9 Components of Effective, Research-Supported Reading Instruction

By: Learning First Alliance

We know
from research
that an
effective
reading
program must
address
several
aspects of reading. Among others, these aspects include the alphabetic code, fluency,
comprehension, and motivation.

Comment

The following are nine components of effective reading instruction.

1. Phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, and concepts of print

Phoneme awareness and letter-sound knowledge account for more of the variation in
early reading and spelling success than general intelligence, overall maturity level, or
listening comprehension. They are the basis for learning an alphabetic writing
system. Children who have poorly developed phonemic awareness at the end of
kindergarten are likely to become poor readers. Explicit instruction in sound
identification, matching, segmentation, and blending, when linked appropriately to
sound-symbol association, reduces the risk of reading failure and accelerates early
reading and spelling acquisition for all children.

2. The alphabetic code: Phonics and decoding

In addition to phoneme awareness and letter knowledge, knowledge of sound-

symbol associations is vital for success in first grade and beyond. Accurate and
fluent word recognition depends on phonics knowledge. The ability to read words
accounts for a substantial proportion of overall reading success even in older readers.
Good readers do not depend primarily on context to identify new words. When good
readers encounter an unknown word, they decode the word, name it, and then attach
meaning. The context of the passage helps a reader get the meaning of a word once a
word has been deciphered.

3. Fluent, automatic reading of text

Beginning readers must apply their decoding skills to fluent, automatic reading of
text. Children who are reading with adequate fluency are much more likely to
comprehend what they are reading. Thus the concept of independent reading level is
important: it is that level at which the child recognizes more than 95 percent of the
words and can read without laboring over decoding. Poor readers often read too
slowly. Some poor readers have a specific problem with fluent, automatic text
reading even though they have learned basic phonics.

4. Vocabulary

Knowledge of word meanings is critical to reading comprehension. Knowledge of

words supports comprehension, and wide reading enables the acquisition of word
knowledge. At school age, children are expected to learn the meanings of new words
at the rate of several thousand per year. Most of these words are acquired by reading
them in books or hearing them read aloud from books. Networks of words, tied
conceptually, are the foundation of productive vocabulary. Key in developing this
foundation is active processing of word meanings, which develops understanding of
words and their uses, and connections among word concepts.

5. Text comprehension

The undisputed purpose of learning to read is to comprehend. Although children are

initially limited in what they can read independently, comprehension instruction can
occur as soon as they enter school. Comprehension depends, firstly, on a large,
working vocabulary and substantial background knowledge. Even before children
can read for themselves, teachers can build this vital background knowledge by
reading interactively and frequently to children from a variety of narrative and
expository texts, chosen in part for their ability to expand what children know about
the world around them. Further, comprehension is enhanced when teachers make
sure students understand what they are reading by asking questions and encouraging
student questions and discussions. Effective instruction will help the reader actively
relate his or her own knowledge or experience to the ideas written in the text, and
then remember the ideas that he or she has come to understand.

6. Written expression

Reading and writing are two sides of the same coin. Both depend on fluent
understanding and use of language at many levels. Each enhances the other. From
first grade onward, children benefit from almost daily opportunities to organize,
transcribe, and edit their thoughts in writing. A variety of writing assignments
appropriate to their abilities is desirable, including production of narratives and
exposition. While they are building the skills of letter formation, spelling, and
sentence generation, children also should be taught to compose in stages: generating
and organizing ideas, initially with a group or partner; producing a draft; sharing
ideas with others for the purpose of gaining feedback; and revising, editing,
proofreading, and publishing.

7. Spelling and handwriting

Recent research supports the premise that written composition is enhanced by

mastery of the component skills of spelling and writing just as reading
comprehension is supported by mastery of fluent word recognition. Fluent, accurate
letter formation and spelling are associated with students' production of longer and
better-organized compositions. Word usage, handwriting, punctuation, capitalization,
and spelling are the necessary conventions of written expression that must be taught
alongside strategies for composing. Students learn spelling and handwriting more
readily if those skills are taught explicitly from first grade onward and if they are
applied in the context of frequent, purposeful writing assignments.

8. Screening and continuous assessment to inform instruction

Frequent assessment of developing readers, and the use of that information for
planning instruction, is the most reliable way of preventing children from falling
behind and staying behind. A clear message from longitudinal studies of reading
development is that most children who become poor readers in third grade and
beyond were having difficulty right from the start with phonologically-based reading
skills. In addition, instruction that targets the specific weaknesses most likely to
cause reading difficulty often prevents later reading failure and facilitates the reading
development of most children.

