**From Assessment to Practice: Research-Based Approaches to Teaching
Reading to Adults Part 2: Specific Instructional Strategies for Fluency
and Vocabulary**

**Event ID 99451**

Sandra Baxter: Good afternoon and thank you for joining us for part two
of the very important discussion we began in September, \"When teaching
adults to read.\" My name is Sandra Baxter and I am the Director of the
National Institute for Literacy. The Institute is hosting today\'s
webcast that is being brought to you live from the nation\'s capital.
The Institute is a Federal Agency and we are charged by Congress to
provide national leadership on the issue of literacy for adults, youth
and children. An important part of our mission at the Institute is to
serve as the National Clearing House for resources on reading research,
reading instruction and on adult literacy. Today we are pleased to host
this forum that is titled, \"From Assessment to Practice, part II,
Research based approaches to teaching adults to read.\"

In this 70-minute segment our presenters will focus on specific
instructional strategies for two other components of reading, fluency
and vocabulary. Those who participated in our September webcast on
reading may recall that word analysis and comprehension were discussed
and used as examples to illustrate research-based practices. Our
presenters today will show how all four components of reading provide a
framework for assessing the reading ability of adult learners and how
assessment results can lead seamlessly to a program of instruction to
improve student reading. We look forward this afternoon from hearing
from our national panel of experts.

Returning to our studio today is Susan McShane, a Reading Initiative
Specialist at the National Center for Family Literacy. Welcome Susan.

Susan McShane: Glad to be here.

Sandra Baxter: Susan has more than 20 years of experience in adult
education and family literacy. She is the author of \"Applying Research
and Reading Instruction for Adults, First Steps for Teachers.\" She has
taught reading students and adult education reading programs, a private
community-based organization and a community college developmental
reading program. And again Susan I welcome you.

We also have with us today Dr. John Kruidenier, a researcher and author
and a long time consultant to the National Institute for Literacy. Dr.
Kruidenier convenes and manages the Institute\'s Adult Literacy Research
Working Group. And he has produced several publications for the
Institute including a report of the findings of rigorous research on
teaching adults to read, a summary of that report, and as well several
newsletters on the uses of research and teaching adults to read. Welcome
John.

Dr. John Kruidenier: Good to be here.

Sandra Baxter: Good, thank you.

We also have with us this afternoon Dr. Rosalind Davidson, also a
leading reading researcher and author. Dr. Davidson who has taught
reading to children, youth and adults for more than 40 years is the
principle developer of the Adult Assessment Strategies and Reading
Profiles website, an online assessment tool adult educators can use to
assess student\'s skills and reading. She has also served as Co-Director
of the Adult Reading Component Study. And she has taught a course in
reading at the Harvard University. Welcome Back today, Ros.

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: Thank you Sandra.

Sandra Baxter: And again, welcome to you, our viewers. To get us
started, John, can you take us through some of the highlights of Part I
of our webcast on teaching adults to read?

Dr. John Kruidenier: I\'d be glad to.

Sandra Baxter: Thank you.

Dr. John Kruidenier: As Sandra mentioned, today\'s presentation is a
follow-up to the presentation we gave in September. During that
presentation Ros, Susan and I laid out what we hoped was practical and
compelling rationale for the use of research-based principles for adult
reading instruction. I want to spend a little time now reviewing what we
covered during the first webcast to refresh your memory if you were with
us for that first webcast or fill you in if you were not.

First of all, we showed how the four major components of reading provide
a framework for assessing your student\'s reading ability and how
assessment results really can, as Sandra said, lead seamlessly to a
program of instruction to improve your student\'s reading. We focused on
just two of the four components of reading, word analysis and
comprehension. We used these as examples to show how research is
directly related to practice. We hadn\'t planned to talk about the other
two components, fluency and vocabulary, but as Sandra mentioned several
viewers requested that we come back and talk about them as well. The
definition of reading we presented is a practical definition because it
provides teachers with an overall framework to use for assessing and
teaching reading.

Most of our time during the first webcast was used by Ros and Susan to
show how teachers can use this framework to apply research to practice,
focusing on alphabetics and comprehension. They presented some very
practical ideas for reading assessment and instruction that come
directly from the research. We are going to repeat that format today but
we will focus on fluency and vocabulary instead of alphabetics and
comprehension. As before, all of the information being presented here
today comes from three resources that were developed by the Institute,
and these resources are all listed on this last PowerPoint slide.

Let\'s start by reviewing the definition of reading that we used during
the first webcast. Cognitive psychologists and other researchers have
come to agree that the aspects or components of reading listed on this
slide are essential to reading. This is true, whatever the larger
context or purpose for reading is. These four components are not meant
to describe all that there is to literacy of course, but these
components are always present whenever reading takes place.

During the last webcast we demonstrated how these basic components of
reading can provide a very useful framework for adult reading,
assessment and instruction. You can return to our last webcast for more
information about two of the components, Alphabetics and Comprehension.
As we said, we will be talking more about Fluency and Vocabulary today.
And fluency in reading is the ability to read with speed and ease. When
readers are fluent they read accurately without making mistakes in
pronunciation and with appropriate \[rate\], intonation and rhythm. They
read a text the way the writer of the text intended for it to be read.

Vocabulary is a term used to refer to our knowledge of word meanings.
One person\'s vocabulary consists of all the words the person
understands or knows the meaning of. Vocabulary words in reading
instruction are usually those words that a person is studying in order
to learn their meaning. And here is the rope metaphor again that we used
during the last webcast. We like to think of the components of reading
as the strands that make up a rope. All of the individual strands in the
rope, the basic components of reading, are essential for skilled
reading. Alphabetics and fluency go together to make up the print-based
strand. These components are mostly concerned with decoding the words in
a text. Vocabulary and comprehension go together to make up a
meaning-based strand. All of these components are needed for skilled
reading whatever the situation or purpose for reading is. We can focus
on each individual strand when we talk about reading or teach reading,
but we have to remember that they are all essential for skilled reading.
A weakness in any one of these strands can weaken the whole process.

Another important concept we presented during the last webcast is Growth
in Reading. It is important to remember that we were all beginning
readers at some point and that it takes a considerable amount of time to
become proficient readers. With good readers each basic component of
reading develops at roughly the same rate. With poor readers as we will
see this is not necessarily the case. The framework involving components
that we are using today is one that was used by the Adult Literacy
Research Working Group. We talked more about this group last time but
basically this group of experts in reading in adult education identified
emerging principles for adult reading assessment and instruction. The
group\'s work forms the basis for the research-based practices we will
be focusing on today.

