Teaching Reading to Children With Disabilities

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• Teaching Reading to Children With Disabilities

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Did You Know That

• Only 31 of the nations fourth graders are
  proficient readers (National Assessment of
  Education Programs, 2003).
• Students who fail to read on grade level by the
  fourth grade rarely catch up (Lyon, 2001).

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No Child Left Behind Legislation

• Intended to address literacy crisis
• Requires schools to use evidence-based reading
  practices
• ALL children will learn to read well by the end
  of third grade

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ALL Includes Children With Disabilities

• Because reading is a critical skill for future
  independence
• Because reading is the central focus of early
  education
• Because access to general education means access
  to literacy instruction
• Because reading instruction does not stop for
  nondisabled students at the first sign of no
  progress

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Connecticuts Blueprint for Reading
Acheivement--2000

• Recommended ways to raise reading achievement of
  CTs lowest performing students
• Reduce class size
• Full day kindergartens
• Intensive early intervention reading programs,
  including after school and summer programs

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So, How Are We Doing?
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Not So Well
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Problems With Teacher Preparation

• Teacher prep programs in reading are rarely based
  on current scientific evidence (Moats, 1997)
• Special education teachers in CT are certified
  for K-12 and most do not have sufficient training
  in reading

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Connecticut TeachersK-3

• 66 have no training in phonemic awareness
• A similarly significant number lack training in
  vocabulary, comprehension, reading fluency
• Source CT Early Reading Success Panel Needs
  Assessment, 2000

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Reading Instruction for CT Students With ID

• Survey of reading instruction for kids with
  intellectual disabilities and nondisabled
  children in CT (Whitbread, 2004)
• Distributed to all 169 CT schools
• Return rate 60 (100 districts)

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Wheres The Phonics??

• Nearly 30 of the teachers report using Edmark as
  the primary reading program for students with
  intellectual disabilities
• Sight word program--does not teach children to
  generalize knowledge to new words

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Who Is Teaching ?

• 50 report that the special education teacher
  teaches reading to children with intellectual
  disabilities
• 30 report that students receive reading
  instruction from the regular education teacher
• 20 reported other (tutor, paraprofessional,
  reading teacher)

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Where Is Instruction Taking Place?

• 27 report that instruction takes place in the
  regular education classroom
• 49 report that instruction takes place in the
  resource room
• 24 report that instruction takes place in a self
  contained special education classroom

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What Do We Know About Inclusion and Literacy?

• Children with intellectual disabilities
  educated in inclusive classrooms score higher on
  literacy measures than children educated in
  segregated settings (Buckley, 2000)

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What About Planning Time?

• Over half of the survey respondents report that
  there is NO planned collaboration time between
  regular educators and special educators
• we meet after school and before school
• we meet on our lunch hour
• it only happens on our own time
• we have informal, on-the-run conversations

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Teaching Reading Really Is Rocket Science! Dr.
Louisa Moats
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The National Reading Panel (NRP)

• Reviewed more than 100,000 reading studies
• Formed the basis of No Child Left Behind mandates
• Identified five critical elements of effective
  reading instruction.

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Critical Elements of Reading Instruction

• Phonemic awareness ability to hear manipulate
  sounds in words
• Phonics relationship between letters sound
• Fluencyability to read accurately, fluidly,
  with expression
• Vocabularycommunicating effectively Recognizing
  words in print
• Text comprehensionunderstanding what is read

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Phonemic Awareness

• Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in a
  spoken language.
• Phonemic awareness falls on a continuum of
  phonological awareness tasks.

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Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts
Phonological awareness skills
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Important Points About Phonemic Awareness

• Can help preschoolers, kindergartners, 1st
  graders, and older, less able readers.
• Blending and segmentation are the most important
  skills to teach because they are critical to
  childrens ability to read and spell.
• PA is a particular area of difficulty for
  students with intellectual disabilities

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Examples of Phonemic Awareness Tasks

• Sound isolation what is the first sound in rose?
• Phoneme deletion what word would be left if the
  /k/ sound were taken away from cat?
• Word to word matching do pen and pipe begin with
  the same sound?
• Blending what word would we have if you put
  these sounds together /s/, /a/, /t/?

