Reading Difficulties In Young Children Research Articles

Reading Difficulties in Young Children

Despite decades of research on reading development and instructional practices that promote reading proficiency, millions of children in the United States still fail to acquire adequate reading skills. This article discusses factors that influence children’s difficulties in reading acquisition, but which have received less attention, relative to basic early literacy skills. Specifically, vocabulary knowledge, behavioral regulation, teacher knowledge and school factors, and individualized instruction predict whether children develop proficient reading skills. Particularly, they explain the reading difficulties of demographic groups that have historically experienced the lowest reading achievement: children living in poverty and English learners. The article offers recommendations and implications for policy.

Entering the Digital Literacy Era: Considerations for Digital Texts in Intervention

School-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) play a critical role in the development of students' literacy skills. As schools begin to include more digital texts, and eventually use digital texts exclusively, SLPs must consider the distinctive features of digital texts and how to strategically incorporate them within intervention sessions as well consultation and collaborative teaching sessions. In this article, I focus on providing in-depth background information for digital literacy in relation to a presentation I did for the American Speech-Language Hearing Association's (ASHA's) online Adolescent Language and Literacy conference in March of 2013.

Improving Reading in the Primary Grades

Almost fifteen years have passed since the publication of the National Research Council's seminal report Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, which provided research-based recommendations on what could be done to better position students in prekindergarten through third grade for success in grade four and above. This article by Nell Duke and Meghan Block first examines whether specific key recommendations from the report have been implemented in U.S. classrooms. They find that recommendations regarding increased access to kindergarten and greater attention to and improvement of students' word-reading skills have been widely adopted. Others have not. Vocabulary and comprehension, long neglected in the primary grades, still appear to be neglected. Contrary to the report's recommendations, attention to building conceptual and content knowledge in science and social studies has actually decreased in the past fifteen years. In other words, the easier-to-master skills are being attended to, but the broader domains of accomplishment that constitute preparation for comprehension and learning in the later grades--vocabulary knowledge, comprehension strategy use, and conceptual and content knowledge--are being neglected. Near stagnation in fourth-grade students' comprehension achievement is thus unsurprising. The authors then turn to research and reviews of research on improving primary-grade reading published since 1998, when Preventing Reading Difficulties was issued. They discuss several instructional approaches identified as effective in improving word-reading skill, vocabulary and conceptual knowledge, comprehension strategies, and reading outside of school; they discuss advances in interventions for struggling readers, and in whole-school literacy reform. Duke and Block then identify three key obstacles that have prevented widespread adoption of these best practices in teaching reading. The first obstacle is a short-term orientation toward instruction and instructional reform that perpetuates a focus on the easier-to-learn reading skills at the expense of vocabulary, conceptual and content knowledge, and reading comprehension strategies. The second is a lack of expertise among many educators in how to effectively teach these harder-to-master reading skills, and the third is the limited time available in the school day and year to meet unprecedented expectations for children's learning. Policy makers, the education community, and parents must attend to these three challenges if they wish to see meaningful improvements in the reading skills of American children.

Adults With Low Literacy Skills: How SLPs Can Help

Adults With Low Literacy Skills: How SLPs Can Help

Using visual phonics as a strategic intervention to increase literacy behaviors for kindergarten participants at-risk for reading failure.