Here is an important assessment principle that we presented last time.
The research on which the principle is based clearly shows that
assessing all aspects of reading is important. Good readers typically
are good at each aspect of reading. Adults in literacy programs are not
good readers; they can be at just about any level in each aspect of
reading. This is an example that we used last time to illustrate this
principle. There are two simplified profiles that you will see in a
second that show two student\'s grade level scores on tests of four
components. These are the components of reading comprehension, word
analysis, or decoding, fluency as measured with a test of oral reading
accuracy and then oral vocabulary. As you can see both students scored
at the six grade level on a reading comprehension test. And if we were
just to look at the student\'s reading comprehension scores the students
would look the same.

However, when you look at the results from tests of the other components
of reading you can see that they have different patterns of strengths
and weaknesses and are really not at all alike. Each of these students
will need a different program of instruction based on their individual
needs in reading. As I have mentioned, today we will be focusing on just
two of the components of reading, fluency and vocabulary. To introduce
Ros and Susan\'s presentations on fluency assessment and fluency
instruction I am going to briefly present a summary of the fluency
assessment and instruction principles derived from the research.

Remember, fluency is the ability to read with speed and ease, with
proper phrasing, rhythm and intonation. If you are struggling with
individual words as you read, hesitating and stopping your understanding
of what you read will suffer.

First of all it is clear from the research that reading fluency is a
problem for beginning adult readers just as it is for all beginning
readers. In fact, fluency can be a problem for readers at any level. We
can all imagine texts that would cause us to read much more slowly with
lots of stops and starts. The explanations actually that come with
prescription drugs are examples of texts that really slow me down. We
know that fluency can be a problem so what do we know about teaching
fluency from the researcher? First of all we know that it is possible to
teach fluency to adult beginning readers. The research indicates that
teaching fluency can increase reading achievement. From research with
both adults and children we know that there are several ways to teach
fluency and that all of the methods include repeated oral readings of
text with guidance from a teacher to improve accuracy, rate and rhythm.
The relatively small body of adult findings is supported by a large body
of K-12 research. The effective K-12 strategy is called Guided Repeated
Oral Reading. Guided Repeated Oral Reading is useful for all readers
including those with reading problems. It can also be motivational
because it leads to quick increases in reading rate and accuracy. This
may be especially important for your adult learners. They can experience
improvement in their fluency on the text used for instruction right
away. There are several variations to repeated readings, but basically
it is just reading the same text out loud over and over again. Guided
means a teacher monitors the oral reading to keep track of speed to help
out with difficult words, decided how many times to read and so on.
Susan is going to present this technique in more detail later after Ros
presents some practical information about fluency assessment. Ros?

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: Thank you, John. The three components of oral
reading fluency, Accuracy, Rate and Prosody can be assessed informally
just by attending to a reader\'s oral reading during instruction. Or we
can more formally judge a reader\'s ability on each of the three
components by applying commonly accepted criteria of a learner\'s oral
reading ability. The first component is reading accuracy. When
evaluating accuracy in reading connected texts, reading rate or evidence
of comprehension is not considered. All that is monitored is word
reading and the reader\'s attention to punctuation. Use the criteria for
mastery indicated by the test you use, that is the number of errors that
are allowed for each passage read. But determining which word reading
errors that should be counted as real errors are the same for most
assessments and we will look at those now.

The mispronunciations, substitutions, insertions, omissions and supplied
words. Write out the mispronunciations, substitutions and insertions
above the words where they occur. Put a line through words that are
omitted and underline words that you supplied. With mispronunciations,
count only the first time the error is made. Where you supply words you
would have to do that where the word reading error distorts the meaning
of a passage. You have to supply the correct word because that will
support the reader\'s recognition of the words that follow.

Right, now even though these mistakes are not counted as real errors for
purposes of scoring, we mark them during an assessment so that we have a
full picture of the reader\'s difficulties with fluency. The second
component of fluent reading is reading rate or how quickly the reader
can say the words. A good reading rate is necessary for optimal
comprehension. Accomplished readers read fast enough to \[chunk\] words
and phrases, to hold the meaning of a sentence together from beginning
to end. As such, rate is an indicator of word recognition automaticity
or effortless decoding. The average rate for the best readers who had
comprehension between grade equivalent 10 and 12 from the \[ARC\'s\]
reading component study was 160 words per minute. Use a graded paragraph
at the reader\'s accuracy rate level for determining words per minute.

Now, to get a sense of different reading rates, we are going to be a
little interactive here. Here is a small passage with different colors
that show different rates of reading. I will time you know for ten
seconds as you read this passage from Frankenstein aloud. Okay, ready?
Go.

Stop. Well, how far did you get? Through the black, red, blue, or maroon
type? Do you see you level of words per minute? Adult good readers read
orally, now comprehension isn\'t tested, between 250 and 300 wpm.

If you have readers who have difficulty learning to decode and read
slowly even passages with words they can decode, the test of Rapid
Automatized Naming may show that they have a word processing problem
that can affect memory and reading comprehension. The problem is that it
takes too long for the visual perception of a word to go through the
channels and out through oral expression. To administer this test, first
make sure the learner knows the names of the letters by pointing once at
random to each of the 5 repeated letters and asking for the name of that
letter. The reader than begins at the top of the left letter and reads
as fast as can across and down as he would read a page of text. Normal
rate for a young adult is below 21 seconds; 18 is optimal.

The third component of fluent reading is prosody, that is bringing
speech patterns to reading written passages. You have to see, does the
reading sound like speech? Well good prosody shows that the reader is
familiar with the patterns of speech and the way speech is represented
in written form. And it is necessary for comprehension. It is only an
indication that the reader understands what she is reading. We know that
accomplished readers can read with good prosody written materials they
do not understand and they really just sound good. But there is no
comprehension. So that if your reader reads smoothly don\'t take it for
granted that they understand what they are reading.

How close is the learner\'s oral reading to speech? That is what you are
going to assess when you assess prosody. Good prosody requires reading
accuracy, adequate reading rate plus experience with written language;
that is with reading. Now we have these are the degrees from 3 to 0, and
they are from the best to not very good at all or absolutely no
indication of prosody, so that the smooth reading, with pauses and so on
-- that is usually at the reader\'s independent reading level. There is
no problem with accuracy. Remember, fluency has both of those
components. And with prosody you have to be able to read the words
quickly. And the second is the fairly steady reading with pauses
occurring sometimes. That can be at the independent to instructional
reading level with less than 90 to 95% word reading accuracy. Then, the
very choppy reading that we often have with beginning learners, that is
reading with 85 to 90% accuracy. And then the labored word-by-word
reading is below accuracy, and that is the frustration level.

