Archive for Struggling Readers

  Richard L. Allington, coeditor of No Quick Fix, The RTI Edition, is the second contributor to be featured in IRA’s new series of podcasts, IRA Author Insights. In this podcast, Allington on RTI, the former IRA president discusses research-supported early reading intervention models and issues related to a successful approach to RTI.

For the first few years of school, struggling readers can usually get by. The material is simple, the lessons are repeated often, and intensive remedial help is common. But for some of those pupils, reading ability starts a dramatic downhill slide right around 4th grade. While good readers are sponges for new words and grammar rules, slower readers are left further and further behind. Some never catch up. The National Institutes of Health has awarded $30 million over the next five years to research centers devoted to studying the issue, along with other questions related to reading disabilities. Read more about the study in this article from Education Week.

No one wants to see a child struggle at reading. Parents can help a child avoid reading difficulties, or at least have fewer problems, by starting the reading and conversing in the home early. “I certainly would be always looking for opportunities to expose my youngster to new language and new ideas,” said Timothy Shanahan, immediate past president of the International Reading Association and a professor of urban education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “At age 1, it might be my child and I cooked together and we talked about the cooking words. At another age, we take them to a museum and we talk about the language of that science museum of whatever. It’s not enough to just put the youngster in those experiences. You’ve got to talk about it, use the language and help the youngster learn to use the words. The bigger their vocabulary, the easier to understand new text.” Read more of this article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Bennett Shakoske of Turtle Creek was only in first grade, but he was already beginning to give up on school. He was having trouble reading. It was only when he moved to another district, repeated first grade and found a special-education teacher who used his love of Legos to motivate him that he was able to progress. Years ago, some advised waiting until third grade to get extra reading help to see whether the child would grow out of it. Now experts advise stepping in as soon as a reading problem occurs. “The research over the last 30 years really lays out very clearly you can’t start too early. I wouldn’t hesitate, if I were running a preschool, to try to address these kids’ needs,” said Dr. Timothy Shanahan, immediate past president of the International Reading Association and a professor of urban education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Read more of this article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Summer can be the enemy of the schoolteacher: Students forget their math. They stop reading. And in the case of those with limited English skills, they lose their newly acquired words. So at 22 elementary schools in the poorest enclaves of Montgomery County, Maryland, summer ended early. The program, called Extended Learning Opportunities—Summer Adventures in Learning, is considered a national model for stemming the summer brain drain. Students who faithfully attended the first summer session in 2002 tested better in reading and math after summer school than before, according to research. Read more of this article from The Washington Post.

Reading and writing instruction must be included in all academic areas if literacy is to improve to levels that will ensure the nation’s middle and high school students are prepared for success in college, work, and citizenship, according to a new report from the Alliance for Excellent Education. Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas: Getting to the Core of Middle and High School Improvement argues that the acceptable standard for all students must exceed simply reading at grade level. Only advanced reading skills will truly prepare students to meet the challenges of education beyond high school, the needs of the workplace, and the demands of the 21st century.

An Obstacle to Overcome, a recent series by the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, examined dyslexia. Part one defined dyslexia and looked at how one family was struggling to help their dyslexic son. Part two examined the help that is available through learning centers, while part three looked at the training and education teachers need to deal with the reading disorder.

Children in families with low incomes, who attend schools where the minority population exceeds 75 percent of the student enrollment, under-perform in reading, even after accounting for the quality of the literacy instruction, literary experiences at home, gender, race and other variables, according to a new study. Read more about the study, by the FPG Child Development Institute and the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in this article from the Medical News Today website.

Hundreds of thousands of Texas children who struggle to read aren’t getting the help they’re entitled to because public schools are not following state law. Twenty-two years ago, Texas passed legislation requiring districts to identify and tutor students with dyslexia, a learning disability that affects 5 percent to 20 percent of all children. Today, however, schools still are failing to aggressively diagnose and remediate these children, leaving them to fall further behind academically, suffer emotionally and be at greater risk of dropping out of high school. Read more of this article from the Houston Chronicle.

Racing legend Sir Jackie Stewart said yesterday he hoped new teaching would help increase awareness of dyslexia and prevent sufferers “being left in the dustbin of life.” The three-time Formula One world champion was speaking at the launch in Edinburgh of a Scottish Executive-funded DVD, which is being sent to every school in Scotland. The DVD features Sir Jackie, who was not diagnosed as having the condition until the age of 41, speaking about how he struggled while at school. Read more of this article from The Herald.

