537 What is the warrant for this claim of disability? They are talking about individual skill differences, where is the jump to disability? Thu, 05 Nov 2020 16:24:10 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185534 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185534 It's interesting that he doesn't consider wording it the other way around: by comprehending and using decoding to serve that purpose. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 16:23:07 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185531 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185531 So what is the logic behind talking about it in this language? I can't see a practical outcome to saying product over addition. For me, it's more like a function. "Reading takes place only when both d and c are greater than zero." If d grows then c must grow also. If d grows and c does not, then the function is broken. Fri, 06 Nov 2020 10:36:56 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185513 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185513 So a paragraph like this makes the opposite point about comprehension and vocabulary being identical across reading comp and listening comp. No one has the phrase "in his dotage" in their listening vocabulary/lexicon until they encounter it in reading academic language and need to figure out what it means. The vocabulary encountered in reading informs listening comprehension, and the vocabulary encountered in everyday life should also inform the reading vocabulary. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 16:16:32 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185507 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185507 People are making a LOT out of the distinction between conversational and academic language. Are there any experimental studies behind that idea, or is it just common sense without research? The listening and reading vocabularies are similar, but not really the same. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 16:12:28 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185503 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185503 Okay he picked that one up. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 16:07:53 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185494 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185494 This is a logic we need to hold onto as we go forward. It's true of many concepts in early literacy. Print concepts, for example, or letter knowledge. Scott Paris also adds the distinction of constrained versus continuous skills. Alphabet knowledge can be attained early and completely--you can't get any better at it after a certain point. Vocabulary knowledge, comprehension, critical thinking, are all open-ended and can develop over a lifetime (or not). Fri, 06 Nov 2020 10:38:34 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185489 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185489 Has anyone gone beyond this? What about Kalantzis & Cope? This is an attempt at describing reading as a mode, but without a strong theory of modes behind it. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 15:45:12 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185473 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185473 He seems to own up to the idea that comprehension failures lead to word errors, and that word errors lead to comprehension failures. Chicken-egg. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 15:41:43 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185470 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185470 Do we know more about modal differences between auditory thinking and thinking with print? Thu, 05 Nov 2020 15:40:18 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185469 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185469 Does a reader face the same requirements of working memory? Being able to look back at what is on the page seems very different from needing to remember what has been said in the flow of speech, but which disappears quickly. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 15:39:17 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185454 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185454 Again, what is the reader's motive for doing this? Decision-making implies agency, which is another area of complexity. Fri, 06 Nov 2020 10:27:52 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185453 https://nowcomment.com/documents/240636?scroll_to=2185453 This is the moment where they could have owned up to the fact that readers must be willing, interested, and feel invited to bring their knowledge and life experience to the text. School puts reading in a box where the word becomes redefined as 'that time block where the teacher does x to us.' In our clinics in 411 and 617/671 over the years we have to repair this over and over. School creates problems by making reading solely a cognitive process (not affective, not social), and by making the main motive for reading task compliance. Fri, 06 Nov 2020 10:26:06 -0500