Effective Teaching Strategies that Accommodate Struggling Grade VII Readers in Sto.

Domingo National Trade School

Evaluating the Efficacy of Remediation for Struggling Grade VII Readers in Sto. Domingo National Trade School
The purpose of this review was to explore the effectiveness of teaching basic reading skills to adolescents. Studies that
were published in the past 20 years from 1986 to 2006 were selected and reviewed on the basis of specific criteria for
inclusion. Results indicated that there were 23 studies that met the criteria. Findings revealed that various programs and
methods designed to teach basic reading skills were implemented with adolescents to determine their effectiveness on
word identification, fluency, and comprehension skills. An analysis revealed an overall strong effect of teaching basic
reading skills on adolescents' reading achievement performance, particularly on their fluency performance. Limitations
and directions for future research are described as well as implications for secondary educators.
Improving adolescents' literacy skills is more difficult, and it's more difficult for a number of reasons. One major
reason is this whole thing of attitude. We find that a lot of adolescents - understandably, if they've been struggling with
literacy - have really developed negative attitudes about reading, writing, the whole subject of dealing with improving their
academic skills. There's no simple solution here. But it's very, very important that whatever approach folks use, that it's
really done in partnership with adolescents. They [must] really understand that improving their reading and writing skills is
not something that adults do to them. It's really something that is done with them. That means forging a partnership so
that the kids and young people understand the specifics of what's going on - what we can do, how long it will take - so that
they have ambitious but realistic goals.
The other part of the question is, are accommodations enough? And this is something that I've run into in schools all the
time. By middle school or high school, for students who may be in special education or have been identified as having
reading difficulties, the entire focus [of their programs] is on accommodation. And there's not a focus on really closing that
literacy gap or accelerating literacy skills. It's almost as if people have tacitly given up and are saying, "You know what?
You'll always read at, say, a third- or fourth-grade level. There's nothing we can do about that. So we're just going to focus
on giving you books on tape, advanced organizers, and other things to accommodate your reading difficulty."
My recommendation is we need to work on both. These are not either-or options. We can close that literacy gap by
direct focus, instruction, and practice - at a student's instructional level and using age-appropriate materials and work on appropriate accommodations simultaneously. That really means that parents have to be educated and
informed about these processes and not get caught in that either-or dilemma, either accommodations or direct instruction
in reading. We can have both.

Screening for Reading Problems in Grades 4 Through 12

by Evelyn S. Johnson, Ed.D., Juli Pool, Ph.D., and Deborah R. Carter, Ph.D., Boise State University
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ADDITIONAL ARTICLES

Universal Screening for Reading Problems: Why and How Should We Do This?
Screening for Reading Problems in Preschool and Kindergarten
Screening for Reading Problems in Grades 1 Through 3
Progress Monitoring Within a Multilevel Prevention System

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

RTI Talk: RTI and Universal Screening

National Center on Response to Intervention Tools Charts
SEDL Reading Resources
When RTI is implemented with fidelity in the early grades, the anticipated outcome is that students who are struggling
readers will be identified early and provided intervention. Even with an effective RTI process in place in Grades K3,
however, there will continue to be students in the later grades who require intervention to support their reading
development. For schools, this means that a system for screening to identify struggling readers needs to continue beyond
the early elementary grades into the middle and high school grades. This article provides information about measures that
can be used to identify students at risk for reading problems in Grades 412. Before reviewing these measures, however,
it is important to first consider the nature of reading instruction at the secondary level and the characteristics of students
who struggle with reading.
Reading Instruction at Grades 412
The conceptual framework underlying RTI stems from the preventive sciences approach. RTI is a tiered model of service
delivery in which all students are provided with effective, evidence-based practices to support their reading development
in Tier 1. Historically, once students move into the higher grades, formal reading instruction ceases and reading becomes
the means by which students learn content. In recent years, though, reading accountability measures that span the grade
levels have placed a new emphasis on continued literacy instruction in the middle and high school grades. For an RTI
model to be effective in leading to improved student outcomes, the Tier 1 program in Grades 412 must include evidencebased practices that support literacy development for adolescent readers.
The recent emphasis on strengthening reading instruction in the early grades has demonstrated positive effects for
improving reading achievement for students in Grades 13 (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006). These gains do not hold past the
4th grade, however, unless a strong, coordinated, and comprehensive focus on literacy instruction is maintained in the later
grades (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006). The development of a strong Tier 1 literacy program is an important first step for
secondary schools implementing RTI.
Although it is beyond the scope of this article to present a comprehensive plan for improving Tier 1 reading instruction, a
synopsis of best practices is provided below. Further information on effective instructional practices for reading in the
secondary grades can be found at the Center on Instruction, as well as in the Reading Next report (Biancarosa & Snow,
2006), which outlines recommendations for improving middle and high school literacy achievement.
Reading and writing skills are critical to student success across the curriculum, and they need to be an integral focus to
"form a supportive web of related learning" (Langer, 2001, p. 877). Schools that have integrated the explicit instruction of
reading and writing across the content areas support student achievement across the curriculum (National Association of
State Boards of Education, 2005). In general, research has supported the following main ideas for developing literacy with
older students:
1.
2.
3.

the explicit instruction of reading and writing strategies

a focus on using reading and writing to support motivation and engagement
a focus on developing student knowledge and understanding of essential content information (Torgesen et al.,
2007)
4.
ongoing formative and summative assessment of students (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006)
5.
a comprehensive and coordinated literacy program (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006).

