Advanced Word Study For Struggling Older Readers

In education, there has been a heavy emphasis on examining early literacy instructional practices supported by a great deal of funding from the government. Setting a solid literacy foundation for students by third grade is crucial to later success. Currently, struggling older readers read on approximately a 2.5 to 5.0 reading level (Archer, Gleason, & Vachon 2003). While efforts to improve early literacy efforts are worthy, what are we doing to help our students who still continue to struggle with reading beyond the second grade? For anyone who has worked with students in grades 3 all the way up to high school, you know how heartbreaking it is to work with students who are reading significantly below grade level. Frequently, these are students who have repeated grades and are still struggling significantly. Beyond third grade, remediation for struggling readers becomes much more complex as students struggle with multiple areas of literacy: decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension (Dennis 2012; Leach, Scarborough, & Rescorla 2003; Spear-Swerling 2004; Saenz & Fuchs 2002). The gap between struggling students and their age level peers continues to widen at a much faster rate as students get older due to these continued and persistent deficits. 

What does the research say?

By third grade, there is a belief held by educators that students are no longer learning to read but reading to learn. As such the focus of intervention for students once they reach third grade and beyond, particularly in middle school and high school, tends to focus overall on comprehension instruction with a limited inclusion of foundational reading skills instruction (Hart & Stebick 2016). However, a study by Shankweiler, Lundquist, Katz, Stuebing, Fletcher, Brady, Fowler, Dreyer, Marchione, Shaywitz, and Shaywitz (1999) confirmed the findings of many studies of struggling readers identifying a co-occurrence of problems with both decoding and reading comprehension and only rarely did struggling readers struggle in only one of these two areas. This study also found a correlation between advanced phoneme deletion and performance on tests of word decoding. The study also identified two splinter groups, although the sample size was very small in the splinter groups. Group A was marked by good comprehension and poor decoding, while group B was marked by good decoding and poor comprehension. It is important to note that Group A still had lower than average comprehension when compared to the norm group while Group B had lower than average decoding skills when compared to the norm group.

In a longitudinal study Freebody and Byrne (1988) examined two groups of second grade students in Australia. One group relied on decoding skills when reading, while the other group relied on sight word knowledge and associations when reading. When initially tested in second grade, the group relying on decoding skills scored lower on tests of comprehension while the sight word group scored higher on measures of comprehension. When the same students were tested again two years later, the decoding group was now found to score higher on measures of comprehension versus the sight word group. The results of this study indicate the need for students to acquire strong decoding skills in order for comprehension skills to increase as students move up in grade levels and that failure to acquire these decoding skills has a direct negative impact on comprehension skills even if students are initially identified as average or above average readers in early grades based on sight word knowledge. 

The findings of both of these studies emphasize the need for students to master foundational decoding and advanced phonemic awareness skills in order to increase reading comprehension skills. For the majority of struggling readers in upper elementary and beyond, these students have mastered basic sound-symbol correspondences and are able to recognize many high frequency irregularly spelled words; however, their decoding skills break down when encountering multisyllabic words (Archer et al. 2003). Beginning in third grade and beyond as students progress through the grades, the majority of words that students will encounter will be multisyllabic words (Nagy & Anderson 1984) necessitating that students be able to decode these words efficiently in order to continue gaining knowledge, particularly in the content areas. The inability to accurately read multisyllabic words directly impacts a student’s ability to comprehend and make meaning from content. In the words of Archer, Gleason, and Vachon (2003), “No comprehension strategies are powerful enough to compensate for not being able to read the words within the text.” 

Several research studies have shown that direct, explicit instruction in the syllable types improved students' reading of multisyllabic words and resulted in gains in measures of reading comprehension (Bhattacharya & Ehri 2004; Bhattacharya 2006; Moats 2004; Duncan & Seymour 2003). In one such study Diliberto, Beattie, Flowers, and Algozzine (2009) conducted a research study with middle school students examining the impact of syllable skills instruction on word identification, word attack, and comprehension. The study identified gains in pre and post assessment scores in all three areas for students following instruction in syllabication patterns, rules, and pronunciation. The intervention group also decreased the gap in fluency between them and their peers in the control group.