That is a prosody scale that you can just assess every time your reader
starts reading. It doesn\'t have to be formal and if you note it
sometimes, alright this person is reading, having Oral Reading today. I
think that is at about level 3 or level 2, and I will check to see the
grade level that they are reading at. Okay, well maybe I can increase
the grade level and see how they do at the next one. Or, this one is
having much too much trouble with fluency; I\'m going to have to look at
some other component. It is a scale to keep in mind. But Susan is going
to now tell us about what to do about all of this.

Susan McShane: So, what happens when you do one, or several of the
assessments that Ros was mentioning there, and you do find some fluency
problems? What exactly can you do? Well, of course, since fluency has
the three aspects we have discussed you would need to consider the
nature of the problem. Which aspect or aspects of fluency are you seeing
a need in? And so let\'s review one more time what those three aspects
of fluency are. We obviously had speed or rate, accuracy and word
identification and then phrasing and expression or prosody as Ros and
John all mentioned.

Let\'s think again about why fluency is important. Fluency is absolutely
required for comprehension. As Ros said it is possible to be a pretty
good fluent reader and not understand. So it may not be sufficient but
it is absolutely necessary. We have heard of that necessary but not
sufficient before. But we know that it is absolutely required. It is
absolutely necessary. Accurate and efficient word identification is
going to allow the reader to pay attention to meaning. If you think
about it, if you are having to work hard on each and every word, or
every third or fifth or tenth word and your focus is there, we only have
so much attention. We can\'t pay attention to the big picture. We can\'t
pay attention to comprehension.

And as has already been noted here, fluent reading is comprehensible
probably because it sounds like speech. So even silent reading that is
fluent is something that is going to roll along like speech in our
minds. So it is absolutely vital and in fact, I have had interesting
experiences in training where I have given examples of dysfluent
reading, I have read dysfluently and I have had teachers very frequently
say if I didn\'t have that text in front of me I would not have had a
clue about what you read. I would not have understood it. So I have
continual examples in my own life of how important it is. So we know
that it is very important. We also know who needs it. As John and Ros
discussed earlier, most adult beginning readers simply because many of
them have trouble with word identification; that\'s a big part of it.
But also many others as well. And others, you would be surprised to
discover need it. If you begin to do, you begin to hear people read
aloud and do some of these formal or informal assessments, you will
discover that many more need work on fluency.

Now, so what? So what exactly does the research say? As John said, it is
really in some ways kind of simple. Just guided repeated oral reading
techniques. Now there are a number of them; there are various ways to
approach this guided repeated oral reading, so let\'s just look at a few
of them.

One, simply involves having a learner read to the teacher or the tutor.
Usually then the student would be again reading aloud and the teacher
would be helping as needed, perhaps with word identification, perhaps
with phrasing, providing whatever guidance is needed. Echo reading is
another possibility and that involves the teacher doing some modeling
beforehand. So the teacher might read a sentence or more than a sentence
perhaps with long sentences, might even be phrases or clauses. The
teacher would read ahead to the teacher or tutor and then the student
would repeat afterword. That, you could do that echo reading approach
all the way through a passage or you might use it for specific parts of
a longer passage that the student has completed. For instance, if the
student has completed a paragraph or two, and you might go back then and
say, look back here. Let me show you how this part will sound better and
I\'ll bet you will understand it better. Why don\'t you put these words
together this way and model it that way, and then have the student echo
you.

Then of course there is dyad or choral reading. As you can imagine, dyad
involves two people reading. In this case it would be the teacher or the
tutor and the student reading simultaneously. Sometimes the teacher
drops out after awhile if the student is doing well; might have to get
back in to the reading process at another point. But at any rate they
are reading together and repeating the reading. Choral reading of course
would involve then more than two, and this would be typically a few
students reading aloud together.

An interesting kind of guided repeated oral reading involves preparing
for performances. One thing that is kind of neat about I think
performance reading, I don\'t know how many teachers have tried it in
adult education, but I do know that often teachers are reluctant to ask
adults to re-read. They don\'t feel comfortable doing that. However, if
you give them a real reason, an authentic reason to re-read, for
instance we are preparing for a performance, then you get some fluency
practice there. So if a student or a group of students are preparing
dramatic reading or poetry reading, then they need to re-read and that
is an authentic reason. So that is performance reading.

A sort of variation on that, cross-generational reading is something
that usually involves a parent or several parents practicing to read
something to children. And that is something that you might see more
often in a family literacy program but could see in any adult education
program where parents have said that is one of their goals -- I want to
help my children. So parents might prepare by re-reading and practicing
the book or the poem they are going to read to their children. As you
can imagine, listening to dysfluent reading isn\'t much fun. So if by
reading to your child you want to encourage that child to want to read
himself, herself, then you want to be a fluent reader and you might need
some practice. The only thing to consider there is if you are talking
about providing opportunities for adults to practice repeated reading to
improve their own fluency, if that adult is an intermediate or perhaps
more advanced reader and has a very young child and would be reading
very simple material, it may very well be of course that re-reading very
simple material may not have a significant impact on that reader\'s
fluency.

Now, after we have looked at those and we have said it is guided
repeated oral reading, yes it is. But remember that since one of the
primary aspects of fluency is accurate and fairly speedy word
recognition then any kind of word identification work is going to be
helpful. If that is part of the fluency problem then phonics instruction
and sight-word practice may also make a difference in fluency.

Now I think let\'s talk a little bit about some of the other issues to
be considered in fluency development and fluency instruction. Ros
mentioned the difficultly level of materials. That is something that you
as a teacher are going to have to think about quite a bit when you are
selecting materials for those guided repeated oral readings. Which
aspect of fluency are you working on? If you are working on speed and
phrasing then you don\'t want the material to be so difficult that the
learner is having to stop and figure out the words. So you probably want
to work there with relatively easy text at that independent reading
level that Ros was talking about.

On the other hand, if your focus is accuracy you want to work on giving
people practice decoding words in context, then you might need slightly
more difficult text, so then we are probably then looking at maybe
material at the instructional level. So that is pretty much what we have
got to say about the difficulty level.

There are other issues, however. I think it is a big issue in adult
education, how do you manage this kind of thing. How do you make guided
repeated oral reading happen in an adult classroom? If you\'ve got
students at different levels, if you\'ve got people doing different
things at the same time, how do you manage that if people need to be
reading aloud? It can be tough. One answer I think is the use of audio
tapes or CDs for more independent practice. It may be that a student
could go into the computer lab, out into the hall, sit in a corner with
a computer, or perhaps even work at home, at the library, wherever else
there might be a computer or a place to play a tape to listen to
recordings of appropriate level texts, use that as a model and then do
repeated reading with both. That is one way to provide independent
practice.