 Legislation was introduced before the U.S. House of Representatives today that would authorize a new 5-year grant program to help states and local education agencies establish literacy programs for students in grades 4–12. States and schools would use these funds to create school literacy teams, provide adolescent literacy training for teachers and school leaders, improve reading curriculum, and involve parents in adolescent literacy instruction. Introduced by Kentucky Congressman John Yarmuth, the legislation is modeled after a Striving Readers pilot program that was conducted in eight school districts nationwide, including one in Yarmuth’s district.

For commentary, see joint statement of four leading education associations applauding and urging passage of this bill.

Parents of Hartford, Connecticut, schoolchildren in kindergarten through third grade will be notified later this month whether their children will be required to attend summer school. The city’s school system is making the summer classes mandatory for struggling readers. Under a new state law, school districts are required to offer summer classes to students who are substantially below grade level. Read more about the summer plans in this article from the Hartford Courant.

Byron Pitts was chatting with students at a Harlem charter school the day before a recent visit by President Bush when the CBS correspondent had a realization: They viewed him as just another empty suit who couldn’t possibly understand their problems. Little did they know. “When I was your age,” he told them, “I couldn’t read.” Read more about Pitts’ struggles, and eventual success, in this article from The Washington Post.

Dyslexia, that’s d-y-s-l-e-x-i-a. It’s taken a while for the New Zealand Ministry of Education to get its head around the word but affected families and the Dyslexia Foundation are celebrating long-sought recognition of the needs of those identified as having the reading and writing disability. After denying for decades that the condition existed, the ministry said it would put greater emphasis on assisting students who struggled with reading and writing, including those identified as dyslexic. Read more about New Zealand’s efforts to identify such students as early as possible and to provide them with effective interventions based on their specific needs, in this article from The New Zealand Herald.

On March 22, 2007 Senators Jeff Sessions and Patty Murray introduced the Striving Readers Act of 2007 (S. 958) in the United States Senate. This bill will vastly expand the capacity of schools to help older students who struggle with reading by establishing adolescent literacy initiatives aimed at increasing high school graduation and college readiness.

The legislation will expand the current Striving Readers Program, which funds only eight grants. The Striving Readers Act of 2007 will make funding available to every state to implement schoolwide adolescent literacy programs, support statewide initiates, and allow data collection and rigorous evaluation to document program success. In addition, this bill will prepare teachers to incorporate literacy strategies in core academic classes and will assist parents by training them to support their children’s literacy development.

The International Reading Association endorses expanded services for adolescent readers and urges members to contact their Senators to sign on to this legislation. See sample letter at http://latadvisory.blogspot.com.

See the press release announcing IRA’s endorsement.

Chronic reading problems and depression appear to be related, especially among low-income children, and the reading problems precede the depression. A new study done by researchers at the University of Delaware and West Chester University of Pennsylvania found that low-income children who take part in reading assistance programs in fifth grade are more depressed, anxious, and withdrawn than their peers, especially when they have chronic reading problems. Read more about this research in this article posted on the firstscience.com website.

Reading Recovery, a popular tutoring program for struggling 1st grade readers that has been a target of criticism in recent years from the Bush administration, has received a rare thumbs-up rating from the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse. The positive rating comes after prominent researchers and federal reading officials sought to keep states from using money from the federal Reading First program to pay for Reading Recovery. Read more about the What Works review in this article from Education Week.

Through the Family Literacy Program at Marquette University, 64 elementary school students from Milwaukee area schools come in to the Hartman Literacy and Learning Center at the university for 90 minutes a day, twice a week for 10 weeks, to get help with their reading. They are connected with 19 future teachers, who help the children as part of a practicum meant to prepare them for classroom careers. Read more about this program in this article from the Journal Sentinel of Milwaukee.

In an effort to reach struggling or reluctant readers, educators and publishers are creating and distributing books that students not only want to read but that also will not embarrass them in front of their classmates. Read more about the provocative books that are hooking struggling readers in this article from the Times Argus of Barre, Vermont.

Senators Patty Murray and Jeff Sessions will introduce into the U.S. Senate next week the Striving Readers Act, aimed at creating nationwide reading programs in grades 4–12. The program would cost $200 million in its first year. Read more about the proposal in this article from the Montgomery Advertiser of Alabama.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has published a two-part series on dyslexia. Part one looks at brain imaging and other research into dyslexia. Part two looks at how school districts accomodate students with dyslexia.

Apart from being popular pets, dogs have been trusted helpmates since their domestication at least 15,000 years ago. But using dogs for therapy has become more popular recently, with humans turning to their four-footed friends for help recovering from child abuse, dealing with long-term illnesses and, since at least 1999, teaching struggling children to read. Read more about how some children show remarkable reading improvement by reading aloud to dogs in this article from The Washington Post.

