Pennington Publishing Blog

Sans Forgetica: The Font Which Improves Reading Comprehension?

As I copy and pasted the title of this article into the title frame of my wordpress blog, I was curious about how my computer would process this new font (typeface), developed by psychology and design researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne. As used in the Pinterest pin in the margin of this article, the letters are slanted and gapped. As you can see, the computer unslanted the letters and filled in the gaps to create the easily readable title, “Forget Sans Forgetica.”

Two Fill-In-The-Gap Theories

The computer did what psychologists have been telling us for years. The theory of “closure,” first popularized by Gestalt researchers at the University of Berlin in the early Twentieth Century, suggested that “the whole is something else than the sum of its parts.” In other words, our brain tends to create whole forms from partial visual input in a fill-in-the-blanks process. In fact, recent research seems to suggest that our brains not only process, but also actively create whole images and much more. We’ve all seen illustrations of this theory in optical illusions and fill-in-the-blank numbers.

braiden.com

A second related theory is that of “desirable difficulty.” The term was coined by Dr. Robert Bjork, professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. In a Jeff Bye’s article in Psychology Today, the author sums up the theory of “desirable difficulty” as  “introducing certain difficulties into the learning process can greatly improve long-term retention of the learned material. In psychology [sic] studies thus far, these difficulties have generally been modifications to commonly used methods that add some sort of additional hurdle during the learning or studying process.”

Whenever I read of new research in a field outside of education, which has possible relevance to my own teaching and writing (I’m a reading specialist and author), my interest is piqued. When I read that researchers suggest application of their research findings to teaching reading comprehension, my reading antennae begin to rise out of my head and my crap detector alarm goes off.

As a reading specialist, teaching in public schools for 36 years, I’ve seen quite a bit of application and misapplication of theory to practice. I’ve been there and done that through numerous latest and greatest reading innovations, including specific instructional practices related to both the psychological theories of “closure” and “desirable difficulty” detailed above.

The most recent misapplication of theory to practice to my mind involves the development of the Sans Forgetica font by a group of Australian researchers. I found out about it in Taylor Telford’s October 5, 2018 article in the business section of the Washington Post, titled “Researchers create new font designed to boost your memory.”

Telford concisely sums up the theory guiding this new reading intervention:

Psychology and design researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne created a font called Sans Forgetica, which was designed to boost information retention for readers. It’s based on a theory called “desirable difficulty,” which suggests that people remember things better when their brains have to overcome minor obstacles while processing information. Sans Forgetica is sleek and back-slanted with intermittent gaps in each letter, which serve as a “simple puzzle” for the reader, according to Stephen Banham, a designer and RMIT lecturer who helped create the font.

Professors in the RMIT’s Behavioural Business Lab conducted a research study with their own students in which students read texts in a variety of fonts and took assessments to determine the impact of the different fonts upon reading comprehension. According to researchers on the RMIT site, “the research group performed ‘far better on assignments.’” That research group being those students using the Sans Forgetica font.

In Post article, one of RMIT’s principal researchers, Dr. Blijlevens commented, “We believe it is best used to emphasize key sections, like a definition, in texts rather than converting entire texts or books”and …”the benefits of using Sans Forgetica will be lost if the font is used too often, because readers’ brains will become accustomed to reading the font as they would other common fonts.”

In a video on the RMIT’s Behavioural Business Lab webpage, another researcher from the study suggests that the Sans Forgetica font can be used “to aid all students in their study during the leadup to the stressful exam period.” The font is included in the suggested “study hacks” on the same web page.

My take? “Houston, we’ve got a problem.” Although the theories of “closure” and “desirable difficulty” certainly make sense and are generally applicable to many teaching strategies, this Sans Forgetica strategy to improve reading comprehension is nothing more than a gimmick, at best, to get readers to pay better attention to text. As noted above by one of the researchers, the pay-off of using this font is reduced “if used too often.”

I could suggest standing on one’s head, using colored transparencies layered over text, or reading to stuffed animals as similar gimmicks to trick readers into better concentrating on and engaging with text, but thankfully, these have all been tried and cast off onto the dustbin of misapplied reading instructional practices.

I have no doubt that the research group performed better in the RMIT Behavioural Business Lab’s study. However, researchers claim that it’s the “sweet spot” of this particular font as compared to other fonts which produced the statistically positive correlation to better comprehension. I disagree. I say that it’s the reader engagement with the text, not the font, which produces increased comprehension. The researchers should have included another control group in which their subjects would have received prior instruction and practice in any one of many reader engagement strategies, which use external stimuli to promote internal monitoring of text.

Bottom Line? Teachers and their students don’t need more reading fads. Instead of gimmicks to increase reader interaction with text, shouldn’t we look to external prompts which move readers to greater self-monitoring of text? For example, self-questioning strategies. See my FREE download of the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies self-questioning prompts below. The research is long-standing and clear that these reader-reminders can have significant and permanent impacts on improving reading comprehension by engaging the author-reader relationship.

Sans Forgetica? Fuh-get-about-it!

