You will find that,
while each question has it's own focus, there will
be information that overlaps with other
questions, such is the nature of VAS and the influence it has on students who are learning to read & write.
By reading a number of the FAQs you will begin to form an appreciation for just how important it is to take a
child's VAS into account prior to teaching them to read.
Think about how you might answer these questions before revealing the answers.
Click on a question to reveal the answer.
questions, such is the nature of VAS and the influence it has on students who are learning to read & write.
By reading a number of the FAQs you will begin to form an appreciation for just how important it is to take a
child's VAS into account prior to teaching them to read.
Think about how you might answer these questions before revealing the answers.
Click on a question to reveal the answer.
Surely Vas isn't the only factor causing reading failure?
VAS is only one of
many factors that contribute to reading
failure.
BUT:
Unlike true learning deficits that come under the collective umbrella termed 'dyslexia', VAS belongs to the general population - it is a normal variable that won't stop you learning to read and spell - IF you are given a 'Phonics First' opportunity to learn.
A Phonic Approach does not require a high VAS.
BUT:
- It affects large numbers of children, particularly in the early stages of learning to read.
- It is only a problem in 'Whole Language' or 'Teach Everything' classrooms.
- The problem does not occur in a 'Phonics First' classroom.
Unlike true learning deficits that come under the collective umbrella termed 'dyslexia', VAS belongs to the general population - it is a normal variable that won't stop you learning to read and spell - IF you are given a 'Phonics First' opportunity to learn.
A Phonic Approach does not require a high VAS.
Does a high VAS guarantee reading success?
Perhaps… but only
in the early stages; in fact a high VAS can
actually cause problems that may only emerge
after the age of 9!
Let me explain:
An infant with a high VAS is usually good at word-guessing because a high VAS allows him to develop sight words very early. However…that initial success increases the risk that he will then come to depend on those sight words and may therefore neglect the development of phonic skills.
This is why VAS Theory stresses the need for teachers in infant schools to regard the range of teaching strategies (phonics, guessing from word-shape, predicting from sentence meaning etc) as being COMPETITIVE rather than cooperative strategies. If you ‘teach everything’ the child may simply choose the reading strategy that suits him best at the moment but that strategy may not equip him for the increasing complexities of language later on.
The high VAS child’s problems may not be apparent until about the age of 9 when he finds that his lack of phonics has undermined his ability to read the increasing number of long words, particularly if they are unfamiliar. Spelling may also suffer.
The reading problems arise because word-guessing involves:
a) selecting some letters and
b) then making a match with similar patterns stored in memory.
The problem is that some words have very similar visual patterns and guessing can lead to words like ‘insist’ being misguessed as ‘insect’ or ‘insert’ because they all share the same ins**t memory pattern.
The spelling problems arise because word-guessing treats words like pictures…with minimal left-to-right processing. But spelling requires accurate, left-to-right sequencing of letters and sounds. If the student has excellent visual recall (he can visualize the word) this may not be a problem, however we are not all so blessed. Most of us rely on our ability to break words into syllables when spelling. As whole word processing is just that, no reliable base is laid for spelling. This explains why some children read well (high VAS & good word recognition skills) but spell poorly (poor recall and no 'chunking' skills).
And so this apparently bright child, who may have been in the top 10% of children in grades 1 and 2, now reaches the age of 9. His sight word vocabulary is still pretty fast but he is prone to make the ‘insect/insert’ type of error and this sometimes misleads him into making the wrong assumptions about sentence-meaning and he is only average at spelling.
So how do you improve his performance?
Clearly it would be useful if his phonic skills were better but, if you now try to teach him basic phonic skills, he is likely to reject it because it is slower than his now-habituated, inaccurate, word-guessing technique. Sure you can teach him phonic skills but he simply reverts back to his habitual guessing in the classroom. He has become one of the most difficult of cases to remediate.
