FORT BONIFACIO ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

J. P. Rizal Extension, West Rembo,

Makati City

A FEASIBILITY STUDY ON TEACHING STUDENTS

WITH READING DIFFICULTIES TO BE CLOSE READERS

Presented By:
Rowena C. Castillo
Master Teacher I
INTRODUCTION

During the primary grades, children learn strategies for reading words that focus on

basic letter-sound correspondences and syllable types. By the intermediate grades,

children must become adept at decoding multisyllabic words and words with prefixes

and suffixes. They also need to become fluent readers of texts that place demands on

their ability to understand unfamiliar words and topics. Evidence has suggested that

students with reading disabilities need more explicit and prolonged instruction in higher

level decoding strategies, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies in order to acquire

these reading skills (e.g., Vaughn, Linan-Thompson, & HickmanDavis, 2003).

Intervention studies for poor readers have focused primarily on phonological awareness

and phonics training, which has resulted in significant improvements in decoding skills

but not necessarily in reading fluency or comprehension. In theory, students making

slow progress in fluency and comprehension might need strategies that link decoding

and comprehension, along with sufficient guided practice applying these strategies

during reading so that deployment of strategies becomes habitual. Children with reading

disabilities demonstrate not only slow progress in word reading and vocabulary, but also

limitations in their knowledge and application of cognitive strategies during reading,

compared to same-age, skilled readers. For example, Palincsar and Brown noted that,

compared to good readers, poor readers do not see reading as a search for meaning.

They do not monitor their own comprehension, engage in strategies when there is a

breakdown in comprehension, or modify their choice of strategy to meet the task

demands. An important step in improving the reading of struggling readers in the late

elementary years is providing strategies for decoding unfamiliar words in texts and
linking these decoding strategies to word meanings. As Nagy and Scott (2000) argued,

students need to take an active role in word learning, but for this to happen, they need

knowledge about the structure of the words and strategies for inferring the meanings of

words. According to Nagy and Scott, “context and morphology (word parts) are the two

major sources of information immediately available to a reader who comes across a

new word” (p. 275). Teaching students how to derive meaning from unfamiliar words as

they read is beneficial for building independence during reading

ANALYTIC STRATEGIES

Morphological analysis (MA).

Because morphemes are units of meaning, MA can provide a basis for both decoding

unfamiliar words and acquiring an understanding of their meanings (Anglin, 1993). As

Nagy and Scott (2000, p. 275) stated, “It is hard to overstate the importance of

morphology in vocabulary growth.” Nagy and Anderson estimated that 60% of the new

words that a student encounters in reading textbooks are made up of word parts (base

words and affixes) that can assist the reader in inferring meaning. Second, the

prevalence of morphologically complex words increases in texts as student progress

through the elementary years. Many complex words are not decidable through

application of letter-sound correspondence rules (e.g., partial); rather, the student needs

to recognize the word parts, making use of mental representations of their sound,

spelling, and meanings. Through exposure to words in text and in oral language

contexts, good readers acquire high-quality lexical representations of words and

common affixes (Reichle & Perfetti, 2003). Studies have shown that awareness of

morphological structure is related to both word reading and reading comprehension

(Carlisle, 2000; Katz, 2004). Moreover, studies suggest that struggling readers may

benefit from instruction in strategies for decoding and inferring the meanings of

morphologically complex words in texts (Baumann et al., 2002; White, Power & White,

1989). Evidence from other studies (e.g., Abbott & Berninger, 1999; Berninger et al.,

2003; Henry, 1989; Lovett, Lacerenza, & Borden, 2000) suggests that there is value in

teaching elementary and middle school students with reading disabilities how to use MA

to decode and understand unfamiliar words in texts. Context analysis (CA).

White argued that MA alone might not be sufficient for the purpose of deriving the

meanings of words (e.g., the word unassuming means modest, not not assuming). In

addition, they suggested that context cues might activate less familiar word meanings,

which would improve readers’ chances for success. Context cues are pieces of

information found in text (e.g., synonyms and definitions, antonyms and contrasts, and

examples) that can serve to help readers infer meaning from less familiar and unfamiliar

words that are generally within close proximity to the cues (e.g., “No one wants spiders

around. Still, they come uninvited to every feast that is held.”).

