Teaching Reading: A Triad Approach
If you’re familiar with recent media and publications surrounding the instruction of reading, you might now that there exists an unfortunate phenomenon known as “phonics patching,” whereby schools that had not been teaching reading using a phonetic approach have now improved their phonics program but without addressing other areas of their reading curriculum. In fact, with the rise of phonics patching, some educators are under the misguided impression that students should only read texts that are decodable. Research on reading instruction has always been clear that students need to both read and be read to, in order to expand their vocabulary base. It is necessary to have a wide working vocabulary in order to make meaning of words. Students should simultaneously be learning to decode, while learning vocabulary, while being read to: in shorter words, a triad approach.
On one angle of the triad approach to reading, students learn to decode words and practice reading them in short phrases and sentences. Stanislas Dehaene, a prominent researcher, tells us that our brains recognize each letter or combination of letters, then connect them to the areas of the brain that give them sound and meaning. This is a necessary component of learning to read, and is a practice that can fall away once students have demonstrated the ability to read fluently. The second angle of the triad approach includes using learned decoding skills to practice reading on-grade level stories, poems, and other text with fluency. The third angle of the triad approach is the vocabulary and world knowledge strand, whereby students are exposed to words and worldviews through teacher-led read alouds.
In my work helping school districts implement high quality instructional materials, I often come across teachers who have learned the importance of using decodeable text to solidify phonics knowledge, but who do not understand that the use of decodeables in isolation does not turn students into readers. I rely often on the guidelines from the research (below) that illustrate the need for a triad reading approach.
In a classroom setting, the triad reading approach might look like the following: the teacher engages students in a dialogic read aloud that expands their worldview, is complex, and offers exposure to higher level vocabulary words. At another time, the teacher presents an on-grade level text, and the class engages in repeated reading of pages or passages, such as echo reading, then choral reading, then partner reading, followed by a comprehension discussion. Repeated reading has the twofold effect of giving students the opportunity to practice the decoding skills they have learned in order to comprehend the text they are reading. And to finish the triangle, the teacher works with students in small groups on their necessary decoding or fluency skills.
The triad approach takes intentional preplanning and critical analysis of the students in a class. In order to start, it’s necessary to use a fluency screener, like DIBELS, and a word reading assessment, in order to determine the phonic skills that students need. I’ve been fortunate to work extensively with the Bookworms Reading and Writing program, which follows this triad approach, and which has demonstrated effectiveness for learners many times over.