Reading Instruction for Students with Visual Impairments: Whose job is It?

Abstract

Unlike other areas of education, reading instruction is supported by considerable research on its content and instructional methodology that is rigorous, systematic, and meets the experimental or quasi-experimental standard required by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and IDEA, 2004 (Smartt & Reschly, 2007). (Experimental and quasi-experimental research involves data collection from a large number of participants who were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group, which provides for the greatest confidence in the results.) A review of the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data for the fourth-grade reading sample indicated that only 35% of the national sample of students without disabilities and 13% of students with identified disabilities were at or above the proficient level (Lee, Grigg, & Donahue, 2007). (Over 50% of the sample with disabilities took the reading test with accommodations.) Scores for both groups of students have risen slightly since 1998. The improvements in these scores may be interpreted to indicate that the recent emphasis on research-based literacy is effective. HIGHLY EFFECTIVE READING TEACHERS Over the past 20 years, research has emerged that shows a correlation between the quality of the teacher and the outcomes of students. There is a substantial body of literature on the attributes of a highly effective teacher (Blankenship, 2004; Darling-Hammond, 2000; Fullan, 1982; Gibson & Dembo, 1984; Moore & Esselman, 1992; Murnane, 1981; Rosenholtz, 1989; Ross, 1992; Turner & Camilli, 1988). The literature indicates that a highly effective teacher must have both pedagogy--the teaching skills to adjust to a variety of learning styles and abilities and the ability to engage students in learning--and content knowledge, a high degree of competence within a single content area such as reading. In the area of reading instruction, content knowledge is defined as an understanding of the five core components of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Scientifically based reading instruction includes a number of instructional components that have been found to be effective with struggling at-risk readers, such as explicit instruction with modeling and systematic instruction with scaffolding (Smartt & Reschly, 2007). Smartt and Reschly (2007) also found that many general education pre-service programs do not provide instruction in the five core components of reading instruction, nor do they teach future teachers how to provide scientifically based instruction in reading. The prospects for teachers who choose to work with students with identified disabilities are even more tenuous. Smartt and Reschly (2007) and Goe and Coggshall (2007) report that some university programs have made progress in providing the necessary background in reading instruction for special education teachers by requiring that these teachers have dual certification in both general education and special education. However, the premise that special educators with dual certification have a greater likelihood of having received instruction in both the core components and the instructional methodology of reading have not been confirmed. IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FIELD OF VISUAL DISABILITIES There is little or no opportunity for future teachers of students who are blind or visually impaired who are enrolled in personnel preparation programs for teaching students with visual disabilities to receive the needed coursework in reading instruction if they are not in a dual certification program or don't already have certification in reading. Although instruction in braille and communication modes are noted as content areas under compensatory skills, one of the nine instructional areas of the expanded core curriculum that Hatlen (1996; 2003) recommends be taught or facilitated by teachers of students with visual impairments as part of their educational program, some teachers report that they learned the braille code but not how to teach braille or how to infuse it into literacy instruction. …