Talk:Learning to read

New article

THE page lists ten of the most important reading intervention programs. All are research-based, as mandated by No Child Left Behind. I have included numerous references supporting the suggestions. Most people accessing this article will be looking for solutions, either as dyslexics, educators or parents of students with reading problems. I have eliminated repeated references to the same program. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by B7howlett (talk • contribs).

To say that these program are some of the "most important" interventions is a dubious claim. References to commercial programs should be removed. Recommend referring readers to sites where research about specific programs can be found. Adding Florida Center for Reading Research to See Also list.

smoran 11:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

comment

I am not the author of this material, but i think it hs merit. It still is not close to an encyclopedic style, but it is getting there. I think the material could be merged into the dyslexia page and that would be the better solution. It might be possible to include it as separate section on that page/ I'm no expert, but tthis doesn't seem hopeless. Please list for AfD. DGG 02:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

title is misleading. doesn't seem to me like it has anything to do with the actual content. most infomation could be gotten from dyslexia if not having some of this merged into it. also doesn't follow Wikipedia:Manual of Style. i support afd.--Tainter 04:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

This was tagged for speedy deletion as commercial spam. Iv've removed the tag as it doesn't appear to be so. It does, however, require cleaning up and Wikifying. DGG and Tainter, you are free to tag things for AfD yourselves if you wish, you do not need to vote on whether to tag or not. See this for the process, or give me a shout on my talk page if you need a hand. Tonywalton  | Talk 12:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

if it was marked as comecial spam then it was an accident. I just don't see why this article should be here when it can be merged into the dyslexia article or even deleted. if not then the title should definitly be changed. it doesn't represent the content of the article. you'd this the article was a hybrid artile on reading difficulties and dyslexia and not what is actually written in the article. i won't improve this article myself but i feel it should be if it isn't merged or deleted. of course sources need to be cited and the style is lacking. oh well. i have better things to do i suppose. --Tainter 05:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

where is the author--he should merge it. The title, btw was changed from Reading difficulties to the present one on the advice of an earlier editor. I do not intend to do the work either. DGG 06:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Name change

I propose a name change to "Reading skills acquisition" (thanks Abigail Marshall) - because that's exactly what this article is about. Please comment! Lova Falk 07:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Nobody commented, so I'll make the change. Lova Falk 09:00, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposed mergers

The content of this page is less about the process of learning to read and more about the difficulties that can occur in the process of learning to read. In addition to the lead paragraphs focusing on the difficulties, there are a number of notes throughout the article regarding intervention programs that address particular difficulties that can obstruct the learning process. The article needs to be refocused on how the learning process takes place.

Since this article's title asserts that it is about acquiring reading skills, it is appropriate to include the Stages of Reading Development as a section in this article.

Difficulties encountered in the process of learning to read can be summarized and included as a separate section in this article. If this is done, the dyslexia merger suggestion can be handled by adding a reference to the dyslexia article. smoran 12:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

No one has responded to my comments on this article yet. Can I assume that everyone currently interested in the article agrees that the article's title, "reading skills acquisition," implies that the topic covers a great deal more than difficulties that can obstruct the process of learning to read?

If no one responds in the next few days, I'll make the proposed changes.

Best,

Rosmoran 15:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Sami

you are correct about the content not matching the article title. The content regarding the problems with learning to read should be either on the Reading Disabilities or Dyslexia Articles.

However there is a need for an Article to describe in depth the skills that humans need to develop to be able to read text. I am acutely aware that there is no Agreed Working Model for reading text. Yes varioius academic researchers have published their own thoughts, but there are no peer reviewed scientific papers on this topic.

What is required is to create defintions of the various skills required to carry out the task of reading. Define how these skills interact when performing the task of reading. And how these skills change or evolve as we become more experienced readers and discuss issues such as speed reading etc. This is not my area of speciality, but this needs to be done so that there si some basis to begin to discover why some have problems aquiring these skills which should be described in the other articles mentioned above.