About one in every four Rhode Island students reads below grade level. In several urban districts, the problem is far worse — about half of their students struggle with reading. Recognizing that far too many students are failing to master this essential skill, the state continues to expand “personal literacy plans,” specific interventions geared toward each student who needs extra reading support. By 2011, all students in grades K–12 reading below grade level will be required to have a literacy plan. Read more about this program in this article from The Providence Journal.

Schools in Montana are getting an earlier start in treating dyslexia. But parents there still struggle with getting their children properly diagnosed and in getting specific therapy for dyslexia. Read more about this challenge in this article from the website of The Missoulian.

British government officials hope to boost the reading skills of five- and six-year-old children who are falling behind in primary school. Rapid progress made by pupils after the Labour party came to power in 1997 has ended and results are now barely improving. The government hopes it can kickstart further gains with a synthetic phonic method of teaching children to read. A pilot program involving 5,000 children from the most disadvantaged areas suggested that, with intensive help, children at the age of six could gain 21 months in reading age in just four to five months of teaching. The package also includes more free books for families with young children. For more on the proposal, visit the The Guardian website.

 In February 2006, IRA convened a group of special education and regular education associations to craft a set of fact sheets on the roles of parents and various professionals who are involved in implementing RTI procedures. The goal of that effort was to create a set of papers that represent each organization’s distinctive constituency and viewpoint. The resulting document is available for free download.

Guapo and Dolley Madison, 2-year-old pugs, are all ears for first- through third-graders during twice weekly, 75-minute reading sessions at Reche Canyon Elementary School in Colton, California. The two dogs are part of Pug Tails, a volunteer educational therapy program started by Bonnie Strom, Dolley’s owner and handler. The children are in the program because their reading levels are two to three grade levels behind, said Principal Diane Mumper. The program has helped improve the children’s reading scores, and the close contact with the canines has boosted the students’ self-esteem. Read the article from the The Press-Enterprise (Riverside, California) website.

More than 50 percent of learning disabled students are misclassified, according to Ed Steinberg, a psychologist who heads the Colorado Department of Education’s special education unit. He said a similar percentage of the 20,642 students classified with speech or language disabilities also may be misdiagnosed.

Like many of his colleagues around the U.S., Steinberg is recommending a strategy in which teachers intervene massively at the first sign a student is falling behind in reading. The method, known as Response to Intervention (RTI), calls for diagnosis of just what part of reading the child doesn’t understand, along with one-on-one tutoring. Only after such methods have failed would the child be tested for learning disabilities. Learn more in the Rocky Mountain News.

A study by London's Institute of Education found that six-year-olds taking part in the Reading Recovery program caught up with their peers in 20 weeks--four times faster than normal. Reading Recovery, which is part of the British government's Every Child a Reader program, gives the poorest readers individual support from specially trained teachers for 30 minutes a day over 12 to 20 weeks. For further details, read the full article on the BBC News website.

With funding from the Department of Education, researchers are closely examining “response to intervention,” an instructional framework that many educators say offers promise for treating children with learning difficulties before they fall behind their peers. Learn more in Education Week.

More information about RTI.

A study of around 500 six-year-olds in the U.K. suggested those in the government-funded Every Child a Reader program caught up with their peers in 20 weeks — four times faster than normal. The Reading Recovery–based program, in which highly trained teachers work one-on-one with struggling readers, also saw improvements in writing and motivation, the Institute of Education study found. Read more of this story at the BBC News website.

Only eight states can claim even moderate success over the past 15 years at boosting the percentage of their poor or minority students who are at or above proficient in reading, math, or science, according to a new report from the Thomas B. Fordam Foundation. The Fordham Report 2006: How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children?, appraises each state according to 30 indicators. For further information, visit the following page on the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation website.

Teenagers who have significant problems reading appear to be much more likely than their peers to contemplate or attempt suicide, researchers reported Wednesday. In a 3-year study of 188 high school students, researchers found that those with poor reading abilities were nearly four times more likely than average readers to think about or attempt suicide. Findings of the study are summarized at the Scientific American website.

Recognition & Response is a systematic approach to addressing early learning difficulties before kindergarten. Developed and managed by the National Center for Learning Difficulties, the RecognitionandResponse.org website offers information and resources to help early educators address the needs of young children (3 to 5 year-olds) who show signs that they may not be learning in an expected manner, even before they begin kindergarten.

Some scientists and educators (including IRA President Tim Shanahan) say new tests have the potential to detect potentially severe reading problems and allow treatment to begin even before reading instruction starts.

