Self-regulation part 2: Linking Metacognition and Self-regulation

Executive Functioning
This blog follows on from an earlier blog that I wrote after Christmas where we looked at the idea that children, when they are very young, develop self-regulation when faced with the situation of having to deny immediate self gratification in order to achieve a greater goal over time. It was obvious that children develop different degrees of self-control and the lack of self-regulation can lead to a diminished ability to learn independently. In school many children with literacy-related learning difficulties are at a disadvantage because the delay in development of adequate self-regulation becomes an executive functioning problem.

Metacognition is a type of executive functioning that enables learners to control their own learning behaviours and develop more effective self-regulated strategies. Matt Bromley has written a very good summary  of the "Educational Endowment Foundation's" (EEF) Teaching and Learning Tool kit report which outlines much of the recent work on metacognition and parallels my own  research since 2006.  In "Reading Comprehension: Assisting children with learning difficulties "(2011) I used similar ideas to help children who were struggling with reading comprehension and self-regulation.  Around this time I developed an intervention comprehension program that utilised a conceptual framework that could be applied in multiple learning contexts. The program became known as the "COR Literacy Framework"  and was implemented in many schools in Queensland with Independent Schools Queensland in partnership with Griffith University.

Literacy framework incorporating metacognition & self-regulation 
At first it was envisaged to be used to train teachers and teacher aids during 2008 but it was such a huge success that it was extended for another three years. During this time the framework was improved through a number of iterations, due, impart to the feedback I received from many teachers that took part in the research. Initially it began as an intervention program for children with reading comprehension difficulties for upper primary students but it was found to include a much wider application for children in lower primary and also in some high school settings. This was because the framework is not content specific but was built upon a metacognitive and self-regulation structure. I have a 12 part series of blogs, called "COR Literacy Framework Part#", where I discuss a number of teaching and learning principles and strategies that have contributed to the success of the program.

Product OR process ?
Many of the ideas that resulted from this research were applied in my first book (above) and also in "Developing literacy in the primary school" and "Developing literacy in the secondary school". I consider that metacognition, self-regulation and comprehension strategies should be taught explicitly in all school contexts from lower primary to secondary classrooms. However, often teachers are so focussed on teaching content (or product) that they neglect to concentrate on the process as well. The links above may help teachers have a more informed understanding of executive functioning in learning and when to apply the skills appropriately.

Woolley, G. E. (2011). Reading comprehension: Assisting children with learning difficulties. Dordrecht: Springer.

Woolley, G. E. (2014). Developing literacy in the primary classroom. London: Sage.

Barton, G. & Woolley, G. E. (2017). Developing literacy in the secondary classroom. London: Sage.

                     

                                                       

Reading Recovery

I just read a very disturbing article by Alexandra Smith in the Sydney Morning Herald dated 31^st December, 2017. The article reported on the New South Wales (N.S.W.) government’s decision to axe the $50 million dollar Reading Recovery program even though it may have had some impact on students who are really struggling with basic reading. The government claimed that gains were often short-lived. 

This is a concern because this very important decision was made with little consultation with educators, policy makers and caregivers. Furthermore, it has been timed to coincide with the Christmas/New Year's break when many educators, policy makers and caregivers are away on holidays. The government does acknowledge that there have been gains and that these gains were not followed up with ongoing support and consolidation. 

There are two essential questions that need to be answered: Has Reading Recovery been adequately implemented in New South Wales? and How has it been implemented elsewhere? Reading Recovery Council of North America, for example, wrote a very comprehensive report - ‘What evidence says about reading recovery?” They found there is substantial scientific evidence to support Reading Recovery’s effectiveness with lowest-performing first-grade students. They also stated that Reading Recovery does not claim to be the only solution to the nation’s reading problems. However, it seeks the right to be considered as an early intervention option for state and local educational authorities.