Fukkink and deGlopper carried out a meta-analysis of 21 instructional treatments aimed

at improving strategies for deriving word meaning from context. They concluded that

this type of instruction could promote vocabulary growth in students. Moreover,

research studies have shown that normally achieving students can learn to use context-

analysis strategies effectively for deriving word meaning. Stanovich argued that

although poor readers do use context, they seem to do so more for the purpose of

facilitating word recognition than for aiding in comprehension. Other researchers have

suggested that students with language and reading difficulties might benefit from explicit
instruction and guided practice in CA (e.g., Goerss, Beck, & McKeown,1999). As Nagy

and Scott(2000) pointed out, word-part analysis and CA work best when they are used

in combination.

Benefits of Engagement With Texts

Because upper elementary struggling readers show a lack of perseverance and other

difficulties monitoring their reading of challenging texts, an effective intervention

program should have the goal of helping them become analytic and engaged readers.1

Initially, application of specific strategies can help struggling readers overcome habits of

skipping hard words when reading and over relying on prior knowledge in interpreting

the text. Guided experience with strategies designed to support analysis of the text

might promote both language development and interest in reading. When such

strategies become second nature to readers, readers are likely to become better at

comprehension monitoring and at the same time learn new words and word meanings.

Students are more likely to be successful, independent readers if they realize that they

are equipped with effective strategies for figuring out the likely meanings of the

unfamiliar words that impede their comprehension during reading. Given the above

review of the literature, we realized how important it is for students with language and

reading difficulties to become more accustomed to monitoring reading for meaning and

were attuned to the values of analytic reading of texts. In designing a study to meet this

goal, we combined instruction in two word level analysis strategies that should improve

students’ comprehension: morphological-analysis and context-analysis strategies;

however, a central feature of the program was time devoted to shared reading, during

which the students received guided practice using these strategies to analyze the
meaning of unfamiliar words in texts. We refer to this program as the Close Reading

(CR) program. Three other treatment programs are similar to ours in their focus on

instruction in reading and understanding morphologically complex words, but these

have primarily sought to improve students’ decoding and spelling of such words

(Berninger et al., 2003; Henry, 1989; Lovett et al., 2000). Berninger and her colleagues

(Berninger et al., 2003) investigated the effectiveness of interventions that focused on

either phonological or morphological awareness. In the morphological awareness

condition, students were taught MA for purposes of word reading. They worked on

activities that were designed to help them gain insights into the writing system as well

as activities that were designed to use morphemic elements to facilitate word reading

(e.g., building words from base words and affixes). They received instruction in the

meanings of prefixes and suffixes, opportunities to highlight and discuss unfamiliar

words, and practice in oral reading fluency and text comprehension. The program for

students in the phonological awareness condition had the same goals, but the activities

in this program focused at the level of phonemes and graphemes. Results showed that

both phonological and morphological treatments were effective in increasing the

accuracy of phonological decoding for students with reading disabilities. However, no

measures of comprehension or vocabulary were used, as the focus was on

improvement of word recognition and decoding skills. A second program intended to

improve the word reading skills of students with reading disabilities is Lovett’s PHAST

program (Lovett et al., 2000). This program combines direct instruction in phonics

(called PHAB) and strategy instruction in decoding (called WIST). Of the four strategies

students learned, one involved MA. This strategy, called “peeling off,” provided
extensive training for students in the recognition of prefixes and suffixes in

morphologically complex words. These researchers reported that 7- to 13-year-olds with

severe reading disabilities who were taught the PHAST program demonstrated

significant gains in word identification skills. Henry’s program (1988, 1989) involves

instruction in word structure and etymology with the goal of improving students’ reading,

spelling, and vocabulary. It combines instruction in linguistic units (e.g., syllables

