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Nullius in verba
Sara Hjelm ⏸️ Profile picture Karen Kemp Profile picture 2 subscribed
Aug 20, 2023 15 tweets 3 min read
Perhaps worth going back to the origins of Gestalt Theory which developed in the early 20th century as a contrast to Behaviourist Theory. Gestalt loosely translates as 'shape' or 'pattern' and the theorists believed the mind was active and always looking for meaning. Sensory experiences, the theory suggests, are meaningfully organised in an a priori fashion with the mind creating a unitary experience. Clear links with Kant - more here -thereadingape.com/single-post/an…
Jul 22, 2023 18 tweets 3 min read
Since 1995, 11 year olds in England have sat compulsory (state schools only) National Curriculum tests in reading. In those 30 years despite much changing in pedagogy and research, the 'comprehension test' has remained the bedrock assessment tool. Looking back over the tests, very little has changed in terms of texts and questions. Yes, we no longer have levels and have moved to standardised scores; the complexity of texts has varied from year to year as well as the length of texts and the occasional inclusion of poetry.
May 13, 2023 19 tweets 4 min read
There seems to be a misunderstanding. SSP is Systematic Synthetic Phonics. It is systematic by definition. This requires a prescriptive approach that ensures the code is covered and not left to chance and teachers' decisions on which parts to teach. As such it cannot 'jazzed up.' It is Synthetic. This not only refers to the synthesising of sounds to form words but to Kant's (1787) definition of synthetic statements containing a posteriori knowledge that is only knowable from experience and not by definition.
Feb 25, 2023 23 tweets 5 min read
Here we go again... The EEF study of RWI and Fresh Start was considered a 'failed trial' by Stephen Gorard. This does not mean the interventions are not efficacious, it means that the trial's conclusions are not reliable.
Aug 24, 2022 9 tweets 2 min read
It would appear that we can learn many of English's spelling patterns just from reading (Treiman, 2018), through regular exposure and statistical learning (Saffran et al., 1996) - the assumption on which whole language theory (Goodman, 1972) is based. However, it seems that even more effective for the acquisition of accurate spelling are structured occasions for analysis of letter patterns (Graham and Santangelo (2014). We tend to learn more of what we directly attend to (McArthur and Castles, 2017).
Apr 13, 2022 10 tweets 2 min read
Whole language theorists linked their approaches to Chomsky's (1965) findings that indicated that language has an instinctive, genetic foundation. This was supported by Bickerton's (1992) findings that children naturally injected complex grammatical structures into pidgin languages to form Creole languages when isolated from their pidgin speaking parents with no instruction...
Apr 13, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
They have history...In 2012 the NUT opined that ‘Most adults do not read phonically. They read by visual memory, or they use context cueing to predict what the sentence might be…’ (Mulholland, 2014: 13). ‘Mixed methods’ (Mulholland, 2014: 13), they stated, were essential. The NAS/UWT, concurred that children ‘…need to use a combination of cues such as initial letter sounds and illustrations to make meaning from text…’ (politics.co.uk, 2013:3).
Dec 21, 2021 9 tweets 2 min read
Perfetti (1991) implied that the Simple View of Reading was, perhaps, not simple enough. If, he suggested, the phonology of English is known and how the orthography of printed English works then it is possible to turn a non-word or rare word into a phonemic equivalent.
Dec 3, 2021 7 tweets 1 min read
'The most important impact of weaknesses in the ability to process phonological information is to make it very difficult for children to understand and apply the alphabetic principal in deciphering unfamiliar words in print...' '...These early difficulties in acquiring phonemic decoding skills lead directly to delays in the development of orthographic reading skills which are one important basis of fluent reading...'
Nov 22, 2021 11 tweets 2 min read
This does not appear to be supported by any body of research. Converging evidence seems to identify the core phonological deficit model (Stanovich, 1988) as the most accommodating explanation of dyslexia. This indicates that most poor readers have difficulty segmenting, blending and manipulating the phonemes that they hear in spoken words (Rayner et al., 2012).