Best wishes

dolfrog 00:02, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Sami

the artilce "Developmental Stages of Reading" would probive this artilce with a good introducory section and would create a frame work for the structure of this article

best wishes

dolfrog 00:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Info removed from "Skills needed for proficient reading" section

I revised and tightened up this section, removing clearly POV statements and opinions. Info should now be much more encyclopedic; however, the section may need more in depth coverage of this topic area.

Removed text follows:

1. Auditory skills -- students with auditory processing difficulties often have problems learning to read. It takes a lot of auditory attention and memory to read.
2. Phoneme discrimination-- is almost as important to learning to read as phonemic awareness. Almost all the reasons that students have problems learning phonics are related to phoneme discrimination. Think about how hard the "short" vowel sounds for the letters a, e, i, o and u are to discriminate or how close the /m/, /n/ and /ng/ sound are and you will understand how discrimination issues impact reading.
3. Phonemic awareness -- regardless of age, students with reading difficulties have difficulties processing (hearing) all the sounds in words. ALL students with reading difficulties should be tested for phonemic awareness issues, using the C-TOPP (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. These tests reveal that students with reading problems don't hear and pronounce words accurately. Common phonemic awareness problems are the inability to accurately hear middle vowel sounds (related to the discrimination issue) so they hear bit for bat and pure for poor, or they don't hear all the sounds in consonant blends (yes, this is a phonemic problem not a phonics problem) so they hear bat instead of brat and coat for coast. Phonemic awareness in English requires much more than the simple segment and blend exercises used in some phonics programs. Phoneme manipulation is used in Sound Reading (www.SoundReading.com)[1] and Reading Reflex (www.readamerica.net)
4. Phonics -- is essential for reading an alphabetic language like English but shouldn't be a primary reading intervention. The National Reading Panel clearly states that phonemic awareness is essential for learning phonics. Why do some students learn phonics in a few months in first grade while others take years to learn phonics? Simply a lack of phoneme discrimination and phonemic awareness. Letters don't stick until the sound structure of a language is in place. The NRP didn't find any difference between phonics programs. Phonics programs that require massive amounts of training and years of instruction, such as Wilson Language (www.WilsonLanguage.com) are no more effective than brief, intensive programs like Sonday (www.sondaysystem.com).
5. Phonological Recoding is an advance on phonics, or decoding, programs. Many noted researchers, including Bruce McCandliss, Donald Shankweiler, DL Share, GB Thompson, CM Fletcher-Flinn and Howlett (in press) are crafting powerful alternatives to systematic phonics. Skilled readers use a lot more information to decode words than just sounds and symbols. We have phonological and semantic information about the word from speech. And English has many homophones and words that are similar in sound, so "contextual checking" is essential. Think about these sentences -- He wound the cloth around the wound. Do you produce produce? Polish men don't polish. Recoding uses all the information we have about a word, or knowledge source, to recode a written word into a meaningful spoken word. McCandliss' Word Building and Sound Reading Solutions [2] are example of recoding instruction. If a student is taking a long time to learn phonics and it is not translating into reading power recoding may be the answer.
6. Fluency -- recent research by Good (creator of (DIBELS) and Torgesen have found that about 95% of students that read at greater than 110 words a minute pass fourth grade state assessments and about 80% who read at less than 80 words per minute fail to meet state reading standards. Teaching decoding without teaching fluency is of little value. Fluency instruction includes two important parts -- rapid naming practice so students become fluent in the reading of sounds, syllables and words, followed by timed repeated reading of short, easy-to-read passages. Fluency Foundation uses both and Read Naturally is a good program using timed, repeated reading.
7. Comprehension is also a two-level system. Most comprehension instruction focuses on higher-level language comprehension and strategies, which are very important. Most of these skills and strategies are taught in elementary school, so older students who were struggling to read will need basic comprehension instruction. They must learn to think about the meaning of print, from predicting to inferring. But many students who struggle with comprehension have overlooked input, or receptive language, comprehension issues. They struggle with accurately reading words, do it too slowly to keep words in memory, with word and sentence meaning. This is often the result of auditory and phonological issues.
8. Read, read some more, then read -- This works best when students are reading accurately and fluently. Most students who resist reading are labored readers who struggle with decoding and fluency. Have your child or student read out loud. If the reading is labored at all then reading more may not help. If the student is reading well then encourage reading, even if it is Captain Underpants!