More recently on the ABC Radio National, Life Matters Program (Thursday 11^th February, 2016 11:58am)  What evidence says about Reading Recovery  Amanda Smith asked Dr Michael Bezzina, director of teaching and learning at the Catholic Education Office in Sydney, what he thought about Reading Recovery. He supported the continuation of Reading Recovery and stated, "We have a success rate of 90 per cent. Kids with English as a second language are doing better than the rest of the cohort… We've tracked our ex-Reading Recovery students over 20 years, and by year three those kids who were in the lowest 20 per cent of readers in year one, 20 to 30 per cent are in the top two bands of the NAPLAN test."

If there is compelling evidence for the effectiveness of the program then why axe it? Maybe, I can offer some insights from my own research into literacy and learning difficulties. Many research studies have attested to the efficacy of individualised tutoring program, not only in literacy but also in mathematics as well. My own research has supported this. Reading Recovery is one that has been around since the 1970s and so needs to reflect change in line with ‘evidence based’ research. The reading Recovery Council of North America maintained that ‘policy makers have the responsibility to consider evidence from a wide range of perspectives and validated research models.” The question is, has this change taken place systematically in N.S.W. in the light of recent research?

Reading Recovery is, however,  not a panacea for all literacy problems. The reason that it targets children in year 1 is that it is an early intervention program that is meant to supplement other literacy lessons in the classroom. Its purpose is to provide extra meaningful literacy opportunities in a direct and systematic way. It was not meant to replace other literacy activities (such as phonic lessons)  in the classrooms but to compliment them. Thus, an early intervention program, such as Reading Recovery should be in integrated part of a comprehensive literacy effort.

Reading Recovery was not meant to be a remedial reading program but a preventative measure for students that are at risk of failure. In most cases these students tend to have poor language exposure and poor experiences with book reading at home before starting school. They usually require extra literacy input to give them the necessary skills to keep pace with their more literate peers. On the other hand, students with specific learning difficulties most likely will not benefit from Reading Recovery as they need to have their specific learning problems addressed, often with a program that addresses their particular needs. 

In conclusion: Reading Recovery should:

1. be an integral part of an overall year 1 program for students who are considered to be at risk of failure at school;
2. not include students that have a specific learning difficulty;
3. include ongoing training and  improvement in light of recent research; 
4. offer diversity by being included as one of several approaches, according to need; and 
5. supplement other literacy activities in the classroom rather than being a replacement for them.

Reading: In Perspective

A balanced approach is best for teaching kids how to read

Stewart Riddle, University of Southern Queensland

We all want young children to be given the very best opportunities to become successful, engaged and passionate readers. The teaching of reading is constantly mired, however, in a tired old debate between proponents of “phonics” (sounding out words) and “whole language” (which focuses on meaning and using the context to decipher unknown words).

This argument is an unhelpful and misleading dichotomy given the evidence actually supports a balanced approach to literacy, which goes well beyond being able to recognise words on a page.

What is a balanced approach to literacy?

The biggest review of scientific research on reading was conducted by the US National Reading Panel in 2000. The panel was clear in finding:

Systematic phonics instruction should be integrated with other reading instruction to create a balanced reading program.

The panel argued that a balanced approach incorporates phonemic awareness and phonics (understanding the relationships between sounds and their written representations), fluency, guided oral reading, vocabulary development and comprehension.

The report also stated:

Phonics should not become the dominant component in a reading program, neither in the amount of time devoted to it nor in the significance attached. It is important to evaluate children’s reading competence in many ways.

A 2005 Australian National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy supported this balanced approach, with the use of synthetic phonics recommended in the first couple of years of schooling for beginning readers.

Similarly, the UK 2006 reading review recognised:

Word recognition is a time-limited activity that is eventually overtaken by work that develops comprehension.

Of course there are differences in what the balance might look like in different classrooms and across different year levels. However, claims that teachers are using a little bit of phonics and a lot of whole language in Australian schools are wrong. Referring to balanced literacy as a mess of methods simply shows a lack of understanding about how classrooms operate.

A balanced approach provides us with a best-practice model for teaching all students how to read and write across all stages of their education.

Literacy isn’t just about learning how to read

It is important to remember that literacy learning is broad and takes place at all levels of schooling. It’s not just about learning to read in the early years. The current focus on phonics as a fix-all for struggling readers is problematic as it misses the complexities of literacy learning.

