AlePlateauDiscussion

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Discussion 1. Adult New Readers Plateau at Second or Third Grade Level (begun 11.23.04)

This discussion began with postings from a November, 2004 discussion on the NIFL-Assessment electronic list, http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/discussions/nifl-assessment/assessment.html and it has continued with postings here, as well as with messages to that list and subsequently also to the NIFL-FOBasics list.

From:PHCSJean.2163953@bloglines.com
Subject:[NIFL-ASSESSMENT:763] 2nd-3rd GE plateau for ABE
Date:November 23, 2004 9:04:21 PM EST

Hi colleagues.

Last night I was reading an article by a tutor who commented "People who can't read well consistently test at the second or third grade level regardless of age or schooling."

Do you see validity in that? Have you seen that in your centers? I know as a past elementary teacher that there's a huge step up in that level. I'm wondering what the barrier could be for our students if this is indeed the plateau they hit the wall at.

The article isn't from a scholarly publication, but one I found on a database (maybe even Google Scholar--check that out if you haven't yet) so I'm not sure who validated this besides the author, but it does seem to be a plausible hypothesis. I'd love to know what you think.

The article: Mckinney, Martha. At a loss for words: The desperate world of adult non-readers. ETC. Summer 2001, p 168-171

Thanks!

Jean Marrapodi
Providence Assembly of God Adult Learning Center
Providence, RI

From: gdemetrion@msn.com
Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:764] RE: 2nd-3rd GE plateau for ABE?
Date: November 23, 2004 9:35:39 PM EST

Hi Jean,

That depends on the level and range of students you are working with. On the 1990 NALS, Hartford is listed as having a 41% adult population rate at Level I. The vast majority of students in our program test at a 210 or below on the CASAS and word recognition and oral reading ability of level 4 and below on the DAR. A smaller proportion of our students (all in the pre-GED category) are at a higher level, and for them progress is much more extensive.

Growth does happen, but it is a subtle process that gradually influences adults in various ways in the cognitive, social, and emotional realms. There is, often modest improvement on reading test scores, but for many of our students (if one were to use such a standard) 3rd grade reading level would be a plateau that many would have difficulty crossing. Fingeret and Drennon's Literacy for Life [ http://store.tcpress.com/0807736589.shtml#291 ] is a very instructive text on this score.

Of course 3rd grade is an arbitrary boundary and doesn't at all get at what in fact students do learn regardless of reading gains, regardless of levels attained.

I sought to track something of the ineffably rich adult literacy experience in Motivation and the Adult New Reader: Becoming Literate at the Bob Steele Reading Center, 1990-1995. That report can be accessed at: http://www.nald.ca/FULLTEXT/George/Motivate/cover.htm

Regards,

George Demetrion

From: bcarmel@rocketmail.com
Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:765] Grade Level and Adult Learners
Date: November 24, 2004 7:20:32 AM EST

A question asked if adults beginning readers can plateau at the 2nd or 3rd grade level. What a complex question this is! Here are some of the thoughts this brings up for me:

Assessment of really beginning readers has always been a problem. Assigning "grade level " to adults has always been a problem for me. Adults are not children. Can a grown man or woman really read like an eight-year-old, even if they get the same grade level equivalent on tests? I do not believe so.

This is Anne: I never tell an adult that he or she reads at a particular grade level. Tests are limited in measuring what a person is able to DECODE. If a person cannot decode words at a 3rd grade level, the test will indicate that they read at less than 3rd grade. However, if the text is read TO the adult, he or she is able to understand, i.e., comprehend, far beyond the 3rd grade level. Adults have vocabulary and experiences far beyond what children have. It is inappropriate to tell an adult they read at the 2nd grade level. That just reinforces the failure mode they have always been put into.
Anne Murr

The standardized test we have been saddled with in New York State is the TABE. This test was certainly "validated" by the company that sells it, but I do not consider it a valid instrument in the true sense of the word.