Focus practice more on the internal monitoring of text, such as with my five SCRIP reading comprehension strategies that teach readers how to independently interact with and understand both narrative and expository text to improve reading comprehension. The SCRIP acronym stands for Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict.

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic ELA and Reading Assessments FREE Resource:

Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary closure, desirable results, Gestalt, Mark Pennington SCRIP Comprehension Strategies, reading comprehension, reading comprehension strategies, reading fonts, sans forgetica, self-questioning strategies, Teaching Reading Strategies, washington post

Louise Rosenblatt developed the Reader-Response Theory, which posits that the reader’s personal feelings, knowledge, and experience contributes to the author’s text to create the meaning for the individual reader. Dr. Rosenblatt termed this creation of meaning “the poem.”

As theorists continued to work with her theory, they added the influence of the reader’s environment and social community as contributor’s to meaning.

In the New Criticism Movement of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, critics of Rosenblatt asserted the independence of the text as the source of meaning. They argued that only the text should be the arbiter of itself. According to these critics and their cousins, the Formalists, devolving meaning-making to the reader was akin to admitting that the meaning of the text is anything that the reader makes of it.

I, personally, see a melding of the opposing theories as an important impetus to improving reading comprehension. If reading comprehension is the understanding and retention of text, then both the author’s text and the reader have shared responsibility for meaning-making. That meaning-making is not in the exclusive control of the text. After all, there is an author behind the text. It is also not in the exclusive control of the individual reader. The reader is part of a larger community.

To better explain the relationship of the author’s text and the reader in the creation of meaning, this illustration may be helpful.

Reader-Response

Imagine sitting in your living room, looking at a garden through a window.

In our illustration, the garden is the author’s text; you, in the living room, are the reader; and the window is the meaning of the reading text. If the garden is closer to the window than you are, the author’s text has more control of or influence upon the meaning. If you are closer in the living room to the window than is the garden, you, the reader, have more control of or influence upon the meaning.

With author-centered texts, designed to inform, explain, and analyze, such as news articles, non-fiction, technical writing, legal text, and instruction manuals, the window is closer to the garden, because the reader’s comprehension is primarily text-dependent.

For example, with respect to the news article on the school shooting, we rely upon the expertise and accuracy of the news reporter to help us understand what happened. To put together a toy on Christmas Eve, we depend upon concise, step-by-step directions and a good picture on the box.

With reader-centered texts, designed to describe, entertain, or persuade, such as fiction, poems, editorials, social media posts, and songs, the window is closer to you, the reader in your living room. The input and filter of your personal feelings, knowledge, and experience are significant contributions to understanding the text.

For example, if you are listening to and reading the lyrics of Lennon and McCartney’s “With a Little Help from My Friends,” you, the audience, are intended to contribute meaning to the song. Some of the lyrics are intentionally ambiguous.

As the official Beatle biographer, Hunter Davies, explains, Lennon and McCartney struggled to come up with a lyric to answer their question: “What do you see when you turn out the light?” Lennon suggested “I can’t tell you, but I know it’s mine.” It fit the required number of syllables and rhyme scheme, and McCartney loved it because it could mean different things to different people.

So the type of text and the author’s purpose should have considerable impact upon how readers should understand and interpret the text. Good readers are flexible readers. They monitor their levels of comprehension while reading, according to their own purposes and the dictates of the text. When crucial facts or plot events are being delivered, they move the window close to the author; when less important description or tone are being read to evoke a certain mood, they move the window closer to themselves as readers.

And one last comment about applying the author-reader relationship theories: For those of you accustomed to reading on automatic pilot, you may be looking at the garden for far too long without thinking of the window. For many of you, the window is in fine shape, but it may need a bit of Windex to make the garden more visible. We often become accustomed to dirty windows and don’t notice until someone scribbles “Wash me!” However, our attention needs to be drawn to the window before we can notice. How do we start paying attention? Check out Talking with the Author.

FREE DOWNLOAD TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies includes class posters, five lessons to introduce the strategies, and the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills author-reader relationship, formalists, louise rosenblatt, Mark Pennington, New Criticism, reader author relationship, reader response theory, reading comprehension, Teaching Reading Strategies, transactional reading

Have you ever noticed how your English teachers and professors insist on discussing a novel or an article and its author in the present tense? For example, when analyzing Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, your teacher might say, “In Chapter 7, Hemingway builds suspense in the conversation between Pilar and Robert Jordan. The two walk into the cave and discover that one packet of explosives is missing.”

And most of you remember that we also write a literary analysis in the present tense, unless you want a considerable number of red ink written on your essay.

Now, last I checked, Ernest Hemingway died in 1961. But we still discuss him and his writing as if he were alive, because the author and his ideas remain relevant.

Not only should we discuss authors and text as if they are alive, we should also read as if the author and text are alive. It does take a bit of imagination, but if we treat the author and story as living, it’s much easier to have a conversational rapport with the writer and characters within the story.

You see, reading to a corpse would be a one-way conversation, unless zombies come into play. Reading with living, breathing authors and their characters can become engaging two-way conversations.