The tragedy is that with a high VAS, this child had the potential to become one of the most literate children in the class had his phonic skills been developed first. But today he is locked into mediocrity and his enjoyment of reading is proportionately diluted.
Let me explain:
An infant with a high VAS is usually good at word-guessing because a high VAS allows him to develop sight words very early. However…that initial success increases the risk that he will then come to depend on those sight words and may therefore neglect the development of phonic skills.
This is why VAS Theory stresses the need for teachers in infant schools to regard the range of teaching strategies (phonics, guessing from word-shape, predicting from sentence meaning etc) as being COMPETITIVE rather than cooperative strategies. If you ‘teach everything’ the child may simply choose the reading strategy that suits him best at the moment but that strategy may not equip him for the increasing complexities of language later on.
The high VAS child’s problems may not be apparent until about the age of 9 when he finds that his lack of phonics has undermined his ability to read the increasing number of long words, particularly if they are unfamiliar. Spelling may also suffer.
The reading problems arise because word-guessing involves:
a) selecting some letters and
b) then making a match with similar patterns stored in memory.
The problem is that some words have very similar visual patterns and guessing can lead to words like ‘insist’ being misguessed as ‘insect’ or ‘insert’ because they all share the same ins**t memory pattern.
The spelling problems arise because word-guessing treats words like pictures…with minimal left-to-right processing. But spelling requires accurate, left-to-right sequencing of letters and sounds. If the student has excellent visual recall (he can visualize the word) this may not be a problem, however we are not all so blessed. Most of us rely on our ability to break words into syllables when spelling. As whole word processing is just that, no reliable base is laid for spelling. This explains why some children read well (high VAS & good word recognition skills) but spell poorly (poor recall and no 'chunking' skills).
And so this apparently bright child, who may have been in the top 10% of children in grades 1 and 2, now reaches the age of 9. His sight word vocabulary is still pretty fast but he is prone to make the ‘insect/insert’ type of error and this sometimes misleads him into making the wrong assumptions about sentence-meaning and he is only average at spelling.
So how do you improve his performance?
Clearly it would be useful if his phonic skills were better but, if you now try to teach him basic phonic skills, he is likely to reject it because it is slower than his now-habituated, inaccurate, word-guessing technique. Sure you can teach him phonic skills but he simply reverts back to his habitual guessing in the classroom. He has become one of the most difficult of cases to remediate.
The tragedy is that with a high VAS, this child had the potential to become one of the most literate children in the class had his phonic skills been developed first. But today he is locked into mediocrity and his enjoyment of reading is proportionately diluted.
What about using context cues for reading?
Cognitive science offers no support to the
assumption that early learners have the
cognitive ability to perform such a
sophisticated task.
It has to be expected that when you ask a young learner to….
“Read to the end of the sentence and try to work out what the word is.” he/she will simply ‘guess’.
Guessing is NOT reading. It is a game of word roulette - especially in low VAS students.
The sad thing is that, once students have established a tendency to guess based on minimal cues, it is very difficult to break this inappropriate reading habit. Even once a student is able to blend and chunk, they will continue to use indiscriminate guessing. Intense and supportive intervention is required to break the guessing habit and finally establish sound, accurate reading responses.
It has to be expected that when you ask a young learner to….
“Read to the end of the sentence and try to work out what the word is.” he/she will simply ‘guess’.
Guessing is NOT reading. It is a game of word roulette - especially in low VAS students.
The sad thing is that, once students have established a tendency to guess based on minimal cues, it is very difficult to break this inappropriate reading habit. Even once a student is able to blend and chunk, they will continue to use indiscriminate guessing. Intense and supportive intervention is required to break the guessing habit and finally establish sound, accurate reading responses.
Will a failing student recover once VAS has developed?
Before I answer
that question, consider the plight of an infant
aged 7 years 7 months. We’ll call him Jack.