A primary task of schools is to teach young children to read. Teaching reading is a complex task, further complicated by the fact that this intricate skill is more difficult for some participants to learn than others (Bursuck & Damar, 2007; Moats, 2000). In addition, children enter schools with varying levels of pre-reading skills, thus requiring different levels of instruction. The challenge for teachers of reading is to meet the diverse instructional needs of all children in their classrooms. Once children fall behind in reading, a challenging instructional task becomes even more difficult. Children who are behind in reading at the end of the first grade usually continue to be behind at the fourth grade and throughout their schooling (Francis, Shaywitz, Stuebing, Fletcher, & Shaywitz, 1996; Hall & Moats, 1999; Juel, 1988; McGuinness, 2004, 2005; Stanovich & Siegel, 1994). Consequences for participants who do not learn to read proficiently are often dire. Children who are poor readers are at increased risk for having behavior problems (Walker, Colvin, & Ramsey, 1995; Walker & Severson, 2002), special education placement (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998), and low paying jobs as adults (Chhabra & McCardle, 2004). On the other hand, proficient reading remains the most essential skill required for academic success (Chhabra & McCardle, 2004). The ability to identify those children who need extra assistance can allow teachers to target their instruction to benefit all children. The last decade has seen an intensive effort to identify participants that are at risk or high risk for reading failure and to intervene before they experience failure (Kame'enui et al., 2006). For example, the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) (Good, Kaminski, Smith, & Laimon, 2001) has proven to be an effective assessment and predictive tool for early reading success/failure. The DIBELS is an assessment tool that allows teachers to determine if a participant is demonstrating the appropriate level of pre-reading and reading skills for his or her grade level and age. In other words, it answers the question of whether the participant is on target (at benchmark) in prerequisite skills to be a proficient reader at the end of third grade. If the participant is on target then the current instruction should be continued. However, if the participant is not on target that participant should receive additional explicit instruction with the intensity of the intervention based on the degree to which the participant is below benchmark standards. Unfortunately, many teachers do not know what to do with the results of the DIBELS assessment, particularly how to modify instruction or provide more intensive instruction in problem areas. Curriculum-based measures (CBM) are an assessment tool that can be used to supplement DIBELS. CBMs are generally probes of particular performances on skills related to the on-going classroom instruction. We discuss one effective modification for teaching kindergarten children letter/sound relationships using the DIBELS and CBMs as the dependent variables. Important indicators of future reading difficulties in young children are deficits in phonemic awareness skills (Ehri, 2004; McGuinness, 2004, 2005). That is, young children who are at risk for reading failure have difficulty discriminating between the sounds in English words and consequently they have difficulty associating the sounds with the appropriate letters. Letter sound relations require a child to perceive individual sounds and associate the sounds with letters. This two-fold task encompasses both phonemic awareness and beginning phonics instruction, crucial prerequisites for mastering the alphabetic code. Bowey and Francis (1991) found that kindergarten participants who were nonreaders did not have adequate phonological awareness skills. …

Literacy in Ireland

Literacy in Ireland

Building support for language and early literacy in preschool classrooms through in-service professional development: Effects of the Literacy Environment Enrichment Program (LEEP)

There is a substantial and persistent gap in achievement between children from different backgrounds [National Center for Education Statistics. (2002). Children's reading and mathematics achievement in kindergarten and first grade. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office] that can be traced to the preschool years [Snow, C. E., Burns, M. S., & Griffin, P. (Eds.). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Research Council, National Academy Press], highlighting the importance of ensuring that preschools that serve low-income populations provide strong support for children's language and early literacy development. The current project sought to improve program quality in Head Start classrooms throughout New England with the Literacy Environment Enrichment Program (LEEP), an in-service intervention that was delivered in the form of a credit-bearing course. The impact of LEEP was studied using a wait-list comparison group strategy to determine whether intervention group teachers (n = 30) showed more fall–spring growth in measures of classroom support for literacy than did comparison group teachers (n = 40). Multiple hierarchical regression analyses that controlled for background measures and fall scores on classroom measures revealed moderate to large positive effects on all measures of classrooms support for language and early literacy with the exception of writing, for which only a small effect was found.