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Phonemic Awareness Tasks, Continued

• Phoneme counting How many sounds do you hear in
  the word cake?
• Deleting phonemes What sound do you hear in meat
  that is missing in eat?
• Odd word out What word starts with a different
  sound bag, nine, beach, bike?
• Sound to word matching Is there a /k/ in bike?

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The Most Important Skills to Teach Are Blending
and Segmenting

• Blending. Children listen to a sequence of
  separately spoken phonemes and then combine the
  phonemes to form a word. /d/ /o/ /g/ is dog
• Segmentation. Children break a spoken word into
  its separate phonemes. There are four sounds in
  truck /t/ /r/ /u/ /k/.

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Phonemic Awareness Instruction

• Means to an end, not an end in itself.
• Part of an overall reading approachnot the
  entire reading program
• Average 20 hours total (may be more for children
  with disabilities)

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Phonemic Awareness Activities in Mather
Goldstein text

• Invented or temporary spelling (p. 254)
• Analyzing word structure (p. 254-255)
• Adapted Elkonin procedure (p. 255)
• Auditory sequencing (p. 256)
• Making words (p. 257)

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Phonics

• The understanding that there is a predictable
  relationship between phonemes (the sounds in
  spoken language) and graphemes, the letters that
  represent those sounds in written language and
  that this information can be used to read or
  decode (sound out) words.

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Phonics Instruction

• Systematic and explicit phonics instruction
  significantly improves kindergarten and
  first-grade childrens word recognition and
  spelling.
• Significantly improves childrens reading
  comprehension, word recognition, and spelling.

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What Is Systematic, Explicit Instruction?

• A program is systematic if the plan of
  instruction includes a carefully selected set of
  letter-sound relationships that are organized
  into a logical sequence. Explicit means the
  programs provide teachers with precise directions
  for the teaching of these relationships.
• Research on evidence based programs rely on
  programs that were implemented exactly as
  prescribed

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Systematic and Explicit Phonics Instruction

• Provides instruction in letter-sound
  relationships
• Provides the teacher with directions on how to
  organize the introduction of these relationships
  into a logical instructional sequence.
• Provides children opportunities to practice by
  reading words, sentences and stories

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Phonics Instruction Is

• Particularly beneficial for children who are
  having difficulty learning to read
• Most effective when introduced early
• (K or 1).

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What Are Examples of Non-systematic Programs?

• Literature based programs that emphasize reading
  and writing activities
• Basal reading programs that focus on whole word
  and do not specifically teach children how to
  blend letters to pronounce words
• Sight word programs

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How Much Phonics Instruction Is Enough?

• Two years of phonics instruction is sufficient
  for most students.
• If phonics instruction begins early in K, it
  should be completed by the end of grade 1.
• If it begins early in grade 1, it should be
  completed by the end of grade 2.
• May be longer for children with disabilities

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Phonics Activities in Mather Goldstein text

• Analog strategy (p. 261)
• Glass analysis method (p. 263)
• Spelling grid (p. 264)
• Flash cards (p. 267)
• Flow list (p. 267-269)
• Personalized dictionary (p. 269)
• Fernald method (p. 271)
• Cover-write methods (p. 272)
• Backward spelling (p. 264)
• Self-monitoring (p. 269)

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Fluency

• Fluency is the ability to read a text
  accurately, quickly, and with proper expression
  and comprehension. Because fluent readers do not
  have to concentrate on decoding words, they can
  focus their attention on what the text means.
  (National Institute for Literacy, 2002)
• NAEP found that 44 of fourth graders are low in
  fluency

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Important Points About Fluency

• Attention to fluency is often neglected in
  reading instruction.
• Fluency can be improved by repeated oral readings
  with feedback
• Sustained silent reading has not been shown to
  improve fluency

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Improving Fluency

• Repeated readings
• Previewing while listening
• Timed oral readings
• Peer tutoring
• Goal setting
• Chart record progress
• Monitor progress

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Fluency Activities in Mather Goldstein text

• Speed drills (p. 275)
• Rapid word recognition chart (p. 275-276)
• Choral reading or neurological impress method (p.
  276)
• Repeated readings (p. 276-278)
• Taped books (p.278)

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Vocabulary

• Listening vocabulary -- the words a person knows
  when hearing them in oral speech.
• Speaking vocabulary -- the words we use when we
  speak.
• Reading vocabulary -- the words a person knows
  when seeing them in print.
• Writing vocabulary -- the words we use in
  writing.