Now again, that assumes that you can get recordings of appropriate level
text, and that may not be easy. You might need to ask a volunteer to
help you with that to develop some tapes of appropriate level text.
Another possibility -- in many communities the organization called
Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic might be a very good partner for you
to identify because you might find that you can get lots of books on
tape, other kinds of text on tape at various levels. However, all that
being said, there is yet another wonderful resource, a free fluency
resource right online. It is called \"Reading for Today\'s Adults\" and
it was developed by the Marshall Minnesota Adult Education Program, and
we have given you the web address there. It is a wonderful resource for
students who can literally work independently to have opportunities to
do guided repeated oral reading. All kinds of wonderful resources on
that site. There are a number of passages, many passages. The passages
range from actually a little below first grade level all the way up to
the 8^th^ grade level; and there are as many as 20 passages at say first
grade level, 1.5, second grade level, 2.5 -- 20 at each one. And they
are all different kinds of subject matters so I can\'t imagine a student
who couldn\'t find something of interest. There is history, there is
biography, all kinds of life skills content, raising children,
job-related issues, all kinds of very practical adult interest
materials. A lovely site with many, many options.

And since the texts are recorded the learner can listen to each one, the
chosen one, listen to it being read three different times actually, so
he can listen to it read, then read it aloud himself. He can time
himself because you can download a timer if don\'t happen to have one in
your back pocket. So you download a timer and time yourself. Then you
can listen to it read a second time at a slightly faster rater, and read
it again and then a third time and then you read it again. And keeping
track of your time will show you that you have improved, that you have
speeded up. And the site even has a neat little table or graph where the
student can write down and keep track of his speed and you can then
really see in a concrete way how just a little bit of repeated reading
can make a difference. So I think that is a good beginning for us, and I
think we are ready to move on to vocabulary?

Dr. John Kruidenier: Great, well thanks Susan and Ros. That was really
very informative; I\'m always -- we have talked about this before, but I
am always very encouraged whenever I hear you talk about it because
there are so many quality approaches to teaching that we can take. So
far today we have talked about fluency assessment and instruction. And
during the last webcast we presented alphabetics and comprehension. The
last of the components we will be talking about today is vocabulary.
Unfortunately there are no emerging principles related to vocabulary
instruction with adults. There is also relatively little K-12 research.
There are however a few important trends for adult basic education.
First of all, we would expect adults\' vocabulary to better than
children reading at about the same level simple because adults have much
more experience. Surprisingly, this may not be true when reading ability
gets above the beginning level for adults. Actually for adults and
children who are learning to read. When we look at the vocabulary
instruction research we find that there is some evidence that vocabulary
can improved in general literacy settings although teaching vocabulary
in a specific setting such as the family literacy or workplace setting
may be more effective.

This trend is at least compatible with the limited K-12 research which
also suggests that engaging contexts may be more effective. Combining
adult and K-12 research, we can suggest that vocabulary be taught in
multiple contexts that provide an opportunity for repeated exposure to a
concept. The K-12 research also suggests teaching students how to find
information about new vocabulary words and encouraging extensive reading
and exposure to new words. Ros is going to talk about specific
vocabulary assessment practices and then Susan will present more detail
about vocabulary instruction now. Ros?

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: Thanks, John. We are going to look at the Edgar
Dale\'s Degrees of Knowing Word Meanings. It is meant to give a
framework for judging a learner\'s understanding of a word. It is not an
overall test. The scale is important for a teacher to keep in mind when
introducing new vocabulary or when diagnosing a learner\'s reading
comprehension problems. Because it is often the case that poor
comprehension is a result of not knowing the meanings of the words in
the passage well enough. That is to Dale\'s Stage 3 or 4. The first
couple of stages, \"I never saw or heard it before; I know there is such
a word but I don\'t know what it means,\" are not terrible helpful. 3
and 4 are solid. \"I\'ve heard it, I\'ve seen it, I know what it has to
do with. But I don\'t think I can tell you specifically.\" 4 is the
ultimate, \"I know what it means, I\'ll recognize it whenever I see it
or hear it, I can use it, it\'s mine.\"

Alright, those are the stages. Receptive vocabulary are the words we
know well enough to understand when seen or heard in context. Therefore
it is referred to as our listening or reading vocabulary bank. These
words in that bank are known to Dale\'s Stage 3, familiar with words but
can\'t say what it means, and 4, I know it, I can use it, and maybe 2, I
know there is such a word but I don\'t know what it means. That maybe
then, only if the context of a reading passage or conversation gives
enough clues to the word\'s meaning.

Productive vocabulary are words we know well enough to use in writing or
speaking. And as I said, you own them. That is where we are aiming. This
graphic shows the relationship of the two word banks -- the productive
bank is a small component of the all encompassing receptive. We teach
vocabulary toward increasing the productive store of word meanings.
Certainly when we teach suffixes and such we are teaching more to also
to the receptive vocabulary because knowing word parts when someone
comes across a word they don\'t know, they know how to attack it so they
are increasing the receptive vocabulary. And whenever we do that it may
increase the receptive but we are always teaching for use. Words that
can be used in speaking and writing.

Let\'s look at the different kinds of vocabulary assessments. Elicited
word meaning tests, oral elicited word meaning tests give you a great
deal of information. You just ask what does X mean, what does this word
mean? These are tests of productive vocabulary since examinees have to
know the meanings well enough to talk about them at Dale\'s level 3 or
4. The Diagnostic Assessments of Reading in the ARCS that we use in the
ARCS and the Davidson & Bruce test of word meaning which we will talk
about later are examples of elicited word meaning tests. Then there are
the multiple choice tests. They test a small number of words, they are
selected at different levels and we all know them because we are
familiar with the ABLE and the TABE where they appear.

Then there are the Multiple Choice Oral Pictures test and there are two
comprehensive tests of receptive vocabulary. The examinee is presented
with four pictures of each word spoken by the examiner. He or she
selects the one picture that best tells about the word. Both the PPVT
and the Woodcock are highly respected tests. The PPVT gives an estimate
of a person\'s verbal power and is therefore used in a great many
research studies.

