[Reading-hall-of-fame] Making Connections: From Vienna's Rathaus to the CCSS

[tsticht at znet.com]

6/15/2015


Making Connections: From Vienna’s Rathaus to the Common Core State Standards


Tom Sticht, International Consultant in Adult Education


Vienna’s magnificent Rathaus, or Town Hall, hosted an evening dinner and
ball for the International Reading Association’s 5th World Congress on
Reading in August of 1974. My wife, Jan, and I were seated with George and
Evelyn Spache.  At the time I was conducting research using the Diagnostic
Reading Scales (DRS) that George had developed in the 1960s and revised in
1972. We discussed the “reading potential” concept that the DRS were
designed to measure by revealing the grade level at which a person could
comprehend a story by listening in comparison to the level at which they
could comprehend stories by reading. If listeners could listen to and
comprehend up to an 8th grade passage but could only comprehend up to
passages at the 5th grade level by reading, then they were said to have a
5th grade reading level but an 8th grade “reading potential.”


Also in 1974, colleagues and I published an extensive review of listening
and reading research in which we found that empirical studies confirmed the
idea of “reading potential” and indicated that, on average, listening
comprehension ability surpassed reading ability with children from
kindergarten up to about the 7th or 8th grades when listening and reading
converged and became equal means of comprehending spoken or written
language (Sticht, et al, 1974). Our review also showed that children with
greater listening comprehension ability before beginning school tended to
become the better readers after entering school and learning print decoding
and those with less listening comprehension ability tended to become the
weaker readers after learning to decode the written language.


The Role of Knowledge in Reading Comprehension


A decade later, in 1984, I participated in a national conference in support
of President Reagan’s Adult Literacy Initiative which he had announced on
September 7, 1983. At lunch I sat at a table with E. D. “Don” Hirsch, Jr.
who was also a speaker at the conference. His presentation included a
summary of research showing that both children’s and adults’ prior
knowledge about a topic helped them to read and comprehend that topic. He
stated: “Adult literacy is less a system of skills than a system of
information. What chiefly counts in higher reading competence is the amount
of relevant prior knowledge that readers have” (Hirsch, 1984).


In 1996, Hirsch wrote that conceptual and vocabulary knowledge gained by
children through speaking and listening to oral language greatly affected
their ability to comprehend by reading. He wrote: Quote: “I have not yet
mentioned reading and writing. That is because speaking and listening
competencies are primary. There is a linguistic law that deserves to be
called “Sticht’s Law,” having been disclosed by some excellent research by
Thomas Sticht. He found that reading ability in nondeaf children cannot
exceed their listening ability. 
Sticht showed that, for most children, by
seventh grade the ability to read with speed and comprehension and the
ability to listen had become identical” ( Hirsch, 1996, pp. 146-147). End
quote.   In support of these comments, Hirsch cited works by colleagues and
myself (Sticht & James, 1984; Sticht, et al., 1974), both of which addressed
the “reading potential” concept as discussed above and the predictive
relationships between listening and reading comprehension at different ages
and grades of schooling.


The “Reading Potential” Concept in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)


In Appendix A for the CCSS for English language arts and literacy the
“Reading Potential” and predictive relationships among listening and
reading comprehension concepts are implicitly stated in the discussion of
the relationships of oral language to written language: Quote: “Oral
language development precedes and is the foundation for written language
development; in other words, oral language is primary and written language
builds on it. Children’s oral language competence is strongly predictive of
their facility in learning to read and write: listening and speaking
vocabulary and even mastery of syntax set boundaries as to what children
can read and understand no matter how well they can decode 
. early
language advantage persists and manifests itself in higher levels of
literacy. A meta-analysis by Sticht and James (1984) indicates that the
importance of oral language extends well beyond the earliest grades.

Sticht and James found evidence strongly suggesting that children’s
listening comprehension outpaces reading comprehension until the middle
school years (grades 6–8).” End quote


The Oracy to Literacy Transfer Effect in Improving Reading Comprehension



In the CCSS, to increase children’s “reading potential” teachers are advised
to raise children’s conceptual knowledge and vocabulary through talking and
listening, i.e. the “oracy skills” as a means of increasing the children’s
“literacy skills” following the acquisition of decoding skills. To promote
this “oracy to literacy” transfer, Appendix A of the CCSS states: Quote:
“Because, as indicated above, children’s listening comprehension likely
outpaces reading comprehension until the middle school years, it is
particularly important that students in the earliest grades build knowledge
through being read to as well as through reading, with the balance gradually
shifting to reading independently.” End quote


>From the Vienna Rathous in 1974 to the CCSS in 2015 the idea that listening
comprehension precedes reading comprehension and establishes an initial
“reading potential” for the latter is a well-established understanding in
children’s early education.  Additional research indicates that the
“reading potential” concept may also be usefully applied in the assessment
and instruction of adult literacy learners (Sticht, 1979).


References  (See addendum following references)


Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts, History/Social
Studies, Science and Technical Subjects. (2015). Appendix A: Research
supporting key elements of the standards: glossary of key terms.

Hirsch, E., Jr. (1984, January). Cultural literacy. Washington, DC: Paper
presented at the National Adult Literacy Conference.


Hirsch, E. (1996).  The schools we need and why we don't have them. New
York, NY: Doubleday.


Huey, E. (1908/1968). The psychology and pedagogy of  reading. Cambridge,
MA: M.I.T. Press.


Spache, G. (1972). Diagnostic reading scales: Revised edition: Monterey, CA:
McGraw-Hill.


Sticht, T. (1979). Applications of the AUDREAD model to reading evaluation
and instruction. In: L. Resnick & P. Weaver (Eds.) Theory and Practice of
Early Reading: Vol. 1. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates


Sticht, T. (1982). Evaluation of the "reading potential" concept for
marginally literate adults. HumRRO-FR-ETSD-82-2. Alexandria, VA:  Human
Resources Research Organization,


Sticht, T.&  James, J. (1984). Listening and reading. In: P.D. Pearson (Ed.)
Handbook of Research on Reading. New York: Longmans.


Sticht, T. & Beck, L. (1976). Development of an experimental Literacy
Assessment battery. HumRRO-FR-WD-CA-76-5. Alexandria, VA: Human Resources
Research Organization.


Sticht, T., Beck, L., Hauke, R., Kleiman, G. & James, J. (1974).Auding and
reading:  A developmental model. Alexandria, VA.: Human Resources Research
Organization


Addendum: Making Connections are brief notes showing relationships among  R
& D by colleagues and myself and that of others. For further information
about the “reading potential” concept for adults as measured by both
Spache’s Diagnostic Reading Scales and the Durrell Listening and Reading
Series see Sticht & Beck (1976) and Sticht (1982).