Jack has a low VAS level, he also has
confusions between letter names and letters
sounds. This is the typical profile of the
‘failing reader’ referred to in your question
above. We see children like this almost every
day. Most of them are boys because, on average,
boys develop VAS levels later than girls, which
is why it is particularly dangerous to
encourage whole word guessing in infant males.
Because of his low VAS Jack has few sight words. Because of his name/sound confusions he cannot blend sounds together. Jack therefore has no means of reliable word attack.
So what does he do? He barely understands how to blend sounds together and so he guesses at words. He tries to guess text from the glossy pictures in the books. He looks at words like ‘bench’, pays attention to the end letters but then misguesses it as ‘beach’.
And all the time his VAS level is increasing. But the bad habits, the failed strategies, the attitudinal problems are becoming entrenched.
What was your question? “Will a failing reader recover once VAS has developed?”… Of course not!…The growing VAS level might enable him to improve his word-guessing but the improvement will be marginal because the learned inaccuracies will persist and the learned attitudes may develop into non-cooperation making remediation even more difficult.
But the real tragedy is that his failure was predictable, preventable and unnecessary. Once he was identified as having a low VAS, priority should immediately have been given to establishing reliable and adequate phonic skills. His low VAS then would not have mattered because phonics doesn’t need a high VAS level…but word-guessing does.
Because of his low VAS Jack has few sight words. Because of his name/sound confusions he cannot blend sounds together. Jack therefore has no means of reliable word attack.
So what does he do? He barely understands how to blend sounds together and so he guesses at words. He tries to guess text from the glossy pictures in the books. He looks at words like ‘bench’, pays attention to the end letters but then misguesses it as ‘beach’.
- If his teacher encourages him to guess words from pictures, he will fail.
- If he is encouraged to word-guess from word shape, he will fail.
- If the teacher exhorts him to read to the end of the sentence and then to work out unknown words from the overall meaning of the sentence, he will fail.
And all the time his VAS level is increasing. But the bad habits, the failed strategies, the attitudinal problems are becoming entrenched.
What was your question? “Will a failing reader recover once VAS has developed?”… Of course not!…The growing VAS level might enable him to improve his word-guessing but the improvement will be marginal because the learned inaccuracies will persist and the learned attitudes may develop into non-cooperation making remediation even more difficult.
But the real tragedy is that his failure was predictable, preventable and unnecessary. Once he was identified as having a low VAS, priority should immediately have been given to establishing reliable and adequate phonic skills. His low VAS then would not have mattered because phonics doesn’t need a high VAS level…but word-guessing does.
Why is it that some children succeed despite a lack of phonic teaching?
Yes
BUT ...
In order for students to become literate via exclusive Whole Language teaching - the following has to be true:
For a start:
The student must be able to pay attention & to keep paying attention without becoming distracted.
The student can see, hear, speak & move with clarity & precision.
The student can also process what he/she sees & hears.
The student must be able to form letters the same way evey time.
If the child can master the above basic tasks the following additional capabilities are then required ...
1. The student has sufficient memory storage (VAS level) to instantly recognise that 'horse' & 'house' do not look alike.
2. The student understands that 'house' & 'mouse' do 'look alike' (share common letter patterns).
3. The student can readily hear that 'house' & 'mouse' sound alike (rhyme).
4. The student has effective strategies for storing useful & relevant incoming information.
5. The student has sufficient intelligence to filter, classify & prioritise new incoming information.
6. The student can quickly and efficiently recall previous relevant learning.
8. The student can make associations and think about relevant questions.
When students can perform all of these tasks they are in a position to 'self-teach' because only then can they fill in all the holes in whole-language teaching.
Unfortunately only the top 15% to 20% of learners have all these skills and even then at times many of these still pay a penalty. Story
The less these attributes are developed, the less chance the student has of succeeding.
Young learners are therefore at a disadvantage because many of these attributes are still forming.
In contrast a phonics-first approach does NOT require a high VAS and is also less reliant on most of the above attributes apart from phonological coding.
