The Art and Science of Teaching Primary Reading (Christopher Such)

Question 1

How many people in England are ‘functionally illiterate’?
Meaning?

Answer 1

Around one in six people in England are functionally illiterate, meaning that they have difficulty reading about unfamiliar topics or from unfamiliar sources.

Question 2

What is uncommon and not prioritised by schools (reading related)?

Answer 2

Professional reading (reading focused on one’s profession)

Question 3

What does a symbol become once it has begun to represent a word?

Answer 3

A logograph (severing the link between images and the things they represent)

Question 4

“In practice, however, there was a snag: evidence taken from the study of early written languages suggests an upper limit to the number of individual symbols that humans can memorise in a functional written language, around …. – …. Given that the average English speaker has a vocabulary that far exceeds this limit (something also true for the vast majority of languages), a purely logographic written language simply can’t represent the entire spoken language.”

Answer 4

“In practice, however, there was a snag: evidence taken from the study of early written languages suggests an upper limit to the number of individual symbols that humans can memorise in a functional written language, around 2000–5000.5 Given that the average English speaker has a vocabulary that far exceeds this limit (something also true for the vast majority of languages), a purely logographic written language simply can’t represent the entire spoken language.”

Question 5

What is a ‘lethal mutation’ in educational terms?

Answer 5

A concept that has morphed into something else because the users (perhaps teachers) don’t understand WHY something works (but have just been TOLD that it does).

Question 6

What does McGuinness mean when he says “all codes are reversible mapping systems”..?

Answer 6

“Put simply, the writer turns sounds into written letters; the reader does the reverse.”

Question 7

How many phonemes in written English?

Answer 7

44

(BTW “… any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language…”)

Question 8

Fluent reading is defined by Hudson, Lane and Pullen (2005) as ‘… accurate reading of connected text, at a c…………. r… with appropriate p…… ’ (p. 702).2 In other words, reading involves a……. , a……….. and p…… :3

Answer 8

Fluent reading is defined by Hudson, Lane and Pullen (2005) as ‘… accurate reading of connected text, at a conversational rate with appropriate prosody’ (p. 702).2 In other words, reading involves accuracy, automaticity and prosody:3

Question 9

What is the problem with silent reading?

Answer 9

There is insufficient evidence to suggest that silent reading supports the development of initial reading fluency – though it is obviously beneficial in other ways once children are fluent enough to independently construct meaning as they read.21

Question 10

What constitutes “… a level of fluency that that allows for confident independent reading..?”

Answer 10

“specifically 110+ WCPM with 99+ per cent accuracy and appropriate prosody.”

Question 11

Why should we be cautious about ‘doling out praise’ for fluent reading?

Answer 11

“Reading aloud in front of peers can feel very high stakes for a child. In my experience, taking pains to show that this is just another part of the lesson – and not an opportunity for a child to impress you – leads to better engagement from the whole class, particularly those that take a little longer to develop reading fluency. A focus on improvement secured during the lesson and a warm ‘thank you’ to the child who has read aloud is more than enough.”

Question 12

What is a pictograph?

Answer 12

A picture directly representing an object.

Question 13

What is a logograph?

Answer 13

Once a symbol begins to represent a word, it is a logograph.

So representing a spoken word with a symbol (not a picture of the thing).

Question 14

What is a phoneme?

Answer 14

The smallest recognisable unit of spoken sound.

Question 15

What is a grapheme?

Answer 15

A letter of group of letters that represent a phoneme (and therefore written down).

Question 16

Why would it be impossible for a person to learn to read in English by simply memorising words as whole units?

Answer 16

Humans can memorise 2000 - 5000 individual symbols … insufficient for representing the entirety of a spoken language.

Combination is required.

Imagine that there was no recurrence in numbers after 9 - the memory required would be vast.

Question 17

What entities are represented in the equation of the simple view of reading?

Answer 17

Decoding (D) × Language Comprehension (LC) = Reading Comprehension (RC)

Question 18

Why would it be an error to interpret the simple view of reading as showing that teachers need only concern themselves with children’s ability to decode and their oral language abilities?

Answer 18

Although useful, it doesn’t tell us how to teach. Listening comprehension and reading comprehension are correlated but not perfectly so … and written and oral language differ in complexity. Decoding and language comprehension are ‘multivariate’ and require analysis.

Question 19

What is meant by orthography?

Answer 19

The conventional spelling system of a language.

Question 20

What is the difference between a deep orthography and a shallow orthography?

Answer 20

How far phonemes and graphemes deviate fro one-to-one correspondence.

For example: the grapheme represents different sounds in ‘fork’ and ‘work’.

Question 21

Diane McGuinness described all codes as ‘reversible mapping systems’. What does this mean in the context of reading and writing?

Answer 21

Put simply, the writer turns sounds into written letters; the reader does the reverse.

Question 22

Why is not not helpful to describe words as regular and irregular?