9. Motivating children to read and developing their literacy horizons

As we have emphasized earlier, a successful teacher of beginning reading generates

enthusiasm and appreciation for reading. Research reviews have repeatedly stated
that children who are read to often, who are led to enjoy books, and who are
encouraged to read widely are more likely to become good readers than children who
lack these experiences. Teachers who are juggling the technical challenges of
program organization and delivery may lose sight of the fact that purposeful reading
and writing is the goal of instruction. Information on the importance of daily reading
aloud, the selection of varied reading material, the use of the library, and the
 integration of topics across the curriculum will bolster literacy instruction, even as
teachers focus on teaching specific reading and writing skills. Team and school
initiatives to promote a love of books and wide reading should be ever-present.

“Literacy is not for the fortunate few. It is the right of every child.
Teaching children to read is not the responsibility of a chosen few. It
is the responsibility of every teacher, every administrator and every
parent.” (Bouchard and Sutton, 2001, p. 3)

The Goals of Reading Instruction Reading instruction has three main

goals for student achievement: • Comprehension is the ability to
understand, reflect on, and learn from text. To ensure that students
develop comprehension skills, effective reading instruction builds on
their prior knowledge and experience, expands their language skills
(e.g., vocabulary development, phonemic awareness), and promotes the
development of their higher-level thinking skills. • Fluency is the
ability to identify words accurately and to read text with ease, pace,
and automaticity (fast, accurate, and effortless identification of
words). Fluency results when students reread comfortable (just-right,
not-too-difficult) texts about familiar subjects for authentic purposes.
Texts for readers in the early stages of learning to read contain mostly
familiar, high-frequency words, so that students encounter few
unfamiliar words. As they develop fluency, students improve their
ability to read with proper phrasing, thus gaining more of the text’s
meaning. • Motivation to read is the essential element for actively
engaging students in the reading process. Students need to be immersed
in a literacy-rich environment, filled with appealing books, poems,
pictures, charts, and other resources that capture their interest and
entice them to read for information and pleasure. Students need to see
themselves as successful readers.

“Reading must always be viewed as a meaning-making process; it is not

just decoding.” (Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, Child and
Family Program, 1998, p. 70)

