Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

In general, yes. But many schools fail to carefully monitor progress.

The result: Many students with reading disabilities are kept in programs that fail to help them. These programs frustrate them, cause them to fall further behind their peers, rob them of opportunities to progress, dash their hope for progress, increase the likelihood that they’ll become despondent and depressed about their academic “failure,” and swell the likelihood that they’ll drop out of school. In short, stagnation harms students with reading disabilities.

Teachers and administrators don’t do this intentionally. Most of them want to help students. So why do they fail to carefully monitor progress?

Some teachers and administrators argue that monitoring takes too much time, there’s no good way to do it, and schools need only to administer standardized group tests in late spring. Not only are these arguments wrong, they’re harmful. Monitoring need not take a lot of time, there are good ways, and letting eight, nine, or more months pass before getting the results of group testing keeps some students in programs that harm them. Moreover, standardized group testing cannot provide the type of information needed to develop instructional programs. To counter these problems, chapter 7 of Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds explains how schools can carefully and continuously monitor the progress of students with reading disabilities.

In addition to the recommendations in Beating the Odds, teachers, tutors, and private reading specialists can easily use the 3-Minute Reading Assessments (for grades 1-4 and grades 5-8) to monitor a student’s progress, and, if it’s poor, quickly adjust or change the student’s program. Developed by Timothy V. Rasinski and Nancy Padak of Kent State University, this simple yet ingenious approach modifies traditional ways schools assess reading, takes little time, covers critical areas of reading, has alternate forms for testing a child several times yearly, and gives teachers and administrators ideas for accelerating the progress of students who struggle to read. In essence, the 3-Minute Reading Assessments quickly gives teachers a snapshot of a student’s achievement and reading needs in four critical areas: identifying words (word recognition), reading at a appropriate rate, with appropriate expression (fluency), retelling what was read (reading comprehension), and defining or correctly using words in sentences (vocabulary).

Once the teacher has a snapshot of a student’s performance in these four areas, she has a good idea of what the student can readily do and what he needs to learn. If, frequently, the teacher uses different passages to re-test the student at the grade level he had originally been tested, she can quickly gauge his progress in word recognition, fluency, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. If progress is poor, the teacher can quickly adjust the student’s program, meet with his parents, request additional services from the school, or refer him for an in-depth reading evaluation. If he’s eligible for special education, she can quickly consult with his IEP Team, which includes the parents. Here are the key points: By reviewing 3-Minute data, the teacher, the school, and the parents can quickly learn if the student’s progress is satisfactory. They can quickly learn if additional diagnostic data or program adjustments and changes are needed. The student need not waste a year or more in a program that’s harming him.

But what if your child struggles with reading and the school refuses to carefully monitor his progress? If he has a tutor, have his tutor periodically administer the 3-Minute Reading Assessments. If you’ve taken him to a reading specialist for a private evaluation, have the specialist use the 3-Minute Reading Assessments to periodically monitor his progress. If his reading problems are severe, have the specialist combine this with curriculum-based measures that she can download from the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (see Steckler, Lembke, & Saenz, 2007).

How important is monitoring? Is it likely to affect your child’s progress? Listen to Pamela Steckler, Erica Lembke, and Laura Saenz:

Research has demonstrated that, when teachers use progress monitoring for instructional decision-making purposes … students achieve more. ( 2007, p. 6)

Our bottom line is simple: Monitor, monitor, monitor. Fortunately, Rasinski and Padak’s 3-Minute Reading Assessments gives you and your child’s teachers a valuable tool for quickly, easily, and frequently monitoring your child’s progress. It eliminates excuses for not monitoring.

Resources

Rasinski, T. V., & Padak, N. (2005). 3-Minute Reading Assessments (Grades 1-4 ;Grades 5-8). NY: Scholastic Teaching Resources.

Steckler, P. M., Lembke, E. S, & Saenz, L. (2007). Advanced Applications of CBM in Reading: Instructional Decision-Making Strategies. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Office of Special Education Programs; retrieved 8/20/07, from http://www.studentprogress.org/summer_institute/2007/Adv%20Reading/AdvancedCBMReading2007.pdf.

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