Skills required for proficient reading

This section seems to be largely redundant with the introduction. While it does contain expansion of ideas, I'm not sure that the same information cannot be conveyed through simple wikilinking. Is there any objection to removing the section? --Moonriddengirl 18:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

There are, of course, infinite ways to present information, and the content of this section is no exception. However, the "expanded" content of the section should remain in the article. This material could be combined into a more extensive lead section, which is a model used by many Wiki articles.

As long as we don't lose any content, I don't care how it's presented.

Best,

Rosmoran 05:15, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Chall piece

I am not sure I understand why the Chall section is included. There is no doubt that Chall was influential and that her ideas were great, but I think it might make more sense to supplement the NRP component with the simple view of reading and Scarborough's "rope" of reading (2001 in the Handbook of Early Childhood Literacy, Dickinson and Neuman Eds. ... If you haven't seen it, Google Scholar the book and find the graphic; it's on p. 90 or so). This is more contemporary and much more widely known than the Chall approach. The simple view actually might be a better way to lead and the NRP would then dovetail nicely with this. What are others' thoughts? Kearnsdm (talk) 04:48, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

There was another article called "Developmental Stages of Reading" that contained the Chall information. Several months ago there was a decision made to merge the two articles, making the Chall information a section in this article.

I don't have an issue with your suggestion --- it's a good idea. Plus, including graphics is "good" for visual presentation and would make the article look more polished.

Rosmoran (talk) 11:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

reading skills acquisition

Skills acquisition —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.26.25.6 (talk) 04:25, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

deleted non-global example

Deleted the following example which only applies to the USA and some other English speaking countries. Which does meet the Wikipedia global content requirement

"The following example illustrates the dysfluency that this can create. Without looking ahead, begin to sound out the following word, left to right, using letter-sound knowledge. The first letter is b, the sound of which is- try to say it. The second letter is o. If you said the sound of b was buh, you have some revision to do since you have ended in a vowel sound that does not allow for blending with the o. But how does the o sound? Now you have bo. What does it sound like? The o could be long or short. Try bou, bough. At this point you might have begun to appreciate that the vowel is not knowable until you reach the end of the syllable, i.e., until you have considered the full rime. Now try bought." dolfrog (talk) 16:01, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Class Assignment Editing

Template:WAP assignment
Beginning at the top, we feel like the title should be changed to "Learning to read English"
In the Introduction we feel like it needs to be:

1. expanded
2. include overview of contents fround throughout the article
3. there needs to be a reference for the definition
4. make a specific reference that this article is for parents who have children learning to read or people who helping teach others to read.
5. put in that the brain and genetics influence reading, but that is not the focus of this article
6. move the links to phonics and synthetic phonics down the section on methods of teaching reading
   

Writing Systems
In this section we feel that:

1. the title and purpose should be changed to towards focusing more on the history of learning to read.
2. references are needed in this section
   

Cognitive Skills of Reading
We feel this this section contains a lot of good useful information, but:

1. it needs to be expanded more.
2. needs to include the whole word method
3. described the benefits and drawbacks of each approach
4. moved down a section below skills required to read
5. and also change the title to cognitive styles of reading
   

Skills required for proficient reading when using a Latin alphabet writing system

1. include all of the skills listed by the NRP in the descriptions
2. Skill definitions need references
3. Edits to all skill definitions
4. Add back in from discussion page Auditory Skills
5. Also add back in from Discussion page the #8 Read, Read some more, then read
   

Methods of teaching reading In this section we feel that it:

1. needs an introduction
2. and edits need to be made to each section
3. and include whole word method
   

Reading Difficulties This section needs to be:

1. defined beyond the definition
2. linked to the official dyslexia article

Those are our ideas for improving this page.