In Tucson, Arizona, a partnership between educators and the local Rotary has created the Reading Seed program, in which volunteers help students practice reading to boost their confidence and interest. This program was also featured in the October/November issue of Reading Today.

The ins and outs of Response to Intervention are explained in a two-part document that provides the reader with a basic understanding of this approach to remediation. The document is based on the National Association of State Directors of Special Education's book Response to Intervention: Policy Considerations and Implementation, published in 2005.

Educators in Ontario created a pilot program to improve boys' literacy skills through a week-long program combining literacy and camping.

For more than 25 years, federal law had required that schools nationwide identify children as learning disabled by comparing their scores on intelligence tests with their academic achievement. In new regulations issued last week after changes to the law, the federal Education Department said states could not require school districts to rely on that method, allowing districts to find other ways to determine which children are eligible for extra help. Federal officials and advocates for children with disabilities contended that the practice of waiting for children to fall behind on tests in 3rd or 4th grade before getting them extra help consigned them to failure, and opened the way for the disproportionate numbers of poor and minority children to be labeled as needing special education. The 2004 law abandoned reliance on that approach. The new regulations favor alternative methods of identifying children who need services, like evaluating the response of struggling children to extra help before the 3rd grade. Find this article in The New York Times.

Intensive, explicit phonics instruction can “rewire” the brains of struggling readers, according to RMIT scientist Dr. Kerry Hempenstall. He cites brain imaging studies to support his contention that “60 hours of careful daily phonics teaching alters the way the brain responds to print. Inefficient right-hemisphere activity diminishes, and left-hemisphere activity increases.” As a result, “New MRI images now look much more like those of good readers [and] measured reading outcomes include increased fluency and comprehension.” Find his essay in The Age. (Australia)

German researchers say the learning disability dyslexia has a genetic component, and locating the responsible gene now opens up the way for treatment. Learn more in Deutsche Welle (Germany).

Inclusion is now a global value and is enshrined in United Nations declarations and government policy. So why doesn’t it work? Exeter University senior lecturer Phil Bayliss takes a critical look at “a school process that borders on a form of abuse.” Read his essay in the The Times Educational Supplement (UK).

A New York Times editorial shows that the costs of failing to help at-risk readers can can be very high in funding terms, with public school districts paying to send kids to private schools to remediate reading problems.

A recently completed review of research underscores the importance of recognizing and responding to critical early warning signs of learning difficulties in young children.The paper, “Recognition and Response: An Early Intervening System for Young Children at Risk for Learning Disabilities,” discusses the challenges for early educators and parents in addressing the learning difficulties of pre-school age children. It also advocates for a new systemic approach that can help early educators and parents ensure early school success for all children, including those at risk for learning difficulties. Find the paper at The University of North Carolina’s FPG Child Development Institute website.

Extra help and extra resources donated by a newspaper fail to help much against the besetting problems many students face in one Arizona school and nationwide: poverty, language differences, and a transient way of life.

Electives suffer, but researchers and teachers say spending extra time in the school day on reading, math, and other classes students must pass seems to help those teachers reach students by using more strategies and building a relationship with them.

Some teachers are giving at-risk readers easier textbooks in content-area classrooms, and publishers are producing graduated textbooks in response to the trend.

A government program that would put “literacy improvement teams” in state-funded schools has run into opposition from principals, teachers, and at least one prominent literacy expert. Get details in The Age.

Primary school students struggling to learn to read will receive $700 worth of one-on-one tuition under a two-year extension of a controversial reading assistance program that allows parents to bypass schools and choose specialist tutors. Read more of this story in The Australian.

A study in Minneapolis showed no gain from tutoring for reading problems; students who had it did no better than students who did not, and the different stakeholders are debating why.

On April 18, the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) is sponsoring an online chat as part of its "LD Talk" series. The chat, titled "Response to Intervention: What Parents Need to Know About This Approach to Identifying Students Most At-Risk for LD," will be held from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern time. It will feature Judy Elliott, the assistant superintendent in the Office of School Support Services, including special education, in the Long Beach Unified School District in Long Beach, California.

For information on how to participate and submit advance questions, visit the following page on NCLD's website.

A study of Reading Recovery conducted for the New Zealand Ministry of Education by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research has found the reading intervention program to be to be “very useful,” especially for students considered academically at risk. Find a summary and links to the report in Education Week (requires paid subscription).

A remedial reading class taught by a US Peace Corps volunteer at the Arapaima Primary School in Region Nine has helped to improve the reading ability of students by over four years, according to information from the Peace Corps. Find details in the Stabroek News (Guyana).