,morphemic units) and word etymology. The program is organized by instruction by

linguistic unit and word origins; students also practice reading and analyzing sentences

containing target words. Young students are taught sound and letter correspondences

through the Anglo-Saxon layer; later lessons involve the transparent morphological units

of Anglo-Saxon (e.g., helpful). Older students receive instruction in the Latinate and

then Greek layers of language, learning relations of word structure and meaning (e.g.,

script means write, as in manuscript and scripture). In one study, third- and fifth-grade

normally achieving students and students with learning disabilities who were taught to

analyze word structure made significant gains in decoding as well as deriving meaning

from unfamiliar words. To our knowledge, only one study has focused on teaching

students to use both morphological-analysis and context-analysis strategies (Baumann

et al., 2002). In this study, fifth graders were assigned to a morphological-analysis,

context-analysis, or combined condition in which they studied words with specific

prefixes that were drawn from science texts (e.g., sub in subsoil). The results of this

study showed that each of the strategy instruction conditions and a condition that

combined the two separate strategies led to significant gains on a vocabulary measure.

These results reinforced our view that readers need to be able to analyze both a word’s
structure and the context in which the word is used. However, the results showed no

significant effects on performance in reading comprehension. It is possible that the

students’ comprehension might have improved had they received more guidance in

applying word-learning strategies during reading—a possibility we explore in our study

of CR. Thus, the CR program builds on features of earlier studies (e.g., analysis of word

structure) but is unique in its focus on developing students’ use of morphological-

analysis and context-analysis strategies during reading.

Purpose and Design of This Study

In their systematic review of studies focused on language intervention in school-age

children, Cirrin and Gillam (2008) found that only 21 studies examining the effectiveness

or efficacy of intervention practices for this population were carried out since 1985.As

argued by the researchers, this striking finding is disconcerting. First, the paucity of

work in the area of school-age language intervention means that in their efforts to use

the ostensibly mandated evidence-based practice (EBP) methods, clinicians have

almost no evidence available to them to allow them to practice in this manner. Second,

and along the same lines, it is difficult to encourage and train graduate students in the

use of EBP approaches when there are few studies available to them for this purpose.

There are valid reasons that explain why there are so few intervention studies with

disordered populations in general, including difficulties with recruitment and retention of

participants with particular language profiles, and difficulty in procuring the funding

necessary for and investing the energy in carrying out expensive, timeintensive, and

uncertain projects (see Brackenbury, Burroughs, & Hewitt, 2008; Lord et al., 2005).

Without a preponderance of highquality intervention studies available for the

implementation of EBP, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)

has declared the goal of EBP as an integration of (a) clinical expertise, (b) best current

clinical evidence, and (c) client values in order to provide high-quality services that are a

reflection of the interests, values, needs, and choices of those who are served by

speech-language pathologists (SLPs; ASHA, 2004). As a way to evaluate the quality of

the evidence that is presented in published studies, Gillam and Gillam

(2006)recommended using randomly controlled trials or quasi-experimental/comparison

studies of nonrandomized groups to describe Level 1 or Level 2 studies, respectively. In

an initial effort to move toward development of a Level 1 or Level 2 study, the study

reported in this article was developed to explore the feasibility or potential for

effectiveness of an instructional program aimed at improving language and reading

skills in students with mild-to-moderate language and reading difficulties in the middle-

to-upper elementary grades with differing language and reading profiles. Addressing

these research design issues, Robey and colleagues (Robey, 2004; Robey & Schultz,