Being literate requires a much broader repertoire of skills than simply reading and writing as the decoding and encoding of printed words. The ability to make meaning from texts, ask questions and read between the lines is, in many ways, much more important.

Paulo Freire, the much-respected Brazilian educator, called this Reading the World and Reading the Word. To teach our students to do any less would be the real failure.

What needs to be done

The recent report into teacher training recommends that all student teachers be taught literacy, not just primary teachers.

This is already happening in many universities. For example, I teach a literacy course with students who are studying to be high school teachers in areas such as mathematics, physics, health and physical education. We investigate the literacy requirements of each subject and the teaching of reading and writing within those contexts.

However, just as important is the ongoing professional development and mentoring offered to teachers working in schools. We need to provide all teachers with the opportunities and tools to engage in literacy teaching that goes beyond just recognising words on a page.

The problem is that education research is so seldom used to inform education policy and practice. The seemingly endless cycle of reviews and reforms create a sense of frustration and fatigue, particularly for classroom teachers who are constantly placed under pressures to implement this new curriculum or that new school-wide strategy, improve NAPLAN results, and so on.

It is made worse by ideological divisions in research, where large-scale randomised control trials are assumed to be the only valid form of research, to the exclusion of smaller case studies, ethnographic projects, classroom interventions and other more qualitative approaches. We should be seeking out new ways to explore how children learn to read, rather than discounting different methods for one tried-and-tested approach.

A 2007 review of literacy research in Australia argued:

More effective and forward-looking understanding of literacy teaching is important for researchers, teachers, learners and the societies they inhabit.

The best way forward would be for researchers from diverse fields, including education, psychology and speech pathology, to get together and work in ways that cross over the arbitrary boundaries. Perhaps this would finally get us off the merry-go-round of the reading wars, which really help no-one.

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Editor’s note: Stewart will be answering questions between 1 and 2pm AEDT on Wednesday February 18. You can ask your questions about the article in the comments below.

Stewart Riddle, Senior Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Working-memory, attention control and reading comprehension.

There is a condition often referred to as the year four slump which affects a large number of students and their reading ability. Many of these children enter grade four with identified reading difficulties despite having adequate phonic and decoding skills.  One reason for this is the increased complexity of sentence structures at this stage and that reading for understanding rather than learning to read becomes the focus.

Often general language problems are the basis for student difficulties rather than inadequate phonic skills. Research suggests that these children have inadequate oral language skills including verbal knowledge, and listening comprehension. This is because listening comprehension requires the learner to encode incoming words using aural signals, transform the coded information into a mental representation, integrate this representation into existing knowledge structures and store the new knowledge into long-term memory. Poor listening comprehension has a negative impact on the ability to read for understanding. This is because listening comprehension facilitates reading comprehension and shares many of the same cognitive processes.

Working memory also influences the ability to process incoming information during listening or reading. It has a limited capacity for holding information while readers process aural or written meanings, particularly when it is necessary to think about or solve problems while mentally processing the message. One factor that limits working memory capacity is the ability to attend to information that is central to the reader's learning goals. Obviously, if working-memory has a limited storage capacity then it is absolutely imperative that the reader/listener is able to filter and attend to the most important information. One major problem is that many students either attend to unimportant information or mind-wander while reading. Obviously, if readers do not have clear goals and are not motivated to achieve them they will be more likely to take in superfluous information or develop mind-wandering tendencies while reading. Mind-wandering takes place when the reader/listener entertains thoughts that are irrelevant to the task at hand. This will occur in individuals who lack prior experience with the topic or interest.

Self-efficacy influences reading attention effort, reading engagement, and persistence in the face of distractions. It is related to a person's belief in his or her own ability to perform a task at a desired level.  As students become more self-aware those with learning difficulties will, most likely, have lower self-efficacy. This will affect the willingness of individuals to develop adequate goals, persist at attaining those goals and allocate attention effort.

How then can we support the student who is affected by this reading comprehension slump?