Fourth, tests that are embedded, embed target words in the reading
comprehension passages. These are limited tests of receptive vocabulary
because there only can be a few words given in each passage. The
knowledge of the meanings of the embedded words is tested by multiple
choice questions. The Davidson & Bruce test is an oral elicited word
meaning test of productive vocabulary similar to the word meaning tests
on the diagnostic tests of reading. The examinee again is asked \"What
does X mean?\" All forms for administering and scoring responses are
given on the assessment strategies and reading profile\'s website. It is
a free test to download and reproduce and you will find the URL on our
final slide.

Take a look at the scoring, how we score. I\'m going to the final two
slides are on the scoring at Level 6 on the Davidson & Bruce. The
scoring is very generous. Examinees can define, give a synonym,
describe, use the word in a sentence, or even use gestures as long as
the concept of the word is made apparent.

And then we have, that\'s right, you have the final slide there,
Decline, Consume, Dismal. There we go. Alright Susan, let\'s hear it
again about instructions.

Susan McShane: Ah, alright. Well, I think what Ros and John have been
saying, even though as John said the research is somewhat limited, we
know how terribly important vocabulary is. And I will tell you that if
you begin to do any of the assessments that Ros talked about, once again
you are going to discover that many of our adult learners have limited
vocabulary, surprisingly limited in many cases. I know in a couple of
projects that we did at the National Center for Family Literacy we had
considerable data which backed up a lot of the ARCS data and so many,
many adult learners need work in this area and it is terribly, terribly
important, isn\'t it? As John suggested for beginners your oral
vocabulary is frankly the basis of your reading. You identify the word
in print and then you go, oh yeah, because you already know the meaning
of it. But, once you get past being a beginning reader, if you\'ve got
adults who are needing to improve their reading, what begins to happen
is they start running into words they don\'t know the meaning of. And so
in order to build your reading skills you are going to have to develop
vocabulary.

Who needs it? You can imagine of course those non-native English
speakers, we think of them immediately, our English language learners,
but also as I said and we have all said, many intermediate and higher
level readers will benefit from vocabulary instruction as well.

So let\'s just review then in general some of the research-based tips. I
know John said that the research is a bit limited here but there is a
suggestion that it can be helpful to pre-teach unfamiliar words in
instructional text. We will talk about how you identify those. But this
is just going to be our sort of general overview. In other words you get
in the habit of looking at material that the students are going to be
reading and saying, \"Are there any problem words in here that they
won\'t know the meaning of; maybe we should pre-teach them.\" Then of
course you want to pay attention to the fact that we need multiple
exposures, don\'t we. Multiple exposures before we own it, before we get
to that Dale\'s level that Ros was talking about where it is really ours
and we own it. We need multiple exposures and one way to do that is by
teaching useful words that they will encounter many times in the subject
matter texts that they are studying or whatever. So we definitely need
multiple exposures. In addition again, as John mentioned, we need to
engage the learners in using and working with the words in several ways.
Some of us may remember in school when you were learning new words, you
looked it up in the dictionary, you wrote the definition, you wrote a
sentence, you stopped, you moved on. That\'s not multiple exposure, and
that is not how we build ownership of a word. That is not how it becomes
a real part of our productive vocabulary. We need to engage the learners
in using and working with the words in several ways. So we need to make
sure that we as teachers are using them in our oral language, using them
in our written language. We need to encourage and find ways to get the
learners themselves to do that as well and we need to build in plenty of
reviews so that there are lots of different ways that we work with the
words.

Then the next one is interesting, on the slide there, Word Learning
Strategies. We talked strategy instruction in the first webcast. The
importance of strategy instruction. And I may have used the example of
teaching a man to fish. You probably remember that old one, if you give
a man a fish he eats today, if you teach a man to fish he and his family
will eat tomorrow and the next day. So what we are talking about is
teaching learners strategies that they can use on their own, word
learning strategies, and we will look at those in a minute to identify
the meanings of words. And then of course, of course, encourage wide
reading. And some of us chuckle over that last one, oh, yeah, so as
adult learners, wide reading. If you don\'t enjoy reading, if you
struggle with reading, you are busy taking care of your family, you
don\'t have time, you weren\'t a successful student, wide reading may be
not realistic. But the better they get and the more we encourage them --
so it is always worth considering that that indirect kind of word
learning is extremely important as well.

What we are going to focus on here over the next few slides is looking
at direct instructions. Now you need to stop and think, after looking at
the assessments that Ros was talking about, realize that vocabulary
tests are not exactly diagnostic in the same way that phonics test; it
is really not. They are not going to tell you exactly where the need is.
Oh wow, we need to work on those multi (inaudible) words, if he can
decode those we are all set. No, it is not going to give you that kind
of specific information necessarily. It is going to show you whether
there is a need, whether there is a great need, whether there is some
kind of a need -- yes. But they are not quite as diagnostic as those
assessments of decoding skills or phonic skills.

So if there is a need, what exactly are you going to do? How are you
going to identify the words to teach? Well remember that we talked about
the fact that you need to use, you need to teach words they are going to
encounter frequently. That means those useful words. So you are going to
think about, if I am going to decide on which are going to be the words
of the week that we are going to focus on this week, consider how useful
they are, and how frequently they will be encountered. And one way to
think about identifying useful words is to consider the three tiers of
words that were identified by and described by Isobel Beck. Let\'s look
at the three tiers of words.

She says Tier One, those most basic words that pretty much everybody is
going to know. If you sound out Car, Sad or Man, you know what those
words mean, and so do most of our adult learners. Where instruction
probably needs to be is with those Tier Two words. Notice how she has
defined them as High-Frequency words for mature language users. They are
the ones that you will run into in print, but many of our learners will
not encounter them often in just everyday conversation with their
friends, families, neighborhoods. So look at those words, those examples
there. Coincidence and insistent and reluctant. Most of us would not
consider those to be particularly difficult words, but they are not
necessarily words that are commonly used by our learners in their
everyday lives. But they are high frequency words that occur in all
kinds of text. So that is an important focus -- that is where you go,
you should look at those Tier Two words.

The Tier Three words are the lower frequency words that might have to do
with a detailed look in a very specific kind of domain perhaps academic
language, maybe science like \"isotope\" and \"entomologist\" and
\"late\" -- those examples on your slide there. Those are probably a
little lower priority for most of our adult learners. So that is one way
to think about identifying the words to teach.

Now if you want to look for those high-frequency words, how do you
decide among that large group of words which ones to teach. Well, one
suggestion is think about the signal words and phrases because those are
used in all contexts, aren\'t there? Look at the examples there. Those
words, however, in contrast, in conclusion -- are those used regularly
by our learners in their everyday conversations? No. And there are many,
many signal words and phrases. And what is neat about them is that they
give the reader clues, don\'t they, to the relationship between facts,
ideas, events in whatever they are reading. So they are very important
words. But in many cases not real concrete. So that is one important
place to start. Those are some good Tier Two words.