Using Early Literacy Monitoring to Prevent Reading Failure

MOST CHILDREN who do not to during the primary grades will probably never to well. Children who reach the end of third grade with low literacy skills typically have less access to the regular curriculum, require long-term support, and fall further behind their peers in literacy achievement and curricular knowledge. The negative ramifications of low literacy skills are pervasive and well documented--poor self-esteem, low motivation, behavioral difficulties, academic underachievement, and, ultimately, reduced occupational and economic status. However, these negative trajectories can be altered. Children experiencing reading difficulties can be identified early and, with appropriate early intervention during the primary grades, can to read. (1) Reading is a complex process, and that complexity is reflected in the range of philosophies, pedagogies, curricula, and programs available to guide early elementary reading instruction. It is little wonder, given the myriad of options available and the constraints imposed by limited resources and students' diverse skills, that a crucial question for practitioners and researchers alike is how best to ensure that children do to early and well. The Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children suggests a three-tier framework to address that question: 1) provide excellent classroom literacy instruction for all children, 2) further reduce literacy failure by allocating supplementary resources and offering enhanced learning opportunities to at-risk children, and 3) ameliorate the effects of established reading difficulties by providing intensive interventions. Efforts to translate research into practice always generate additional questions, and early literacy is no exception. As with most issues in education, responses to concerns about early literacy programming must take into account the needs of multiple stakeholders--students, parents, teachers, and administrators--while at the same time respecting empirical evidence of what constitutes effective practice. Research strongly supports both the vital role of early identification in the prevention of reading difficulties and the urgent need to teach children to during the first few years of school so that they can read to learn in grade 3 and beyond. These issues were the driving force behind a yearlong process in which a group of researchers from the Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy consulted with the New Brunswick Department of Education and five district school boards. The consultation evolved into a five-year pilot program aimed at lowering the rate of reading failure at the K-2 level. The pilot program involves implementing a school-based, continuous monitoring system during those crucial years to assist teachers in the early identification of children who encounter difficulty in their literacy development. This early literacy monitoring program, currently in its third year of data collection, is being piloted in 20 public schools and six federal First Nations schools. It responds to needs expressed by teachers, department officials, and school administrators and provides a mechanism for keeping parents apprised of their children's progress. IDENTIFYING WHAT WE NEED Throughout the first year of our five-year program, two members of our project team traveled frequently to participating schools and district offices to gather input from teachers, reading specialists, program coordinators, and school administrators. After each round of meetings, the entire research team, including researchers, programmers, analysts, early reading consultants, and support staff, would review partner specifications in order to design the components of the monitoring program. At each stage, return visits to districts and schools sought further input that the research team would again take into account, a process that continued over the course of the year until we had a structure in place that met the expectations of all partners. …

50 years ago in the journal of pediatrics: Why Johnny can’t read: Fact or fallacy

50 years ago in the journal of pediatrics: Why Johnny can’t read: Fact or fallacy

Biliteracy and Second-Language Learners

Biliteracy and Second-Language Learners

ACCELERATING STRUGGLING READERS' PROGRESS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EXPERT OPINION AND CURRENT RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS

In this article, we review the findings of Rona Flippo's (1998) “Expert Study” within the comparative context of recently published reading research reports such as the National Reading Panel report (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) and Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Does expert opinion square with research recommendations for helping young, struggling readers? Instructional practices that the experts categorized as either “making learning to read difficult” or “facilitating learning to read” are distilled into summary form. Areas of convergence and divergence between “expert opinion” and recent reading research recommendations are identified and discussed. Finally, recommendations of the “Expert Study” and recommendations of recent reading research reports are synthesized into a single set of instructional recommendations for accelerating the progress of struggling readers.

Learning to Read in Kindergarten: Has Curriculum Development Bypassed the Controversies?

