Revisiting Views of Below-Basic Readers: Building on What They Know

• In Event: Interrogating Assumptions to Pursue Truth: Research That Reframes How We Talk About and Teach Readers

Abstract

Purpose: The approximately 35% of American fourth graders who perform below-basic in reading (NCES, 2019) have been described as nonreaders (Hanford, 2019) who need phonological decoding instruction (White et al., 2021). Yet those in the 6th to 35th percentiles read an average of 94 words correctly per minute on an oral reading fluency (ORF) task (Gray et al., 2018). In this study, we examined the words that below-basic students did and did not recognize from fall of Grade 3 to spring of Grade 4.

Perspectives: The perspective underlying this work is that reading instruction of below-basic readers should recognize both strengths and needs. New databases, word-feature research, and technology can closely link orthographic instruction to students' existing knowledge. Using accurate information of students’ word recognition may lead to more efficacious use of school time and to closing the achievement gap.

Methods

Sample. Data consisted of performance on the ORF task of the easyCBM assessment (Anderson et al., 2014) in fall of Grade 3 and spring of Grades 3 and 4. Three percentile groups, each with approximately 1,100 students, were formed to represent below-basic readers, using words read correctly per minute (WCPM) at the end of Grade 4: high (26 - 35P), middle (16 - 25P), and low (6 - 15P). The lowest group (1 - 5P) was not included due to a sharp decline in performance, indicating potentially different etiologies (Author, 2022a).

Criteria for known and unknown words. Words were classified as known if 90% or more of the students within the percentile group read them correctly and unknown if less than 90% of the group read them correctly.

Analyses of word features. Four features of words, predictive of word recognition (Author, 2022b), were analyzed:
Frequency: Predicted appearance of a word per million words of text (Zeno et al., 1995).
Length: Number of letters in word.
Familiarity: Age at which words enter into students’ oral language environments
(Kuperman et al., 2012).
Decodability: Ten progressively more complex categories (Fitzgerald et al., 2015), moving from CVC monosyllabic words to words with more than three syllables.

Results: For all three groups, known words got progressively longer and decreased in frequency and familiarity across the three periods, while unknown words remained longer and less frequent and familiar than known words. Decoding profiles of low and middle groups moved from monosyllabic words (low: vowel digraphs; middle: complex vowels) in fall Grade 3 to multisyllabic words in spring Grade 4 (low: two-syllable; middle: three-syllable). The high group was proficient with monosyllabic words in fall Grade 3 and recognized words with more than 3 syllables in spring Grade 4.

Scientific Contribution: Different decoding profiles of the three groups across the three testing periods illustrate the benefits of finely-tuned word study experiences for challenged readers. Curricular frameworks and technology are available to provide students with the guidance needed for proficient reading. Provision of such differentiated instruction requires a shift in how capabilities of challenged readers are viewed.

Authors

• Elfrieda H. Hiebert, TextProject
  Presenting Author

• Yukie Toyama, University of California - Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Robin Irey, University of California - San Francisco
  Non-Presenting Author

• Julie Alonzo, University of Oregon
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gerald A. Tindal, University of Oregon
  Non-Presenting Author