Another thing to consider if you are looking at multiple exposures, what
kinds of words are they going to encounter, if they are, especially if
they are looking at studying for the GED test or going on to higher
education, then there is a good reason to look at what might be called
the \"Subject Matter\" words. These are folks who did not complete high
school and so maybe they could use some work on science vocabulary and
social studies vocabulary, especially in preparation for the GED test.
So that is an important way of identifying words to teach.

Now remember that when we were looking at the general approaches we said
that one good way to handle vocabulary development is to look at the
text that they are going to be working with and say are there any words
that we should teach up front, because pre-teaching can be useful. How
do you decide which ones? You are going to look at some of those texts
in your GED practice books and if you start looking at them with a
different frame of mind which you will have after you begin doing
assessments, believe me. Some of the teachers we have worked with have
said, \"Wow, I stopped assuming so much about vocabulary.\" So you are
going to look at some of those passages in those GED workbooks and
think, oh gee there are a lot of words I bet they don\'t know. How do
you decide which ones should you pre-teach? Maybe the ones that you
think are absolutely vital for the understanding of the text and that
are not definable using context clues so that you pull out a few rather
than teaching 15 new words in the first couple of minutes.

Now, so that is certainly one possibility. Looking at, considering the
words that should be pre-taught. However we also, if you will recall,
talked about word learning strategies and how important it was to teach
a man to fish, to give that adult learner strategies that might be used
to identify, to figure out the meanings of words. One approach is
structural analysis or what is sometimes called morphemic analysis. A
morpheme is a meaningful word part. So we are talking about prefixes and
suffixes and roots. You can teach those to learners and you need to. Why
should we assume that semi, pre, post, you can find some examples and
words that they do know and begin with those, but then you can give them
lots more examples and focus on prefixes and suffixes and those Greek
and Latin roots -- a very helpful thing to do. Will it solve all of the
problems? When you put that prefix together with a given root that you
think you know the meaning of do you always have the exact meaning of
the word? No, it won\'t always work, but a strategy is a lot better than
a wild guess. And it will often work and it will often help.

And then of course there is teaching people how to use the dictionary.
Dictionaries are tough and their definitions are complicated. You will
have to work with them certainly. And I would encourage you to share
with each if any of you are watching know of some very good
user-friendly, reader-friendly dictionaries, please share with each
other what those are. I have been told that some of the ones intended
for English language learners are pretty reader friendly dictionaries.
So dictionary use. And then finally, teaching learners how to use
context clues. Context clues are very interesting because I think most
of us sort of figure it out on our own to do that and those of us to
whom reading came easily, we did in fact do that. But if you didn\'t, if
you just guess or just go on and bluff your way through it then maybe it
would help if somebody taught you about the different kinds of context
clues there are.

So let\'s look at a few examples of the kinds of context clues. This may
be something you haven\'t really even though about. For instance, there
are in some cases, you have an actual restatement or synonym. For
instance, look at that first one. What do you think robust means? Well,
hey, right after the comma, very strong and sturdy, that sounds good.
Same thing with cantankerous. Not a word that our students would
necessarily know but if you read on, \"She was grumpy and difficult.\"
Well, that gives us a clue. Then of course there are sometimes it is an
antonym or a contrast. In other words you have to know that what is
coming next is different from that word. Look at that sentence there,
that example. \"I\'m usually gregarious.\" Oops, what does gregarious
mean. Well, I am usually gregarious, but -- that but is a clue, isn\'t
it, that what is coming is different. \"After I lost my job I kept to
myself.\" So we may not know exactly what gregarious means but we know
that it probably doesn\'t mean hanging around with our friends, being
outgoing, wanting to be with people. It means sort of the opposite of
that, doesn\'t it.

And then of course occasionally you do get perfect definitions right in
the text. Now once again this is a wonderful strategy. We don\'t mean to
say that it will always work because it will not. Sometimes there are
not a lot of good context clues in a text, but a strategy is better than
no strategy. A strategy is very much better than a wild guess. I would
like to conclude my piece however with one additional point that I think
we need to consider, and that is that it is more than background
knowledge, I\'m sorry, it is more than vocabulary; it is really a matter
of that bigger issue of background knowledge. Words live inside huge
bodies of knowledge. And our folks didn\'t finish school. Our folks
struggled with school. We cannot make up for all the classes they
didn\'t finish, all the books they haven\'t read, but we can at least
understand that it is a bigger issue than that and we can understand
that we may need to help build a little of that background knowledge
from time to time as well as doing that direct vocabulary instruction.
Because limited knowledge of a subject matter will make all kinds of --
it will make it hard for you to use the context clues that are there and
it will make it hard for you to make inferences, so dealing with that
means maybe also remembering to think about that broader issue --
background knowledge. So with that little reservation in mind, maybe we
are ready to move on. That\'s about it for vocabulary. Back to John.

Dr. John Kruidenier: Thank you Susan. Thank you. I agree with you by the
way that the Isobel Beck resource is a good research-based resource. And
I think it is also pretty readable, isn\'t it?

Susan McShane: Oh, I was really impressed with how readable it is. That
is definitely something I would recommend. I think it is not one of
those academic texts, no, it is very readable and lots of practical
suggestions. Yes, very good.

Dr. John Kruidenier: That\'s great. We hope that we have convinced you
over these two webcasts that research provides some very practical and
useful approaches to adult reading instruction. The basic components of
reading, just as a review, provide a very useful framework for assessing
and teaching reading to adults.

We know, for example, that we need to assess each component of reading
in order to create a complete program of reading instruction for our
students. Assessment results should be used to guide our choice of
research-based practices, and how much we focus on each of the
components of reading during instruction.

Now that we have concluded our presentation I want to remind you that
everything we have talked about today is contained in these three
resources on the slide that is coming up. This slide, along with the
other slides is downloadable from the webcast. And I am going to turn
things back over to Sandra now who will lead our question and answer
session.

Sandra Baxter: Okay, thank you John and thank you Susan and Ros for
really a great explanation of what is in the research, beginning
discussion of how we can use it in practice. And in fact we are already
receiving questions. So for our viewers I want to remind you that you
can send us questions by email -- you type them in at the bottom of your
screen and we are going to jump right in with some questions now. Let\'s
see.

From Hilda at the Hudson Valley/Catskill Partnership we have a question.
And she would like to know if you can briefly explain what independent,
instructional and \[frustrational\] reading levels are.

