Question from
K.C. Forbes, Speech-Language Pathologist, Trinity County Office of Ed, Weaverville, CA:
What is the best procedure for teaching beginning pre-reading skills, or beginning reading skills, within a preschool? Should we teach letter recognition, letter/sound identification, phonemic awareness or just read to the children? Is there a structured program you suggest? Should we be teaching these skills directly or just through unstructured activities?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
To my knowledge, current scientific research indicates that we can, indeed, provide effective instruction in three of the major content areas that have been shown to be most predictive of later success in learning to read. These areas are phonemic awareness, knowledge about print (i.e. the alphabet, letters, letter/sounds), and oral language, particularly vocabulary. While it is valuable to engage children in enjoyable and interactive experiences in which the teacher reads and discusses books with children, it is also valuable to directly teach some of the critical early knowledge in these three broad areas. This is particularly true for students who come from homes and neighborhoods in which they are not taught these things at home. We know that explicit instruction works better than non explicit instruction, and we know that explicit instruction can be provided in an engaging, motivating, and developmentally appropriate way.
Deanna Stecker (Moderator):
For more information about early literacy, go to the
Get Ready to Read! Web site.
Question from
Gina Emery - Parent:
Hi, My son is 6 1/2. Recent report card states that he has weak sound/symbol knowledge. Although Ethan is very good at hearing sounds in rhythms and can repeat them. Still, in his earlier years he was a late talker with expressive language difficulties. And today word retrieve is not as quick as I think it should be. Given that his brother is dyslexic and three cousins are as well, do you feel this is worth investigating.
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
Absolutely. Your critical clue here is his weakness in development of knowledge of the regular relationship between letters and sounds in words. This is one of the critical diagnostic signs of early difficulties in learning to read words accurately, which, in turn, is one of the fundamental characteristics of dyslexic children. If Ethan were my son, I would want to find educational support for him, either at school or privately, that was powerful enough to help him catch up to his classmates in his emerging abilities to read text accurately. It is critically important not to allow him to lag behind in the development of these skills. Unless he attains the "power over print" that comes from good phonemic decoding skills, he will not read as accurately as he should, and he will not be able to read independently. In short, he will miss out on the kind of critical early reading practice that helps students become fluent and accurate readers by second and third grades.
Question from
Gretchen Tapscott, Reading Specialist, New Canaan Country School:
What is the ideal lesson length for reading instruction for First Grade at-risk-readers? Should decodeable books be used exclusively?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
I am not aware of any research that would help us decide on an "ideal lesson length" for at risk readers. However, we know that students at risk for reading failure either come to school less well prepared to learn to read because of limited pre-school literacy experiences, or they simply learn the important knowledge and skill necessary for early reading growth more slowly than other students. Both of these facts suggest that the more reading instruction we can provide to these students beginning in kindergarten, the better. One of the biggest factors that affects early reading growth of "at risk" students is intensity of instruction. You can increase intensity either by teaching students in smaller groups, or by teaching them for longer periods of time.
If I was a principal of a school that served primarily "at risk" students, I would want a classroom reading block that was 2
1/
2 to 3 hours long, and I would want literacy instruction to be occurring during every part of the day (when children were learning science, math, etc.). Other models that have been effective with "at risk" students involve something like a 90 minute reading block, and small group (3-5 students) instruction for 30-60 minutes a day.
I define "decodable text" as text that students are ready to read independently. These books should not contain too many words that students have to guess at, or that they have no strategies for decoding. Reading this type of text helps students build their confidence and learn to rely on the word reading strategies (phonemic decoding supplemented with clues from the context) that will be important to them in later grades as they encounter increasing numbers of difficult words they have never before encountered in print. Independent reading practice should be primarily with books students can read with a reasonable degree of accuracy. At the same time, as children are learning to read, they need to be expanding their vocabulary knowledge and their comprehension skills. In first grade, "decodable" text has a limited vocabulary and simple content. Thus, teachers should read more difficult text to these students, and use this text to help stimulate the growth of vocabulary and students skills in thinking about text.
Question from
Judy Higelin, Senior Program Specialist Early Advantage, LA County Office of Education:
Current research has identified key issues for school age children. What are the critical components parents and early childhood educators should take away from this research to help us better prepare children for kindergarten to further reduce the change of reading failure? How does the research affect children who are ELL?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
Research has clearly established that there are three major reasons why children struggle with the task of learning to identify printed words accurately and fluently. If children come to school less well prepared than their classmates in the emergent skills of phonological awareness and knowledge about print, they often struggle in learning to "sound out" words, which makes them less accurate readers and interferes with their ability to read independently.