In order for students to become literate via exclusive Whole Language teaching - the following has to be true:
For a start:
The student must be able to pay attention & to keep paying attention without becoming distracted.
The student can see, hear, speak & move with clarity & precision.
The student can also process what he/she sees & hears.
The student must be able to form letters the same way evey time.
If the child can master the above basic tasks the following additional capabilities are then required ...
1. The student has sufficient memory storage (VAS level) to instantly recognise that 'horse' & 'house' do not look alike.
2. The student understands that 'house' & 'mouse' do 'look alike' (share common letter patterns).
3. The student can readily hear that 'house' & 'mouse' sound alike (rhyme).
4. The student has effective strategies for storing useful & relevant incoming information.
5. The student has sufficient intelligence to filter, classify & prioritise new incoming information.
6. The student can quickly and efficiently recall previous relevant learning.
8. The student can make associations and think about relevant questions.
When students can perform all of these tasks they are in a position to 'self-teach' because only then can they fill in all the holes in whole-language teaching.
Unfortunately only the top 15% to 20% of learners have all these skills and even then at times many of these still pay a penalty. Story
The less these attributes are developed, the less chance the student has of succeeding.
Young learners are therefore at a disadvantage because many of these attributes are still forming.
In contrast a phonics-first approach does NOT require a high VAS and is also less reliant on most of the above attributes apart from phonological coding.
Why do some children who initially succeed in reading begin to struggle in mid-primary?
So
-
Why do some children who initially succeed in reading begin to struggle in mid-primary?
After all, they quickly accomplish the following ...
1 High VAS supports early w / w guessing - and guessing is FAST
2 The more visual information a student can process at a glance - the better the accuracy
3. Because it is fast, it is fluent - and easier to attach to meaning to - it supports comprehension.
For words this means we begin to use syllables.
Students with poor phonics do not have the base skills required to support working with syllables.
So, the student will frequently misread words such as ‘consumer’ as ‘customer’ or 'complete’ as ‘computer’.
The grade 3/4 teacher suffers in that they may bear the consequences. A parent may say
“He was doing well up till this year.” They don’t understand that this is the result of earlier
approaches to teaching that worked at the time - but lay a very unstable base for future learning.
It is a ‘hidden factor’ that the Harrison Test will reveal.
Testing will identify those children at the greatest risk.
Why do some children who initially succeed in reading begin to struggle in mid-primary?
After all, they quickly accomplish the following ...
- They make a fast start in reading due to high VAS
- They can process enough letters to make accurate guesses
- Therefore they achieve good fluency that in turn supports meaning
1 High VAS supports early w / w guessing - and guessing is FAST
2 The more visual information a student can process at a glance - the better the accuracy
3. Because it is fast, it is fluent - and easier to attach to meaning to - it supports comprehension.
- This is looking pretty sunny …. But alarm bells start to ring around the end of grade 3 to the beginning of grade 4 VAS ceiling is reached
- With no chunking skills ... con tent ment may be guessed as 'continent'
- Whole word guessing becomes increasingly inaccurate
- Memory will no longer support their reading needs - the words have become longer and more visually similar.
For words this means we begin to use syllables.
Students with poor phonics do not have the base skills required to support working with syllables.
So, the student will frequently misread words such as ‘consumer’ as ‘customer’ or 'complete’ as ‘computer’.
The grade 3/4 teacher suffers in that they may bear the consequences. A parent may say
“He was doing well up till this year.” They don’t understand that this is the result of earlier
approaches to teaching that worked at the time - but lay a very unstable base for future learning.
It is a ‘hidden factor’ that the Harrison Test will reveal.
Testing will identify those children at the greatest risk.
What happens if I do nothing?
Guess what….some
of your students will succeed!