Additionally, when schools use consistent literacy frameworks across the content areas, students can more easily focus
on comprehension and content knowledgeusing reading and writing as vehicles to support their learning (Langer, 2001).
For example, the use of graphic organizers to summarize and depict relationships across information (Swanson &
Deshler, 2003), the use of "writing to learn" activities to process information in the content areas (Graham & Perin, 2007),
and the explicit teaching of comprehension strategies (Torgesen et al., 20007) are all effective ways to focus on the
development of literacy across the curriculum.
Which Students Are at Risk for Reading Problems?
Even with a solid instructional core in place, there will be students who struggle with reading. To develop and implement
effective Tier 2 interventions, a system for identifying these students is critical. What are the characteristics of students
who struggle with reading in the later grades? Though every individual student may have differences in their reading
profiles, struggling readers in Grades 412 will, in general, fall into one of the following categories:
1.

Late-Emergent Reading Disabled Students: These are students who were able to keep up with early reading
demands but for whom later demands became too great. Several research studies confirm that there is a category of
students who will progress as typically developing students or respond positively to early intervention, only to develop
reading problems in the later grades (Compton, Fuchs, Fuchs, Elleman, & Gilbert, 2008; Leach, Scarborough, &
Rescorla, 2003; Lipka, Lesaux, & Siegel, 2006).
2.
Instructional Casualties: Although there has been a strong emphasis on improving reading instruction in the early
grades, not all schools have strong reading programs in place. There will continue to be students who have not been
the recipients of strong reading instruction in the early grades who will require supports in the later grades (Vaughn et
al., 2008).
3.
English Language Learners: In the past decade, the number of English language learners (ELLs) has increased
by 57% (Maxwell, 2009). All schools will need to provide instruction and intervention to meet the needs of a growing
ELL population.
4.
Students Requiring Ongoing Intervention: Students who received intervention at the early grades may make
progress, but perhaps not at a rate that is sufficient to allow them to be successful in the general education program
without ongoing intervention. These students may require continued intervention in later grades before they are able to
successfully perform at grade-level benchmarks.

For each of these categories of students, the initial marker of poor reading achievement will likely be the samebelow
grade-level performance on assessments of reading, and poor performance in the Tier 1 program. A coordinated
screening system can identify these students early in the school year, allowing schools to provide and tailor intervention
resources to support continued literacy development.
Developing a System for Screening
A common question of secondary schools related to screening is "Do we need to screen all of our students?" The short
answer is yes. Universal screening is one component of a comprehensive literacy assessmentsystem (Torgesen & Miller,
2009) that can inform the development of a strong literacy program. Although universal screening may seem
overwhelming to implement at the secondary level, the early identification of struggling readers allows schools to provide
intervention and support to better meet the needs of their student population.

Schools already collect an abundance of data that can be used to identify an initial pool of students who may require
targeted reading interventions to be successful. General screening information from the previous year's summative
assessment can be used to identify students who did not meet or who only just met grade-level performance benchmarks
(Torgesen & Miller, 2009). When these results are reviewed at the end of the year they can help schools plan for the
following year. For example, through this process an RTI team can determine approximately how many students will
require intervention the following school year. This data should be confirmed by a benchmark test administered at the
beginning of the next school year to all students. It is important to conduct beginning of the year assessments to confirm
the previous year's results, to screen students new to the school system, and to identify students whose performance may
have deteriorated over the summer months. Best practice recommendations for universal screening suggest that
benchmarking be conducted at least two other times during the school year, typically in the winter and spring (Johnson,
Mellard, Fuchs, & McKnight, 2006).
This initial pool of identified students then requires additional assessment to determine the extent and nature of their
reading problems. A common perception is that the problems that older struggling readers face are primarily due to a lack
of vocabulary and comprehension skills (Catts, Hogan, & Adlof, 2005). However, evidence suggests that older struggling
students may have problems with comprehension, decoding, and/or fluency (Compton et al., 2008; Leach et al., 2003;
Lipka et al., 2006). Among the initial pool of identified at-risk students, targeted screening tests of word-level reading skills,
fluency, and comprehension can be used to identify students for specific intervention placements within a school
(Torgesen & Miller, 2009).
Within the pool of struggling readers, there will be students who require minimal or very targeted assistance and others
who will require much more intensive interventions (Torgesen & Miller, 2009). In addition to determining the nature of the
reading problem, the severity of reading difficulty also needs to be identified. Is a student very below grade-level
expectations? Students with reading performance significantly below benchmarks will require more intense interventions.
Intensity of an intervention can be manipulated by increasing the frequency and duration, or by reducing the teacher-tostudent ratio (Johnson et al., 2006).
Figure 1 provides a flowchart of a screening process that can be used to identify struggling students and determine the
nature of the required intervention. The reading performance of all students is reviewed. Students whose performance is
moderately to significantly below benchmark performance will require further assessment and subsequent placement in a
Tier 2 intervention. Students whose performance is near benchmark will be provided with targeted support in the Tier 1
classroom and have their progress monitored more frequently. Benchmarking is completed on all students throughout the
school year.