The point is… if you tend to understand reading as a one-way street in which you passively retrieve meaning from the text, this two-way street in which you, the reader, are actively interacting with the author, is quite different. To demonstrate this difference, let’s read a passage together from Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities as passive readers. Since Dickens was, or… is British, I’ll try to read with an English accent. I know… it’s horrible, but it will serve a purpose:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

Talking to the Author

Talking with the Author

Now, let’s read the same passage, and I will model how an active reader carries on a conversation with the author in red.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, Dickens clearly means to describe a universal theme with this general language. So often we tend to see good times as being the norm. Other times we look back at some eras as “the good old days” when they really weren’t that good. Hindsight is never 20-20 vision.

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, I see Dicken’s paradoxical patterns of the good to its bad opposite, but his extremes make me think that he is writing somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Nothing is life is that clear, especially when we are in the midst of experiencing it. His parallel structures of “It was the” use the absolute factual use of the “to be” verb and the definite article, “the,” to describe a time of no gray areas. It was one way or the other.

it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, I know that some of the setting of this novel takes place during the French Revolution and that the two cities are Paris and London. My guess is that Dickens, an Englishman, is going to favor the ideals of his own London, and disparage those of Paris. The traditions of the Church were being challenged by the thinking of the Enlightenment. Faith versus reason. Dickens unfairly places the Enlightenment thinkers in the evil position. I, personally don’t see faith and reason as a necessary paradox, either.

it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, These polar opposites have everything to do with one’s perspective. For some the changes during this period of history were positive and the outlook was bright; for others, the events challenged everything they had ever known to be true and good. I would wager that for a whole lot of people, what was taking place was a mixed bag of good and bad.

Why doesn’t Dickens include the haves and have nots in his opening? If class differences are a key part of the historical setting as in the musical, Les Miserables, why did the author leave out these paired extremes?

we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, Not sure what this means, unless Dicken’s is commenting on “hope” and “despair.”

we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—Think this was meant to be humorous. Interesting how Hell is an unmentionable. Perhaps a curse word.

in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. The language is tough to dissect here. “… the period was so far like the present period…” The “so far” could mean that it closely resembled the time of Dicken’s writing. The “noisiest authorities” might be the most popular voices of those times. This paragraph is all one long sentence. It seems that these contradictions of the past went on forever without resolution. What is Dickens up to here? Is he using this novel to criticize the present state of affairs in England?

There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In other words, there wasn’t much difference between rulers. Perhaps due to intermarriage, or more likely in their beliefs about the divine right to rule. Some things never seem to change. I notice Dickens doesn’t allude to the present queen at the current time, Queen Victoria.

In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever. The loaves and fishes allusion of miraculously making something great out of very little, such as the expansion of citizens’ freedoms and rights or democracy were not realistic, nor likely during those times. Is Dickens saying the same about his current times and knocking the English monarchy?

If the reader-response strategy, which I call Talking with the Author, worked as planned, you would notice that your understanding and retention of the reading passage were significantly better with the second reading, as compared to the first reading. Notice that the window of meaning seemed to shift more toward the reader because of the universal themes and application to present times.

You may have noticed that my comments in the conversation were of different types. I focused on what the author said and how the author said it; I also commented on what the author did not say and what the author may have meant. Additionally, I criticized and questioned. I repeated the author’s words and re-read in order to clarify. I speculated about the author’s motive and where he was coming from. I also through in my own two cents as I might in a real one-on-one conversation. However, I tried to focus on the author’s meaning and ideas, and not only my personal experience.

Now, the Talking with the Author strategy takes practice to perfect. You can use this strategy with every genre and amount of reading. Practice doing so with texts and Facebook posts, emails, novels, articles, and technical documents.

Of course you noticed that I was making my comments out loud. My suggestion is to read the author’s text silently, but to subvocalize your comments as you begin to use this Talking with the Author strategy. I describe subvocalization as using a six-inch voice to talk to the author. Don’t worry, your author isn’t hard of hearing.

Some of you may have reservations about implementing this strategy. Interrupting the flow of your reading by talking to the author may seem stilted or unnatural. I certainly make used more reader-response in my example than I normally would to demonstrate the different types and breadth of comments. Not every sentence requires a comment. Instead of chunking the text into interrupted parts, you will begin to see a greater flow of ideas and you insert your comments.

At first, you may find it difficult to keep up your share of the author-reader conversation. This new way of reading, in which you, the reader, have a role in the conversation takes some getting used to. Make sure to develop a balance in the types of comments you make, so that you aren’t solely making comments, say, about word usage.

Using the Talking with the Author technique will also temporarily slow down your reading. You may be tempted to use the strategy only with text which isn’t required and undesirable reading, perhaps for school or work. Resist this temptation and allot a bit more time for the subvocalizations for a while. If you practice reading the old way for some things and the new way for others, you will never develop the automaticity that is necessary for effective reading-response.