Nov 3, 2021 19 tweets 3 min read
Perhaps it's worth starting with the issue that CA attempts to alleviate: the building of phonemic awareness (as opposed to phonological awareness - more here - thereadingape.com/single-post/20… Many beginning readers find it very difficult to detect phonemic sequences in spoken words (Liberman, 1999) as 'the explicit awareness of phonemic structures depends on metalinguistic abilities that do not come free with the acquisition of language' (Shankwieler et al. 1986:142).
Oct 24, 2021 20 tweets 3 min read
'Therefore, it appears that most children with early reading problems benefit from supplemental decoding instruction, whether or not they are diagnosed with dyslexia.' (Rayner et al., 2012:357). Should children fail to receive appropriate instruction, however, they do not appear to grow out of their reading difficulties (Shaywitz et al., 1999).
Oct 9, 2021 11 tweets 2 min read
Thanks and glad you found it useful. Probably my misinterpretation of the question... Repeated reading is older and based on Berge and Samuels (1974) model of automaticity with pupils reading text aloud with teacher monitoring rate and marking miscues. These are then addressed and text is read again.
Aug 7, 2021 14 tweets 2 min read
Such an interesting question and why Hebrew is such an important language for research purposes. It is indeed highly transparent - each letter and vowel diacritic (vowels are notified by the use of accent marks) has only one value. NB these vowel diacritics are dispensed with eventually which makes the language more opaque but faster to read - a problem for older, struggling readers of Hebrew.
Aug 6, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
'According to the self-teaching hypothesis, orthographic learning (word reading) is severely constrained by decoding proficiency, hence any decoding deficits will be detrimental to orthographic learning... ...Poor decoders, therefore, should be unable to attain levels of orthographic learning comparable to normal decoders....
Jul 24, 2021 5 tweets 1 min read
Children have had up to four years of language exposure prior to any formal reading instruction. As seems intuitively cogent, the amount and quality of this language exposure appears to have a significant effect on children’s reading development (Nation, 1998; Ouellette, 2006). However, perhaps surprisingly, this is by increasing vocabulary not by a magical preparation for exposure to print.
Jun 20, 2021 10 tweets 3 min read
Yes, Destination Reader does appear to be a predominately 'comprehension skills' approach with 'text detectives', inference and prediction elements with a SATs prep element (3 mark answers) all tied together with a dialogic element and a focus on pupil engagement. As such, it lacks a coherent and systematic approach and seems to assume an advanced state of orthographic development for all KS2 pupils - always dangerous. It does have some whole class reading but demands more unmonitored independent reading and peer reading.
Apr 12, 2021 6 tweets 1 min read
The US seem more aware of the issue and have new assessments (PARCC and Smarter Balance) which are explicitly aligned to the Common Core State Standards. These focus more on pupils providing evidence from texts to support answers and organise texts by disciplinary areas also requiring synthesis across text and the construction of written arguments based on text sets.
Apr 11, 2021 5 tweets 1 min read
Rereading Anderson et al.'s (1977) study on the effect of knowledge on the interpretation of ambiguous text passages... Participants, who had enrolled in either a weightlifting class or music class, read two ambiguous passages each with two possible interpretations (prison/wrestling and cards/music). They then retold the passages and completed a multiple choice quiz for each passage.
Apr 9, 2021 9 tweets 2 min read
Whole word reading instruction was rooted in Cattell’s (1886) research. He carried out a series of laboratory studies at Wundt University in Germany utilising tachistoscopic techniques which measured eye fixation times on letters and words (Rayner et al., 2012). Cattell (1886) discovered that in ten milliseconds a reader could apprehend equally well three or four unrelated letters, two unrelated words, or a short sentence of four words - approximately twenty-four letters (Anderson and Dearborn, 1952).
Mar 31, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
Fluency is a continuum and not a threshold. It develops after orthographic skills (automatic word recognition) become embedded - the bottleneck in reading development. This appears to be self-taught (Share, 2004) so requires heavy reading mileage and presentation of words. Don’t rush through this in a race to fluency and comprehension. Instant word recognition is a key development phase and is predicated on significant code knowledge. Hence the vital contribution from decodable texts.