Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

From Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

A Blog by Dr. Gary G. Brannigan and Dr. Howard Margolis

Reading materials alone can’t ensure high quality reading instruction. Such instruction requires teachers to consistently use sound instructional practices. To assess this, you might discuss your child’s program with his teachers, observe his classes, or have a private reading specialist do both as part of a reading evaluation.

For the moment, let’s assume you hire a reading specialist. Before the specialist discusses your child’s program with his teachers, the two of you should agree on the questions you want answered. Dozens of such questions are listed in Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds. Here are a few:

• Is my child’s teacher knowledgeable, skilled, and enthusiastic about reading?
• Is my child’s teacher conscientious and flexible? Does she quickly adapt instruction to my child’s needs?
• Daily, does my child get 90-minutes or more of reading and writing instruction?
• Are reading and writing woven into different subjects, like art and science, throughout the day?
• Does my child get lots of daily practice applying newly learned skills, knowledge, and strategies to interesting reading materials?
• Does my child have lots of opportunity to interact with peers in structured learning situations?
• Is instruction aimed at eliminating or minimizing the current causes of my child’s reading difficulties?
• Does my child get extra, expert reading instruction, closely coordinated with his in-class instruction?

If the specialist plans on observing your child’s classes, ask her to answer the questions you discussed. Similarly, ask her to tell you how closely your child’s program matches this definition of effective instruction:

Effective instruction occurs when teachers ( a) maximize the amount of time students are actively involved in academic tasks; (b) provide direct instruction; (c) maintain a brisk lesson pace; (d) help students obtain high accuracy in their responses to teacher questions and provide prompts to help students determine correct responses; and (e) monitor the performance of each student carefully. (Heron & Harris, 1993, p. 232)

Maximize Involvement. Maximizing the amount of time your child is actively involved means more than having him pay strict attention to what’s being taught. Instruction that fully involves him helps him think about what’s taught, encourages him to mentally manipulate the more important concepts, and gives him ample practice using them. It motivates him to learn more about the topic. Interspersing instruction with brief periods of exercise, relevant stories, and cooperative learning activities (in which he works with his peers to apply the more important concepts) will likely keep him refreshed, mentally alert, and deeply involved.

Provide Direct Instruction. Direct instruction is just that: Direct. It directly teaches children with reading disabilities what they must learn. It not only tells them what to do, it shows them. Bill Rupley and his colleagues note that:

At the heart of [direct instruction] are explicit explanations, modeling, and guided practice…. Modeling is demonstrating for the students how to use their learning…. During practice, the amount of guidance is great at the beginning; it the declines to little or none. (Rupley, Blair, & Nichols, 2009, pp. 127-128)

In guided practice, your child’s teacher will tell him what he did right, and, if he’s having trouble, tell him and show him — in supportive ways — how to overcome it.

Maintain a Brisk Pace. Lessons that move briskly energize children with reading disabilities and keep them involved. Brisk does not mean rushing through a lesson or overwhelming your child with new skills and concepts. It does not mean ignoring what he can comfortably handle just to finish the chapter. Instead, it refers to how many important skills and concepts he can comfortably learn in a lesson. Teachers should cover enough to keep him interested and learning. Teachers should give him enough time to understand the skills and concepts, think about and apply them, and appreciate them. Brisk is not synonymous with rushing, overwhelming, or frustrating.

Stress High Accuracy Activities. High accuracy in reading means that before instruction, with the materials your will read during instruction, your child can correctly answer at least 70% of questions asked and quickly and correctly identify at least 95% of words. After instruction, he can answer a higher percent of questions and identify a higher percent of words. When he’s working independently, on classwork or homework, high accuracy means he can correctly answer at least 90% of questions asked and quickly and correctly identify at least 98% of words. Although some authorities offer slightly different guidelines, the ones listed tend to reduce unnecessary anxiety.

Monitor Performance Frequently. A problem that many adults have, a problem that many IEP Teams repeat, is acting as if they can unerringly predict the future. They can’t. They can make good guesses that will probably prove successful, but they can also make mistakes. They may think the Wilson Reading System will work with Ryan, but they may be wrong. As Witt and his colleagues recognized more than a decade ago:

We don’t know what interventions will work for students until we try something…. Trying to predict which interventions will work well for individual students has not been a fruitful endeavor. (Witt et al., 1998, p. 51)

So, if predictions can be wrong, what should you do? Meet with the school to develop a program to monitor your child’s progress at least weekly. To prepare for this meeting, you can download an article I wrote with Sheila Alber-Morgan of The Ohio State University (Monitoring Your Child’s IEP: A Focus on Reading; www.reading2008.com) and read Chapter 7 on monitoring  in Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds.

Although none of the above guarantees that your child will overcome his reading disability, knowing what quality instruction looks like will increase your odds of effectively representing his needs. This, in turn, will increase his odds of becoming a successful reader.

Resources

Heron, T. E., & Harris, K. C. (1993). The Educational Consultant (3^rd ed.). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

Rupley, W. H., Blair, T. R., & Nichols, W. D. (2009). Effective Reading Instruction for Struggling Readers: The Role of Direct/Explicit Teaching. Reading Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 25(2,3), 125-138.

Witt, J. C., Elliott, S. N., Daly, E. J., III, Gresham, F. M., & Kramer, J. J. (1998). Assessment of At-Risk and Special Needs Children (2nd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Howard Margolis, Ed.D. © Reading2008 & Beyond      www.reading2008.com