1. Give the student reading material that is at a reasonable level of ease. A rule of thumb is that word accuracy should be around 90-96% accuracy level. 
2. Develop an interest in the topic, or develop a topic around the student's interest. 
3. Make sure that the student is familiar with the language and that unfamiliar words are discussed. Adequate discussion before a reading activity is just as important as the reading activity itself.
4. Fill in the knowledge and experience gaps before reading e.g. go on an excursion or watch a video and follow-up with lots of discussion. Students can learn a lot from each other if they are given an opportunity to share their experiences.
5. Develop shared and clear learning goals. Make sure that the students are taking responsibility for their goals. Readers will generally persist in the face of difficulty if they have a goal that they value.
6. Develop self-efficacy by encouraging them to be reflective learners. Always give feedback by relating success to the amount of effort that students expend.

For more about this topic read:

Cho, E., Roberts, G. J., Capin, P., Miciak, J., & Vaughn, S. (2015). Cognitive attributes, attention, and self-efficacy of adequate and inadequate responders in a fourth grade reading intervention. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 30(4), 159-170.

Robinson, M. K., & Unsworth, N. (2015). Working memory capacity offers resistance to mind-wandering and external distraction in a context-specific manner. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 29, 680-690.

Peer2Peer: Mentoring

Most children have the potential to achieve and succeed in their life goals. However, not all children receive the support that they need. In fact many students simply give up and drop out of school. One of the most effective ways to learn and succeed in academia is to link with a peer mentor. The word 'mentor' comes from the Greek word for 'steadfast' and 'enduring'. It is interesting to note that researchers have found that young people who overcome poverty to reach tertiary education often have a mentor  as a role model. The American 'Student2Student' program is an example of one such voluntary project that aims to develop this type of mentor and mentee relationship.

The Student2Student mentoring program gives American high school students the opportunity to mentor younger middle school and elementary school students. The program matches students with their future career interests. It provides an enriching platform to guide the younger student by connecting with older mentors with community resources. It benefits everyone. The mentor is given an opportunity to invest time and effort into guiding younger students while developing collaborative and leadership skills. Younger students benefit from this as they are guided in their future aspirations by linking to motivated older mentors and possibly developing connections to community and business interests.

In Australia there are at least 1 in 10 students of low socio-economic backgrounds that do not meet the minimum reading standards of the national tests (NAPLAN) in years 3, 5, 7, and 9. Over 40% of the adult population in Australia do not have adequate literacy skills to cope with the demands of modern society. Moreover, people with low literacy skills are less likely to complete school, more likely to be unemployed and on social security, as well as more likely to experience poor health. The 'Smith Family' is a charity organisation that believes that every child deserves a chance in life. They support more than 638,000 Australian children living in poverty. One of their major concerns is that children in low socio-economic circumstances receive the extra support with reading.

The Smith Family have a peer mentoring program also called 'student2student program. In their 2013 report, 'Improving through peer support: The student2student program' they give a summary of the effectiveness of peer support for reading. In this report they state "Literacy skills are central to an individual's employment prospects, the ability to manage one's health, be an informed consumer and an active citizen. Without solid literacy skills it is very difficult to achieve technological literacy and governments and businesses are increasingly using digital platforms to provide a range of services."

At the completion of their 2012 student2student program more than 9 out of 10 students (93%) showed an increase in their reading ages relative the the start of the program. Approximately 64% of the mentees made an overall gain of at least 6 months in their reading performance. Mentors generally agreed that they had enjoyed participating in the program, particularly when they saw evidence of their buddy's reading improvement and engagement. The report goes on to say, "There is considerable evidence on the effectiveness of using trained peer tutors in programs aiming to support children with reading difficulties (Woolley and Hay, 2007). Peer tutoring is based on co-operative learning, and when children are in an environment of mutual support, where co-operation, shared goals and a sense of responsibility for the reading process are promoted, a sense of belonging, accomplishment and increased motivation will be achieved (Grimes, 1981 cited in Woolley and Hay, 2007). The one-on-one nature of peer tutoring is seen as contributing to increasing the student’s engagement as well as maintaining their attention to the text for longer periods of time (Woolley and Hay, 2007). The last is important given the relationship between reading frequency and skill." 