This is Anne again: The instrument I use assesses the individual's ability to decode (read) and encode (spell)isolated words. (It's the Wilson Assessment of Decoding and Encoding.) Accurate and fluent decoding is the prerequisite to the complete reading experience.
Anne Murr

My understanding of "validity" is that it means "it measures what it claims to measure." The TABE measures an adult's ability to choose the right answers on a multiple choice test. It does not measure an adult's ability to read. I have seen many people read the questions and answers on the TABE, understand all they read, and choose the wrong answer.

This can be due to a lack of test-taking savvy, cultural biases on the test (that asks people to read a baseball scoreboard), or an inability to think logically.

Anne again: I have an LD colleague who cannot take "bubble" standardized tests. She has a processing glitch that prevents her from holding the information mentally and transferring that to circles on a recording form. Thus, she performs extremely poorly on standardized tests.
Anne Murr

Assessing the growth of beginning readers remains a challenge. I have known many people whose lives have changed dramatically. They can now read street signs, subway maps, their bills, notes from their employers, etc., but they crash and burn on a standardized test.

We don't have a good assessement tool to measure progress for adult new readers at any level, especially the beginning levels. With no alternative to standardized tests, what can we do?

I have to give credit to the NALS, where people's ability to read was assessed by looking at their ability to read--sort of. The NALS sets the bar so high. People are at Level One if they can identify information in an text, for example, but not think critically about it, cannot synthesize. But they read it. I don't think such people can be called illiterate. Anyway, the NALS looked at people's reading levels. It is not a pre- and post-test.

Maybe the question really meant: "Do adults who do not know how to read plateau at the beginning levels?" If so, please forgive my digression. My answer to that question, based on fifteen years of experience, would be "Yes they often do." I have not known any adult who came from a literate culture, who did really not know how to read, who ever became a deft and fluent reader. I have known many adults who have learned a lot, but none how ever went from not being able to read simple words and environmental print to being able to read a book from Oprah's club. That's only my experience. Maybe it's possible for an adult nonreader to move into NALS Level Four and higher. I have never seen it.

Anne again: Several adults in our literacy program have completed all 12 Wilson Reading Steps and are now independently reading books, magazines, and newspapers. One woman says, "I know I will always be a slow reader, but now I CAN read."
Anne Murr

We know SO LITTLE about adult literacy. How much can people learn? What is the best way for them to learn? Why did they not learn in the first place? I wrote a whole dissertation about those questions. The answer I came up with is that we don't know very much at all.... (!)

Bruce Carmel
Turning Point
Deputy ED

From: djrosen@comcast.net
Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:769] Adult new reader assessments, "plateaus"
Date: November 24, 2004 8:57:08 AM EST

Bruce and others,

Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Bruce. I generally agree with what you have said, but want to pursue a couple of things:

You wrote:

We don't have a good assessement tool to measure progress for adult new readers at any level, especially the beginning levels.

Are you saying there are no good reading assessment tools for adult new readers, or no good standardized reading assessments for adult new readers? Would others agree? Has anyone had experience, for example, using the new EFF reading assessment?

You wrote:

I have not known any adult who came from a literate culture, who did really not know how to read, who ever became a deft and fluent reader. I have known many adults who have learned a lot, but none how ever went from not being able to read simple words and environmental print to being able to read a book from Oprah's club. That's only my experience.

I wonder if your experience is typical of those who teach or tutor adult new readers. I would like to hear from others on this list. From your experience, do adult new readers generally "plateau" in reading at high beginner or intermediate level? If so, why? Specific reading disabilities? Not enough intensity (hours per week) of reading instruction, or not enough duration (number of weeks/years in program) or other things? Have those who have seen this as a pattern experienced exceptions or breakthroughs, and if so, what was done differently for those adult new readers?