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Vocabulary

• Important in reading
• comprehension. Readers cannot understand what
  they are reading unless they know what most of
  the words mean.

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The Matthew Effect
Reading failure
Dislike reading
Read less
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How Vocabulary Is Learned

• Indirectly. Through everyday experiences e.g.,
  conversations with adults, being read to, and
  reading on their own.
• Directly. Through explicit instruction in both
  individual words and word-learning strategies.

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Teaching Individual Words

• Teaching specific words before reading helps both
  vocabulary learning and reading comprehension.
• Repeated exposures to vocabulary in many contexts
  aids word learning.

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Teaching Word Learning Strategies

• How to use dictionaries and other reference aids
  to learn word meanings
• How to use information about word parts (affixes,
  base words, word roots) to figure out the
  meanings of words in text
• How to use context clues to determine word
  meanings.

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Text Comprehension

• If readers can read the words but do not
  understand what they are reading, they are not
  really reading.
• Instruction in comprehension can help students
  understand what they read, remember what they
  read, and communicate with others about what they
  read.

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Improving Comprehension

• Direct explanation (teacher explains to students
  why the strategy helps and when to apply the
  strategy),
• Modeling (teacher models how to apply the
  strategy, usually by "thinking aloud" while
  reading the text that the students are using),
• Guided practice (teacher guides and assists
  students as they learn how and when to apply the
  strategy)
• Application (teacher helps students practice the
  strategy until they can apply it independently).

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Teaching Comprehension Strategies

• monitoring comprehension
• using graphic and semantic organizers
• answering questions
• generating questions
• recognizing story structure
• summarizing

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Activate Prior Knowledge

• Ask questions relevant to forthcoming readings
• Pre-teach relevant vocabulary
• Teach students to ask questions related to
  forthcoming topics
• Have students complete activities containing
  relevant questions prior to reading

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Self-Monitoring

• Did I Read the paragraph? Yes___ No____
• Ask myself who or what the passage is about?
• Yes___ No____
• Ask myself what was happening in the passage?
• Yes___ No____
• Make up a summary sentence in my own words using
  the answers to the questions asked?
• Yes___ No____

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Adapting Text to Increase Comprehension

• Highlight main idea
• Alter font, spacing, color of text
• Magnify text
• Tape record text
• Scan text
• Rewrite using more familiar vocabulary
• Rewrite at a lower reading level
• Supplement with high interest, low vocabulary
  texts

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Reading Comprehension Activities in Mather
Goldstein text

• RAP (p. 355)
• Reciprocal teaching (p. 355)
• Collaborative strategic reading (p. 355-357)
• SQ3R (p. 357-358)
• ReQuest procedure (p. 358)
• MULTIPASS (p. 359)
• PORPE (p. 359-360)

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Questions to Consider

• Does the childs reading program contain the 5
  components of instruction recommended by the
  National Reading Panel?
• Is the bar set high enough?
• Is the person teaching the child to read
  qualified? What training have they received?
• Is the child getting systematic, explicit
  instruction in reading?

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What Can Parents Do?

• show their child through their actions that they
  value reading
• Have a variety of reading materials at home
• Read to their child regularly
• Have high expectations

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Resources

• National Reading Panel Publications
• DIBELSearly reading assessment
• Dr. Frances Connersresearcher at U of Alabama
• Dr. Kerry Hempenstall, Canada
• Dr. Diane Browder, Project RAISE, U of North
  Carolina at Charlotte

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• Teaching children to read is a centralarguably
  the centralmission of formal schooling.
• Connecticuts Blueprint for Reading Achievement
  (2000)

Krista, first grader, reading