I do want to assure you that your decreased reading speed will only be a temporary issue. As the reader-response becomes second nature to you, you will naturally begin to replace the oral comments with silent ones. Gradually, the fully developed comments will become thought snippets. Much like milli-second dreams, these snippets can contain significant data. Our brains are simply amazing!

To doubters, I will add that I’ve replicated an informal reading-research study countless times which consistently demonstrates that readers using the Talking with the Author strategy not only score higher on reading comprehension tests, but also on reading speed. The better we process information, the faster we do so.

I would like to close our lecture with a reminder of the “no pain, no gain” truism. Replacing old habits with new habits is always challenging, especially when you have been practicing the old habit for years. Yes, young and old, alike, we all get set in our ways. However, be encouraged that you can teach an old dog new tricks. The rewards of better comprehension and more enjoyment of what you read will outweigh the discomfort of replacing an old habit with a new habit.

FREE DOWNLOAD TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies includes class posters, five lessons to introduce the strategies, and the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

*****

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills author-reader relationship, louise rosenblatt, Mark Pennington, reader response theory, reading comprehension, Teaching Reading Strategies

Text-dependent Reading Theories

Reader-Response Theory attempts to describe the text-reader relationship and asserts that meaning is constructed outside this relationship from the input of both author and reader.

As a reaction to the Reader-Response Theory, beginning in the late 1960s, some reading researchers, philosophers, and especially university English professors began to advocate a different theory about the author-reader relationship that has come to be known as Formalism (or New Criticism). Proponents of Formalism argue that the author’s text should be read as is and in its own context apart from outside influences, such as the author’s background, motives, and biases and reader’s feelings, experiences, and interpretations. Many in this school of thought believe that the accurate meaning of the text may only be discovered if all subjective influences are ignored.

Many formalists especially rail against the more extreme views within the reader-response camp. They would argue that a reader-centered transaction permits the reader to make the text say anything that they want it to say. Far from the no right answer approach of some reading-response theorists, they would argue that there are right and wrong interpretations of the author’s text. After all, it is the author’s text, not the reader’s text. Teachers should ask, “What does the text mean here?” Not “What does the author mean here and why did she say this?” And certainly not “How does this text relate to your own life and make you feel?”

Other formalists, such as Cleanth Brooks, has argued that Reader-Response Theory and Formalism (New Criticism) complement one another. For instance, he stated, “If some of the New Critics have preferred to stress the writing rather than the writer, so have they given less stress to the reader—to the reader’s response to the work. Yet no one in his right mind could forget the reader. He is essential for ‘realizing’ any poem or novel. . .Reader response is certainly worth studying.” However, Brooks tempers his praise for the reader-response theory by noting its limitations, pointing out that, “to put meaning and valuation of a literary work at the mercy of any and every individual [reader] would reduce the study of literature to reader psychology and to the history of taste” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Criticism).

The Formalist Theory has gained traction in American schools since the advent of the Common Core State Standards. Even Mortimer Adler’s old close reading strategy

Close Reading: Don’t Read Too Closely

has regained popularity. For those of you not familiar with this approach, close reading it is a reading strategy which focuses on text-dependent reading and analysis.

*****

FREE DOWNLOAD TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies includes class posters, five lessons to introduce the strategies, and the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

*****

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Get the Close Reading Narrative Worksheet FREE Resource:

Get the Close Reading Expository Worksheet FREE Resource:

Reading author-reader relationship, Formalism, Mark Pennington, New Criticism, reader author relationship, reader response, reading comprehension, Teaching Reading Strategies

Reader-Response

Reading specialists talk a lot about automaticity. Simply put, automaticity means putting together all of the reading concepts and skills, such as word recognition, word identification, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies to read a text effortlessly and fluently.

However, regarding automaticity, the Jedi Master is right, “Both light and dark sides of the Force there are.”

Good readers need to learn how to enhance the benefits of automaticity and eliminate or minimize the drawbacks. One important way to do so is through engaging the the author-reader relationship.

One reading theory and body of research which attempts to describe the author-reader relationship is Reader-Response Theory. And, as is usually the case with any construct which attempts to explain a complicated relationship, there are plenty of variations on this theory.

The mainstream reading-response theory was developed by Louise Rosenblatt in her 1938 book, Literature as Exploration. In this and subsequent books, research, lectures, and articles, Dr. Rosenblatt explored what she termed, the transaction, which takes place between the text and readers. Think of a transaction in terms of a business deal made between two parties which results in a certain outcome.

For reading, the transaction is the give and take interplay between the author’s words and the reader’s input. The outcome of this transaction produces the meaning of the text.

The key point to understand about reader-response theory is that meaning exists outside of the author’s text and outside of the reader. For our purposes, meaning is another way of saying reading comprehension. So, how does this text-reader transaction affect what you understand and remember as you read?

When you sit down with a cup of coffee and your phone to read the morning news, you scroll down and click on an article headline which interests you, and you begin to read the text. All the input of the author, such as her research on the news story, her past experience and biases, her on-the-scene interviews, the facts of the event, her writing style, and her word choice are combined into the text that we read. The text acts as a stimulus to which you respond as a reader.