Answer 22

Understand that the correspondences in all words exist on a spectrum between those that are most common and those that are exceedingly rare, and thus that describing words as ‘regular’ or ‘irregular’ doesn’t make sense.

Question 23

What is the utility argument for systematic synthetic phonics instruction?

Answer 23

Know that systematic synthetic phonics instruction is harmless to all, beneficial to most and essential for some.

Question 24

Each phoneme can be represented by…

Answer 24

… multiple graphemes

Question 25

Each grapheme can represent…

Answer 25

… multiple phonemes

Question 26

What are the origins of the word ‘fluency’?

Answer 26

Latin: fluere - flowing

Question 27

Fluent reading is defined by Hudson, Lane and Pullen (2005) as ’… a……. r…… of c……. t…, at a c…………. r… with a………. p……’

Answer 27

Fluent reading is defined by Hudson, Lane and Pullen (2005) as ‘… accurate reading of connected text, at a conversational rate with appropriate prosody’

Question 28

What is orthographic mapping and what does it imply about reading instruction?

Answer 28

Fluent reading is acquired only through repeated decoding; it is this that allows the spellings of words to become ‘glued’ to the pronunciations already stored in a reader’s memory.This process is called orthographic mapping.

A sufficient quantity of decoding practice will be necessary for orthographic mapping to take place.

Question 29

What assessments are freely available that can be used to assess children’s reading fluency? Of what?

Answer 29

Fluency assessments.

Of WCPM (words correct per minute).

Question 30

What is ‘fluency practice’?

Answer 30

…repeated oral reading of challenging texts,

Question 31

What is comprehension monitoring?

Answer 31

A metacognitive strategy that supports our gradual understanding of texts.

Noticing what we know, where we need to make inferences, how well a text correlates with our understanding of its structure

Question 32

How does background knowledge support comprehension monitoring?

Example linked to a character in a shop.

Answer 32

We notice when our BK clashes with our apparent understanding - for example if a character we think is a customer ‘opens the till’ this suggests we may have misunderstood something about their character.

Question 33

Inference is impossible without … (s v & b k)

Answer 33

… secure vocabulary and background knowledge.

Question 34

What did Willingham suggest in 2017? (Willingness is a clue!)

Answer 34

Willingham (2017) is not alone in suggesting that extrinsic motivation has the potential to backfire, reducing children’s desire to read over the long term as rewards imply that reading is something not worth doing for its own sake.

Question 35

Who is independent reading time good for?

What are the dangers?

Answer 35

… opportunities are only of benefit to those who have developed a level of reading fluency that allows them to enjoy independent reading; those who have not will simply embed their dysfluency or, just as likely, will pretend to read during this part of the school day and begin to associate reading with a sense of shame.

Question 36

What does a reading role model do?

Answer 36

Find any excuse to discuss the reading you do and the value it has. Explain that sometimes it can be a struggle to find something you want to read, but emphasise that the effort is always worth it in the end. This can provide encouragement to reluctant readers.

Question 37

Explain substantive and disciplinary knowledge with regard to history.

Answer 37

The substantive knowledge of history is the knowledge of the past shared with students that is accepted as most likely to be factually accurate. The disciplinary knowledge of history involves understanding what being a historian entails: the development of interpretations of past events based on the available evidence.

Question 38

Define anaphor

Answer 38

anaphor a word or phrase that refers back to an earlier word or phrase and relies upon the earlier word or phrase for its meaning.

Question 39

What should we do before teaching children to use effective devices and sentence constructions in their writing?

Answer 39

… expose them to texts containing those devices or constructions. Well-chosen examples.

Question 40

Why should we avoid sharing inaccurate spellings?

Answer 40

Can embed errors (so don’t pick from a list of spellings - which is the right one?).

Question 41

What should we do with spelling rules?

Answer 41

Generally avoid them - they can confuse through non-100% compliance in language.

Question 42

What’s wrong with word searches?

Answer 42

Inefficient and ineffective.

Question 43

If you want children t write a text, what should you outline first?

Answer 43

The likely structure (title / introduction to animal / behaviour / habitat).

(A plan)

Question 44

What is the difference between developmental dyslexia and acquired dyslexia?

Answer 44

Developmental - from birth.

Acquired - resulting from brain injury.

Question 45

What other conditions are correlated with a diagnosis of dyslexia?

Answer 45

Speech and language disorders
ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder)
Maths impairments

Question 46

What differences might there be in the reading instruction for a child diagnosed with dyslexia compared to another child with less significant word-reading difficulties? Are these differences qualitative or quantitative?

Answer 46

Support may require greater time, commitment and effort. Quantitive.

Question 47

Define dyslexia (not…)

Answer 47

Difficulty in word reading with a genetic, neurobiological cause (not purely environmental)

Question 48

We should think of dyslexia as existing on…

Answer 48

… a continuum of developmental reading disabilities

Question 49

The vast majority of word reading difficulties are avoidable with…

Answer 49

… high-quality reading instruction (even for problems with biological origin).