That’s the good news but before you get carried away, understand that some children will succeed no matter how they are taught. Our job as teachers is to understand how children learn to read, why some of them fail and what we can do about it...let me rewrite that last part…’what we teachers can do about it; teachers are the only people in the whole wide world who can fix many of these problems so doing nothing is not an option!
But just for the hell of it, let’s consider what might happen if you insisted on doing nothing.
Your normal practice may be to teach everything with an emphasis on sight words. You may encourage children to read to the end of the sentence in order to deduce any unknown words from sentence meaning and you may spend some time examining the phonetic structures of selected words in the text but you don’t know the child’s VAS level and that is a pity because that knowledge would have forewarned you about potential problems. Let me explain.
Remember that a VAS level reflects the child’s capacity to recognize whole words. If your preferred emphasis is on developing sight words then, if the VAS is very low, you are likely to fail because the child simply hasn’t enough memory storage capacity for accurate whole word processing and will quickly establish inaccurate guessing habits. Low VAS infants often learn to base their word-guesses on end letters and this can result in inattention to the mid-word letters and their sequence. That therefore undermines proof reading as well as creating inaccurate readers. Almost all low VAS infants therefore need a synthetic phonic emphasis.
Strangely there are still potentially serious consequences if the child has a high VAS level.
The high VAS child often enjoys some initial success in sight word development and may therefore neglect the development of the full range of phonic skills.
However their problems may not become apparent until the age of 10 when, as a result of three years of fairly successful whole word processing, he has become habituated to word-guessing. But by the age of 10 it is increasingly failing him.
So you need to establish phonics first to both low and high VAS infants; the low VAS child may simply fail whilst the high VAS child may develop bad habits that become very difficult to remediate later.
Sure you can do nothing and take comfort from the fact that some of your students are succeeding…but don’t just don’t congratulate yourself; have a look at the rest of the class.
That’s the good news but before you get carried away, understand that some children will succeed no matter how they are taught. Our job as teachers is to understand how children learn to read, why some of them fail and what we can do about it...let me rewrite that last part…’what we teachers can do about it; teachers are the only people in the whole wide world who can fix many of these problems so doing nothing is not an option!
But just for the hell of it, let’s consider what might happen if you insisted on doing nothing.
Your normal practice may be to teach everything with an emphasis on sight words. You may encourage children to read to the end of the sentence in order to deduce any unknown words from sentence meaning and you may spend some time examining the phonetic structures of selected words in the text but you don’t know the child’s VAS level and that is a pity because that knowledge would have forewarned you about potential problems. Let me explain.
Remember that a VAS level reflects the child’s capacity to recognize whole words. If your preferred emphasis is on developing sight words then, if the VAS is very low, you are likely to fail because the child simply hasn’t enough memory storage capacity for accurate whole word processing and will quickly establish inaccurate guessing habits. Low VAS infants often learn to base their word-guesses on end letters and this can result in inattention to the mid-word letters and their sequence. That therefore undermines proof reading as well as creating inaccurate readers. Almost all low VAS infants therefore need a synthetic phonic emphasis.
Strangely there are still potentially serious consequences if the child has a high VAS level.
The high VAS child often enjoys some initial success in sight word development and may therefore neglect the development of the full range of phonic skills.
However their problems may not become apparent until the age of 10 when, as a result of three years of fairly successful whole word processing, he has become habituated to word-guessing. But by the age of 10 it is increasingly failing him.
- It fails him when he is proof reading because whole word processing means that he pays scant attention to mid-word letters and their sequence.
- It fails him for long words because word guessing creates a ceiling of about 7 letter words beyond which inaccuracy appears.
- It fails him for the increasing number of unfamiliar words because whole word guessing requires the reader to match the word being read with a word already stored in memory and he hasn’t established any such memory for unfamiliar words.
- It fails him if he has been taught to read to the end of the sentence and then deduce any unreadable words from the sentence meaning, for this strategy only works in one sentence in eight.