What Screening Measures Work Well for Students in Grades 412?

Identifying Students Who Are Not Performing at Grade-Level Expectations
State assessment data provide an overall measure of which students are not meeting grade-level benchmarks.
Additionally, many schools now administer benchmark assessments in the fall that are used to predict performance on
state assessments administered at the end of the school year. Examples of these measures include the following:

Alternate forms of state assessments: In Idaho, for example, an alternate form of the state assessment can be

administered in the beginning of the school year to identify students who will need support as well as to identify content
areas that may require more focused instruction.
State-aligned benchmark assessments: These include measures such as the Northwest Education Association's

Measures of Academic Performance (MAP) assessments and CTB/McGraw-Hills Acuity Assessments.

Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) reading assessments: In later grades, these include oral reading fluency
measures and maze measures. Student performance can be compared to published norms. Numerous measures have
been developed in reading for Grades 412. A review of these measures can be found at the National Center on
Student Progress Monitoring.

Identifying the Specific Reading Problems of Struggling Students

The measures discussed above will provide an initial sort of the studentsquickly distinguishing those who meet
performance benchmarks from those who do not and will require intervention. For schools to plan for and provide
appropriate interventions, it will be important to determine the nature of a student's particular reading problem. The
following measures (summarized in Table 1) may be used to inform this process.

Informal reading inventories (IRIs): An IRI is an individually administered reading assessment that allows a
reading specialist to assess a students strengths and needs in a variety of reading areas. Several published IRIs are
available.

Decoding measures: Research suggests that some older students who struggle with reading have decoding

problems. Assessments such as the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1999), the
Scholastic Phonics Inventory (Scholastic, n.d.), and the Woodcock Reading Mastery TestRevised/Normative Update
(Sutton, 1999) can be used to identify students who continue to struggle with basic reading skills.
Comprehension measures: Both informal and formal measures can be used to identify students who will struggle

with reading comprehension. In the content areas, a maze procedure or a Content Area Reading Inventory (CARI;
Vacca & Vacca, 1999) can be administered to identify students who will likely have difficulty comprehending content
area texts without receiving additional support. Formal measures of reading comprehension can identify students who
struggle with reading more generally. A test bank of assessments developed by the National Institute for
Literacy provides information on a variety of reading assessments appropriate for use with older readers.
Fluency measures: The role that fluency plays in the older grades is unclear. Although oral reading fluency has

been shown to be highly correlated with reading performance, some researchers caution that a focus on fluency when
reading to learn does not promote the use of good comprehension strategies such as rereading, asking questions, and
summarizing key points (Samuels, 2007). Fluency measures can be used as part of an IRI to inform the assessment of
a student's reading difficulties, but interventions should not be limited to increasing a student's reading rate.
Interest inventories: Another common problem for adolescents with reading problems is a lack of motivation and
engagement in school. Students who have difficulty learning to read often experience problems across the curriculum.
Over time, the pattern of negative experiences with learning can lead to a loss of motivation and engagement.
Identifying student interests to tailor interventions that are meaningful to the student represents one way that schools
can increase student motivation (Fink & Samuels, 2007).

Table 1: Measures for Identifying Specific Reading Problems

Informal Reading
Inventories (IRIs)

Decoding Measures

Comprehension
Measures

Fluency Interest Inventories

Measures

The Critical Reading

Inventory: Assessing
students' reading and
thinking (2nd ed.).

Iowa Tests of Basic MAZE passage

Skills (for use up to
8thgrade)

GORT-4:
Gray Oral
Reading
TestsFourth
Edition

Bader Reading and

Language Inventory
(6th ed.).

Scholastics Phonics PIAT-R/NU:

Dynamic
Inventory
Peabody Individual Indicators
Achievement Test- of Basic

Reading Interest
Inventory Fink, R.
(2007). High
interest reading
leaves no child left
behind. In R. Fink &
S. J. Samuels
(Eds.),Inspiring
reading success:
Interest and
motivation in an
age of high-stakes
testing (pp. 19-61).
Newark, DE:
International
Reading
Association.
Reading Interest
Inventories

Revised: Normative Early

Update
Literacy
(for use up
to 6thgrade)
Cooter, R. B., Jr., Flynt, E. Test of Word
Test of Reading
S., & Cooter, K. S.
Reading Efficiency Comprehension(2007).Comprehensive
Fourth Edition
Reading Inventory:
Measuring reading
development in regular
and special education
classrooms. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Pearson
Education.