Second, many of these same children, and others as well, come to school with limited oral language skills, particularly their vocabulary, or knmowledge of the meanings of words. If children enter school with limited vocabularies, it makes it more difficult for them to learn new vocabulary words, and, as they get older, their limited vocabularies begin to interfere more and more with their ability to understand what they are reading.
Finally, other children may come to school with limited understanding of the value of learning to read, or they don't develop an interest in reading while in school. After the beginning stages of learning to read, motivation to read plays a very large role in determining continued expansion of reading skill, because the more you read, the better reader you become. These three big ideas, 1)the importance of early phonemic awareness and knowledge about print; 2) the importance of a growing vocabulary, and, 3) the importance of interest in, and motivation to read, should direct the attention of parents and early childhood educators to doing all they can to stimulate early growth in these areas.
Another thing that is well established is that explicit and systematic instruction, within a developmentally appropriate framework, is a more powerful way to stimulate growth in these areas for children who come from "at risk" environments, than are educational practices that do not provide direct instruction in the content and skills that children need to learn.
In my experience, many of the same things that interfere with reading growth in native English speakers are the same things that interfere with reading growth in ELL students.
Question from
Dr. Gayle Fellers, School Psychologist:
What is the independent research showing us about Reading Recovery as an option for students who are having difficulty learning to read in first grade?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
For me, two of the most important independent resarch findings are that the effectiveness of Reading Recovery could be improved substantially if it provided more explicit and systematic instruction in the alphabetic principle (phonics) (Iverson and Tunmer,1993), and the finding from a large metanalysis showing that small group instruction is just as effective as one-on-one instruction in preventing reading disabilities (Elbaum,Vaughn,Hughes, & Moody,2000). There is also other independent analyses showing that Reading Recovery does not accomplish the goal of preventing reading difficulties in young children as effectively as its "in house" research tends to show, nor does has it responded to research identifying its weaknesses.
In a recent letter signed by many, many independent reading researchers, James Chapman and William Tunmer, two respected reading researchers from New Zealand included the following comments: "In New Zealand, where Reading Recovery was developed, the programme has been independently examined on two occasions. Both studies found shortcomings. In essence, the programme is failing to meet the claims regarding its objectives and success. Senior Reading Recovery administrators have also overtly blocked attempts by graduate students to independently examine aspects of Reading Recovery. The New Zealand Ministry of Education has stated that because of copyright issues, the Ministry is unable to make changes to the program. Despite strong evidence in New Zealand, Australia, and the US that changes are needed to make Reading Recovery more effective, Reading Recovery leaders do not seem willing to incorporate the findings of such research to make the programme more effective. There is and has been considerable debate about the efficacy of Reading Recovery in New Zealand; this debate is indicative of an increasing dissatisfaction among researchers and some educators about the nature of the Reading Recovery programme. Finally, the Ministry of Education commissioned a report from the "Literacy Experts Group", released in 1999. Included in this report was a recommendation, unanimously agreed to by experts from the full spectrum of views on reading: "We recommend that Reading Recovery place greater emphasis on explicit instruction in phonological awareness and the use of spelling-to-sound patterns in recognizing unfamiliar words in text." This recommendation has not been adopted by Reading Recovery.
Enough said. References below
Iversen, S.A., & Tunmer, W.E. (1993). Phonological processing skill and the Reading Recovery program. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 112-125.
Elbaum, B., Vaughn, S., Hughes, M.T., &. Moody, S.W. (2000). How effective are one-to-one tutoring programs in reading for elementary students at-risk for reading failure? A meta-analysis of the intervention research. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92, 605-619.
Question from
aaron, parent, georgia:
How do we measure success and progress once we have engaged a reading tutor for our child? Should we use an objective instrument or use the tutor's own evaluations? If the former, any recommendations for a testing instrument that can help assess a second-grader?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
I think you should insist on monitoring progress using an objective measure. If your child is a second grader, and you have engaged a tutor, I would guess that one of his/her difficulties involves reading text accurately and fluently, and much of the tutor's work is going to be focused on improving skills in this area, while also working on comprehension strategies and vocabulary. A good way to monitor progress in a child this age is to ask him/her to orally read second grade passages of approximately equal difficulty. I would do this every two weeks or so. If the passages you use are of approximately equal levels of difficulty, the child should be able to read increasing numbers of words accurately in a minute's worth of reading.
If you want to find out more about this measurement technique, you can go to the website for the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) at
http://dibels.uoregon.edu/, where you can also download passages to use for free. One good way to increase the accuracy of this measure is to have the child read three passages (each for a minute) and average the number of words read correctly per minute across the three passages.