The Knowledge and Skills Required for Reading The knowledge and skills
that students need to develop and use in order to read with
comprehension and fluency are not isolated elements taught in a lock-
step sequence, but interrelated components that support and build on
each other in the context of a supportive learning environment. • Oral
language skills. Through experience with listening and speaking,
children build the vocabulary, semantic knowledge (awareness of
meaning), and syntactic knowledge (awareness of language structure) that
form a foundation for reading and writing. Children with strong oral
language skills are solidly prepared for reading. Some students come to
school from language-impoverished backgrounds; others come from families
in which the home language is different from the language of
instruction. In both these cases, students require instruction to
increase their oral English-language abilities so that they are well-
prepared to learn to read. Oral language and its relationship to reading
is the subject of Chapter 3 of this guide. • Ability to activate prior
knowledge and experience. Research on the early stages of learning
indicates that children begin to make sense of their world at a very
young age. In Ontario, students enter school with a variety of
background experiences, and from many countries and cultures, so their
prior knowledge and experiences may differ considerably from those of
their classmates and teachers. Teachers need to be aware of these
differences in order to provide appropriate instruction and engage all
students in learning to read. They also need to encourage students to
activate their prior knowledge and experience when reading, to help
predict words and content and to make connections between what they
already know – from their own experiences, from other texts, and from
their general knowledge of the world – and what they are reading. •
Understanding of concepts of print. When children first encounter print,
they are not aware that the symbols on the page represent spoken
language or that these symbols convey meaning. By observing experienced
readers who draw their attention to print, children develop an
understanding of concepts like directionality (knowing that English-
language text is read from left to right and from top to bottom),
differences between letters and words (words are made of letters, and
there are spaces between words), awareness of capitalization and
punctuation, diacritic signs (for example, accents in French), and
common characteristics of books (such as the front/back, title, and
author). The Knowledge and Skills Required for Reading ➜ Oral language
skills ➜ Ability to activate prior knowledge and experience ➜
Understanding of concepts of print ➜ Phonemic awareness ➜
Understanding of lettersound relationships ➜ Vocabulary ➜ Ability to
use the three cueing systems ➜ Ability to use comprehension and
metacognitive strategies ➜ Ability to apply higher-order thinking
skills Overview of Effective Instruction 2.9 • Phonemic awareness.
Phonemic awareness is the understanding that the words we say are made
up of individual sounds (phonemes). Children who have phonemic awareness
can hear, identify, and manipulate the sounds in oral language. They are
therefore well prepared to match letters to sounds in order to decode
words in print and to spell. Research has confirmed that phonemic
awareness helps students learn to read by providing a crucial foundation
for word identification; without it, they continue to have reading
difficulties. Phonemic awareness can be taught, and the teacher’s role
in the development of phonemic awareness is essential for many students.
• Understanding of letter-sound relationships. Phonics instruction
teaches students the relationships between the letters (graphemes) of
written language and the individual sounds (phonemes) of spoken
language. Research has shown that systematic and explicit phonics
instruction is an effective way to develop student’s ability to
identify words in print (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 9). •
Vocabulary. Children need a broad vocabulary of words that they
understand and can use correctly to label their knowledge and
experiences. The breadth and depth of a child’s vocabulary provide the
foundation for decoding and comprehension skills. Oral vocabulary refers
to words we use in speaking or recognize in listening. Reading
vocabulary (or sight vocabulary) refers to words we recognize or use in
print. It is a tremendous challenge for students to read words that are
not already part of their oral vocabulary. Therefore, teachers must
ensure that students are exposed to new oral vocabulary through
discussions, through listening to and watching media works, and through
listening to a wide variety of texts read to them. Teachers must also,
of course, model and teach strategies for reading words and ensure that
students are exposed to new reading vocabulary in a variety of books and
other written texts. In addition, research has shown that some reading
vocabulary must be taught directly. • Ability to use the three cueing
systems. Effective readers use three main cueing systems to construct
meaning from print: semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic. Semantic (or
meaning) cues come from a reader’s prior knowledge of reading and
words, as well as from illustrations in a text. Syntactic (structural)
cues come from a reader’s knowledge of language patterns and structure,
especially the patterns and structure of oral language. Graphophonic
(visual) cues come from a Word and picture magnets “Children who learn
to read early are ones who have been read to.” (Strickland and Morrow,
1989, p. 35) Three Cueing Systems ➜ Semantic ➜ Syntactic ➜
Graphophonic 2.10 A Guide to Effective Instruction in Reading,
Kindergarten to Grade 3 reader’s knowledge of the relationship between
letters seen in print and the sounds heard in oral language. These three
cueing systems are discussed in more detail in Chapter 6: Guided
Reading. • Ability to use comprehension and metacognitive strategies.
Students must be taught the skills they require to comprehend new words
and information and also the skills they require to reflect on what they
know and what they need to know. Metacognition, or “thinking about
thinking,” plays a significant role in comprehension and in the
acquisition of knowledge. Studies show that improvements in learning
follow explicit instruction in the use of metacognitive strategies
(Scruggs, Mastropieri, Monson, and Jorgenson, 1985, pp. 181–185).
Teachers should model the metacognitive process by thinking out loud
(conducting “think-alouds”) during read-alouds, shared reading, and
other opportune teaching moments. When teachers describe their thinking
processes, students learn the questions they need to ask themselves
about their own thinking processes to further their learning, and the
vocabulary they need to ask themselves these questions. Effective
metacognitive strategies include the following: – activating one’s own
prior knowledge and connecting it with new information (e.g., asking
“What do I already know about this?”); – intentionally selecting and
applying thinking strategies (e.g., asking “Does this make sense?”
“Does this look or sound right?”); – monitoring one’s own learning
(e.g., asking “How well am I doing?” “What information is
important?”); – evaluating one’s own learning (e.g., asking “What
did I learn?” “How well did I do?” “Is there something I didn’t
understand?” “Do I need to ask for help?”). Comprehension and
metacognitive strategies are discussed throughout the four chapters of
this guide that deal with the key instructional strategies, as well as
in Chapter 8: Reading Comprehension. • Ability to apply higher-order
thinking skills. By applying higher-order thinking skills, students are
able to draw more meaning from what they read and apply their learning
in more sophisticated ways. Although higher-order thinking skills alone
do not make a child an effective reader, they are essential for reading
effectively. Students need to have opportunities to analyse and
criticize the information, Overview of Effective Instruction 2.11
concepts, plots, characters, and themes outlined in books, and their own
understanding of them. Through analysis and critical thinking, students
form opinions and add substance to their thinking processes. Teachers
promote higher-order thinking skills by ensuring that students have the
following knowledge and skills in place: – prior knowledge of a given
subject – understanding of the text’s meaning – problem-solving
skills – skills in analysing information (e.g., the ability to explain,
compare, infer) – skills in synthesizing information (e.g., the ability
to relate, predict, draw conclusions) – skills for evaluating
information (e.g., the ability to make choices, verify evidence, assess
value) (Adapted from Bloom and Kathwold, 1956)