Moving From Teaching Reading to Language-Literacy Development
Would you like your Reading Walkers -- disfluent, effortful and frustrated readers – and Reading Joggers – resistant, disinterested and underperforming students – to be more like your Literacy Runners. These students learn to read at an early age and often acquire sight word, spelling, writing, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension abilities with equal ease. Outstanding research defines the advantages that the Lit Runners have and how to provide their less advanced classmates with these benefits.
The key is Integrated Language-Literacy Development that develops the four major components of spoken language and their many connections to written language at the same time. This allows readers and writers to:
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Build words from a large variety of 1- Phonemic (sound), Orthographic (spelling) and 2- Morphological (meaningful) parts, creating meaningful words, or 3- Semantics. P+O+M→Se
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Expand these words into multisyllabic words by adding syllables and morphemes.
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Combine words into phrases (going to the store, in a while), and sentences 4- Syntax. Se→Sy
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Analyze words and recognize patterns so that unfamiliar words are seen as composed of familiar POM and Se parts.
Every sentence that students read and write incorporates the Big Four of spoken language. Integrated Language-Literacy Development builds the Big Four not as separate skills but as inseparable language abilities that reinforce each other.
Integrated Language-Literacy Development is critical for eight-year-old and older Walkers and Joggers. Starting in third grade they confront the full complexities of English, including:
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most words in text contain multiple meanings, syllables, and morphemes.
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the spelling of words becomes less consistent.
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vocabulary-expanding words increasingly pop up.
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between three and seven unfamiliar words per hundred consistently appear in grade level text.
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sixty-five percent of these unfamiliar words are multisyllabic – a figure that rises to 85% in secondary school.
These complex words demand a higher level of language-literacy than Cat in the Hat required just a few years before. These words present little challenge for Literacy Walkers as they have transitioned from decoding words from print to retrieving words on sight from memory – boosting their fluency and comprehension.
We’d like to show you how Readers Walkers and Joggers can easily learn to build, expand, combine, and analyze words not only to improve their reading abilities but spelling, sentence writing and sight word knowledge at the same time. It’s a lot easier than it sounds. You’ll know how to develop language-literacy just by reading the following seven paragraphs and viewing the sample lesson, below.
01
Literacy Growth is Largely Determined by Language Growth
Let’s start with the simple fact that literacy and language development are inseparable. The level of language and vocabulary development are highly predictive and largely determinative of literacy progress. Vocabulary is an essential element of language, deeply intertwined with morphology and word meaning. Knowing the meaning of a word makes it much easier to decode accurately, read fluently and understand in text. Even in first grade a Literacy Runner’s vocabulary is often many thousands of words larger than their less language-advanced classmates.
Despite the language gap, Reading Walkers and Joggers are highly capable of developing the more robust spoken language abilities needed to master written language. Speech is a system that they already know, and that they continually strengthen – compare a six-year-old’s language to that of a nine-year-old. However, language-literacy growth takes more than words, it requires knowing how to use them.
02
Clarify the Many Connections Between Spoken & Written Words
Walkers are also capable of developing the Runners’ other language strength; they know how words work, understanding the connections, patterns, and principles behind written and spoken language. This starts with recognizing how the three parts of words – Phonemic sounds, Orthographic spellings and Morphological word parts, combine to make tens of thousands of meaningful written words (Semantics).
POM plus Semantics - POM + S - is one of the most important and widespread findings in all of reading research.
Full List of reliable researchers.
POM + S is called:
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‘triple word form’ by Virginia Berninger and colleagues
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‘connection between orthographic, phonological and semantic sequences’ by Mark Seidenberg
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‘the bonding of pronunciation, spelling and meaning’ by Linnea Ehri
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‘letter, sound and meaning flexibility’ by Nell Duke and Kelly Cartwright
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“POSSuM: Phonology, Orthography, Semantics, Syntax, Morphology’ by Maryanne Wolf and friends
03
Show Readers and Writers How to Play with Linguistic Legos
Literacy Runners' greatest advantage is that they know how to play with words, their parts, and combinations, as if they are just an engaging set of Linguistic Lego Blocks. A noted neuroscientist recently stated that the #1 thing to know about teaching reading is that "words are like Legos, they are made from parts or pieces, that you can plug and play with to make different things...Playing with words is fun - the language that they are constructing is an amazing thing!" This game is easily learned at any age - with the right instructions.
The researchers who support POM + S instruction also insist that the four parts of speech and orthography be taught together, not as separate components. Integrated Language-Literacy Development combines these components and their many interconnections with print within each lesson. This allows the components to reinforce each other while providing foundational spelling, sight word, vocabulary, and sentence level comprehension instruction at the same time. This is how Literacy Runners learn. Integrated development frees up tons of prep and instructional time that is better used for more enjoyable and enriching experiences.