Above are two peer mentoring support programs that have been highly successful. Even though they have a similar name their focus is slightly different. However, one wonders if the essential elements of both programs could be combined. This would simply mean matching older and younger students with the same interests.

References:

Grimes, L. (1981). Learned helplessness and attribution theory. Learning Disability Quarterly, 4, 91-100.

Woolley, G. E., & Hay, I. (2007). Reading intervention: The benefits of using trained tutors. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 30(1), 9-20.

Vocabulary Development for Readers with Autism

Reading expands the breadth of a reader’s vocabulary, which in turn contributes to reading efficiency.  In other words, the more you read the better reader you will become because a richer vocabulary gives more meaning to what is read. The opposite is also true, the less you read the poorer will be your vocabulary and the harder it will be for you to bring meaning to text. Normally, good readers learn most of their new words by using the context and their own experience of the world to add meaning. Often this meaning will initially be a gross approximation to the actual meaning of the word. However, after many encounters with the same word in a variety of contexts the reader will refine the depth of meaning and also see how meaning can change from one context to another.

Many children who have mastered decoding may have difficulty with reading comprehension, particularly after year four. This is because the language structures are much more complex, much of the vocabulary is unfamiliar, the types of texts differ from the more familiar narrative structures that they have been accustomed to in the lower grades, and the emphasis or focus shifts from decoding to comprehension. Often children with language deficits will struggle and appear to fall behind at this point. Reading becomes harder and they tend to avoid reading, which then contributes to poorer vocabulary through lack of exposure to new and unfamiliar words. This becomes a self-defeating cycle of poor reading comprehension and reading disengagement.

In addition, many children with high functioning autism have good to very good decoding skills and have a reasonable amount of reading practice. However, they have more difficulty connecting meaning to new words. They tend to concentrate on the detail and not so much on connected text such as; phrases, sentences, paragraphs and longer discourse. They often have language deficits that hinder this process and have difficulty making appropriate inferences. This may include their inability to develop text coherence, understand emotion and other character traits in narrative texts and have difficulties with executive functioning in working memory. These problems make it difficult for them to connect with prior knowledge, use the sentence and story context, and make appropriate inferences about the meanings of unknown words. Thus, they may read more but their vocabulary suffers as they progress through the grades. Usually these children are very intelligent and are able to cover their comprehension deficit but there will come a time when the texts that they are assigned become too difficult to adequately comprehend. What also makes detection difficult is the fact that they may appear to be reading fluently with expression but without adequate comprehension.

To help these students there are some very practical ideas that have been suggested by Susan Gately (2008 see article for more details). I have listed many of these ideas below but have structured the methods in terms of my COR Literacy Framework (See earlier Blog) (also see my earlier Blog series on Fluency).

Perceptual Level:

•     Visually cued instruction – helps focus on relevant parts of information
•     Graphics
•     Colour
•    Provide concrete and tangible information
•    Focus in relevant parts of the story or information

Cognitive Level:

•    Priming background knowledge
•    Picture walks
•  Visual maps
•    Understanding narrative text structure
•     Emotional thermometers

Metacognitive Level

•    Think-alouds
•      Reciprocal thinking (also refer to reciprocal teaching - Google)
•     Goal-structure-mapping
•     Decrease reliance on other prompts and increase independence

Details about these ideas can be found in:

Gately, S. E. (2008). Facilitating reading comprehension for students on the Autism Spectrum. Teaching Exceptional Children, 40(3), 40-45.

For a more detailed explanation of vocabulary difficulties see pages 83-84 in:

Woolley, G. (2007). A comprehension intervention for children with reading comprehension difficulties. Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 12(1), 43-50.

A very informative article and book chapter related to problems with vocabulary for children with ASD:

Lopez, B., & Leekham, S. R. (2003). Do children with autism fail to process information in context? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 44(2), 285-300.

Leekam, S. (2007). Language comprehension difficulties in Children with autism spectrum disorders. In C. Cain and J. Oakhill (Eds.), Children’s Comprehension Problems in Oral and Written Language: A Cognitive Perspective (pp. 104127), NY : Guilford Press.