Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

Parents of children with reading disabilities often ask, “How can I teach my child to read?”

I often respond with three suggestions:

• Don’t try to teach him anything new if it’s likely to cause friction, or fighting, or excessive anxiety.
• Read to him daily. Make sure it’s something he likes, and then, if he wants, and only if he wants, have him read it silently or read a sentence or more back to you. Don’t pressure him to read aloud. If he has trouble with a word, tell it to him.
• Try Toppings’ Paired Reading. Once you know how to use it, it’s simple to use and generally children find it satisfying. They usually like it. Moreover, it’s often effective. It’s supported by some good research.

A Description of Paired Reading

Here’s how Rathvon (2008) described Paired Reading:

Paired Reading is a simple, effective strategy that requires little training for parents and uses the student’s regular classroom materials. During tutoring sessions, the parent and child begin reading aloud together and continue until the child makes an error. The parent supplies the correct word, the child repeats the word and rereads the sentence, and simultaneous (“duet”) reading continues. When the child feels ready to read alone, he or she gives a prearranged signal [e.g., a thumb up], and the parent stops reading while the child continues. Paired Reading improves word identification, fluency, and comprehension for low-performing elementary grade readers, including students with ADHD, and is rated highly by parents and children alike…. For best results, Paired Reading sessions should be conducted at least four times a week, whether at home or at school. (p. 193, italics added)

Training

The reason for italicizing the phrase little training is that a little training can be very helpful: seeing Paired Reading in practice is worth tens of thousands of words. Thus, if your child struggles to recognize words and you think Paired Reading might help, we strongly urge you to request training and support from your child’s school. Because its easy, relatively quick, and inexpensive to train parents and teachers to use Paired Reading, because the children read material from their class or local library, which usually precludes the need for new materials, and because the procedure can help children and raise the school’s test scores, many schools will readily provide training and assistance.

If, however, your child’s school will not, and your child is eligible for special education, send a written request for training, assistance (e.g., books), and an IEP meeting to your child’s IEP Team. At the meeting, make sure that your request for training and assistance is listed and explained in the parents’ concerns section of your child’s IEP. Keep in mind that if your child’s school denies your written request for parent training, which can be a related service under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA), it must, within a specific number of days, send you a written, detailed explanation. Its written response:

Must include …. (1) A description of the action proposed or refused by the [school]; (2) An explanation of why the [school] proposes or refuses to take the action; (3) A description of each evaluation procedure, assessment, record, or report the [school] used as a basis for the proposed or refused action; (4) A statement that the parents of a child with a disability have protection under the procedural safeguards of this part … (5) Sources for parents to contact to obtain assistance in understanding the provisions of this part; (6) A description of other options that the IEP Team considered and the reasons why those options were rejected; and (7) A description of other factors that are relevant to the [school]’s proposal or refusal. (IDEA Regulations from §300.503 of the Federal Register of August 14, 2004)

The Steps

In discussing Paired Reading, Lipson and Wixson (2003) listed the steps:

The child and parent read together at the same time from a book that the child has selected. When the child feels ready, he or she reads alone…. The activity is … done for approximately 15 minutes every day.

1. Child selects a book to be read.
2. Child and adult read together until the child, using a prearranged signal (e.g., a nudge), indicates that he or she is ready to read alone.
3. The child reads independently until an error is made or a word is encountered that is not read correctly in 5 seconds.
4. The adult immediately rejoins the child in reading together.
5. Reading together continues until the child gives the signal again and the procedure is repeated or the session ends.

Parents are encouraged to praise children for appropriate signaling, self-correct­ing, fluent reading, decoding difficult words independently, and for thinking about the story while reading. (pp. 530-531)

Our Advice

If you think your child will find reading with you or another member of your family rewarding or satisfying, get the training and try Paired Reading. If it works, continue it and learn more about it, such as how to discuss what was read and how and when to reward your child if, after a while, his motivation and attention wanders. If you think he might do better with tutoring from a college student, make sure the student gets the training. If it looks as if Paired Reading is causing your child to become highly anxious or creating tension in the family, end the reading. Look for other ways to help your child; many are discussed in chapters 6 and 13 of Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds.

Resources

Lipson, M.Y., & Wixson, K.K. (2003). Assessment and Instruction of Reading and Writing Difficulty: An Interactive Approach (3^rd ed.).Boston: Allyn& Bacon.

Margolis, H., & Brannigan, G. G. (2009). Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds. Voorhees, NJ: Reading2008 & Beyond (www.reading2008.com).

Rathvon, N. (2008). Effective School Interventions (2^nd ed.). Evidence-Based Strategies for Improving Student Outcomes. NY: The Guilford Press.

Howard Margolis © Reading2008 & Beyond

www.reading2008.com