1998) proposed a five-phase model for evaluating the clinical outcomes of a new

treatment protocol. The present study follows their protocol, as the study is exploratory

in nature, with the goal of identifying whether therapeutic effects might exist as a result

of a clinical intervention. Robey and colleagues suggested that case studies with pre-

and posttests included are appropriate for this early level of research and that effect

sizes should be calculated as part of determining the potential for carrying out further

study. To summarize, the purpose of the exploratory study of CR was to evaluate the

potential benefits of a program that is designed to help struggling readers acquire

specific strategies and habits that might enable them to become more analytic and
independent in their reading of texts; in other words, close readers of texts. Because

struggling students are in need of higher level decoding skills and comprehension

strategies, the particular focus of this program was designed to provide students with

knowledge of and experience with strategies that would be used during reading. In this

program, instruction in these strategies was accompanied by daily reading in which the

researchers guided the students’ engagement with texts. In this study, three cases of

students with language and reading difficulties were used to explore the feasibility of

this treatment paradigm. The research questions were as follows:

 & Will the targeted instruction have a therapeutic effect on the participants’

language and reading skills, with particular changes in the areas of listening and

reading comprehension?

 & Will the targeted instruction have a therapeutic effect on the participants’ ability

to read and derive meaning from morphologically complex words, both those

encountered and those not encountered in the treatment sessions?

 & Will the targeted instruction have a therapeutic effect on the participants’ oral

reading fluency, in terms of both accuracy and rate?

 & Will the 3 participants differ in improvement in reading morphologically complex

words and understanding passages with such words?

If so, will these differences reflect their initial language and reading skills? It was

anticipated that instruction that focused on strategies that students would use during

reading might support improvement not only in word reading accuracy but also in

fluency of reading and comprehension of words and texts. However, it was also

expected that there would be differential progress for each of the students according to
their initial oral language and reading skills. For example, a participant with significant

weaknesses across all areas of language and reading might show limited improvement

in these areas as a result of such diffuse initial impairment. In contrast, a participant with

less significant weaknesses in these areas might be more able to make use of the

strategies for reading and deriving meaning from unfamiliar words in texts.

METHOD

As a preliminary examination of the CR program, we conducted three case studies

using pre-test and post-test measures of various language and reading skills. The

treatment was designed to help middle-to-upper elementary students become more

engaged and successful readers of texts as a consequence of being able to read and

derive meaning from unfamiliar complex words.

Participants

Students who demonstrated mild-to-moderate reading and language difficulties were

recruited from a private clinic. Eligibility was determined by below grade-level

performance on standardized measures of oral language and/or reading and a history of

reading problems in school. Specifically, selected subtests from the PHILIPPINE-

INFORMAL READING INVENTORY were administered to determine eligibility. Below

grade-level performance on one or more of the measures administered in addition to

parent report of reading problems in school qualified students for participation in the

study. However, students were not eligible for participation if both their decoding and

word identification skills were below a second-grade level as determined by

performance on questions of PHILIRI. The Inventory consists of sixteen texts, eight in

Filipino and eight in English, designed in keeping with the use of Filipino as medium of

instruction from Grade 3 onwards, and English from Grade 4 onwards. The Phil-IRI

Filipino Oral Reading tests are conducted starting Grade 3 since in the new Language

and Literacy Curriculum, Filipino literacy is introduced in the first semester of Grade 2;

the Reading tests in English are carried out starting Grade 4 as English literacy is

initiated in the second semester of Grade 2. Prepared by experts in Reading Education

and Teaching in the Early Grades, the texts are followed by 6 to 7 questions measuring

literal, interpretive and evaluative reading comprehension skills. The Silent Reading

Texts are given to entire classes and scored by teachers as a general assessment of

pupils’ reading skills. Oral Reading assessment, on the other hand, is administered to

diagnose more specific reading problems such as miscues, poor reading speed, and

difficulties in listening or reading comprehension. This presentation shows “transfer” of

reading skills from mother tongue to Filipino and to English, using scores in the Phil-IRI

assessment.

MEASURES

Standardized measures.

The Phil-IRI Group Screening Test (GST) can tell teachers whether students are

reading at, above, or below their grade levels. The individually administered Phil-IRI

Graded Passages can be used to assess students’ Oral Reading, Silent Reading

Comprehension and/or Listening Comprehension levels.