04
Show Readers How to Analyze and Find Patterns in Words
Each part of the POM + S equation is composed of parts and combinations that are essential to understanding how words work:
• Sound blocks starting with phonemes, can be combined into all kinds of syllable and words patterns
• Spelling blocks starting with letters are used to create graphemes, longer letter patterns, onset-rime patterns (r-ant, p-ant, pl-ant), written syllables, and whole words.
• Meaningful blocks (morphemes) including prefixes, bases, suffixes, are the building blocks for multisyllabic words and morphological word families (rework, worker, unworkable, coworker).
• Meaningful words join together to make compound words, synonyms, phrases (going to the store, my best friend), natural word pairs (ice cream, chocolate chip), and words with multiple meanings.
05
Teach Readers How to Solve Multisyllabic Word Puzzles
The largest barrier to long-term reading success is deciphering unfamiliar multisyllabic words fluently. These words become common in third grade text. Literacy Runners instantly recognize:
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familiar spellings, syllables, and single syllable words within words -- un-eco-logic-al or un-reli-able.
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onset-rime spelling patterns such as ant, which unlocks pant, plant, slant, chant and even instant.
morphemes like act, helping them figure out the pronunciation and meaning of actor, react, inactive, action and activate.
Pulling this together is an important language ability called set for variability, which is the ability to play with the pronunciation of an unknown word until it sounds meaningful. Literacy Runners expand their sight and vocabulary knowledge by thousands of words a year by figuring out these word puzzles. Walkers and Joggers are fully capable of learning how to solve these word puzzles, too.
06
Show Walkers and Joggers how Literacy Runners Learn
It is impossible to teach 8 y/o and older readers the thousands, yes thousands, of spelling, sight, and vocabulary words that they learn each year in school. Literacy Runners learn these words with ease using a process called generative learning. Their language-literacy abilities allow them to generate the pronunciation and meaning of unfamiliar words based on known sequences, patterns, connections, and principles. Generative learning is a well-established method for language learning, as it reduces the need for memorization and repetition.
Reading Walkers and Joggers require explicit instruction in building, expanding and combining Linguistic Legos pieces and solving multisyllabic word puzzle to reach this level of self-teaching. Often practice with a few hundred words is all it takes for readers to apply and generalize this vital language-literacy ability.
07
Give Teachers Ready-to-Use Lessons so They Can Go Home Early
I’m Bruce Howlett, a former biological researcher with over twenty years’ experience as a special education teacher. I’ve really enjoyed creating lessons based on these six points. More importantly, my Reading Walkers and Joggers are excited that they can finally play with written and spoken language like Literacy Runners do. From the first lesson, decoding issues fade as readers practice reading, spelling and writing multisyllabic words, phrases and sentences. They learn to analyze complex words for syllable and morphological patterns to solve word puzzles. Walkers and Joggers who have long struggled with print soon experience the motivating success of Linguistic Legos play.
I’ve used my science background to create instructional methods based on current research, creating the first software that combined phonemic and orthographic awareness with fluency development, as well as the content for the largest volunteer reading effort in North America.
I poured this experience into Sparking the Reading Shift, or STaRS. 'Shift' refers to the transition from Reading Walkers and Joggers into Literacy Runners. STaRS incorporates all of the methods described above and comes in two versions - the 16-lesson, 200 page Sparking the Reading Shift –Language Literacy Intervention (for long-struggling Reader Walkers) and an abbreviated 12-lesson version, 120 page – Sparking the Reading Shift – Language-Literacy Enrichment (for disinterested and disfluent Reading Joggers).
Each page is a ready-to-use activity, which includes brief instructions and a three-to-five-minute word challenge that students must first answer verbally, then in writing. Each lesson progress from basic POM activities to sentence construction and fluency practice, dramatically accelerating progress. Isolated memorization of spelling patterns and rules, as well as learn-and-forget repetition are largely avoided. A 30-minute lesson given once or twice a week with all your underperforming students often saves hours of class time, which is better used for more enjoyable activities.
Sparking the Reading Shift is designed for ease of use by parents, tutors, and new and experienced teachers, supplementing – not replacing – your existing literacy methods. Most educators only need the instructions provided on each page, or by the sample lesson, below. Both versions are available for sale in print or for immediate download (PDF). See how playing with language leads to success for students and teachers alike.
For a sample chapter email Bruce Howlett.
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A Linguistic Lego Lesson
This is a typical lesson from Sparking the Reading Shift. The lessons deeply engages students in words and how they work. It follows the POMSS sequence, starting with phonemes and spellings, then building meaning with morphological awareness, whole word patterns, phrases and sentences. Each lesson ends with a variety of fluency activities. Note that only a few examples for each activity are shown.
Sparking the Reading Shift uses a generative learning approach, a well-regarded vocabulary, morphology and spelling method. Each year proficient readers learn thousands of sight, spelling and vocabulary words. It's impossible to teach all these words. Students need to generate the meanings of new words, based on their knowledge of how words work.
STARS explicitly shows readers general patterns, principles and relationships and how to analyze and assemble words, phrases and sentences. Then students practice playing with words so that they know how to decipher unfamiliar words.