Some of your reader response will, undoubtedly, be the same as other readers. For example, if you are reading an article on a school shooting, everyone reading that same story would feel sad, angry, and perhaps a bit helpless. Certain words in the text, such as “tragedy,” or “heroic” would evoke similar connotations. No doubt, each of us will make a mental connection to a previous mass shooting. If we read the article byline and see that a teacher at that same school wrote the article, we would be especially empathetic to the writer’s experience. If a pop-up ad interrupted our reading, we would all be briefly annoyed. If our spouse or friend is in the room, we most likely would say, “Did you hear? There’s been another school shooting.”

However, your reaction to the article will differ from that of other readers, because your input as an individual reader is different. Personal associations, experiences, opinions, and feelings certainly influence how you understand and react to the text, as well what else you’ve read or watched on television. If you’ve read a few articles by the reporter and tend to disagree with her reporting or point of view, this will influence your personal reaction. Environmental factors may also affect your reader-response, If you woke up grumpy or the coffee is cold, your response to the stimulus produced by the article may be different than if the sun is shining and you have the day off.

If the Reader-Response Theory is accurate, the meaning that the author’s text and your reading produces entirely depends upon the circumstances of the transaction. In fact, Dr. Rosenblatt claims that both the author’s text and the reader are equally important and necessary in the production of meaning. In other words, the meaning of any novel, poem, song, article, or even this lecture is a co-creation of both what the author has to say and what the reader hears. Both the text and reader are partners in this transaction. So, if the good doctor is right, I’m not the only one to blame if you haven’t found this lecture to be scintillating so far!

As I previously mentioned, Dr. Rosenblatt’s position is in the mainstream of reading-response theorists. While she stresses the important role of the reader in shaping the meaning of text, particularly in terms of the reader’s emotional response to the author’s stimulus, she also values the role of the author’s text. The text serves as a blueprint to guide and and a check-point to restrain the reader’s response, so that the subjective experience of the reader is balanced with the objective text.

Now, a few of the buzzwords I just used to summarize Dr. Rosenblatt’s theory may have have stimulated your critical response. Good, we’re supposed to be partners in this transaction! Some of you may have wondered about the phrase, “equally important and necessary.” You may be asking, “Is the reader really just as important as the author’s words in determining meaning?”

You might think back to reading Act 2, Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet. Is your interpretation of Romeo’s “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?” soliloquy of equal value in determining what the character means as what the author of the text, William Shakespeare says and intends? I’m thinking that you would feel a bit unimportant, or at least uncomfortable, sharing your literary insights and interpretations if Will happened to be in your book club. Doesn’t Shakespeare’s play remain objective, despite your subjective interpretations?

You aren’t alone in your questions about Reader-Response Theory. But even more extreme positions regarding the transaction between text and reader have come in and out of fashion since Dr. Rosenblatt’s first publication. I’ll briefly describe two of these sub-camps.

Some reader-response theorists have trotted out George Berkeley’s “If a tree falls in the midst of the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound” conundrum to question whether the author’s text has any meaning whatsoever apart from that of its reader. So, according to these reader-centered theorists, the text only exists as it is being read in the mind of the reader, just as the tree makes no sound unless some one hears it. No right; no wrong interpretations because there is no objective benchmark. So, every student would get an A+ on their Romeo and Juliet final exam.

Others have expanded the reader-centered position and would argue that the social nature of reading has an important impact on the creation of meaning. Of course, we don’t read in a vacuum solely of our own experience. As literacy critics we all have somewhat of a herd mentality. Think about how social media creates meaning.

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FREE DOWNLOAD TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies includes class posters, five lessons to introduce the strategies, and the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

*****

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills author-reader relationship, Mark Pennington, monitor comprehension, reader author relationship, reader response theory, reading comprehension, reading strategies, Teaching Reading Strategies

Driving is Like Reading

Reading is a lot like driving. Let’s stick with a car for the purposes of our comparison.

Everyone knows that driving a car is a complicated process. No one jumps into the driver’s seat and begins driving without some sort of instruction. Driving is especially challenging because it involves multi-tasking. To be able to drive, the driver must understand how the car works, know how to use the machine, remember and apply the traffic rules, and interact safely with their driving environment all at the same time!

Good drivers understand each of these four components and remember to apply each of these tasks simultaneously and automatically. Bad drivers don’t understand or don’t remember to apply some or all of them. However, the good news is that even bad drivers can learn the concepts and skills to improve their driving with good teaching and practice.

Unfortunately, good drivers often develop bad habits over the years. Of the four components, the most frequent bad habit involves how drivers interact with their

Distracted Driving

environment. Let’s face it, sometimes we choose to add a multitude of distractions to our driving environment, even though we know we shouldn’t. Other times, we unintentionally fail to interact with our surroundings.

For example, most of us who have been driving for years have had a similar experience: We get on a familiar road to a familiar destination and our minds begin to wander. We arrive with the realization that we have absolutely no memory of driving to that place. We were truly on autopilot.