AIMSweb Reading Interest

(for use up Inventory
to 8thgrade)

Basic Reading Inventory

(10thed.).

Reading
Fluency
Progress
Monitor
(RFPM) by
Read
Naturally
(for use up
to 8thgrade)

Woodcock Reading
Mastery TestRevised/Normative
Update

Woodcock Reading
Mastery TestRevised/Normative
Updated

Qualitative Reading
Inventory-4

GORT-4: Gray Oral

Reading TestsFourth Edition

Shanker, J. L., & Cockrum,

W. (2009). Ekwall/Shanker
Reading
Inventory (5th ed.). Boston:
Allyn & Bacon.

Test of Reading
ComprehensionFourth Edition

Silvaroli, N. J. & Wheelock,

W. H. (2004). Classroom
Reading
Inventory (10th ed.). New
York: McGraw-Hill.
It is very likely that struggling readers will experience difficulties in more than one area. This is why a comprehensive
literacy program that supports literacy development in the Tier 1 program as well as provides targeted intervention in Tier
2 is needed to fully support students for whom reading is a challenge. Screening data should be maintained and analyzed
to inform not only individual student decisions but also program development.
Conclusion

Even with the increased emphasis on developing strong readers in the early grades, schools will continue to encounter
older students who struggle with reading. At the secondary levels, a screening system that identifies struggling students,
determines the nature of their specific reading problems, and is embedded in a comprehensive literacy program can
provide support to these students. A number of resources are available to assist schools in this endeavor. The key to
successful implementation will be the recognition that in Tier 1, all teachers must focus on the development of literacy in
their content areas, and in Tier 2, intervention should emphasize targeted literacy instruction that can be generalized to
and supported in the content area classes (Johnson, Smith, & Harris, 2009).
Screening can be a multiple-step process in which students who meet benchmarks are not further screened. This can
help schools with larger student populations to keep the process manageable but informative. Reading assessments that
provide insight into the nature of student reading problems can be used to inform individual student decisions as well as
program planning.
References
Biancarosa, C., & Snow, C. E. (2006). Reading nextA vision for action and research in middle and high school literacy:
A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York (2nd ed.).Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.
Catts, H. W., Hogan, T. P., & Adlof, S. M. (2005). Developmental changes in reading and reading disabilities. In H.
Catts & A. Kamhi (Eds.), Connections between language and reading disabilities (pp. 2336). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Compton, D. L., Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L. S., Elleman, A. M., & Gilbert, J. K. (2008). Tracking children who fly below the radar:
Latent transition modeling of students with late-emerging reading disability. Learning and Individual Differences, 18, 329
337.
Fink, R., & Samuels, S. J. (2007). Inspiring reading success: Interest and motivation in an age of high-stakes testing.
Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high
schools: A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.
Johnson, E., Mellard, D. F., Fuchs, D., & McKnight, M. A. (2006). Responsiveness to intervention (RTI): How to do it.
Lawrence, KS: National Research Center on Learning Disabilities.
Johnson, E. S., Smith, L., & Harris, M. L. (2009). How RTI works in secondary schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
Press.
Langer, J. A. (2001). Beating the odds: Teaching middle and high school students to read and write well. American
Educational Research Journal, 38, 837880.
Leach, J., Scarborough, H., & Rescorla, L. (2003). Late-emerging reading disabilities. Journal of Educational Psychology,
95, 211224.
Lipka, O., Lesaux, N. K., & Siegel, L. S. (2006). Retrospective analyses of the reading development of grade 4 students
with reading disabilities: Risk status and profiles over 5 years.Journal of Learning Disabilities, 39, 364378.
Maxwell, L. (2009, January 8). Immigration transforms communities. Education Week. Retrieved April 25, 2009.
National Association of State Boards of Education. (2005). Reading at risk: How states can respond to the crisis in
adolescent literacy. Alexandria, VA: Author.
Samuels, S. J. (2007). The DIBELS tests: Is speed of barking at print what we man by reading fluency? Reading
Research Quarterly, 42, 563566.
Scholastic, Inc. (n.d.). Scholastic Phonics Inventory. New York: Author.
Sutton, J. P. (1999). Woodcock Reading Mastery TestRevised/Normative Update.Diagnostique, 24(1), 299316.