The prevailing assumption has been that a formal reading curriculum is inappropriate for kindergartners. However, district staff members and teachers in the Northern Lights School Division of Alberta were convinced that a nurturing approach to teaching reading would not endanger the and might in fact prevent some of them from encountering academic difficulties in the primary grades and beyond. WE'LL BEGIN with a simple proposition: let's teach our kindergarten students to read. We already know how to do it, so why don't we? Within schools and school districts, decisions about curriculum and instruction in literacy have to be made on the basis of present knowledge and judgment. Such decisions can't wait until all controversies have been resolved and all the evidence is in with regard to available options. In the case of kindergarten, decisions about curriculum are complicated by debates about whether there should be a formal curriculum in reading or whether the components of the kindergarten program should be designed to develop the dimensions of emergent literacy only. But research on how to teach beginning readers grows apace, and we believe that we should take advantage of it. In the Northern Lights School Division in Alberta, Canada -- a district of 20 schools and about 6,500 students -- we decided to design a formal reading curriculum for kindergarten, prepare the teachers to implement it, and conduct an action research study of student learning. Our decision stemmed from the judgment that research on beginning reading had reached the point where an effective, engaging, and multidimensional curriculum could be designed and implemented without placing our students at risk in the process. And if such a curriculum proved successful, it seemed likely that the much-publicized gap would be reduced. Over the past five years in Northern Lights, we (we includes the superintendent, Ed Wittchen; the trustees; and representative teachers and administrators) had concentrated on the development of nets for low-achieving students at the second-grade level and in grades 4 through 12.1 We based the two curriculum designs on strands of research on beginning literacy for young and for older struggling readers and writers.2 Currently, in both safety net curricula, about three-fourths of the students are progressing well and narrowing the distance between themselves and the district's average students. The others are holding their own. The need for the safety net programs and our observation of the frustration and hopelessness experienced by students who needed help caused us to consider the K-3 literacy curricula and to explore whether we could strengthen them and so reduce the need for the later safety nets. We take seriously the statement by Connie Juel, who, in reacting to the National Research Council report Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, wrote that children who struggle in vain with reading in the first grade soon decide that they neither like nor want to read.3 Our teachers who work in the safety net programs confirm that their job is half instruction and half therapy. For some decades, because of the concerns about not generating demands beyond the capabilities of the students or introducing students to reading in unpleasant ways, there has been a dearth of studies on formal reading programs for kindergarten. A few studies did suggest that formal reading programs in kindergarten could have positive effects that lasted throughout schooling. For kindergarten interventions as such, though, we had to go back to Delores Durkin's work of 30 years ago. In building a kindergarten curriculum, we were not able to draw on a body of recent research on, say, alternative kindergarten reading programs or dimensions of learning to read at age 5. We drew on the literature relevant to learning to read in grades 1 through 3 and above. …

At What Age Should Children Enter Kindergarten? A Question for Policy Makers and Parents

At What Age Should Children Enter Kindergarten? A Question for Policy Makers and Parents

Science informing policy: The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's contribution to reading.

As pediatricians who have devoted our entire professional lives to the care of children and young adults with reading difficulties, we must respond to the misinformed commentary by Strauss1 that appeared in the January 2002 issue. It is difficult to understand how in the year 2002 and in the prestigious journal Pediatrics someone can argue against criteria for scientific research that are the universal “gold standard.” And yet, taking a giant step backwards, Strauss argues against the scientific method and against accountability in education. Specifically, Strauss criticizes the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) research for insisting that treatment efficacy for reading instruction be based on “experimental, not descriptive” studies. His antipathy toward experimental research is based on the “fact that the latter [descriptive] methodology is widely accepted in reading research …” Here, Strauss is partially correct; until quite recently, research in reading instruction was often descriptive. This was unfortunate because an experimental or quasi-experimental design is the only type of research design that can specifically address the question of cause and effect, that is, which reading program is most effective in teaching children to read. The descriptive methodology that Strauss advocates is not appropriate to address the question of causality and thus lacks the quality of trustworthiness that modern science and medicine demand. Within the past decade there has been an extraordinary change; largely through the vision and persistence of the NICHD and particularly, Reid Lyon, research in reading is now held to the same rigorous standard expected of research affecting other important disorders of children. Reading research, including but not limited to that conducted by NICHD-funded investigators, has recently been thoroughly and rigorously reviewed by 2 national bodies. The first is the Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children, sponsored by … Address correspondence to Sally E. Shaywitz, MD Department of Pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar St, New Haven, CT 06510-8064. E-mail: sally.shaywitz{at}yale.edu