Of course, we must have had some degree of environmental awareness in order to arrive safely at our destination; however, most of us would agree that the interaction with our environment must have been less than optimal and the lack of any driving memory is certainly troubling.

So, let’s see how the driving process compares to the reading process.

Like driving, reading is a complicated process—more so than many of us realize. Decades of reading research have refuted the popular notion that reading is a natural, developmental process akin to oral language development (Gough & Hillinger, 1980; Lyon, 1998; Wren, 2002; Moats, L, & Tolman, C 2009). Simply put, children do not learn to read as they learn to speak, through natural exposure to a literate environment.

We now know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that reading is taught, not caught. No child, nor adult picks up a book, article, newspaper, or poem and reads without having had some form of instruction. Now, of course the quantity and quality of instruction varies, and many adults will not remember how they first learned to read, but they certainly were taught to do so.

Now, let’s return to our two-fold definition of reading, which we developed in our first two lectures: Reading is reading comprehension and reading comprehension is understanding and remembering what we read.

Reading is Like Driving

To be able to understand and remember what is read, the reader must know how reading works, apply the phonetic tools, understand the meaning and order of words, and monitor the reader-author relationship. And, yes, like good drivers, they can multi-task.

Good readers apply these four components simultaneously and automatically. Struggling readers don’t understand or don’t remember to apply some or all of them. The good news is that both weak and strong readers can learn and practice the concepts and skills to improve their reading comprehension and retention.

However, like good drivers, good readers often develop bad habits over the years. Of the four components, the usual culprit is how readers interact with their reading environment and author’s text.

For example, most of us, like the distracted driver I spoke of, have had this experience infrequently or frequently while reading: We turn the page in a book or scroll down on our phones and our minds begin to wander as we read. We finish reading and come to the realization that we haven’t the foggiest idea about what we just read. We did read the words, but we did not understand them, nor remember any of the information or ideas. Some of us would swear to having read, say Beowulf, in the same manner when we were high school seniors.

Now you may have noticed that I used italics for the words reading and read, because although we pronounced the words, we really didn’t read them, using our definition of reading comprehension. If we don’t understand or retain what we have read, we really haven’t read.

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FREE DOWNLOAD TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies includes class posters, five lessons to introduce the strategies, and the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

*****

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills cueing strategies, guided reading, Mark Pennington, metacognition, phonics, reader response theory, reading comprehension, reading strategies, Sam and Friends Guided Reading Phonics Books, self-monitoring of reading text, Teaching Reading Strategies, word identification, word recognition

The International Literacy Association (ILA) was kind enough to post my article, “Should We Teach Reading Comprehension Strategies,” so I thought I would share on my own Pennington Publishing Blog. The take-away is that some minimal instruction and practice using the classic reading comprehension strategies: activation of prior knowledge, cause and effect, compare and contrast, fact and opinion, author’s purpose, classify and categorize, drawing conclusions, figurative language, elements of plot, story structure, theme, context clues, point of view, inferences, text structure, characterization, and others is helpful, but not to teach reading comprehension. Teaching these reading strategies has value only in that they serve to help developing readers self-monitor their own comprehension by closely examining the text and developing the author-reader dialog. However, the predominant reading instruction (what teachers should spend most of their time doing) should be teaching the skills that develop  improved reading comprehension. In my mind, the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies (See FREE download below) serve both purposes. The ILA article follows for those interested in the details and the relevant research:

Should We Teach Reading Comprehension Strategies?

Reading teachers like to teach. For most of us, that means that we need to have something to share with our students: some concept, some skill, some strategy. To teach content, teachers must be able to define what the content is and is not. Teachers also need to be able to determine how the content is to be taught, practiced, and ultimately mastered. The latter requirement necessitates some form of assessment.

However, teachers do recognize that reading involves things that we can’t teach: in other words, the process of reading. Thinking comes to mind; so does the reader’s self-monitoring of text; and the reader’s connection to personal prior knowledge.

But what about reading comprehension? Is it content or process? Can we teach it, practice it, and master it? Is reading comprehension the result or goal of reading?

Those who hope that comprehension is the result look to fill developing readers with the concepts needed to be learned, such as phonological (phonemic) awareness; the alphabetic principle; reading from left to right; understanding punctuation; and spacing. Teachers also introduce, practice, and assess student mastery of the requisite reading skills, including phonics, syllabication, analogizing, and recognizing whole words by sight. These concepts and skills have a solid research base and a positive correlation with proficient reading comprehension.

Furthermore, these concepts or skills can be clearly defined, taught as discrete components, and assessed to determine mastery.

The same cannot be said for reading comprehension strategies, such as activation of prior knowledge, cause and effect, compare and contrast, fact and opinion, author’s purpose, classify and categorize, drawing conclusions, figurative language, elements of plot, story structure, theme, context clues, point of view, inference categories, text structure, and characterization.

Note that the list does not include summarizing the main idea, making connections, rethinking, interpreting, and predicting. These seem more akin to reader response actions than strategies, per se.