Swanson, H. L., & Deshler, D. (2003). Instructing adolescents with learning disabilities: Converting a meta-analysis to
practice. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 36(2), 124135.
Torgesen, J. K., Houston, D. D., Rissman, L. M., Decker, S. M., Roberts, G., Vaughn, S., et al. (2007). Academic literacy
instruction for adolescents: A guidance document from the Center on Instruction. Portsmouth, NH: RMC
Research Corporation, Center on Instruction.
Torgesen, J. K., & Miller, D. H. (2009). Assessments to guide adolescent literacy instruction. Portsmouth, NH: RMC
Research Corporation, Center on Instruction.
Torgesen, J. K., Wagner, R, K., & Rashotte, C. A. (1999). Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.
Vacca, R., & Vacca, J. (1999). Content Area Reading Inventory. New York: HarperCollins.
Vaughn, S., Fletcher, J. M., Francis, D. J., Denton, C. A., Wanzek, J., Wexler, J., et al. (2008). Response to intervention
with older students with reading difficulties. Learning and Individual Differences, 18, 338345.

When Older Students Can't Read

By: Louisa Moats
Since 1996, state and federal reading initiatives have focused on the problem of reading failure at
kindergarten and the primary grades. The focus on early intervention is well-conceived, given the strong
evidence that research-based instruction beginning in kindergarten significantly reduces the number of
children who experience reading difficulty (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development,
2000).
If children receive instruction in phonological and alphabetic skills and learn to apply that knowledge to
decoding words, they are very likely to succeed at reading. Once children fall behind, they seldom catch
up, a reason that such states as California, Virginia, and Texas promote early intervention to prevent
reading problems. Reading level in 1st grade, moreover, is an astonishingly good predictor of reading
achievement into high school (Catts et al., 1999; Cunningham and Stanovich, 1997; Shaywitz et al, 1999;
Fletcher et al. 1994). Reading failure begins early, takes root quickly, and affects students for life.
Improvements in reading education in the lower elementary grades, however, are coming too slowly to
affect the huge numbers of students beyond third grade who have been the victims of misguided reading
instruction and scarce resources. Many people know that about 42 percent of 4th graders score below
basic in overall reading skill on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). In Washington,
D.C., where I am currently studying reading intervention, the proportion of students beyond 3rd grade
who cannot read well enough to participate in grade-level work is between 60 and 70 percent, depending
on the grade and year of assessment. Too few children can compete in higher education and about half fail
to complete high school. In this community, the rate of adult illiteracy reading below 4th grade level
is 37%, the highest in the nation. Nationally, 25% of all adults are functionally illiterate.
The older struggling reader
What can be done? Plenty, if we are committed to applying best practices supported by reading research.
Converging evidence from psychological studies of reading explains the nuts and bolts of learning to read
at any age and in any alphabetic language ( Lyon, 1998). Most reading scientists agree that a core
linguistic deficit underlies poor reading at all ages (Catts et al., 1999; Shaywitz et al., 1999). At any age,
poor readers as a group exhibit weaknesses in phonological processing and word recognition speed and
accuracy, as do younger poor readers (Stanovich & Siegel, 1994; Shankweiler et al., 1995). At any age,
when an individual's reading comprehension is more impaired than his or her listening comprehension,
inaccurate and slow word recognition is the most likely cause (Shankweiler et al., 1999).
To complicate matters, the older student has not practiced reading and avoids reading because reading is
taxing, slow, and frustrating (Ackerman & Dyckman, 1996; Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997). Therein lies
the most challenging aspect of teaching older students: they cannot read so they do not like to read;
reading is labored and unsatisfying so they have little reading experience; and, because they have not
read much, they are not familiar with the vocabulary, sentence structure, text organization and concepts
of academic book language. Over time, their comprehension skills decline because they do not read, and
they also become poor spellers and poor writers. What usually begins as a core phonological and word