When used to assess oral reading skills, the Phil-IRI may be used to describe decoding

and word recognition, fluency and comprehension. The student’s performance in

decoding (the ability to read isolated words using phonics knowledge) and word

recognition (the ability to automatically identify words on sight) is measured through a

Reading Miscue Inventory (Phil-IRI Form 3A and 3B: Grade Level Passage Rating

Sheet). The child is asked to read a passage and each word read incorrectly is noted

and marked. In terms of fluency (the ability to read with speed, accuracy and prosody),

the time taken by the child to read a passage is recorded and the number of words that

he/she can read per minute is computed. Furthermore, a qualitative description of the

child’s manner of reading is described via a checklist. Finally, test taker’s

comprehension skills (the ability to create meaning) may be gauged by having the child

answer five to eight questions of varying difficulty based on the graded passage after it

has been read.

When used to assess Silent Reading Comprehension, Phil-IRI may be used to describe

reading speed and comprehension. The student’s reading speed is measured by

recording the time it takes the child to read each passage completely. Silent reading

comprehension is measured by asking the student to answer five to eight questions of

varying difficulty after a passage has been read.

When used to assess listening comprehension, the Phil-IRI may be used by having the

student listen to the passages as they are read by the test administrator and answer five

to eight questions of varying difficulty about each passage.

For all three types of individual assessments (oral reading comprehension, listening

comprehension and silent reading comprehension), the aim is to find the learner’s

independent, instructional and frustration levels, so that teachers know what level of
reading materials the student can read and understand well, as well as what level of

reading materials the student is not ready for.

Since the Phil-IRI is administered at the start and at the end of the school year, it can

also tell teachers about the growth and changes in students’ reading skills and levels.

Experimental measures.

The administration schedule of Group Screening Test and the Individualized Phil-IRI

assessments. Group assessments must be conducted within class time while Individual

assessments may be conducted outside class hours.

The administration of the Phil-IRI GST for a whole class takes approximately 30

minutes. The time it takes to administer the Phil-IRI Graded Passages would vary for

each student.

The Phil-IRI Group Screening Test (GST) is a silently-administered test in both Filipino

and English. Each tool is composed of a 20-item comprehension test based on a set of

leveled passages for each grade level covering Grades 3 to 6 in Filipino and Grades 4

to 6 in English. The passages were written and selected based on concept load, level

of vocabulary used, sentence complexity, nature of themes and cohesion.

The Phil-IRI Graded Passages (Sets A, B, C and D)

The Phil-IRI Graded Passages is an informal individualized assessment tool used to

record the student’s performance in oral reading, silent reading and/or listening

comprehension.

The Phil-IRI Oral Reading Test is administered in order to:

• identify the student’s miscues in oral reading;

• record the number of words that a student reads per minute; and

• find out how well a student understands the passage read.

The Phil-IRI Listening Comprehension

It is administered when the student is identified as a non-reader. The purpose is to find

out how well a student understands the selection which will be read by the test

administrator. Then the test administrator reads the multiple choice questions and the

student answers them orally.

The Phil-IRI Silent Reading Test

May be administered after the Oral Reading Test is conducted to further check the

student’s comprehension skill. This is an optional activity.

The Graded Passages range from Grade 2 to Grade 7 Readability levels for English

and Grade 1 to Grade 7 Readability levels for Filipino. The selections for Grade 2 to

Grade 4 are narrative texts, while those from Grades 5 to 7 are expository texts. The

expository texts in Filipino deal with Social Studies concepts, while those in English

focus on Science concepts.

Phil-IRI Graded Passages are both in Filipino and English. For both languages, there

are four sets (Sets A, B, C and D) of passages with a readability level of Grade 2 to

Grade 7 to be used for the pre-test. Similarly, there are also four sets (Sets A, B, C and

D) of post-test graded passages. The pre-test and the post-test for each grade level are

comparable in the following: number of words, concept load, level of vocabulary used,

sentence complexity, nature of themes and cohesion. Appendix A5 to A12 presents the
titles of passages used for the PhilIRI Graded Passages (Pre-Test and Post Test) in

both Filipino and English.