Alk4hgirl (talk) 01:24, 16 October 2011 (UTC) Sngriffi (talk) 01:24, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello Alk4hgirl and Sngriffi.
It appears you have taken on a rather contentious article! Be sure you have considered carefully the talk history before you proceed. Clearly there have been many issues and changes to this piece. They must be kept in mind as you edit. A few comments at this early point.

Although I think your change of title is an interesting idea, I think that it would be controversial. This is particularly true since I don't see much that you plan to do that focusses on English. Are there other articles about reading other scripts that could be linked or mentioned that might warrant a focus at least on alphabetic scripts? This is worth considering.

You suggest indicating that the article is about children learning to read OR teaching someone to read. Do you mean children? Would the information here be relevant to teaching an adult to read? Could/Should it be made relevant?
Why is there a Writing Systems section at all if it doesn't link to reading? Might this be a place to indicate whether the many different writing systems place differing or identical demands on the reader. This would be a way to acknowledge that all readers don't read English and set up a situation where those who know more about reading in non-alphabetic systems could add a section addressing that.

I frankly don't understand the Cognitive Skills of Reading section, nor do I find that changing to Cognitive Styles is any clearer. I would consider removing this all together. It seems to repeat what will be said elsewhere about teaching styles.

Not clear why the super long title using Latin Alphabet system is needed. Could it be shortened? Is it the case that non-Latin but still alphabetic languages are read differently? Here is a place where you really need to attend tot eh discussion If you are putting back in skills that were removed, you need to have a good reason for doing so and furthermore say what the reason is here on the talk page.
I can see why you want to clarify the very wordy definition of dyslexia that is used. I would however be careful not to try to say too much. A link to a resaonably well developed page (as I believe Dyslexia is) should not drown in extra information. The most important thing to do would be to link learning to read (the subject of this article) with dyslexia.
I don't see where Alk4hgirl is going to put her info on the prereading experiences that set the stage for reading. Am I missing that? Otherwise, this is looking very good.
Paula Marentette (talk) 23:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi guys! I saw that the DYK nomination has run into some problems. Looking at the article, in addition to the points raised by the DYK reviewer, here are some other things that need to be fixed:

• Need specific page numbers for the Wolf source, not just total number of pages in the book
• Tone needs to be neutral and encyclopedic. Keep in mind that this isn't an essay or persuasive work
• Writing systems section needs citation
• Bare URLs need to be properly formatted to include title, publisher and access date

Let me know if you need clarification on any of those points. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:35, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Hey sngriffi, Overall, very interesting topic, I suggest re-reading it to look for grammatical errors, maybe read it out loud with punctuation in mind (take breaths at the commas and pause for the periods) and see how it sounds? Some examples of what I am talking about are: "Other important skills are: rapid automatized naming (RAN),[65][66] a general understanding of the Orthography of the language .[67] [68] and practice. [69] [70]" Either the sentence is using the wrong punctuation or it is different thoughts, it needs to be clarified. "reader understands the word if it is in the reader's spoken vocabulary. Otherwise, the reader must" I think that it should be "vocabulary, otherwise, the reader must . . ."

Also, for having multiple references attached to 1 you need to find the first citation and put in the <> ref name= "whatever you want to call the short cut" then put in your reference then end the reference, and the next time you use the reference go <>ref name= whatever you called it / Hope this helps, if that doesn't make sense go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources and look at the repeated sources section. Good luck with the submission! Hkyoung01 (talk) 23:45, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Learning to read/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Maclean25 (talk · contribs) 02:58, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Good article review (see Wikipedia:What is a good article? for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   1a. The prose is mostly quite decent, but there are many instances where it is too generalized or oddly specific. A list is provided below of issues. 1b. Insufficient introductory section. See WP:LEAD. Inappropriate list in "Methods of teaching reading".

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   This is a broad level article and requires coverage of alternate languages. There is an inappropriate focus on English-speaking countries and alphabet-based writing systems.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   Backed by academic literature, no undue weight to fringe theories.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   Productive editing has been occurring.