So you need to establish phonics first to both low and high VAS infants; the low VAS child may simply fail whilst the high VAS child may develop bad habits that become very difficult to remediate later.
Sure you can do nothing and take comfort from the fact that some of your students are succeeding…but don’t just don’t congratulate yourself; have a look at the rest of the class.
I am comfortable teaching the ways I know. Why do I need to know about VAS?
* VAS has been
likened to a crystal ball; it enables teachers
to identify the pathways that hold the best
promise of future reading success whilst
providing new insights into why the student
struggled in the past.
* VAS simply stands for Visual Attention Span; you can read about it later by following the link, but for a moment simply accept that VAS significantly determines a student’s capacity to accurately read whole words.
* VAS develops like height and weight…it is fairly predictable. That means that, if you know a student’s VAS level , you can predict what it will be next year and the year after that, just as you also can estimate what the VAS level was last year and the year before that. VAS therefore tells you when whole word processing will become or did become possible.
That understanding then guides you towards choices based on data not on assumptions based on dogma.
If you know an infant has a low VAS you know from the outset that whole word processing will be difficult, that sight word development may be delayed, that proof-reading may be poor. You know why the alternative phonic strategies almost certainly offer more hope.
Similarly if a child has a high VAS you expect early success in word processing but if you understand VAS Theory you also know that this may be laying the ground for later guess-dependence and stalled performance after the age of nine.
Sure, you can continue teaching the ways you know but in doing so you risk getting it wrong and it is the child that pays the price.
* VAS simply stands for Visual Attention Span; you can read about it later by following the link, but for a moment simply accept that VAS significantly determines a student’s capacity to accurately read whole words.
* VAS develops like height and weight…it is fairly predictable. That means that, if you know a student’s VAS level , you can predict what it will be next year and the year after that, just as you also can estimate what the VAS level was last year and the year before that. VAS therefore tells you when whole word processing will become or did become possible.
That understanding then guides you towards choices based on data not on assumptions based on dogma.
If you know an infant has a low VAS you know from the outset that whole word processing will be difficult, that sight word development may be delayed, that proof-reading may be poor. You know why the alternative phonic strategies almost certainly offer more hope.
Similarly if a child has a high VAS you expect early success in word processing but if you understand VAS Theory you also know that this may be laying the ground for later guess-dependence and stalled performance after the age of nine.
Sure, you can continue teaching the ways you know but in doing so you risk getting it wrong and it is the child that pays the price.
What does the research say about teaching everything (whole language & phonics)?
There have been
three international inquiries in recent years:
in the USA, Britain and Australia. All
concluded that the phonics-first approach
produced the best outcomes. What the inquiries
failed to explain was why. VAS Theory not only
explains why a phonics-first approach succeeds,
it also allows us to identify the children
at-risk and predict likely risks and outcomes.
Is there any way we can simply increase VAS?
The verdict is
still out on this question but at the moment
all the evidence points to VAS being largely
developmental.
VAS measurement depends on the student knowing the numbers 1-9 therefore VAS readings are unreliable until this knowledge is fully established. Most children reach this stage by the age of 6 or 7. VAS then develops rapidly until the age of 9. VAS development thereafter continues to increase year by year but at a gradually slower rate. Increases are minimal after the age of 15.
The real question however is what benefits would accrue if we could artificially increase the VAS level? It would perhaps improve sight words but that may merely cement in the guessing inaccuracy. We still need to establish the phonic skills first.
VAS measurement depends on the student knowing the numbers 1-9 therefore VAS readings are unreliable until this knowledge is fully established. Most children reach this stage by the age of 6 or 7. VAS then develops rapidly until the age of 9. VAS development thereafter continues to increase year by year but at a gradually slower rate. Increases are minimal after the age of 15.
The real question however is what benefits would accrue if we could artificially increase the VAS level? It would perhaps improve sight words but that may merely cement in the guessing inaccuracy. We still need to establish the phonic skills first.