Anne wrote:

December 7, 2004. David, my conclusion from reading the research on why children fail to learn to read and the neuroscience on dyslexia (it's the same issue, 2 different research strands) half the population (across languages) has some measure of difficulty learning to read and considerable difficulty with spelling and written expression. These are language-based learning (processing) differences, which-if addressed early and with systematic, multisensory intensity- can be remediated. If these learning/processing differences are not addressed early, the difference becomes a reading disability. The older the learner, the less instruction has an effect. For adults, 1-2 hours a week, is hardly intense. However, we have adult learners who are willing to invest that time over a duration of years because it is their deep desire to learn to read. Adults whose level of language-processing difficulty is less profound can reach fluent, albeit slow, reading. Other adults can reach more functional reading levels -- perhaps to 4th-5th grade, but not reach the point where they will read for pleasure. At least that's what we are seeing with adults in our Center as they receive one-to-one tutoring using the Wilson Reading System.

Anne Murr


Thanks.

David J. Rosen
djrosen@comcast.net

From: AWilder106@aol.com
Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:771] Re: Adult new reader assessments, "plateaus"
Date: November 24, 2004 9:36:09 AM EST

Dear David,

The "plateau" effect is reported for child readers, also. My guess is that it could be a matter of vocabulary,the introduction of new words that are not in the reader's vocabulary. Chall has reported this for slightly older children.

However, adults know more words than children, have bigger vocabularies, so here is an alternate hypothesis: it may also be that the learner has run out of sight words, those that are visually memorized, and now has to tackle new words with new tools, phonics. These are two possibilities.

Here is an idea that I introduced on the LD list, and I wonder if anyone has tried it or would be interested in trying it.

Have your student dictate to you a short story or song or memorized piece, something that they carry around with them in their mental lexicon. Write this down, and have your student go over it enough so it is virtually memorized. Now, write the story/song etc. in columns, and have your student read down. Do this until the student is fluent. Now have the student read the story/song, etc. across the columns; the words are now completely decontextualized.

My guess is that new vocabulary words could be worked into this format.

David Furr now at Indiana State (I think) suggests having students read small books until they are virtually memorized,then have the students read the books backwards, starting from the final page. This is a similar exercise.

If anyone tries either of these exercises, I would like to know how they work out.

Thanks.

Andrea

From: eileeneckert@hotmail.com
Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:773] RE: 2nd-3rd GE plateau for ABE?
Date: November 24, 2004 11:50:01 AM EST

Jean,

What a fascinating question. I know I've also heard that there's a qualitative shift around 3rd-4th grade in kids' reading. I thought it was something to do with kids' development, but I wonder if it has to do with reading skill. This is purely conjecture, based on observation of my daughter Emma and her friends (she started 4th grade this year), but it seems to me that in the past few months to a year, there has been a change in the way she reads. She's always loved reading and been a good reader in English and in Spanish, but now she loses herself in her books.

Could it be that reading skill/fluency and the motivation provided by enjoyment of a good book reinforce each other, so that once you cross that threshold of being able to enjoy reading enough to stop noticing the mechanics (or being able to read fluently enough to let the decoding area of the brain go and enjoy it), reading skill starts to take off, and you start to improve more rapidly because you practice more because you enjoy it, in a spiral of increasing proficiency and love of reading?

Just a thought, and a hypothesis that might be tested by helping people find reading materials they'd enjoy and practice reading for pleasure as homework, instead of practicing discrete skills. Maybe reading a really interesting book along with the same book on tape could help.

Eileen

From: meyer_j@ccsdistrict.org
Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:777] Re: Grade Level and Adult Learners
Date: November 24, 2004 1:00:10 PM EST

A question asked if adults beginning readers can plateau at the 2nd or 3rd grade level.

One thing we noticed in our Even Start moms was that their vocabulary often plateaus about a 4th grade level and since vocabulary is a big part of reading this reading plateau makes sense. In studying the reading research we noticed that around 4th grade children begin reading to learn instead of learning to read. So, if they haven't learned to read they can't really read to learn, so their vocabulary and background knowledge growth does not progress. We gave our Even Start moms the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test and sure enough several scored around a 4th grade level. This provides a great opportunity for us to share with the moms why they not only need to improve their own vocabulary, but also need to expose their children to rich vocabulary and for the moms to see that increasing their own vocabulary will help their children.