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: Yes, we use that kind of a scale to figure out
what kind of reading material to give our learners. And we peg it at
their level of reading accuracy, their word reading accuracy. So that to
be at an absolutely independent level it is the kind of thing that --
what kind of a magazine or a book would the learner pick up if they had
a couple of minutes just to sit and read something. That level. That is
independent reading level. They don\'t need any help. And for that it
means that they know at least 95% of the words to decode them, at least.
But many people peg it at 98% \-- 98% to 100% of the words they can
decode. So that is independent.

The next level down which takes us down to 90%, let\'s say to 95% of the
words in a passage is called instructional and that is the level you
want to be at when you are teaching because that helps the leaner
stretch in their reaching. You don\'t want to teach at their independent
reading level.

But the last one is the frustration. If they don\'t know words, they are
missing 15% of the words in a passage, that is too many. So 85% is a
cut-off. And that is the one that you don\'t use.

Dr. John Kruidenier: And I think sometimes these levels are based on
comprehension questions as well as accuracy. Or a combination of the two
as well.

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: A combination of the two, right.

Susan McShane: And once again though, in order to get at what Ros is
talking about you will have to hear that person read aloud.

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: That\'s right.

Susan McShane: And that is typically what is not often happening in
classrooms. You may have people working in material that is in fact too
difficult for them and you don\'t know it.

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: That also means that materials you use for your
learners should be graded. And maybe a volunteer in your center can take
time and do a readability on some of the books in your library or
wherever and just mark on the spine what grade level they are. That
makes it easy.

Susan McShane: Yeah, so you need to know the level of the text as well
the learning level.

Sandra Baxter: That\'s a really important point so I\'m glad you got to
mention that. Okay. We have a question from Christie at MATC. She would
like to know how can guided oral reading be used in a multi-level adult
classroom.

Susan McShane: Well, that is I think what I was getting at when I tried
to acknowledge the management problems there. Again, if there is any
chance, depending on where you are situated and I know that sites vary
hugely. But if you happen to be in a setting where there is -- maybe you
are in a Community College and you have got students who could go to the
Learning Lab. Have you got any room where there might be a computer? In
that case, then that learner could work independently for instance on
that Marshall Minnesota site.

Otherwise, I think you need to just schedule, you need to schedule so
that for those who needed work on fluency there was at least a few
minutes available. You are just going to have to be a little more
structured about the way you manage your time. And I acknowledge that it
is a difficult thing to do and in some of your setting it would be very
hard to find much in the way of privacy. Can you go around a corner? Can
you go out into a hall if that is the best you got? Some of you are in
very good settings where you can go into another room, I know. But in a
multi-level classroom it is just plain tough.

Dr. John Kruidenier: I think this may have implicit in your responses in
using peers, once -- and I think also getting adults comfortable with
reading aloud. It can happen. We are all, I think, a little nervous to
read aloud in front of people we don't know. But I think over time with
enough practice, with enough \[repeated\] reading exercises, with enough
reading out loud you become more comfortable and you can work with peers
as well as a teacher --

Susan McShane: Absolutely, and the other thing is that it is okay to
read it silently first. We would all prefer to read it silently first.
And another thing that I hear from teachers all the time is, we never
used to read aloud but now we have been trying this. And the first time
you ask for a loud reading, two or three people will read. And then the
next time another person will read, and then pretty soon, it is \[as
though\] the others are saying, \"Oh, I can do that.\"

Now there may still be one or two folks who are not comfortable doing it
and that is fine. But you are right, even getting to that point and what
we have discovered is that sometimes they can get to that point where
they are willing to read aloud; it is that repeated reading that they
are still a little reluctant. So look around for some products and some
resources that will make is easier for you. It is tough.

Sandra Baxter: The next question really goes to a central theme of our
talk today which is individualized focus on particular needs,
individualized instruction. But it also touches on a topic we didn\'t
talk about --technology. And Rob at the Santa Ana College would like to
know if all components of reading are assessed then effective
developmental instruction needs to focus on individualized needs.
Therefore are computerized individualized programs the best?

Dr. John Kruidenier: I think it is the same question whether you are
talking about computer programs or print materials. You have to make
sure, and you are the only one as the teacher who will know. You have to
make sure that the material you are using to teach matches the
student\'s needs. That it is teaching to the components that need
instruction, that it is at the right level. And it meets the other needs
of the student. I\'m sure there are computer programs that do.

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: There are very few, I really don\'t -- the one
that you mentioned, this website for timed reading I think is
extraordinary, but that is just one component. I don\'t know of a
program of the computerized programs or any online that are independent
so that it doesn\'t need teacher or some supervision.

Susan McShane: Yeah --

Dr. John Kruidenier: Well there are these things called -- and it
depends \--

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: Phonics things.

Susan McShane: Yes, there are some things.

Dr. John Kruidenier: There are actually some comprehension ones as well.
They are called Integrated Learning Systems. And these are large
programs, they are usually quite expensive as well, but they do present
material at a lot of different levels. They give you an assessment when
you go in. But they are not flexible necessarily.

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: That\'s right.

Dr. John Kruidenier: \[And up\] all the time. They may not fit the needs
of students you have, but there are some programs out there that do that
kind of thing.

Susan McShane: Yes, and I think they vary considerably but I think that
question that Ros has raised is whether anything, any machine-based
program is going to be sufficient without human -- a teacher.

I think there are some that a lot of people think are pretty good with
regards to building decoding skills and maybe you could plug that
student in so that he could work individually for a little bit and you
could go on and do something else. But not with the idea that that is
all he needs necessarily. I think I would have a little bit of --

Dr. John Kruidenier: And I think it is a good question, too. And there
have been some Meta analyses with the use of technology, computer-based
programs. And overall they suggest that using programs that are using
good -- comparing a good computer-based program to a good print-based
program for example. The computer-based programs are at least as good
overall in general. It may not be true of an individual program, but
just overall. And the nice thing about them sometimes is that they can
be a little more efficient because you don\'t necessarily have to have
the teacher there as much.

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: But you have to have a teacher.

Dr. John Kruidenier: But you still do need to have and still do.

Susan McShane: On site, yes.

Dr. John Kruidenier: But you might for example be able to have someone
at the computer while you are working on --

Susan McShane: Oh yes.

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: Oh yes, and using it that way of course is very
reasonable. But to say that they are independent for a learner to use
without --

Susan McShane: But the other nice thing is they allow a little bit of
privacy for the learner to be working the same way that workbooks do
only---

Dr. John Kruidenier: Are we still answering the question or have we
moved on to something else?

