Accurate Intervention Practises for Efficient Improvement of Reading Skills

Africa

Governments across the world are spending billions on improving curricula and to create cutting edge environments in an effort to improve academic achievement, nevertheless students are still struggling to keep up with their studies.

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There is without a doubt a gap –that is getting bigger each year, between students and the information they have to study. These statements confirm that the need to accurately bridge this gap with effective, targeted intervention is not merely an option, but becoming essential.

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The bottom line…

Rapidly changing work environments…

Growth of knowledge…

What are we teaching them?

Do they have the skills to be successful?

Are we teaching them what they need to know?

65% of today's grade school kids will end

up at jobs that haven’t been invented yet

United States Department of Labour: Futurework - Trends and Challenges for Work in the 21st Century

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What makes a good reader?Process and characteristics

What is a good reader?

GOOD READERS… Establish reading goals Select reading strategies appropriate to the text

and intended outcomes Monitor to ensure comprehension is established Have a positive attitude towards reading

AT THE END OF THE DAY… A GOOD READER CAN ADJUST HIS/HER READING SPEED AND READING STRATEGIES TO THE TASK AT HAND!

We want to find an accurate, efficient way to teach students to…• Read faster and remember more but also• Find ways to acquire new knowledge• Know where and how information relates to the bigger

picture• Read with an activated mind and engage text meaningful

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The Reader Past experience Present Skills ( Visual, Language )

Developmental Level of Reading skills Self esteem and motivation

Model of text Readability of material Interest level of content Compilation and structure

of material

Family

Community

School

Cultural/ Environment

All these factors shapes the complex persona of the reader in the reading action that forms the basis for understanding the individualreading process

How do we get there?

Readability is defined as reading ease, especially as it results from a writing style. Extensive research has shown that easy-reading text improves comprehension, retention, reading speed, and reading persistence.

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Measurable Aspects of Reading

Percep-tual

skills

Optic-Motor Skills

Compre-hension

skills

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Optic-motor functions includeFixations; Back swing; Regressions; Speed; Phrase reading; Attack

Perceptual functions includeVisual analysis; Visual synthesis ; Visual discrimination; Confuse words; Auditory analysis; Partial reversals; Omission of letters/words; Omission of syllables; Replacing letters; Substitute words; Visual memory

Cognitive functions includeFaulty pronunciation; Sight vocabulary; Word recognition; Memory; Comprehension

How do we read? Optic Motor information

IMPORTANT TERMINOLOGY:

FIXATION: each eye stop

REGRESSION: re-reading of words and/ or letters

EYE SPAN/ SPAN OF RECOGNITION: amount of words recognized when eye stops

DURATION OF FIXATION: time of each fixation

READING SPEED: measured in words per minute

COMPREHENSION: understanding content on various cognitive levels

Reading is a complex, integrated

action. Each of the physical components that are a part of

the learners’ interaction with the

reading task is so integrated,

that it is difficult, if not impossible to distinguish between them. Physical, psychological, emotional and environment factors are woven together in this cause. At any given time one or more of these aspects or challenges can have an influence on a readers’ reading ability

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STEVEN SCHWARTZ (1984) w w w . l e c t o r s a . c o mReading Action Model:

GRADE GRADE 1e +

2e

jr

3e

jr

ADVANCED

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4

Fixations

Per

100w

224 174 155 139 129 120 114 109 105 101 96 94 90 77 65 57 48 44

Regres-

sions

per

100w

52 40 35 31 28 25 23 21 20 19 18 17 15 11 8 5 4 2

Av spa of

Recog-

nition

.45 .57 .65 .72 .78 .83 .88 .92 .95 .99 1.04 1.06 1.11 1.30 1.53 1.75 2.08 2.27

Av

Duration

Of

Fixation

.33 .30 .28 .27 .27 .27 .27 .27 .27 .26 .26 .25 .24 .23 .22 .22 .22 .22

Words

Per

minute

80 115 138 158 173 185 195 204 214 224 240 250 280 340 400 480 560 620

Measurable International Norms and Standards w w w . l e c t o r s a . c o m

What does South African Reading look like?

Current Situation and Mind-sets

13%

76%

11% Good readers

Poor readers

ReadingProblems

Relative Reading Efficiency of the average South African learners =

Grade 2/3 level (readers evaluated nationally Grade 2 – 12)

This means 140 words per minute with at least 70% comprehension

Most readers English Second Language

Biggest challenge Optic-Motor, Visual skills, Language Skills and Comprehension Development

Resulting in poor communication skills, poor concentration, poor self-esteem, academic potential not realised

This is the leading educational deficiency of our time which has a

multi-billion dollar global impact in terms of education and results in high costs supportive systems and a giant loss productivity

Spectrum of readers in the South African classroom w w w . l e c t o r s a . c o m

Common Mind-sets on Reading Intervention and Development in South Africa

AREAS OF WEAKNESS 2012 ANAS EVALUATION

• Many learners cannot read with comprehension.