Ohio's juvenile correction agency has received a five year, $14 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to improve literacy programs at Ohio's eight juvenile centers.

The link between illiteracy and delinquency in teenagers is well known, but it has not been clear which comes first and when the problem occurs. A new study confirms a connection between poor reading-readiness and behavior problems in preschool boys. Learn more about the study in BBC News (UK).

Teachers in the great majority of British secondary schools are giving too low a priority to improving literacy and numeracy standards, say inspectors. Children struggling to read, write, or do basic arithmetic when they start secondary school do not get enough help to catch up, according to a report by Ofsted, the education watchdog. Find more information in The Independent (UK).

Evidence shows New Zealand’s top students are on a level with the best in the world, but there is a large group at the bottom — as many as one student in five — who are not succeeding. A new mandate from the Education Review Office attempts to address the problem by requiring all schools to prove they are helping struggling students. Get details in The New Zealand Herald.

 Recent changes in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law could have long-term consequences for children with learning disabilities. To understand these changes, the National Center for Learning Disabilities has just released three informational briefs that outline the key points of NCLB and are intended to help parents navigate the complex laws. The briefs are available for download on the center’s website.

They're called "Level Ones," and their poor reading makes them prime dropout candidates. Under pressure from the state, one Florida school district is contemplating holding them back and not allowing them to enter fifth or eighth grade until they reach the next level in reading skill.

Children who struggle with English and maths are to receive one-to-one tuition when they start secondary school under plans to be announced today by the education secretary, Ruth Kelly. In the past this “tailored tuition” has been available only to parents who could afford to pay. Find details in The Guardian (UK).

Education Minister Gerard Kennedy has enlisted the enthusiastic help of Ontario’s elementary teachers in stemming the province’s alarming high school dropout rate. Addressing the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario annual meeting in Toronto, Kennedy said, “If Ontario is going to see more students finish high school, those at risk of dropping out need to be identified and helped while they’re still in the elementary grades.” Find out more in this article from the Toronto Star.

It’s part summer camp, part reading education for children going into grade 2. Find out about an innovative summer literacy project for six- and seven-year-olds in The London Free Press (UK).

Children in the Tampa Bay, Florida area who fail the reading section of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test can't move on to fourth grade—unless they can prove through reading camp or other options that they have made progress.

Recently there has been an increase in litigation against local councils by disgruntled former pupils who have discovered after leaving school that they are dyslexic. It may take one of these legal cases to force the government to get serious about identifying pupils with learning disabilities early in their school career and providing them the educational services they need. Learn more in an article from The Scotsman (U.K.).

Research with secondary students has found real deficiencies in word-level reading, even for many students not considered slow or learning disabled. Though most of these students can recognise common words in print, they are not sufficiently competent with irregularly spelled or unfamiliar words. Their reading is often slow and their understanding is impeded by this lack of fluency. Read more on this topic in The Age (Australia).

A six–week summer reading camp may help some Florida third-graders avoid having to repeat the grade because they did not pass the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, according to this St. Petersburg Times article.

After becoming the U.S. National Teacher of the Year in 2003, Betsy Rogers traveled the country arguing that the best way to close the equity gap was to put the strongest teachers in the weakest schools. Her tour done, Rogers went to work at Brighton Elementary School, the “neediest school” in Jefferson County, Alabama. In Teacher Magazine’s inaugural blog, she reflects on her experiences so far.

 The Australian Literacy Educators’ Association has criticised Australia’s national voucher system as an inadequate solution to the problem of helping struggling readers. The group’s president, Dr Jan Turbill, said benefits from home-based tuition were unlikely to be sustained because most struggling readers came from disadvantaged families unable to impose good reading habits.

Researchers at Cardiff University in Wales have discovered a gene that they believe is likely to be one of the causes of dyslexia in children. Find details in an article from BBC News.

Figuring out why a child has difficulty reading is not an exact science, but it’s getting closer to that. University of Western Ontario psychology professor Marc Joanisse is exploring ways to map the brains of readers to see what goes wrong—and what goes right. Find out more in The London Free Press.

The Age (Australia)

Children’s clinics at hospitals nationwide are clogged with youngsters whose real problem is their inability to read rather than a medical ailment.

Full article

In this article in American Educator, author Joseph A. Torgesen presents evidence that early screening can identify children at risk of reading failure in their very first years of schooling. He goes on to discuss specific, active interventions that can then be applied in kindergarten through second grade to interrupt or prevent the “nasty downward spiral” of early reading failure.

Full essay