recognition deficit, often associated with other language weaknesses, becomes a diffuse, debilitating
problem with language spoken and written.
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Effective instruction
Several principles drive effective instruction in reading and language. Such instruction is intensive enough
to close the ever-widening gap between poor readers and their grade-level peers as quickly as possible.
Reading intervention grounded in research imparts to older readers the skills they missed in primary
grades and can bring them to grade level in one to two years (Torgesen, Wagner, Rashotte, Alexander &
Conway, 1997; Torgesen et al., in press). The intervention must match the students' level of reading
development, because each stage of growth requires a special focus (Curtis & Longo, 1999).
Very poor readers must have their phonological skills strengthened because the inability to identify speech
sounds erodes spelling, word recognition, and vocabulary development. For less severely impaired
readers, educators must often target text reading fluency. If students can decipher words, educators must
aggressively address vocabulary deficiencies with direct teaching and incentives to read challenging
material in and out of school. If students do not know the words they are reading and cannot derive
meaning from context, they must expand their vocabularies and learn a repertoire of comprehension
strategies (Williams, 1998). Students cannot and should not bypass any critical skills necessary for fluent
and meaningful reading just because of their chronological age.
Effective instruction stimulates language awareness. Language-deficient children often miss the subtle
differences in speech sounds that distinguish words from one another (pacific/specific; goal/gold;
fresh/flesh; anecdote/antidote; cot/caught). Direct work on speech sound identification pays off. If
students cannot efficiently decode words by using phonic relationships, syllable patterns, and structural
analysis (morphemes), they benefit from learning the organization of English orthography at various
levels. If students are unfamiliar with the features of written text, such as subtitles, paragraph structures,
connecting words and phrases, embedded clauses, idiomatic usages, and figures of speech, these can be
taught. If students' written sentences are short, incomplete, or stilted, they can learn sentence expansion
and construction. Each of these challenges, moreover, can be met in age-appropriate ways, in inter-woven
curricular strands that progress along a developmental sequence (Greene 1996).
Phonological awareness and decoding
Recognition of printed words depends on the ability to map speech sounds to letter symbols the
alphabetic principle and to recognize letter sequences accurately and quickly orthographic
processing. The majority of poor readers who read below the 30th percentile in the intermediate and
upper grades have either pronounced or residual needs for instruction in these basic skills. The techniques
for teaching older students, however, differ from the techniques of teaching younger students.
Older students have experienced reading failure from an early age so they must be convinced that a
renewed investment of energy will be worthwhile. In the Washington Literacy Council program, for
example, adult students who have recently developed the ability to match speech sounds to letter symbols
speak to incoming students about the helpfulness of the structured language instruction they are about to
receive. Phonological awareness, decoding, spelling, grammar and other language skills can be taught as a
linguistics course in which instructors use adult terminology such as phoneme deletion&148; and
morphemic structure. Phonemic drills are short tune-ups that include games such as reverse-a-word
(Say teach; then say it with the first sound last and the last sound first-cheat.) Students identify speech
sounds before they spell words by using the tapping technique touching the thumb to successive fingers
as they segment and pronounce the speech sounds ( Wilson, 1996).
Teachers can teach sound-symbol correspondences in the context of syllable types. Short vowels occur
before one or more consonants in closed syllables. Students read the syllables and immediately spell them
in longer, age-appropriate vocabulary: for example, fab, fabulous; pel, compel; com, accomplish. As they
master six or seven syllable types, students learn to visually chunk sequences of letters and understand
spelling patterns. For example, the word rifle has one f and the word ruffle has two fs because of the
syllable structure. Rifle begins with an open syllable that ends with the long vowel (ri), and ruffle begins
with a closed syllable (ruf); each syllable is attached to the final syllable unit -fle. To develop an eye for
printed syllable units, students can arc under syllables with a pencil before reading a word.
As students' syllable recognition and spelling progress, teachers can emphasize morphemes prefixes,
roots, and suffixes, mostly from Latin and Greek (Henry 1997). Beginning with inflections that may
change the spelling of a base word (fine, finest; begin, beginning; study, studied), students analyze words

into units that often link meaning and spelling designate, signal, and assignment, for example, share a
root). Instruction must be cumulative, sequential, and systematic, so that students overcome the bad
habit of relying on context and guessing to decode unknown words.
Reading fluency and word recognition
Sound-symbol associations and word recognition are usually fast and automatic in good readers - such
readers employ little conscious attention when they identify words. Third graders typically read at more
than 100 words per minute; adults typically read at more than 300 words per minute. Poor readers are
usually too slow, even after they become accurate. Slowness generally reflects lack of practice with
reading.
For some poor readers, slow word retrieval appears to be an unyielding, constitutional characteristic.
These children do not easily develop whole word recognition, but instead decode each word as if it were
seen for the first time. Older poor readers can usually increase speed with a great deal of practice at
several levels: sound-symbol association, word reading, and text reading at an easy level. Quick speed
drills, conducted as challenge games to achieve a goal, can build automatic recognition of syllables and
morphemes. For example, students can graph their progress reading several lines of confusable syllables
such as pre, pro, per or can, cane, kit, kite, pet, pete. (Fischer, 1999). Alternate oral reading of passages
in small groups, reading with a tape-recording, choral reading of dramatic material, and rereading familiar
text can all support text reading fluency. Above all, however, students must read as much as possible in
text that is not too difficult in order to make up the huge gap between themselves and other students.
Vocabulary and phrase meanings
Normally progressing students can read most of the words in their listening vocabulary by 4th or 5th
grade. From then on, they learn new vocabulary primarily by reading at the rate of several thousand
new words per year. Older poor readers are at least partially familiar with more spoken words than they
can read, but because they do not read well, their exposure to the words in varied contexts is limited.
Students who are poor readers often have "heard of" a word, but lack depth, breadth, or specificity in
word knowledge (Beck & McKeown, 1991). For example, one student of ours defined designated as sober,
from the association with designated driver. Many poor readers must overcome a huge vocabulary deficit
before they will be able to read successfully beyond the 5th grade level.
Effective vocabulary study occurs daily and involves more than memorizing definitions. Teachers
deliberately use new words as often as possible in classroom conversation. They reward students for using
new words or for noticing use of the words outside of the class. Such strategies as using context to derive
meanings, finding root morphemes, mapping word derivations, understanding word origins, and
paraphrasing idiomatic or special uses for words are all productive. If possible, word study should be
linked to subject matter content and literature taught in class, even if the literature is being read aloud to
the students.
Teaching comprehension
Increasing emphasis on more advanced reading strategies is appropriate as students reach the 4th or 5th
grade level of reading ability. Students who have not read a great deal often lag in their knowledge of
genre, text structure, text organization, and literary devices. They are unused to reading for information,
or reading to grapple with the deeper meanings of a text. The internal questioning that occurs in the mind
of a good reader must be explicated, modeled, and practiced many times in group discussions. Probing
and using open-ended questions about issues significant to the students are most likely to stimulate
language. Great texts such as fables, poems, oral histories, and adapted classics promote student
engagement. Even if students are working on word recognition, they will benefit from daily opportunities
to discuss meaningful material.
The teacher of comprehension must simultaneously teach students about sentence structure, text
cohesion, punctuation, phrasing, and grammar because comprehension can break down at the most basic
levels of language processing. For example, students who are poor readers may fail to identify the referent
for a pronoun, the figurative use of a word, the significance of a logical connective, or the tone of a
phrase.
Written response to reading