Question from
Peggy Ardrey, Resource Teacher, Ballentine Elementary:
What do you think of phonological programs such as Road to the Code for kindergarteners who struggle to learn the early skills necessary for reading?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
In the hands of a well trained and motivating teacher, programs like Road to the Code can serve as the basis for very effective instruction in early literacy skills. Programs like this are also useful for less experienced teachers because they provide a kind of "scaffold" for good teaching,showing the teacher how to talk about critical content, how to sequence the instruction, and how to help students who do not understand the first time something is explained. I personally think Road to the Code is a very good example of the kind of intervention program that can be used to help "at risk" students catch up to their classmates in critical early reading skills.
Question from
Ruthie Henson student Murray State, KY/parent of LD child:
At what age do you think it is appropriate to test for reading disabilities? We are learning that children are classified as Developmentally delayed until age 9 and I feel this is inappropriate in some cases where it is obvious there is a specific Learning disability. Is it wrong as a parent to push for LD testing before age 9?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
Absolutely not. It is a serious misunderstanding to think that we cannot reliably identify students with specific developmental dyslexia before age 9. Although I'm not sure at exactly what age I would be comfortable referring to a student as dyslexic, it is certainly before age 9, and might be as early as the middle of grade 1, assuming the child has had a good program of systematic and explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics beginning in kindergarten and extending powerfully through first grade. Rather than labeling a child as learning disabled, or dyslexic, at a very young age (because these labels may sometimes stick even if the problems are overcome through powerful instruction), I would prefer to see schools provide immediate and intensive interventions when they notice that any student is lagging behind in the development of critical early reading skills. The ideal would be that students do not need to be "labled" in order to receive instruction that is sufficiently powerful to meet their needs. However, in the real world, if this kind of powerful instruction is only available after a student has received a lable that implies they are "handicapped" in some way, then, if it was my child, and they fit the scenario described above, I would be comfortable with applying the "reading disabled" label as early as the middle of first grade.
Question from
Angela Powell, Pre-K Teacher, Jeff Davis Learning Center:
I realize my job is vital to each child's ability to become successful readers. Tell me please, at the beginning of each year would you access incoming students for pre-reading skills and group accordingly? Which tool would you recommend for this assessment? Also, there is a ton of language and literacy information out there for Pre-K teachers, what are some "must reads"?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
If you are working with pre-school students, there is a lot we don't yet know about screening and grouping structures for instruction. The NCLD has a screening measure called
Get Ready to Read! that may be about as good as any currently available to provide a rough estimate of the literacy related knowledge and skills possessed by students entering your class. You should experiment with different grouping structures to see which works best for you. I know that we recommend grouping students homogeneously in early elementary school for instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics, but these recommendations may not apply to instruction in vocabulary and comprehension strategies, where the opportunity to interact with classmates of different ability levels may be more helpful.
One of the books I like that is useful for parents, and also for preschool and early elementary teachers is the one by Susan Hall and Louisa Moats titled "Straight Talk about Reading." If you want to dig a little deeper, I would recommend the article by Russ Whitehurst and Chris Lonigan called Child development and emergent literacy that appeared in the journal called Child Development in 1998 (pp.335-357).
Question from
Steve Street, Asst. Prof. Special Ed, MN State Univ. Moorhead:
Given the global expectations of NCLB that all students will be at their respective grade level in reading, what recommendations would you suggest for those of us preparing special education teachers in the context of teaching to the individual need of the student rather than a federal mandate...which are often two different things. Thanks!
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
The federal mandate to provide instruction sufficiently powerful to help all children acquire at least grade level skills in reading by third grade is not at all inconsistent with the kind of individualized approaches to reading instruction that should be part of the training of special educators. In fact, we will not achieve this goal unless we develop greater capacity to respond to each student's individual instructional needs. I would suggest that you do all you can to help your students understand the findings from scientific research on reading conducted over the past 20 years or so, both the research on basic reading development and the research on effective instructional practices. You also need to provide them the kind of well-supervised instructional practice that is essential to developing high level skills in adapting instructional techniques to the individual needs of students. Students in our teacher preparation programs need more clinical teaching experiences in which they are led by an expert to understand how to adapt instruction to the individual needs of students.
