Teaching Reading: What Works and Why
by Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D.

Learning to read is complex. As early as the end of first grade, students struggling to learn to read begin to lose confidence in their abilities when compared to the beginning of the year (Lyon, 2003). By middle school, good readers read at least 10,000,000 words during the school year; those with reading difficulties read less than 100,000 words during the same period (Lyon, 2003, p.1).

The majority of children at-risk for reading failure can learn to read if given intensive, linguistically informed teaching for up to two hours per day (Torgesen et al., 1997)—systematic, explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension strategies (National Reading Panel, 2000) delivered by a well-trained teacher. All methods found effective include direct teaching of language structure with an emphasis on decoding fluently and accurately as well as ample practice with application of skills in meaningful contexts. Decades of research indicate that very few students just "figure it out" and become competent readers without systematic, focused, and intensive interventions (Lyon, 2003; Moats, 1999). Failure to develop basic reading skills by age nine predicts a lifetime of illiteracy unless these struggling readers receive appropriate instruction with the intensity and duration needed; without it, more than 74% entering first grade who are at-risk for reading failure will continue to have reading problems into adulthood (Lyon, 2003; Shaywitz, 2003).

Learning to read begins before children begin school. Oral language experiences and meaningful conversation set the stage for building background knowledge, growth of vocabulary, and use of increasingly complex syntax and grammar in spoken language—the basis for later reading comprehension. To develop the phonological knowledge necessary for phonemic awareness, word identification-decoding skills, and encoding-spelling, different skills must be explicitly and systematically taught to most children. Both phoneme awareness and phonics are essential for skilled reading (Bhattacharya & Ehri, 2004; Adams, 1990). Phonemes are not sounds processed uniquely by the auditory system; they are articulated sounds (Herron, 2008). It is the "powerful motor system of speech that sequences and remembers phonemes" (Herron, 2008, p. 78). Text is a way of making speech visible (Herron, 2008).

Phonology, reading, and spelling are all part of the complex language system. Phonemic awareness is the conscious understanding that speech is composed of a sequence of sounds [phonemes] that can be recombined to form different words. Phoneme awareness is not the same as phonics. In order to benefit from phonics instruction, students need rudimentary knowledge and understanding of phoneme blending [/sh/ + /e/ + /l/ = /shell/], phoneme segmentation [/blink/ = /b/ + /l/ + /i/ + /ng/ + /k/] and phoneme manipulation [Change the /p/ in trip to /k/]. Phonemic awareness supports reading and writing the alphabetic code, but will not automatically generalize to fluency and comprehension.

Partly because it is a language that consists of a river of words formed from many tributaries of different languages (Gillingham & Stillman, 1960), English has a less-than-perfect sound-symbol match: 26 letters to spell 40+ phonemes and 40+ phonemes spelled with more than 250 graphemes. Fortunately, the majority of English words have predictable spellings. Closed syllables alone make up 43% of syllables in English words. Open syllables and closed syllables together account for almost 75% of English syllables. To make use of the logic and structure of English, specific word identification and spelling skills and knowledge must be taught:

• Relationships between letters-symbols and their sounds—grapheme-phoneme associations
• Relationships between sounds and their spelling—phoneme-grapheme associations
• Strategic use of syllable generalizations to read [decode] and spell [encode] unfamiliar words
• Strategic use of meaningful word parts [morphemes]—prefixes, base elements and suffixes—to read and spell longer, multisyllabic words.

One of the most pervasive myths in reading instruction culture is the perilous use of context as a way to develop word identification skills; unfortunately, this practice is deeply entrenched and continues to be taught to teachers who subsequently teach it to children. The path to comprehension begins with the accurate identification of individual words. Struggles with accurately decoding unfamiliar words, often the content words within passages that carry the bulk of the message, are at the crux of reading problems.

The word recognition process for skilled readers is so rapid and automatic that they rarely need to rely on contextual information (Share & Stanovich, 1995). Poor and novice readers over-rely on context and guessing because they lack letter-sound (phonics) knowledge; they have no alternative. Good readers rely on the letters in each word—NOT context or pictures (Adams, 1990; Torgesen, 2004; Stanovich & Stanovich, 1995).

Context alone resolves ambiguity [pronunciation of the word read with a long or short vowel sound or whether her is being used as a possessive pronoun-adjective [her book] or a pronoun [saw her through the window] and sometimes supplies meaning for unfamiliar words. Overall [both function and content words], context enables the reader to predict accurately one out of four words (Gough & Hillinger, 1980), but the content words that impart most of the meaning in passages are predictable only 10% of the time (Gough, 1983). Content words tend to be less common and less familiar, so they must be decoded accurately. The moral of the "context story" is that context is least useful when it is most needed.

Skilled readers fixate on almost every word in text. Automatic word recognition is the result of familiarity with letter-sound correspondences, spelling patterns (Adams & Bruck, 1995), syllable division conventions, and morphemes. Words must be pronounced correctly before accurate orthographic representations can be formed and comprehension can occur. Automaticity is achieved by repeated encounters with—and accurate identification of—words and by overlearning the orthographic and phonological patterns of the language. Young or struggling readers should be encouraged to pause and study unknown words; they should never skip or guess an unfamiliar word (Adams, 1990).

Fluency and automaticity have a significant impact on the reader's attitude toward reading, comprehension, and overall reading success. Explicit phonics instruction contributes to the development of reading fluency through development of efficient, reliable decoding strategies based on the logic and structure of English. Students learn sounds and letter associations best when teachers use explicit, systematic instruction involving teacher modeling and extensive guided practice with teacher feedback; this explicit, carefully planned instruction leads to independent application. In addition, they need extensive practice reading at their independent reading level (95% accuracy). Teachers need to hear students read orally to determine the fluency of their reading. Prosody, intonation, and the chunking of words from connected text into meaningful phrases can be monitored only if teachers hear their students read. Speed is not the main goal in oral reading. Emphasis is placed on the phrase as the smallest meaningful unit in text. To comprehend, students need to read fluently, chunking words into meaningful phrases. When all these skills are automatic, students are free to focus attention on comprehension and the enjoyment of reading.

A totally integrated language arts approach will include systematic and explicit instructional strategies for teaching oral language—listening comprehension and oral expression, handwriting, encoding-segmenting strategies, spelling, morphology, word identification-decoding strategies, vocabulary (listening-reading-writing), reading comprehension, and written expression.


About the Author: Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D., is an Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California San Francisco, Department of Pediatrics, a teacher, and a learning disabilities specialist.

Dr. White has a private practice, assessing and remediating language based learning problems and consulting with independent schools. In addition she serves on the Board of the Slingerland Institute and is a past member of the Board of Directors of the International Dyslexia Association (IDA).

Additionally, Dr. White has more than 30 years experience in public schools as a classroom teacher and program consultant in special education curriculum with San Francisco Unified School District, California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, Curriculum Commission, State Board of Education, and CA Department of Education.


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