What is it?

The english language is considered to be a morpho-phonemic language. This means that the letters or combinations of letters in the written system are used to represent the phonemes, or individual sounds, of english. Morpho is short for morphemes referring to the smallest units of meaning in the language. In english roots carry the core meaning of words, and affixes are then added which alters the meaning and in some cases can even shift the pronunciation of the word. 

In english vowel sounds can be the trickiest to learn as they can have many variations in pronunciation, and there are six distinct syllable-spelling patterns. Learning the syllable types provides clues to students on the pronunciation of the vowel sounds in a multisyllabic word. In 1806 Noah Webster used knowledge of these syllable-spelling patterns to justify the syllabication divisions in his dictionary (Moats & Tolman 2009). Syllables are arranged around each vowel sound in a word. Each distinct vowel sound in a word constitutes a syllable, and the syllable types are determined by what comes behind the vowel. There are six distinct syllable types shown in the table below.

Syllable Type	Example	Rule
Closed	ad-mit bas-ket sub-mit wit-ness	One vowel followed by one or more consonants and has a short vowel sound, occurrence = 43%
Open	so-lo yo-yo lo-cate si-lent	Syllable ends with only one vowel and has a long vowel sound, occurrence = 29%
Vowel R	am-ber tor-so bar-ber tur-moil first	Syllable contains the r-controlled spelling pattern of ar, er, ir, or, and ur and has the r-controlled pronunciation
Vowel Consonant E	com-pute em-pire ig-nite ox-ide	One vowel followed by one consonant and the letter e and has a long vowel sound
Consonant LE	ap-ple ma-ple ta-ble puz-zle	One consonant followed by l and e, has the /ul/ pronunciation, and falls in the unaccented syllable, also referred to as the final stable syllable
Vowel Team	aw-ful train-er light-en re-proach	Has a short or long vowel sound and has 2 or more letters to represent the vowel sound including diphthongs

To learn more about the syllable types, here is a video with Maria Murray from The Reading League as well as a wealth of professional learning videos and PowerPoints from Texas Gateway. Both resources explain each of the syllable types in depth as well as providing examples of each type.

1. Texas Gateway https://www.texasgateway.org/resource/six-syllable-types-and-morphology

2. The Reading League

How is it taught?

When instructing students on the syllable types, there is no set order for teaching the syllable types. However, closed syllables and open syllables are typically taught first because they constitute the highest frequency of occurrence, and syllable types are typically introduced one at a time with new types introduced once students have mastered previous types. Any evidence-based program will have a set instructional routine and sequence for instructing students on the syllable types. The 95% Group has a three to four week instructional routine for teaching students to recognize and read the syllable types, and their Multisyllable Routine Cards are very affordable.

When beginning to work with the syllable types, I typically introduce one syllable type at a time. I begin by defining the type and then having students sort single syllable real and nonsense words as examples or non-examples. The picture shows an example that I did with my students virtually using word lists from the 95% Group's Multisyllable Routine Cards.

When sorting examples, I always ask students to explain how they know the word is or isn't an example. As students become more proficient at recognizing and reading one syllable examples, I then introduce multisyllabic nonsense and real words containing the studied syllable types. When we begin working with multisyllabic examples, I first introduce the steps for marking up a multisyllabic word that students walk through with each multisyllabic example.

To read more about this process refer to my earlier blog post entitled "Instructional Strategies for Teaching Multisyllabic Words." Once students get the hang of the routine, we spend about five minutes each day practicing at the beginning of our literacy block. In small groups, I incorporate this routine at the beginning of each small group utilizing real and nonsense words. For real words, I try to pull examples from texts that the students are working with to make it more relevant. I have included some instructional resources below.

1. Spot and Dot- This is one example of an instructional routine  that can be used with  students to mark up multisyllabic words along with a video modeling the routine.

   
   

2. Drill Bits- This phenomenal resource from the Resource Room is extremely comprehensive. It provides extensive word lists for practicing each syllable type and provides an instructional sequence.

3. West Virginia Explicit Phonics- This free resource provides explicit, systematic phonics lessons for each of the six syllable types.