• Many learners are not able to produce meaningful written outputs (i.e. they write words and sentences that are completely incoherent).

• Learners lack the ability to make correct inferences from the given information in a text.

• Learners' knowledge of grammar is very limited (e.g. tenses, verb use in singular form versus plural form).

• Learners struggle to spell frequently used words correctly.

Ecoltech Research Data

www.ecoltech.co.za

The majority of Grade 3 learners cannot give a correct sequence of events after reading a short given story.

A predominant factor in the observed performance of learners (Grade 6) in both Language and Mathematics is the inability to read with understanding.

Grade 9 learners generally demonstrated very limited language skills. They could not read simple texts with evidence of clear comprehension.

The qualitative analysis suggests that most learners have not mastered knowledge and skills that are appropriate to the grade in which they are placed.

ANAS 2012

Accurate EvaluationSupporting Teachers in the Classroom

1. Background•Questionnaire

•Academic Results

•Eye and Hearning Test

2. Reading Age•Vocabulary Test

3. Standardised Test•Levelled per Grade

•Reading Speed and Comprehension

•Norm based

4. English Proficiency•Grade 7

•Grade 9

•Grade 12

5. Lab-on-line Placement

6. Reading Approach

• Deep

• Surface

7. Study

LectorSA Reading Skills Evaluation PACK

Making sense in confusion

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VALID

Model of Evaluation

Eye sight evaluation

Current Average of Reading Skills Development

LectorSA Evaluations

2013 - 2015

Gr 3

The Intervention PlanWhat and how?

Optic-motor

• Everything concerning the eye and it’s function

Perceptual

• Interpretation of perceived forms, images and their relative positions

Comprehension

• Short term Memory that is converted to understandable meaning

w w w . l e c t o r s a . c o mAreas that can be improved

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Perceptual Accuracy

•letters, •numbers, •objects, •pictures, or patterns

Visual Accuracy• Accelerate duration of fixations

• Ensure accurate perception

•Minimise regressions

•Strengthen word recognition

•Optimise eye span

Visual Efficiency

• Motility

• Discrimination and synthesis

Visual Memory

• Attention and concentration

• Improved comprehension

Components in Lab-on-line: Eye GYM

Eye GYM!

w w w . l e c t o r s a . c o mComponents in Lab-on-line - continue

Comprehension Development

Purpose of reading establishedUse strategies intentionalGive attention to difficult wordsAnalyse difficult words –

understand their meaning Skimming and scanningMain idea and supporting factsHow is it organised?Ask questions BEFORE I readQuestions on different levelsHow do I find out more?

Pre Reading Techniques

In Reading Techniques

Post Reading Techniques

Perceptual Accuracy K-W-L Strategy What I want to know –

questions

Summarizing What I have learned -

summarize

Visual Efficiency

Downloadable Worksheets* De Bono's Thinking Hats* Habits of Mind* Strategies and Activation of

thinking skills* Different ways on different days

Visual Accuracy

Visual Memory

Prior Knowledge I know – brainstorm Downloadable Worksheets

Sight Word and Vocabulary Developmentand Downloadable Worksheets

Develop Reading Skills w w w . l e c t o r s a . c o m

Statistics with Implementation Plans

Evaluation on Visagraph

LAB Reading Center

www.lectorsa.com

Before After

Fixation 236 130

Regression 66 17

ASR 0,59 6,7

ADF 0,96 0,29

CC 0,66 0,8

ES 7 7

OEF 36 14

OER 26 8

BEO 45 5

DBE 148 60

WPM 127 184

% 72 68

GLE 3 6

Grade 2 5

0

50

100

150

200

250

Placement and Relative Improvement on LAB

LAB Reading Center

www.lectorsa.com

WPM % Grade

Series1 127 72 2

Series2 184 68 5

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

Correlation between Visagraph and LAB results

LAB Reading Center

www.lectorsa.com

GL1 GL2 Grade1 Grade2

Series1 3 6 2 5

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Improvement measured with Visagraph and LAB Index

3 Years Relative Improvement (2013/14)

72% Average Improvement on Measurable Aspects (2013)

Overall improvement of Students on LAB 2014

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Grade 1Grade 2

Grade 3Grade 4

Grade 5Grade 6

Grade 7Grade 8

Grade 9Grade 10

Grade 11Grade 12

Grade 13

0 0 00 1 1

1 12

22 2

2

12

34

56

78

910

1112

13

3 34

7

9

7

10

1213 13

11

13 13

Initial Norm Final

LectorSA DATA www.lab-on-line.com

133 Grade 12 learners participated in the project Reading speed 80 wpm

improvement

Comprehension: 30% improvement

Relative Reading Efficiency 5 years improvement

Academic averageimproved from

74% to 81%

70

72

74

76

78

80

82

Activate and configure our students for life-long learning…

Presented by Minda Marshall

At ILA Conference 2015

Contactminda@lectorsa.com

www.lectorsa.com