None of the specific reading comprehension strategies has demonstrated statistically significant effects on reading comprehension on its own as a discrete skill. Although plenty of lessons, activities, bookmarks, and worksheets provide some means of how to learn practice, none of these strategies can be taught to mastery, nor accurately assessed.

So, if individual reading comprehension strategies fail to meet the criteria for research-based concepts and skills to improve reading comprehension, should we teach any of them and require our students to practice them?

Yes, but minimally—as process, not content. We need to teach these strategies as being what good readers do as they read. The think-aloud provides an effective means of modeling each reading comprehension strategy. Some practice, such as a read-think-pair-share, makes sense to reinforce what the strategy entails. A brief writing activity, requiring students to apply the strategy, could also be helpful. But minimal instructional  time is key.

Daniel Willingham, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Virginia, suggests that reading comprehension strategies are better thought of as tricks, rather than as skill-builders. They work because they make plain to readers that it’s a good idea to monitor whether they understand as they read.

In other words, teaching a reading comprehension strategy, such as cause and effect, is not a transferable reading skill, which once learned and practiced can be applied to another reading passage by a developing reader. However, when teachers model paying attention to the author’s use of cause and effect in a story or article and have students practice key cause and effect transition words in their own context clue sentences, it’s the analysis of the text and the author’s writing that’s valuable, not the strategy in and of itself.

In fact, a 2014 study by Gail Lovette and Daniel Willingham found three quantitative reviews of reading comprehension strategies instruction in typically developing children and five reviews of studies of at-risk children or those with reading disabilities. All eight reviews reported that reading comprehension strategies instruction boosted reading comprehension, but none reported that practice of such instruction yielded further benefit. The outcome of 10 sessions was the same as the outcome of 50.

So, should we teach reading comprehension strategies? Yes, but as part of the reading process, not as isolated skills with extensive practice. Reading comprehension strategies have their place in beginning reading, content reading, and reading intervention classes, but not as substitutes for reading concepts and skills.

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Do teach the reading comprehension strategy “tricks,” but limit instructional time and practice. Focus practice more on the internal monitoring of text, such as with my five SCRIP reading comprehension strategies that teach readers how to independently interact with and understand both narrative and expository text to improve reading comprehension. The SCRIP acronym stands for Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

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The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Reading comprehension strategies, International Literacy Association, reading comprehension, reading instruction, reading intervention, reading skills, reading strategies, response to intervention, Teaching Reading Strategies

One Size Does Not Fit All

I don’t usually spend much time critiquing reading intervention programs. Obviously, as a publisher I have built-in bias, and I will end up this article with a convincing case as to why teachers should purchase my own products.

I did review the READ 180 Next Generation, System 44, and Language Live! programs because each program was piloted in local schools last year. However, recently I’ve been getting a number of inquiries regarding the Orton-Gillingham Approach, so I thought I’d offer my thoughts and cite relevant research studies regarding this program. Many of the same comments could be applied to similar approaches to reading instruction: the Spalding Method, Wilson Reading System, and Lindamood Bell.

Orton-Gillingham Quick Overview

Orton-Gillingham (O-G) has long been a favorite program of special education and home school teachers. Recently, those in the science of reading camp have adopted O-G as a favorite. Arkansas and Colorado specifically favor O-G related programs in their state reading program reviews. Some parochial schools also favor the program. Response to intervention programs use a multi-tiered approach to remedial reading both in and out of mainstream classes to meet the needs of older, struggling readers.

The program is chiefly selected for developmental and remedial readers because of two instructional characteristics: explicit, systematic phonics and a multi-sensory approach to sight words acquisition and spelling instruction. The program features movement and color to make learning memorable. The Wikipedia article provides a concise and balanced overview of the O-G history and instructional philosophy.

Orton-Gillingham Review: the Good, the Bad, and the Weird

The Good

Any teacher with some experience teaching reading will be able to teach the O-G program without extensive training. You don’t need the Orton-Gillingham certification to use its program resources. It’s not rocket science.

The highlight of the program is the instructional scope and sequence. Its phonics sequence makes sense and is similar to that of Open Court, READ 180 and my own program. Its systematic instructional approach is consistent and explicit. No synthetic, analytic, or analogous crossovers.

Good teachers can separate the wheat from the chaff. There is much value to the O-G program and many teachers swear by its results.

The Bad

The full program is not easy to implement and takes a significant amount of teacher prep for daily use. Additionally, new teachers will need the full O-G training. Because the program is so step-by-step, it takes an inordinate amount of time to achieve results for some beginning and remedial readers. Realistically, this is problematic for two reasons:

1. Teachers do not have unlimited time to prep, re-teach, re-teach, and re-teach until all students get it. Sometimes, skipping an unmastered skill, such as consonant digraphs, makes sense and students later master that skill in the midst of learning, say, consonant blends. This is not the O-G Approach. Furthermore, teachers, administrators, parents, and most importantly, students, want to see results quickly. This is especially true for older, struggling readers.

