It’s never too late to remediate: Teaching word recognition to students with reading disabilities in grades 4–7

Abstract

The papers in this section explore multiple strategies for remediation of reading difficulties. The literature reviews are current, the techniques sophisticated, and the respect for empirical evidence outweighs (as it must) adherence to a particular philosophy of instruction.In chapter 9, Sylvia Abbott and Virginia Berninger present a detailed curriculum for students in grades 4 to 7, contrasting two different ways to provide explicit instruction in the English orthography. For half the students the code-emphasis component focused exclusively on the phoneme-grapheme correspondences, the other half were also given explicit instruction to syllable types and morphological structure. The results are encouraging in finding that both groups made discernible gains in word recognition and reading comprehension over the fourmonth period; as did virtually every child in the study (individual data are provided). There was no evidence that instruction in syllables and morphemes had an obvious advantage. Readers will find this paper useful on a number of ways: for the explicit details in lesson plans which are tied to readily available commercial programs and for the result that the only limiting factor was RSN--and that limited not mastery of the code, but speed of word recognition. As the title suggests, the study indicates that 7th graders are not too old to benefit from instruction.In chapter 10, Marshall Raskind and Eleanor Higgins provide some surprising and encouraging evidence that speech recognition technology designed to help persons compensate for reading limitations may in fact enhance reading and spelling as well--gains in word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension were small but reliable after only one semester using this technology an hour a week. This carefully conducted 221 222 STRATEGIES FOR REMEDIATION study will be read with keen interest by all who struggle with how to support students who must continue in grade-level curriculum and yet also continue to learn to read. Combined with prior evidence that text readers help the poor reader, school systems, families and clinicians will be expanding their repertoire on aids to older students.If you talk to any group of experienced reading instructors, you will find that their number one concern is how to enhance reading fluency. For even very effective code-emphasis interventions have not yielded sizable gains in reading fluency. In Chapter 11, Marianne Meyer and Rebecca Felton bring us up to date on what research finds regarding the efficacy of means to improve reading fluency, with particular emphasis on the "repeated readings" approach. This paper will be especially useful to reading instructors, as it is structured in a question answer format.The final paper, chapter 12 by Joanne Martila Pierson offers an unusual--and very readable--combination of explicit code instruction and concern for the child's continued interest. What I like about this paper is the explicit documentation of what the child does and does not learn over the period covered and ...

The Effects of Morphological Instruction on Literacy Skills

“…Although this number is larger than that identified by Reed (2008), there is clearly need for more studies particularly across age and ability levels. Second, with respect to research design, there were a number of examples of random assignment of individuals to instructional conditions (Abbott & Berninger, 1999;Berninger et al, 2003;Berninger et al, 2008;Kirk & Gillon, 2009;Lyster, 1998Lyster, , 2002Tyler et al, 2003), though many of the other investigators did manage to randomly assign classes. Given that most studies saw morphological instruction as a part of regular classroom instruction and that the instruction usually took place over several weeks or more, the proportion of studies with random assignment of individuals seems reasonable.…”

A meta-analysis of morphological interventions: effects on literacy achievement of children with literacy difficulties

“…Morphological instruction has been shown to improve decoding for students with reading disabilities (Abbott & Berninger, 1999;Berninger et al 2008;Edwards 1982;Henry 1987Henry , 1988Henry, Calfee, & Avelar-LaSalle, 1989;Lovett et al 2000;Lovett & Steinbach, 1997) and struggling readers (Carlisle 2007;Katz & Carlisle, 2009;Vadasy, Sanders, & Peyton, 2006). Similarly, interventions with morphological instruction also seem to improve reading comprehension for students with learning disabilities (Carlisle 2007;Katz & Carlisle, 2009;Lovett et al 2000) and struggling readers (Carlisle 2007;Katz & Carlisle, 2009;Vadasy et al 2006).…”

Response to intervention with older students with reading difficulties

“…Evidence from intervention studies with older students who exhibit deficits in decoding and fluency suggest that these students benefit from receiving instruction in the basic elements of word reading, regardless of how old they are (Abbott & Berninger, 1999; NICHD, 2000). Research findings point to the use of systematic, explicit instruction in comprehension strategies and vocabulary, opportunities for practice in text geared to the students' reading level with corrective feedback, and explicit instruction in the use of strategies to read words quickly and accurately (Swanson, 1999;Vaughn, Gersten, & Chard, 2000).…”

“…Evidence from intervention studies with older students who exhibit deficits in decoding and fluency suggest that these students benefit from receiving instruction in the basic elements of word reading, regardless of how old they are (Abbott & Berninger, 1999;NICHD, 2000).…”

“…Students who read slowly and laboriously read fewer words overall and often become reluctant readers who struggle to learn from text and do not read for pleasure, thus widening the gap between poor and proficient readers (Stanovich, 1986). Furthermore, the ability to read quickly and accurately is related to improved reading comprehension because students can devote more attention during reading to the mental processes involved in understanding text (Homan, Klesius, & Hite, 1993;Kuhn & Stahl, 2000; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000;Reutzel & Hollingsworth, 1993;Shinn, Good, & Knutson, 1992).Evidence from intervention studies with older students who exhibit deficits in decoding and fluency suggest that these students benefit from receiving instruction in the basic elements of word reading, regardless of how old they are (Abbott & Berninger, 1999; NICHD, 2000). Research findings point to the use of systematic, explicit instruction in comprehension strategies and vocabulary, opportunities for practice in text geared to the students' reading level with corrective feedback, and explicit instruction in the use of strategies to read words quickly and accurately (Swanson, 1999;Vaughn, Gersten, & Chard, 2000).…”