Written response to reading can greatly enhance comprehension, but poor readers must have their writing
skills developed sequentially and cumulatively. Writing improves when students practice answering specific
question types, elaborating subjects and predicates, combining simple sentences, constructing clauses,
and linking sentences into organized paragraphs. These are the building blocks of clear expository writing.
Even as students develop the building blocks for writing, shared and modeled writing helps them
transcend the daunting challenges of generating and organizing their thoughts. Rather than turning
students loose to face a blank piece of paper, the instructor models and demystifies the composition
process. First, the class generates and sorts ideas. Then it decides on an outline and topic sentence. Next,
the teacher talks the class through each step of a shared composition, modeling decisions about what and
how to write. Finally, the teacher models the editing process, pointing out sentences that need
elaboration, combination, or reordering, and replaces words as necessary. Students are thus prepared to
compose independently.
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Instruction that works
Older poor readers can often learn to read with appropriate instruction. Joseph Torgesen and his
colleagues at Florida State University have brought very poor readers at grades 3 to 5 up to grade level
and documented the maintenance of those gains over two years (Torgesen et al., in press). Students in
Torgesen's study received instruction for two hours each day for a total of 80 hours. Two approaches,
varying in amount of time spent on decoding and text reading, proved effective.
In Sacramento and Elk Grove, California, several schools have achieved significant gains with 6th through
10th graders using Jane Greene's LANGUAGE! curriculum with classes of nonreaders and very poor
readers. Mary Beth Curtis and Anne Marie Longo, at the Boys Town Reading Center in Nebraska, report
strong efficacy data for their program based on stages of reading development.
All of these approaches assume that older poor readers can learn to read if they are taught the foundation
language skills they missed and they have ample opportunity to apply the skills in meaningful text
reading. Each approach teaches language structure explicitly to match the developmental needs of the
students and uses systematic, structured, and cumulative methods applied to age-appropriate text. These
approaches teach language at all levels: sound, word, sentence, and passage. They unpack the building
blocks of words, ensuring that students process them accurately, build fluency through ample practice,
and teach students to engage actively the meanings in text.
Beyond 3rd grade, poor readers can be taught if the program has all necessary components, the teacher is
well prepared and supported, and the students are given time, sufficiently intensive instruction, and
incentives to overcome their reading and language challenges. Given the right approach, students will buy
in. In fact, they'll ask why they were allowed to go so far without being taught to read.

Difficulties with Reading

What mystifies many parents is where and why the reading process breaks down. Although, problems may
occur in any area, decoding, comprehension, or retention, the root of most reading problems, in the view
of many experts, is decoding.
Reading Facts
o Roughly 85% of children diagnosed with learning difficulties have a primary problem with reading
and related language skills.
o Reading difficulties are neurodevelopmental in nature.
o Neurodevelopmental problems don't go away, but they do not mean that a student (or an adult)
cannot learn or progress in school and life.
o Most children with reading difficulties can be taught reading and strategies for success in school.
o When children's reading problems are identified early, they are more likely to learn strategies that
will raise their reading to grade level.

Decoding Difficulties
Decoding is the process by which a word is broken into individual phonemes and recognized based on
those phonemes. For instance, proficient decoders separate the sounds "buh," "aah," and "guh" in the
word "bag." Someone who has difficulty decoding, and thus difficulty reading easily, may not hear and
differentiate these phonemes. "Buh," "aah," and "guh" might be meaningless to them in relation to the
word "bag" on the page.
Experts have no one explanation for this phenomenon. In some cases, it may reflect that some people
simply require more time to separate sounds -- time that isn't there.
Signs
o
o
o
o
o

of decoding difficulty:
trouble sounding out words and recognizing words out of context
confusion between letters and the sounds they represent
slow oral reading rate (reading word-by-word)
reading without expression
ignoring punctuation while reading

Try it yourself. Experience a decoding difficulty.