Sandra Baxter: We may have moved on! We have about ten minutes left so
we have a couple of more questions that we can address before we have to
end. And Mary Lynn from College of Lake County would like to know what
kind of work can you give outside of class to students to reinforce the
principles that we have been talking about here today.

Susan McShane: So material, that would be homework in other words.

Sandra Baxter: Yes, essentially.

Dr. John Kruidenier: I\'ll start because I\'ve got the easy one, and
that is read a lot. \"Read a lot.\" Books. Encourage outside reading. If
you know what level they are able to read to read at, you encourage them
to read books at that level. For a number of reasons we have mentioned
already, for example to help with vocabulary and fluency but -- so I had
the easy one, now it is your turn.

Susan McShane: I think it\'s tough. One thing that we have said over and
over again for years is don\'t give anybody any sort of at-home
assignment unless you are sure that they can do it independently. Which
means if you are doing strategy instruction and you have worked on it
and you have introduced this and you have modeled it and you have given
them some practice -- not until you are absolutely sure they can -- we
don\'t want them practicing wrong. That, is a no -- no. So, that is kind
of what not to do.

But other than that, maybe there is something that could be done with
vocabulary for instance. If you have got any sort of structured program,
if you\'ve got any sort of curriculum that you have either purchased or
you are developing on your own, how many new words a week. Wouldn\'t it
be a good idea for that person to be told \"Look for that word in the
newspaper.\" Look for that word, find different ways that it is used,
bring those in to share with us. Write sentences using those words.

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: That is a technique that Mary Beth Curtis used in
the Boys Town program. See if you can see that word. Can you find it
anyplace in a newspaper? Where have you seen it and bring it in to focus
them. The point is to focus on the word. We had one learner coming in at
the School of Education, we have learners there paired with our Masters
students, and he came and he said, \"You know, I sit on the T now and I
am reading the signs on the T.\"

Dr. John Kruidenier: The T for people who don\'t know --

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: I\'m sorry the T, the subway. I\'m reading the
signs and he said, \"I decided maybe that is all the reading I can do
because I am so busy, but I just sit there and I read every sign on the
subway.\" So, \--

Susan McShane: And interestingly enough when it comes to the vocabulary
one of the things that we have heard from teachers is that as many of
you know I\'m sure, lots of folks who come to adult education would
consider themselves to be readers. \"I don\'t need reading.\" That\'s
not something they necessarily want to work on, but that vocabulary was
easier to sell than some of the other components. In other words it
might be a way to -- so if you did start with something like that and
give them something to do at home, because that is what has happened to
him is suddenly he has become more conscious of it, and that\'s what
they do. And that could be a little bit of a turnaround for maybe some
learners.

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: And I think homework is not a bad word. I think
it is important. And as the point is as Susan said, work that they can
do and do independently. That is an important point.

Sandra Baxter: Well, one more question related to that issue we just
talked about. Could you please address the types of materials that are
appropriate for adult learners? Would it be acceptable for instance to
use children\'s books?

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: Well I think you have to be careful about
children\'s books just because they are for children; it doesn\'t mean
that the word attack and the word meanings -- the word meanings may be
okay -- but the words are long and to be able to decode them isn\'t
easy. Unless you just start with \"Hop on Pop\" or some of those \[CVC\]
words, once you get into really children\'s books, appropriate yes, if
they have help with them and guided reading with them before as Susan
was talking about. But we can\'t assume just because they are for
children they are easy. If they are children\'s reading books, that\'s
one thing.

Dr. John Kruidenier: The questioner may have been thinking about
appropriate in a different way, I\'m not sure; we can\'t ask I guess.
But they may have thought, should you give things that are childish to
adults when you are teaching them. Will they be insulted if you give
them a children\'s book.

Susan McShane: You don\'t want to do that unless you were looking at
very low-level readers. But I think there are adult materials at very
low level and --

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: There are, there are.

Susan McShane: And certainly once you get to those intermediate level
readers, some of the things that were developed for secondary school
kids, for adolescents, the material is, some of it at least, is
appropriate. Some of it is fine. It is about subject matter.

Dr. John Kruidenier: Right, and we have all had this experience where we
have had the adult come into the reading class and we ask what he or she
wants to learn. It\'s not uncommon to hear, \"I want to be able to read
to my children.\"

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: Absolutely.

Susan McShane: Absolutely.

Dr. John Kruidenier: And if that is the case then it is certainly
appropriate to use those during instruction.

Susan McShane: But at the same time, once again as I said, depending on
what level reader they are. It may be challenging for them to read
something that they are going to read to their 5-year old but it may not
be depending on what level they are.

But certainly --

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: Absolutely.

Susan McShane: But it may not be. \"I\'ve got a 3-year old and these
little primarily picture books are not a big challenge for me,\" but at
the same time that is a way to get at those who are beginning readers
and using children\'s material that is appropriate for them. And that is
a fairly common goal I believe.

Dr. Rosalind Davidson: Appropriate for adult learners.

Sandra Baxter: Well I really hate to end our conversation here, but we
are ending on a good point. We have received many more questions than we
are able to answer right now but we look forward to responding to your
questions online so you can check our website maybe next week, let\'s
shoot for next week, and put our answers up then.

Remember that today\'s webcast will be archived and saved at the
National Institute for Literacy\'s website. And we are at
[www.nifl.gov](http://www.nifl.gov/). The slides from today\'s
presentation and from the September presentation as well can be
downloaded from the Institute\'s website.

The exchange of information on adults and reading doesn't end here nor
should it. You can learn more about today\'s topic at the ASRP website
which is located on the Institute\'s website, or you can access it
directly at
[www.nifl.gov/readingprofiles](http://www.nifl.gov/readingprofiles).

Also available from the Institute are two free books, \"Applying
Research in Reading Instruction for Adults\" and \"Research-Based
Principles for Adult Basic Education Reading Instruction.\" Learn more
about these books on our website and how to order them. And again they
are free so you can order them either through our 800-number or online.

John, Ros, Susan, thank you so much for joining us back here in
Washington today to talk about this topic. You have done just a
fantastic job. Command performance. And the expertise that you have been
sharing with our viewers is so important so we do seriously thank you
for being here.

I want to thank you, our viewing audience, for taking time out of your
busy schedule to join us today for this very important discussion on
Instruction. And as well I want to thank you for your commitment to the
nation\'s adult learners. We really need the services that you are
providing and we commend you on the work that you are doing. For the
National Institute for Literacy I am pleased to have been part of this
program. We encourage you to share your questions, your comments and
your ideas with us on the Institute\'s discussion list. Thank you so
much for joining us today. From Washington, DC, I\'m Sandra Baxter.