Why Do So Many Students Have Reading Problems? Are We Teaching It Wrong?

Format

Individual Presentation

Presenters

Dee R. Tadlock, Central Washington UniversityFollow

First Presenter's Institution

Central Washington University and Read Right Systems

First Presenter’s Email Address

deet@readightcom

First Presenter's Brief Biography

DEE TADLOCK earned a Ph.D. in reading education in 1978. She has taught reading at every level from elementary school through graduate school and is currently adjunct faculty at Central Washington University. She is also Director of Research and Development for Read Right Systems, a consulting company in Washington State. Dr. Tadlock has been published in Journal of Reading, Phi Delta Kappan, Reading Psychology, and Adult Literacy & Basic Education. She is author of the book, Read Right! Coaching Your Child to Excellence in Reading, published by McGraw-Hill in 2005 and was nominated for the Brock Prize for Innovation in Education, placing third out of nine nominees.

Location

Session Eight Breakouts (Percival)

Strand #1

Head: Academic Achievement & Leadership

Strand #2

Head: Academic Achievement & Leadership

Relevance

Nothing is more fundamental to academic success than an ability to easily and comfortably get information from print. This presentation will offer an explanation for why so many students have reading problems and will explore a paradigm shift in the field of reading that holds great promise for enabling the quick elimination of reading problems and, for early readers, to assure they don't develop problems in the first place.

Brief Program Description

NAEP results reveal that 66% of 4^th, 8^th, and 12^th graders read below proficiency. Yet, we keep teaching reading in the same way. This presentation will define a needed paradigm shift by exploring two questions: How does the brain make excellent reading happen? How does the brain learn a process? Answers suggest major changes are needed in reading instruction.

Summary

Reading problems among children, teens and adults are seemingly inevitable and unsolvable. Yet, we continue teaching reading in the same way. Perhaps that's why we continue getting the same results. This presentation will describe a paradigm shift in the reading field. It will present and support the concept that the foundational skill and main event of reading is not identifying words; it is anticipating the author’s message. The brain must figure out how to plan, coordinate, and integrate numerous complex neural systems so such anticipation is possible. Phonics is necessary to read, but the brain doesn’t use phonetic information to figure out what the words are. It strategically samples such information as required to help anticipate the meaning. Once the anticipatory set is created, if the brain is uncertain about its validity, it uses phonics to make sure the anticipated meaning is the same as the author’s intended meaning.

The reality that reading instruction is not in alignment with how the brain learns a process will also be examined. All process learning happens and operates below the level of conscious awareness. Therefore, the process can’t be explicitly and systematically taught. Rather the educator must create an environment that compels the brain to figure out the implicit aspects for itself.

Research results with students participating in a reading intervention program reflecting the paradigm shift will validate the concept that we are teaching reading wrong and will demonstrate that even the most challenged readers can be quickly transformed to excellent readers. Suggestions for how this information can be used to help attendees’ students will be provided.

Evidence

The intervention model is supported by neuroscience:

The constructivist intervention model synthesizes language acquisition theory, linguistics, communication theory, and reading theory with cognitive psychology (particularly the role of prediction in cognition), interactive constructivism (particularly as presented via the accommodative/assimilative model first described by the work of Jean Piaget in Geneva), schema theory (particularly how it relates to procedural learning), and neurobiology. (The methodology rests heavily on the work of neurobiologist Gary Lynch from UC Irvine, from the joint work of Lynch and Richard Granger [originally from Yale, later with Lynch at UC Irvine], and from the work of Leon Cooper and James Anderson at Brown University. Even though the development of the methodology preceded the "back propagation" work of David Rumelhart, Geoffrey Hinton, and Ronald Williams, their work supports significant parts of the model.) The foundation of both the uniqueness and the power of the methodology rests on this synthesis.

Numerous effectiveness research projects have been done using a standardized, norm-referenced reading test as the measuring instrument and by using various state testing instruments. A third-party, gold-standard research study was conducted in four schools in Omaha, NE by Education Northwest a private, non-profit research organization. All attest to the effectiveness of an intervention model based on the theoretical constructs to be presented.

Learning Objective 1

Understand that inappropriately constructed neural circuitry is the root cause of reading problems and that the inherent plasticity of the brain means it is possible for the brain to remodel the network built to guide the process of reading so it operates appropriately

Learning Objective 2

Understand that procedural learning, including reading, operates and is learned implicitly—below the level of conscious awareness and realize that the implicit nature of procedural learning means that students need a constructivist environment to learn a process.

Learning Objective 3

5. Investigate common assumptions about what the brain must do to make excellent reading happen and present for consideration alternate assumptions that challenge traditional reading theory

Keyword Descriptors

intervention, remediation, reading, language arts, special education

Presentation Year

2023

Start Date

3-8-2023 9:45 AM

End Date

3-8-2023 11:00 AM

Recommended Citation

Tadlock, Dee R., "Why Do So Many Students Have Reading Problems? Are We Teaching It Wrong?" (2023). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 27.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2023/2023/27