Jane Meyer
Canton City Schools Even Start
meyer_j@ccsdistrict.org

Talk more about this concept at LackOfVocabulary !

From: kaizen_esl@literacynet.org
Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:779] Re: Adult new reader assessments, "plateaus"
Date: November 24, 2004 9:11:39 PM EST

Hello colleagues,

I have also found many adult new English learners who had no previous literacy in their first or any language plateauing as described. I am convinced that this is primarily due to the lack of hours per week actually spent in reading and writing. I believe this is the case because I have seen this pattern broken when students are reading and writing as part of studying for the citizenship interview/exam, something they are very concerned to be fully prepared for. I have observed real significant leaps in reading proficiency among such students. I have also found that adults who are given reading and writing practice that is compelling for them for other reasons experience real leaps forward. For example, at least two older women I worked with had significant improvements as they seriously worked on stories of their lives for their grandchildren. One also had the added incentive of wanting to prove to her daughter-in-law that she wasn't dumb, despite her difficulties with English.

The reason I said "reading and writing" rather than just "reading" is that I have found that most students read and reread material with more attention and thought when they are asked to write answers to a variety of questions about it.

Understandably, most adult new readers find the process a bit difficult and therefore without strong motivation they don't engage in intensive reading, and so never get to the point where they find it easier.

Sylvie Kashdan
Instructor/Curriculum Coordinator
KAIZEN PROGRAM for New English Learners with Visual Limitations
810-A Hiawatha Place South
Seattle, WA 98144, U.S.A.

From: PHCSJean.2163953@bloglines.com
Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:782] Plateaus and grade levels
Date: November 26, 2004 12:30:35 PM EST

Thanks for the great discussions! I hadn't intended on opening a can of worms about what we call the levels. I agree that the grade equivalents naming convention can be problematic. In the Providence School system they are using an alphabetic system but who can figure out what they mean when they say that a student is working independently at M? Decoding that into a grade equivalent is helpful to me as a teacher for leveling purposes. I suspect it doesn't take long for a child who reads at D level to understand that his peer at P level reads better.

Regardless of what we call them, I guess the issue I'm wondering about is if students really get stuck at the 2nd-3rd grade level and why. Jane Meyer talked about it as the switch between learning to read and reading to learn. In the literature I'm reading I see that early readers consider correct identification of the words as completing the task while skilled readers look for comprehension. I wonder what causes that switch and if our "stuck" students have some sort of barrier that keeps them there.

Your insights have been tremendous in this discussion. Thanks for sharing them!

Jean Marrapodi
Providence Assembly of God Learning Center

From: gdemetrion@msn.com
Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:785] questions on learning
Date: November 26, 2004 8:08:57 PM EST

These are some questions I have on one of my computer files. I haven't even begun to grapple with it, though I am giving some thought to take on a writing project on what some of the major 20th century writers have to say about learning.

If there is interest, taking on some of these questions, one at a time, could provoke some interesting commentary.

George Demetrion


Critical Issues in Adult Literacy

1. How is learning defined? What assumptions ground the selected definition(s) of learning? How well do these assumptions stand up to critical scrutiny?

2. What are the ways in which adult literacy students learn? Which are most effective for which group of students? How do we know?

3. What is it that adult literacy students learn? What is the curricular range that should give shape to adult literacy education? In what contexts? Upon what assumptions are these based? How solid are these assumptions?

4. What can they come to learn? Upon what do we base this judgment?

5. How can instructors learn to teach with increased effectiveness based on models of pedagogy identified?

6. What role does curriculum play in adult literacy? From where is it derived? What are its presuppositions and sources?

7. To what extent is the program situated to best facilitate student learning for the population it serves or seeks to serve? What changes can be instituted or might be considered to better achieve more effective learning for the students programs served?

A new entry from Bruce Carmel

Thanks to all for your thoughts on plateaus and grade level. I think the original question prompted an interesting discussion about assigning grade level to adults in literacy programs. Grade levels are usually determined by a standardized test, so there's yet another discussion. Good discussions to keep having, I say.