Comprehension Difficulties
Comprehension relies on mastery of decoding; children who struggle to decode find it difficult to
understand and remember what has been read. Because their efforts to grasp individual words are so
exhausting, they have no resources left for understanding.
Signs
o
o
o
o
o

of comprehension difficulty:
confusion about the meaning of words and sentences
inability to connect ideas in a passage
omission of, or glossing over detail
difficulty distinguishing significant information from minor details
lack of concentration during reading

Retention Difficulties
Retention requires both decoding and comprehending what is written. This task relies on high level
cognitive skills, including memory and the ability to group and retrieve related ideas. As students progress
through grade levels, they are expected to retain more and more of what they read. From third grade on,
reading to learn is central to classroom work. By high school it is an essential task.
Signs
o
o
o

of retention difficulty:
trouble remembering or summarizing what is read
difficulty connecting what is read to prior knowledge
difficulty applying content of a text to personal experiences

The Alabama Reading Initiative is unique among state efforts to address student reading difficulties
because it includes a focus on high school students and does not depend on federal funding. In looking at
ARI, the primary finding is that states must be responsive to the different needs of secondary and
elementary students and schools when implementing a reading initiative a one-size-fits-all approach to
reading won't work. The article includes several recommendations for policymakers: create a K-12
continuum for reading; make intensive reading programs available at the secondary level, in addition to
literacy-across-the-curriculum initiatives; and provide secondary teachers with support from specialized
staff such as literacy coaches.
The Challenge
Far too many high school students are limited by low levels of literacy. This problem impacts learning in all
subjects because literacy is key to unlocking content knowledge across the curriculum. As the level of
literacy improves, so do the chances that a student will master more rigorous coursework, be able to
demonstrate that mastery, and be better prepared to attend college or meet today's challenges at work.
Remarkably, about a quarter of all 8th and 12th grade students read "below basic," meaning they cannot
identify the main idea of what they read.1 As many as one-half to three-quarters of ninthgraders in lowperforming high schools start their freshmen year with significant reading difficulties, lacking the skills
needed to comprehend complex texts assigned in their content courses. 2
For those who never make it to the 12th grade, the inability to read well contributes to decisions to drop
out of high school. These low literacy rates are most pervasive among minorities and students from lowincome households. Because reading is not typically taught in secondary school, there are far too few
teachers appropriately prepared to teach reading at the high school level.

Low proficiency in reading comprehension may threaten global competitiveness

Updated February 22, 2010 - 12:00am
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MANILA, Philippines - It is conventional wisdom to think that our competency in English gives us a clear-cut advantage in
the BPO (business process outsourcing) industry. After all, English is practically our second language, so doing business
with Westerners should not pose a problem at all. This kind of readiness has made us a worthy competitor in the global
business arena.
However, recent National Achievement Tests (NAT) administered to public schools paint a picture that may threaten that
competitiveness. The DepEd reports that there has been a 21.36 percent increase in NAT results from 2006 to 2009. The
2009 NAT revealed a rise in Mean Percentage Score (MPS) of only 66.33 percent from 54.66 percent in 2006, which
equates to an improvement of 11.67 percent. The percentage gains were in all subject areas and point to a steady
improvement in the primary education of the countrys public school system.
So this kind of progress is supposed to be a good thing, right?
Maybe. Maybe not. Because a 66.33 MPS (from 54.66 in 2006) is still a rather low score. In fact, its at the near mastery
level. Whats more alarming is that mastery is only at 14.4 percent among grade 6 students and 1.1 percent among
fourth-year high school students, which means below-mastery scores are a staggering 85.6 percent among the former
and 98.1 percent among the latter.
What could be the reason for such below mastery levels? In a 2007 interview, Dr. Yolandda Quijano, head of the
DepEds Bureau of Elementary Education, attributed reading problems as the main culprit for the poor performance of
some students in the NAT.
This is definitely a cause for alarm because if the upcoming generation cannot read properly, then there is a big chance
they will have difficulty writing and speaking well simple but vital tasks in maintaining that competitive edge in BPO

work. If a new generation of professionals is plagued with poor reading comprehension and all of its consequential
handicaps our share of the BPO market could very well shrink.
Lifestyle Feature ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch:
To address this concern at its very core, students have to be trained at the earliest age to read well. This means access to
a wide variety of quality books at their schools and a program that encourages reading for pleasure because the
surefire way to develop good reading comprehension is by making reading a habit.
Doing so will ensure that our upcoming generation and those after that will be prepared for any challenges that lie ahead.
After all, you cant go wrong with a generation of good readers to take care of business.