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   No images are used. The GA criteria enables images to be added but doesn't require them.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   Comments:

   I understand this is part of a class project: Wikipedia:Canada Education Program/Courses/Psychology of Language9APSWI323. I'm not an expert in this subject but since I have a newborn now I should probably learn about this topic. I will make minor edits to the article as I see fit, but I will list major edits here for the editors to take care of. maclean (talk) 02:58, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

   • 1b. From WP:LEAD, the lead requires a "summary of its most important aspects" and "should be able to stand alone as a concise overview".
   • 1a. Questions about the writing:

   • In "Writing systems", An understanding of the writing system being employed in a text, and therefore understanding the spoken language associated with it, is critical to being able to read a text. - what specifically is meant by "an understanding"? This is touted as "critical" but the paragraph doesn't explain what the person is suppose to understand about the written and spoken language before they are able to learn to read.
   • In Acquiring language, As the child sits and listens and looking at the pictures, listening to ancient tales and new stories, they will slowly learn that all the different lines on each page make different letters and then these letters make words - Why is there an emphasis on sitting in this paragraph? The next paragraph indicates that it is the 'feeling loved' that is important, not the act of sitting.
   • In Acquiring language, If a child only receives a few tales and very few stories are told to them and little language is learned, the child will start to fall further and further behind before reading can actually even begin - what is the difference between tales and stories that is being made here? I don't follow the 'falling behind before the child starts', do you mean a learning disability?
   • In Acquiring language, This begins the ideal process of the beginning of what some researchers call emergent or early literacy - if you want to start a new paragraph, specifically say what 'This' refers to. 'some researchers'? so other researchers call it something else? Review the paragraph structure in this section. One paragraph = one idea. In this section I see two ideas (importance of exposure to information and importance of interaction with a caregiver).
   • In "Reading Development", avoid addressing the reader (ie. "our ancestors", "you can teach children...", "you will find these", "that you view what you read", "you have more", "you have experienced")
   • In "Novice Reader", To do this, the child must first figure out the Alphabetic principle that actually took our ancestors thousands of years to discover, but now a child has to figure this process out in only a few short years - globalize that "must first figure out the Alphabetic principle" (according the the Alphabetic principle this is only true for alphabetic writing systems).
   • In "Fluent, Comprehending Reader", These readers at this stage, they leave the surface layers of text to explore the wondrous terrain that lies beneath it. - not grammatically correct and too informal (wondrous terrain? just say what you mean).
   • In "Fluent, Comprehending Reader", There are two ways in which this stage can be aided by. They are: explicit instruction by a child's teacher in major content areas and the child's own desire to read - this should be one sentence
   • In "Fluent, Comprehending Reader", When children are able to engage in conversation with their teachers, this allows them to ask critical questions and to get at the heart of what they are reading - not grammatically correct.
   • In "Fluent, Comprehending Reader", are starting to become automatic which gives the reader time...with every newly won millisecond - I understand you are trying to make a point about the time it takes to read but it is not being presented here clearly.
   • The last sentence in "Reading difficulties" ends with a quotation mark, but I don't see where the quote begin: "an individual to developing dyslexia."

   • 3a & 3b. "Methods of teaching reading" seems to be exclusively focused on English-speaking countries.
   • 3a & 3b. "Reading difficulties" - is dyslexia the only reading difficulty? Why is the title plural?

Conclusion

I've put the review on hold until the end of your course; I will fail it if the above issues are not addressed. The above list is not exhaustive, but highlights the two biggest problems: insufficient comprehensiveness and prose quality for Good Article status. The major issue to work on is expanding the scope of the article to include learning to read languages other than alphabet-based writing systems. Wikipedia is a collaborative project so anyone in your class (including your instructor) should be able to help edit this article. maclean (talk) 00:16, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

• There has been some positive editing to the article but after 2 weeks, issues still remain. Due to the reasons noted above, this article does not meet the GA criteria. maclean (talk) 20:34, 4 December 2011 (UTC)