But back to the original question, paraphrased and elaborated on by me... "How well can an adult non-reader ever learn to read?" I mean real non-readers. That's not people who test at the 3rd grade level. In my experience this means people are of normal intelligence who can usually write their name and some or most of the alphabet, and cannot read simple words in context. For example, in my doctoral research, I interviewed at a man who could not read "cold drinks" on a sign under a picture of a glass of Pepsi. He guessed that it said "big cup."

The research I have seen, and I don't think there is much, looks at progess among people who can already read. Didn't NCSALL do some studies of people who tested at the 3rd grade level or something like that? I didn't do an exhaustive re-search so I am not citing anything, but I think I remember that they did not look at real non-readers.

When I did my dissertation research, I looked at this question: "Why did adult non-readers not learn to read?" I don't hear that question asked much at all in our field. If I do, the answer is cursory: lack of opportunity or learning disabilities. What's the basis of such an answer?

I think we operate as if the adults in literacy programs can learn if they are given the opportunity. Is this so? What is the reason they did not learn in the first place? If it's because they didn't get the chance, then our programs might be effective. But what if there is another reason that they didn't learn to read? What would that reason be? I hear a lot of vague talk about learning disabilities. But many people with learning disabilities learn to read.

There is more....Seligman's "learned helplessness" seems like a fit to me. Some people may come to believe that they are not capable of learning to read. I think there is something about constructs of reading held by nonreaders. Adult non-readers to whom I spoke definitely define reading as decoding the letters, not about understanding the meaning of a text. Is that part of their problem?

And then there is that whole window of opportunity thing. It's possible that some adults who cannot read could have learned as children, but did not have the opportunity. Have they now missed a window where literacy development is possible or at least much easier?

How well can an adult who really cannot read learn to read? I would be very interested in hearing what the field thinks--based on experience or any research of which you know.

Thanks from Bruce Carmel

Folks:

I think it was on the AAACE-NLA list last summer that Deb Yoho described her work with a student who had plateaued at the 2-3 grade level. The student was very frustrated and upset, and she wanted info on what was going on. She thought there might be phonological problems. She described some of his reading and spelling errors. I went to some of my books, and found what seemed to be a match with a phonological deficit--student can't match sound and symbol, frequencies of similar sounds are too low to distinguish. Like I said in my email--I think the problem could be falling off the cliff, visually speaking--the student can carry only so much in visual memory before phonological analysis has to set in--the person has to have decoding skills. As I recall, Shaywitz speaks of this, too.

Andrea

New: 11-30-04

I imagine I'll want to edit or move this later, but here goes:

Here's an experience: When I tutored a small group for Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford in 2002-2003, one of the students was a man who had traveled extensively worldwide (he had worked on a ship), spoke a bit of several languages, kept up with current events, and followed our group's readings and was a very active participant in all our discussions. He attended the tutoring regularly, and seemed highly motivated to learn. My opinion is that he was self-educated and a "lifelong learner."

However, as far as I could ascertain, he couldn't read. He would do writing assignments by dictating to his wife. We read everything out loud, and the students themselves read aloud, but though I encouraged everyone to do some reading, they always had the option to "pass" and he always took that option. He was referred to a local program that had an excellent reputation for success with non-readers, and the program coordinator at the Urban League where the tutoring was held encouraged him (privately) to give it a try, but he never did. We did a reading from "Everyday Heroes"--I love that book-- about someone with LD, which was an eye-opener for several in the group, and I spoke with him several times about what a diagnosis of learning disability means (e.g., it's a specific difficulty in a person of average or above-average intelligence; finding out if he had a learning disability, and what it was, would help him learn strategies to deal with it--my beginner's knowledge of LD). He gave lots of positive feedback about the tutoring group, and said he was learning a lot, but he wasn't learning to read that I could see.

To me, this experience raises questions, but doesn't provide any answers. Should we judge his learning solely by progress with reading? Should we judge the success or effectiveness of the program, or the tutor, by whether this student made progress with reading? How much do his extensive knowledge and ongoing learning "count" when he is using means other than reading to learn, even in a literacy tutoring group?