2. The program claims to be flexible, and it is in part; however, it does not yield on its systematic, explicit phonics methodology. The new position paper of the International Literacy Association correctly summarizes the reading research that explicit phonics instruction works, but that systematic instruction did not achieve better results than other approaches, despite claims to the contrary by the International Dyslexia Association (which does not advocate any one explicit, systematic phonics approach, but clearly favors that of Orton-Gillingham). In fact, the International Literacy Association specifically cites the lack of results with the O-G Approach:

In their report on the effects of specific programs, the Orton-Gillingham (O-G) program had the lowest average effect size (0.23). The remainder of the programs ranged from 0.35 to 0.68 (p. 2-160). Looking further, only two of the O-G studies assessed comprehension, and the average effect size on comprehension was -0.03. Only one study reported a delayed assessment of comprehension, and the effect size was -0.81 (six months after
the completion of the intervention). That is minus 0.81—thus participation in an O-G program appears to have had a large negative impact on reading achievement in comparison with other intervention methods evaluated in the study.

Ouch! While I affirm the value of explicit, systematic phonics instruction and help teachers implement this approach with my 16 week sound-spelling blending and phonics workshops, I’ve taught enough beginning and remedial reading to know that every student does not learn in the same way. One size does not fit all. Sometimes, an onset-rime approach with rimes (word families), a syllable-by-syllable approach, or more word fluency will do the trick. My Teaching Reading Strategies program offers each of these alternative or both-and resources. Whatever it takes to get quickly to the end result: fluent readers with excellent reading comprehension. Begin with explicit, systematic phonics instruction for struggling readers; adjust as needed.

3. O-G is a traditional print to speech program, but unlike my own program, it does not include many speech to print activities.

The Weird

Every reading program has its idiosyncrasies, mine included. For example, my 54 Sam and Friends Guided Reading Phonics Books are purely decodable with the exception of only two high frequency sight words per book. While every other collection of decodable guided reading or take-home books cheats a bit by adding in a few extra sight words to improve reading coherency and fluent reading, mine do not. It’s one of the weird features of my resources… but I think a good one that is less confusing to struggling readers.

Orton-Gillingham has its share of idiosyncrasies. As teachers are trained in the O-G Approach, most will shake their heads at some of program practices, deemed essential to O-G purists. Two philosophical tenets of the program are simply unfounded and influence some instructional components:

1. Dyslexia is championed as the root cause of reading problems. In fact, Samuel Orton coined the term back in the 1920s. Recently, the influential International Literacy Association (formerly the International Reading Association) published a position paper which debunks dyslexia. The International Dyslexia Association, which affirms the Orton-Gillingham Approach, weighed in on the position paper. The International Literacy Association refuted point-by-point each of the O-G assertions.

The O-G multi-sensory approach does not have a solid research base. Following is the gist of this methodology:

Orton-Gillingham teaching sessions are action-oriented and involve constant interaction between the teacher and the student and the simultaneous use of multiple sensory input channels reinforcing each other for optimal learning. Using auditory, visual, and kinesthetic elements, all language skills taught are reinforced by having the student listen, speak, read and write. For example, a dyslexic learner is taught to see the letter A, say its name and sound and write it in the air–all at the same time. The approach requires intense instruction with ample practice. The use of multiple input channels is thought to enhance memory storage and retrieval by providing multiple “triggers” for memory (https://wiki2.org/en/Orton-Gillingham).

Although all good teaching involves the learners’ variety of sensory experiences, the zealous focus on multi-sensory practice in the O-G Approach is extraneous or a waste of time, at best, and counterproductive, at worst. For example, writing spellings in the air reinforce the long-discredited notion that spelling is a visual skill. Most teachers stopped tracing letters and memorizing letter shapes decades ago. Spelling is primarily an auditory skill, which is ironically reinforced throughout the phonemic awareness and phonics instructional components of the O-G program.

For more regarding the research on multi-sensory approaches, learning styles, and multiple intelligences, check out my article, Don’t Teach to Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences.

Comparing The Science of Reading Intervention Program to the Orton-Gillingham Approach

Both the O-G approach and my reading intervention program follow nearly the same instructional phonics sequence as Orton-Gillingham and both programs provide explicit, systematic phonics instruction. However, my program includes all the other resources teachers need to teach to each unique learner with assessment-based instruction. My program is designed exclusively for reading intervention. Resources are catered to older, struggling readers who have not yet mastered the basics of reading.

Unlike Orton-Gillingham, my program helps teachers isolate and teach to the specific needs of struggling readers with targeted instruction.

Unlike Orton-Gillingham, my training program is free and included. This program is user-friendly and requires only minimal prep and correction. Here’s an overview of the program:

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FREE DOWNLOAD TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies includes class posters, five lessons to introduce the strategies, and the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

*****

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Get the Diagnostic ELA and Reading Assessments FREE Resource:

Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary comprehension strategies, Lindamood Bell, reading comprehension, reading instruction, reading intervention, reading skills, reading strategies, Spalding Method, summer school reading, summer school reading intervention, summer school reading program, Teaching Reading Strategies, Wilson Reading System