Older Struggling Readers
Sebastian
Wren, Ph.D.
Here is the way it is supposed to work:
Children are supposed to learn to read by 2nd or 3rd grade, and then they
are supposed to "read to learn" for the rest of their lives. In a perfect
world, nobody would still be learning to read in middle- or high-school.
Unfortunately, we are reminded every day that this is not a perfect world.
Millions of students struggle with reading in high-school and beyond.
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), approximately
one in four students in the 12th grade (who have not already dropped out
of school) are still reading at "below basic" levels, while only one student
in twenty reads at "advanced" levels. Clearly, teaching reading is
not just an elementary school problem. Middle- and high-schools need
to provide interventions and support for older struggling readers.
However, at the middle- and high-school
level, there are several obstacles that make reading instruction more challenging.
First of all, most teachers at the high school level do not consider themselves
to be reading teachers. They have never received training in reading instruction,
and even when trained, their first priority is to teach a content area
(like biology or history). Secondly, it is hard for any teacher to
teach a student to read when she only sees that student for 50 minutes
a day (or less). And third, students who are still struggling with
reading in middle- and high-school are not usually very motivated to learn
to read. In fact, they will often do almost anything to avoid reading
instruction.
Motivation
Michael Pressley described some
of the research he and his colleagues have been doing on reading motivation
in his wonderful book, "Reading
Instruction that Works." He reminds us that children are very
black-and-white thinkers (we all knew that), and when children start to
realize they are having difficulty with reading (which actually starts
about the 2nd grade), they start to think they are stupid. But they
don't want other people to think they are stupid, so they begin to do anything
they can to hide their reading difficulty and to avoid reading. When
cornered, often these children act-out or misbehave -- they would much
rather people think they are "stubborn" or " obstinate" or "difficult"
-- anything but "stupid" (which in their black-and-white world is the only
alternative). They would rather be punished, sent to the principal,
put in the corner, put in the hall, whatever... anything is preferable
to letting people know they can't read very well.
And those behaviors become much
more entrenched as the years pass.
If you have a child in the 7th grade
who is having trouble with reading, you are dealing with a child who has
about 5 years experience at avoiding reading. The things that child
in the 7th grade needs to learn in order to become a proficient reader
are not all that different from what a 1st grader needs to learn, but it
is much harder to teach those things to a stubborn, obstinate 7th grader
than an eager, curious 1st grader.
Assessment
That said, the first step for reading
instruction for older struggling readers is diagnostic assessment.
As with young children, older struggling readers have difficulty reading
for a variety of reasons -- two students may both be reading at the 2nd
grade level, but for entirely different reasons. Ideally, high schools
would regularly assess reading comprehension levels for all students (at
least twice a year), and would further diagnostically assess students who
are reading well below their grade level.
The first step is relatively easy.
There are quite a few valid, reliable assessments for measuring reading
comprehension "levels." However they are not very diagnostic -- they only
tell you whether a student is reading at grade level or not. That
type of test is somewhat useful for determining which of your students
are reading "on level," but it does not begin to tell you anything informative
about those students who are struggling -- you're still left wondering
why they are struggling.
There are a variety of reasons why
an older student may be struggling to learn to read -- the student may
still have difficulties decoding words; the student may have language comprehension
problems; or some combination of the two. Once all students have been screened
with a general reading comprehension test, those students who are struggling
should be tested for decoding fluency (which can be done with a short list
of grade-appropriate words) and listening comprehension skills (to determine
if there is a problem with language comprehension). Based on those
assessments, further diagnostic measures may be necessary (e.g. if the
student has decoding fluency problems, he or she should be tested for phoneme
awareness, word attack skills, and basic letter-sound knowledge.)
As a diagnostic for older struggling
readers, I am favorably impressed with the Diagnostic Assessment of Reading
by Roswell and Chall. It is not optimal, but it is about the best
that I've seen. It is easy to administer, and the test is organized
the way a diagnostic assessment should be. The DAR is published by
Riverside
Publishing Company -- contact them for more information about the assessment.
Instruction
Once struggling readers have been
identified and diagnostic assessments have revealed areas where the student
could use some focused instruction, the school must provide the structures
and resources to help each student to make as much gain as possible as
fast as possible. For students who are only a few years behind their
peers, it is likely that some focused instruction from talented teachers
in their regular classrooms will be enough to get them caught up (focusing
on enhancing vocabulary, comprehension skills, and most importantly, increasing
the amount of time those students spend every day reading and writing;
see V is for Volume).
A team of strong teachers, working collaboratively, can help students who
are only a few years behind to get on grade level within a school year.
Sadly however, often students make
it into middle- and high-school without acquiring even basic reading skills.
While their peers are reading at 7th grade levels and beyond, these students
are still struggling to read 2nd grade material. Likely, these students
will need intense, explicit instruction to develop both decoding skills
and comprehension skills. Certainly they would also benefit from
strong, individualized classroom instruction (the classroom teacher definitely
does not get off the hook with these students -- they are not somebody
else's problem), but supplementary services will need to be provided in
order for these students to catch up.
Students who are reading at a level
3 years or more behind will need at least two hours per day of intensive,
explicit reading instruction with a talented diagnostic reading specialist.
(Caveat Emptor -- I have seen many certified "reading specialists" who
are neither talented nor diagnostic. Make no assumptions.)
To structure the time, schools will probably need to combine several initiatives
-- for example, a student may be required to substitute an elective for
a reading class, and that student may also be required to participate in
an after-school tutoring program.
Other resources
Students slip through the cracks.
That's a fact of life. However, if middle- and high-schools do not
react decisively with diagnostic assessments and intensive, explicit instruction
when they discover a student who is still reading well below grade level,
then there is little hope for that student. If the school does little
or nothing, that student will eventually graduate or drop out, and join
the ranks of 40 million other adult Americans who are functionally illiterate.
If you are looking for a way to
structure your middle- or high-school to help struggling readers to be
successful, you should start with this short resource guide from Kevin
Feldman -- Feldman’s Biased Bibliography of Resources
for Older Struggling Readers.
When you finish that, I strongly
recommend you pick up a copy of Curtis and Longo's book, When
Adolescents Can’t Read, Methods and Materials that Work. This
is a very short and readable (about 50 pages) little book that provides
a wealth of information about older struggling readers. This is an
outstanding resource.
The Southwest Educational Development
Laboratory has examined and summarized many of the most common reading
programs that are designed to help older struggling readers catch up with
their peers. You can review the resource titled, "Building
Reading Proficiency at the Secondary School Level: A Guide to Resources"
on SEDL's website.
Judith Langer at CELA has been conducting
research on effective reading instruction at middle and high school levels.
She has published a
short guide that can be downloaded from the CELA website. It
is also worth exploring some of her other reports and publications available
through the CELA webiste.