Eileen

Eileen,

Interesting puzzle.

Could your student name letters?

Did your student want to read?

Did he talk about what he was learning?

I think I would call him a pre-reader. It would be really interesting to know how he thought of himself.

Andrea

On Nov 30, 2004, at 4:20 PM, Virginia Tardaewether wrote:

There are some similarities in the adult non-readers that I have known.

1) Their families did not read at home.

2) They were expected to learn to read like everyone else in elementary school so if that method of choice at that time didn't work for them, there were no options available.

3) They sat in the back of the class and could not hear what the teacher said sometimes this was due to poor hearing, loud school noises, being of "other" races or "classes", having clothes that smelled, etc.

4) They were allowed to leave school by age 9 to 12 (3rd or 5th grade). Somehow the system didn't track them down or wonder where they were. No one noticed they were no longer in school, or at least didn't get them enrolled.

5) They all joined the work force at young ages.

6) They had someone who supported/hide their literacy as an adult (read things and filled out forms for them, signed their name.)

7) Their families moved and didn't enroll them in the new neighborhood school.

VA

This sounds like the Matthew Effect. To discuss it more: MatthewEffectNeedToReadMore

12/1/2004

I am loving this discussion! I read an article last night (Dymock, S., Reading but not understanding. Journal of Reading 37:2, October 1993) that has some insights I'd not thought about. She looks at two explanations for the issue and tests to see which one plays out.

The first references Goodman's 1973 work: "some readers are so obsessed with reading for accuracy that they forget to read for meaning."

The second looks to Gough and Tunmer (1986): "Their 'simple view' of reading suggests that if the reader is a good decoder, then the only reason for poor comprehension is poor listening comprehension. If listening comprehension is poor, then even if the text were read aloud and there was no need to decode a single word, comprehension would still be poor."

Any guesses?

She did a comparison study with children who were good decoders. Half had good comprehension and half had poor comprehension. She tested them on four passages--two read siliently, two listened to. The experiment was repeated twice, the second time six weeks later and reversing the stories so they listened to the ones they had read and read the ones they had listened to. They were assessed to make sure the readability was good so this would be a non-issue by reading a list of words comprised of one of the sentences listed columnarly in reverse order.

What was fascinating was that the good comprehenders had good scores for both listening and reading comprehension and the poor readers had poor scores in both, supporting the second hypothesis. I'm not sure that we can rule out the first hypothesis based on this, but it certainly supports the second!

I'm not sure this makes sense for adults. The first explanation seems to be more plausible for out students, but even with coaching on metacognitive strategies, they remain on the plateau.

I wonder.

Jean Marrapodi

Jean,

Did the researcher describe how she tested comprehension?

Andrea

12/2/04

Andrea,
Yes, she did. The test was on 32 twelve year olds in new Zealand. The passages ranged between 12-15 years (not sure what that translates to here, maybe GE 5-8?) and after the reading/listening, the children were asked six comprehension questions. They also completed a Likert scale on each passage judging their understanding and their background knowledge on the subject.

They did take into consideration what she called the Practice Effect (I think we call it something else, but don't remember that at the moment). This is where something is read/heard a second time and comprehension improves because they have "practiced". The two sessions were spaced by 6 weeks to condition for some of that, but there was some improvement overall even though some went from reading to listening and listening to reading. The stats were based on an overall average.

Here are the tables with the scores:

Table 1: Decoding fluency averages for baseline data

||Measure||Good comprehension||Poor comprehension|| ||List reading accuracy||99.31%||99.20%|| ||Context reading accuracy||99.92%||98.88%|| ||Reading Time (words per minute)||134.49||137.31||

Table 2: Mean percentage scores on two estimates of comprehension

||Item||||Recall of passage details||||Answers to comprehension questions|| ||Group||Reading||Listeining||Reading||Listening|| ||Poor comprehenders||42.71%||43.75%||45.58%||43.10%|| ||Good comprehenders||65.33%||70.04%||80.73%||78.77%||

What a difference!
Jean

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