How is it assessed?

Any intervention plan for students should always begin with assessment to identify areas of need. Multisyllabic word reading is typically assessed using word lists with real and nonsense word examples containing each of the syllable types. Here are some resources for assessment:

1. Consortium on Reading Excellence, Inc (CORE) Phonics Survey

2. Really Great Reading Advanced Decoding Survey

3.  Differentiated Reading Instruction in Grades 4 and 5: Strategies and Resources Informal Decoding Inventory

4. Core Knowledge Language Arts Individual Word Reading Assessment (Bonus: the whole remediation and assessment guide is included in this link!)

Summary

    The research is clear that students who don't learn to read proficiently by third grade will continue to struggle and to get further and further behind their peers academically. The statistical outlook for these students later in life is not good. Without the ability to read proficiently on grade level, these students' job prospects and ability to seek further education becomes extremely limited. As educators, we frequently did not receive adequate instruction on how to best help struggling readers to catch up and close achievement gaps. As students move up in the grade levels, they are exposed to increasingly more complex words in the content areas requiring students to have a way to attack multisyllabic words. Instruction in the six syllable types gives students the power to break down and read larger words, thereby giving students access to higher level texts.

Works Cited

Archer, A., Gleason, M., and Vachon, V. (2003). Decoding and Fluency: Foundation skills for struggling older readers. Learning Disability Quarterly, 26, 89-101.

Bhattacharya, A. (2006). Syllable-based reading strategy for mastery of scientific information. Remedial and Special Education, 27(4), 116-123.

Bhattacharya, A., & Ehri, L. C. (2004). Graphosyllabic analysis helps adolescent struggling readers read and spell words. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 37(4), 331-348.

Dennis, D. (2013). Heterogeneity or homogeneity: What assessment data reveal about struggling adolescent readers. Journal of Literacy Research, 45(1), 3-21.

Diliberto, J., Beattie, J., Flowers, C., & Algozzine, R. (2009). Effects of syllable skills instruction on reading achievement in struggling middle school readers. Literacy Research and Instruction, 48, 14-27.

Duncan, L. and Seymour, P. (2003). How do children read multisyllabic words? Some preliminary observations. Journal of Research in Reading, 26(2), 101-120.

Freebody, P., & Byrne, B. (1988). Word-reading strategies in elementary school children: Relations to comprehension, reading time, and phonemic awareness. Reading Research Quarterly, 23(4), 441–453.

Hart, J., & Stebick, D. (2016). Making the invisible visible: RTI and reading comprehension. The New England Reading Association Journal, 51(2), 43-56.

Leach, J. M., Scarborough, H. S., Rescorla, L. (2003). Late-emerging reading disabilities. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(2), 211-224.

Moats, L. (2004). Efficacy of a structured, systematic language curriculum for adolescent poor readers. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 20, 145-159.

Moats, L. and Tolman, C. (2009). Six Syllable Types. Reading Rockets. Excerpted from Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS): Spellography for Teachers: How English Spelling Works (Module 3). Boston: Sopris West. Retrieved from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/six-syllable-types#:~:text=Six%20written%20syllable%2Dspelling%20conventions,the%20vowels%20in%20new%20words..

Nagy, W., & Anderson, R. (1984). The number of words in printed school English. Reading Research Quarterly, 19, 304-330.

Saenz, L. M., Fuchs, L. S. (2002). Examining the reading difficulty of secondary students with learning disabilities: Expository versus narrative text. Remedial and Special Education, 23(1), 31-41.

Shankweiler, D., Lundquist, E., Katz, L., Stuebing, K., Fletcher, J., Brady, S., Fowler, A., Dreyer, L., Marchione, K., Shaywitz, S., Shaywitz, B., (1999). Comprehension and Decoding: Patterns of association in children with reading difficulties. Scientific Studies of Reading, 3(1), 69-94. 

Spear-Swerling, L. (2004). A road map for understanding reading disability and other reading problems: Origins, prevention, and intervention. In Ruddell, R. B., Unrau, N. J. (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (5th ed., pp. 517-573). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.