Mastery of reading – The ability to read with precision, automatically and with an appropriate expression – remains a critical but often neglected component of the development of literacy. According to the national evaluation of educational progress (NAEP), 68% of American students do not read at competent levels. In the fourth year, students go from Learn to read has read to learn. The research shows that around 1.27 million public students are below NAEP BASIC and fight with mastery of reading the connected text. Understanding and fighting control have become more and more urgent for educators, administrators and parents.
Recently, Edsurge spoke with Dr Timothy RasinskiProfessor Emeritus of Educational Education in Kent State University, where he has led a reading clinic for difficulty readers for over 20 years. With more than 200 published articles and more than 50 books on reading education, Rasinski has devoted almost 40 years to studying reading mastery and helping readers in difficulty become competent. Sténford University studies in 2021 and 2023 identified it as being Among the 2 percent of scientists in the world.
EDSURGE: Can you explain why the fluidity of reading is such a critical element of the mastery of global reading?
Rasinski: The mastery of reading is a critical bridge connecting the study of words to understanding, comprising two major skills: phonetics (decoding of words) and understanding (make sense from the text). It develops through an extended practice and consists of two key aspects:
- Automaticity: The ability to recognize words effortlessly, allowing to focus on understanding. The problem is that we have students who learn phonetics but do not develop it at this next level where it becomes automatic recognition.
- Prosody: The ability to read with an expression that reflects the meaning of the text. We often do not consider it important in reading because we associate it with oral reading, but most readers will tell you only when they read, they hear this inner voice. We must develop in our students this ability to read expressively, not only orally, but with this internal voice when they read silently.
Automaticity and prosody are developed through an intentional practice, just like an athlete or a musician developed control of his own field.
What brought me into the concept of master’s degree was an article written by Richard Allington in 1983 called “Fluency: the neglected reading objective. “He has written that we all know what control is to say if it is a problem simply listening to children to read for a minute. The problem, he said, is what do we do on this subject? In 1983, the answer was not much. It had been neglected. My argument is that we have put so much effort to teaching phonetics and understanding that the mastery has been left. Mastering a more central element of our reading program.
Connie Juel conducted research years ago that revealed that if children are not competent readers at the end of the first year, there is a 88% chance that they will remain bad readers at the end of the fourth year. When we look at reading models, like that of Jeanne Chall, we see that The second and third year are identified as ages when children start to develop mastery. If master’s degree is not taught or is neglected in the second and third year, many children may not cross this bridge to understanding.
How do the mastery of current reading control and what false ideas exist?
The mastery of reading is part of the model as a conceptual bridge of phonetics to understanding, and the science of reading recognizes its importance. In 2000, the National Reading Panel, a group of experts assembled by the Congress to explore the scientific basis for reading teaching, Mastery of reading identified as essential for teaching reading.
A common way that we measure control is reading speed: the number of words that a child can read properly in one minute. Although it is a good measure of automaticity, it has unfortunately become the decisive characteristic of reading control for many well -intentioned teachers, who define their fluidity program as simply working on the increase in children’s reading speed.
However, the simple fact of bringing children to read more quickly does not necessarily improve their overall reading capacity. We want children to become fast readers like competent adult readers – by reading a lot. But for readers in difficulty, this in -depth reading must be carried out intentional.
The science of reading teaching is less clear than the science of reading itself. The challenge lies in how we make these scientific skills engaging and authentic for children while remaining based on science. This is where the art of teaching reading comes into play.
What strategies can teachers use to develop reading control?
I would like to share five basic strategies that we can use to develop mastery:
- Current reading modeling: Teachers and parents should read children regularly, demonstrating current reading.
- Assisted reading: This can involve reading with audio, a partner or in a group. Keith Topping’s “pair” reading program has shown Significant improvements in controlling global reading.
- Large reading: We want to encourage children to read as much as possible.
- Repeated reading: This improves control of the text practiced and generalizes it to other passages.
- Sentence: We want to help children learn to read in significant songs rather than in word by word.
The clever aspect of mastery teaching lies in the way teachers combine these elements. These five strategies are like colors on a palette. The teacher’s art is to choose the elements that will have the greatest impact on their students and meet their specific needs.
How can teachers make the teaching of mastery and authentic?
The integration of program control instructions can be effective. For example, we used historical speeches, such as “I Dream” by Martin Luther King and the inaugural address of John F. Kennedy, to create the theater scripts of the reader. This approach can also be integrated into other subjects. In mathematics, teachers may have written poetry or scripts featuring dialogues between geometric shapes.
Research from my colleague Lorraine Griffith Readers in difficulty in his class have made almost two years of progress in reading in just one year Using these methods. Since readers in difficulty generally make less than a year of progress for the teaching of one year, this approach shows significant potential.
What approaches work for early identification and intervention?
Early identification and intervention are crucial. At half year, average students should read around 30 words properly per minute. If a student is well below this, this is when the intervention must begin.
The clever reading instruction must be creative, authentic and aesthetic. This approach can transform reluctant readers into enthusiastic learners. In our reading clinic, a boy went from reading to impatient writing and the realization of his own poetry after having experienced this approach.
John Dewey pleaded for school activities to reflect real experiences. We must find ways to bring this authentic nature to the classroom. It should not be fair to finish a worksheet after another, which unfortunately occurs in certain classrooms.
The key to the effective teaching of mastery is to balance the science of reading with the art of teaching, providing intentional and intensive support while making the experience of learning authentic and pleasant for students. We must give our teachers permission to be artistic, creative, authentic and aesthetic in their instruction – not only in reading but in everything they teach.
Do you want to know more about the critical role of mastery? Dr. Rasinski shares ideas and strategies in this Webinar on demand.
