Research into how the brain learns a process suggests a key factor may be an erroneous assumption about the relationship between decoding and successful reading.The act of reading happens below the level of consciousness; it is a complex cognitive act guided by a neural network that each reader’s brain has uniquely constructed. Decoding is simply one explicit aspect of the process.That’s why proficiency in decoding does not translate into success in reading.
Likewise, the research has demonstrated that what is considered higher-level comprehension — the ability to analyze, think critically and draw inferences — requires a process that is separate from the reading process. The acquisition and utilization of these skills are more appropriately identified as information processing, which assumes there is already a healthy reading process enabling the reader to get the information in the first place.
These findings suggest that the problem is not necessarily that reading isn’t taught long enough, rather that traditional reading instruction has not provided an environment that compels the brain to access and integrate the numerous neural networks.
For readers who have succeeded in establishing a comfortable and efficient process, what has happened is this: the brain has intuitively experimented in order to find the fastest, most accurate route to the author’s intended meaning. As these experiments happen below the level of consciousness, they cannot be explicitly or universally taught.
Once the student understands what the outcome should feel like, he or she can be guided based on performance.As the effects of his or her implicit experiments emerge, highly determined feedback can address symptoms of procedural error. The reading problem can quickly be eliminated.
Research and data substantiating this explanation and solution has been compiled over 18 years by Read Right Systems. Its reading methodology, based on particular attention to the fields of neuroscience and Jean Piaget’s work on interactive constructivism, has been used for individuals, in workplaces and schools, and more recently by districts and colleges.
In 2007-2008, data from 131 schools shows that 801 Special Education students tutored with Read Right’s methodology averaged Normal Curve Equivalency gains of 9.0 and 1,011 English Language Learners averaged gains of 10.6 over 49 hours. Researchers regard gains between 1.9 to 3.2 in one school year as “significant.”
The recent federal focus on and funding for innovation in education has encouraged schools and districts across the country to solve the problems the Southern Regional Education Board has identified — that students learn to decode, but not how to read, and not how to comprehend or to analyze, the subjects they are reading.
Byron Garrison, the special services director at Post, explains the common experience of cycling through standard reading programs built on conventional reading theory.“You throw money at the same-ole’ same-ole’ and it turns out the same-ole’ same-ole,’ and just another number on the check. We are in the 21st century. Let’s go find those things that get kids reading.”
Todd Fredson is a poet and educator who has taught writing in 2nd grade through college level classrooms. He works as a writer and researcher for Read Right Systems. For more information, visit www. readright.com.