Media Reviews: Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children

The alarming incidence of reading failure is one of the most prevalent concerns for our nation. Growing numbers of students are reaching upper elementary, middle school, or high school unable to read at grade level. To complicate matters, divergent views in research, etiology, characteristics, prevention, intervention, and instruction have led to marked controversy in the field of reading over the past 25 years-a controversy termed the Wars to denote its intensity. Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children focuses on the increasing numbers of children with reading difficulties in America's schools as well as addressing the conflicts in the field of reading. The book is an essential resource for all professionals, including those interested in developing prevention and intervention reading programs for students with behavioral disorders (BD), a large number of whom have reading difficulties. The authors, chosen for their special competencies by the National Research Council, were charged with synthesizing the extensive body of reading research as well as developing a consensus on the prevention of and interventions for reading difficulties in young children. The focus included children from birth through grade 3 in special and general education settings. The goals were to (a) comprehend a rich but diverse research base; (b) translate the research findings into advice and guidance for parents, educators, publishers, and others involved in the care and instruction of the young; and (c) convey this advice to the targeted audiences through a variety of publications, conferences, and other outreach activities. The authors reviewed research from experimental investigations, qualitative studies, correlational studies, and various quasi-experimental design studies in its efforts to address project goals. In so doing, they agreed upon a definition of reading as a process of getting meaning from print, using knowledge about the written alphabet and about the sound structure of oral language for purposes of achieving understanding. This book is divided into four sections. Part I introduces the challenges of reading literacy and provides an overview of the reading process. Chapter 1 includes information about the rising demand for literacy, societal and technological challenges, and the complexities of the English language. The sources of reading difficulties are reviewed, and the demographics of correlates to reading difficulties are introduced, including socioeconomic status, ethnicity, culture, urban/suburban schools, and students from families with limited English proficiency and/or nonstandard English dialects. Chapter 2 describes the process of learning to read, taking into consideration the biological, cognitive, and instructional factors that are important as predictors for reading success and/or failure. The authors provide an overview of how children develop language and literacy skills before they are introduced to formal instruction. Research specific to children's language development, phonological awareness, and literacy development is presented, as well as the characteristics of skilled readers specific to comprehension and word identification. The chapter describes the processes of emerging literacy and transition to school for the beginning reader; learning to identify words in print; and gaining fluency, automaticity, and understanding. Tables detail the reading accomplishments of children from kindergarten through grade 3. Part 11 describes the population of children who have reading difficulties and the factors that may predict either success or failure in reading. The authors point to predictors that are (a) intrinsic to the individual and identifiable in assessment procedures, (b) identified in the family environment, and (c) associated with the larger environment of the child (e.g., neighborhood, school, community). Chapter 3 examines issues in identification and measurement, including (a) a categorical model versus a dimensional model for estimating reading difficulties; (b) specific groups of students who are not viewed as having legitimate reading problems but who should be included in estimates; and (c) the use of criterion-referenced assessment as opposed to norm-referenced assessment to identify reading difficulties. …

What Speech-Language Pathologists Need To Know About Early Reading

The National Research Council report, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, reviews research on early reading and recommends prevention strategies and optimal interventions for reading difficulties. Since speech-language pathologists often treat children whose language problems co-occur

Critical Issues: Reading and the New Literacy Studies: Reframing the National Academy of Sciences Report on Reading

This article is a reflection on the recent report from the National Academy of Sciences, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. This report, typical of many recent discussions of early reading instruction, centers on psycholinguistic aspects of reading having to do with phonological awareness, decoding, word recognition, and literal comprehension. I seek to reframe the report from the perspective of the New Literacy Studies, an interdisciplinary effort that takes a sociocultural approach to language and literacy. My approach is to stress tensions internal to the report itself as pressure points around which one could imagine a different sort of report being written, one more in the spirit of the New Literacy Studies. I take up issues such as whether or not there is a consensus in the reading field; the nature of the “literacy crisis”; relationships among reading, poverty, racism, and culture; whether or not technology leads to higher literacy demands; learning to read as against learning content; and the connections among phonological awareness, early language abilities, and the use of specific genres and registers in school.

Reading Development, Reading Disorders, And Reading Instruction: Research-Based Findings

Reading Development, Reading Disorders, And Reading Instruction: Research-Based Findings

A Historically Based Review of Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children

Book reviewed in this article:Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. Catherine E. Snow, Susan Burns, and Peg Griffin (Eds.). 1998.

A Practitioner's Perspective of Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children

In this paper, the report by the Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children is discussed from a practitioner's perspective. The many and notable strengths are described, including the comprehensive review of the topic, the balanced manner of the report's conclusions, and the way in which the report was written. The weaknesses of the report also are presented.