![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/ChildReading.jpg\" "\\"reading\\"")
When a beginning reader reads aloud, her progress is apparent: Hunched over a book, little index finger blazing the way, she moves intently from sound to sound, word to word.<\/p>\n
I do not like green eggs and ham!
\nI do not like them, Sam-I-am!<\/p>\n
But when that same child reads silently, it\u2019s much harder to measure how much she is reading \u2013\u2013 or understanding. Yet as she advances through school, teachers will expect her to learn increasingly through silent rather than oral reading.<\/p>\n
Researchers at the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) at Florida State University will tackle that paradox over the next four years. Funded by a $1.6 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education, a team headed by FCRR researcher Young-Suk Kim will examine a poorly understood area of literacy: the relationship between oral and silent reading, and how those skills, in turn, relate to reading comprehension<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the reasons why silent reading has not been paid attention to sufficiently is that it is difficult to measure,\u201d said Kim, also an assistant professor in Florida State\u2019s College of Education. \u201cThe other piece is, people may just assume that, if you read well orally, then you\u2019ll also read well silently.\u201d<\/p>\n However, studies show that\u2019s not the case for all students, said Kim. Some may pretend to read, read inefficiently, or struggle over the bridge from oral to silent reading. That crucial transition will be the focus of the new project.<\/p>\n Kim and her team will follow 400 Leon County (Fla.) students from first to third grade, testing them three times a year to measure when and how they develop accurate oral reading and advance from oral to fluent silent reading.<\/p>\n \u201cInitially, kids sound out each letter, then put all the sounds together, and then make a word,\u201d explained Kim, a former classroom teacher. \u201cAs their reading develops further, they will be able to do that in their minds. But initially, it\u2019s not going to be as efficient or fast.\u201d<\/p>\n Beginning silent readers often sound words out in their heads, a cumbersome process called subvocalization.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we ultimately want is instantaneous recognition without subvocalization because that\u2019s faster,\u201d Kim said. \u201cBut we don\u2019t know how that process happens.\u201d<\/p>\n Until recently, measuring silent reading was difficult: After all, you can\u2019t hear the child\u2019s progress. But researchers can now see this progress, with the help of advanced eye-tracking technologies that follow students\u2019 eye movements as they read text on a computer screen<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very fascinating how precisely we can measure this,\u201d Kim said. \u201cWe can even determine exactly which letter a student is focusing on.\u201d<\/p>\n Kim and her team will also examine instructional strategies for promoting reading fluency, and hope that this new grant will be followed by a second one in which they will test these approaches. The ultimate goal is to help students read faster and better, a skill critical to their success throughout their years in school.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause children read faster in silent mode, we want to really promote that,\u201d Kim said. \u201cBut because we don\u2019t know how children transition there, it\u2019s still one big question.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Florida State University press release via Newswise: When a beginning reader reads aloud, her progress is apparent: Hunched over a book, little index finger blazing the way, she… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[45,160,74,73,25,19,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1349,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions\/1349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}