Question from
Dee Alpert, Publisher, The Special Education Muckraker:
As far as you know, have many districts or states actually adopted any of the research-validated methodologies or programs of reading instruction or remediation, and had their staff thoroughly trained in implementing them? And if so, what were the results? Thanks very much in advance. Dee Alpert
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
I think many schools and districts are working hard at this point to identify instructional programs and methods that work with strugglinjg readers. The Reading First initiative has helped many schools that serve predominantly poor and minority students to adopt more research based programs and train their teachers better to implement explicit, systematic, and motivating instruction. I am aware of some beginning positive effects of these initiatives in several different states, but we need to wait at least another couple of years to begin to fully understand the positive effects of these initiatives. I also know that the No Child Left Behind statute is increasingly leading school administrators to search for positive solutions for older struggling readers, but I am not aware of any objective evidence of large scale successes in this area at this point. One huge difficulty involved in accelerating the reading instruction of older students is that, apart from the method of instruction, its going to require a substantial period of more intensive instruction than can be provided in classrooms of 25 or 30 students, and this has resource implications that are going to need some creative solutions.
Question from
Elizabeth Hills, Special Ed. Teacher:
I have a student that is very strong in phonics, but is very slow in reading fluency (because she decodes most words). I am currently using the Read Naturally program with her and we work on sight words, but was wondering if there are any other exercises I can do to help her increase her fluency?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
The instructional method that has the best evidence for improving fluency is repeated reading, in which a student reads and rereads the same short passages 3 to 4 times, with an emphasis on reading the passage faster each time through. The reason this technique is helpful is that it provides repeated exposures to words in the passage that the student has not learned to recognize automatically. Most students who read a word accurately 3-7 times can learn to recognize it without having to decode it bit by bit. Some children may require more repetitions before individual words can be recognized by sight, and some words take longer than others to learn.
Another set of materials that may be useful to use is the Quickreads material (
http://www.quickreads.org/) developed by Elfrieda Hiebert. These materials contain multiple short passages on the same topic, and using many of the same words. These texts have been "engineered" specifically for helping students learn a core vocabulary of high utility sight words, as well as to learn their meanings.
Question from
kim, parent, Georgia:
Are there strategies that have been particularly effective in the classroom - to support early reading skills? For example, should small groups be divided along skill level or mixed skills?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
The best overall recommendation for early literacy instruction in the classroom is that it should involve systematic and explicit instruction in areas like phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency building, and comprehension strategies. This instruction should be provided within a "rich literacy environment" in which there are lots of books to read, lots of reading going on, lots of discussion and excitement about what is read, and lots of writing, both about what has been read, and from the children's experience to be read to others. Explicit and systematic instruction is particularly helpful for students who are "at risk" for reading difficulties for one reason or another.
My recommendation for instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency is that it should be done in groups that are homogeneous with regard to the skills being taught. After all, some children in first grade actually require very little direct instruction in phonics in order to master these skills, while other students are going to require very careful instruction, coupled with carefully engineered practice experiences. I think discussions and instruction designed to build vocabulary and comprehension skills can more easily, and perhaps more effectively, be carried on in larger, or mixed ability groups..
Question from
Debra Hori, Educational Therapist, Private Practice:
Even though the research supports early intervention, I find that there are many teachers who still believe that young children may "grow out" of their reading failure. How would you respond to a teacher who holds these beliefs so that intervention may take place, and so that the teacher does not feel threatened that he/she has not done his/her job?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
I think the most convincing evidence that most children do not "grow out" of their early reading difficulties is are the findings from longitudinal studies that only about 1 child in 8 who is a poor reader at the end of first grade ever reads at grade level. The primary reason that children do not "grow out" of their early reading difficulties is that these early difficulties almost always involve difficulties actually reading text accurately and fluently. Children who cannot read accurately or fluently find reading difficult, and they do not read very much, causing them to miss out on increasingly significant amounts of reading practice. Children learn to read with fluency and ease by learning to recognize many thousands of words "by sight". These sight words are learned primarily by accurately identifying them when they are encountered in text. There are just too many words for teachers to teach one at a time on "sight word cards," so fluency grows through lots and lots of reading practice. For this reason, I think we need to work seriously to "let no child escape from first grade" without possessing the skills to identify all the new and unknown words they are going to encounter in the books they read during second grade. It is only by reading a lot, and reading accurately, that children become fluent readers who are able to learn how to think about the meaning of what they are reading at the same time they are reading the words.
Question from
J.P. Cohen, School Psychologist, Branford Public Schools:
Many experts report that dyslexia/reading disability is quite common (1 in 5 children). If this is so, shouldn't we be changing the way we teach all children to read. Some think this is a Special Ed issue. Do you agree - if the prevalence is so high, most (not all) of these children should receive appropriate instruction in the regular ed environment, with only the most extreme cases requiring SPED supports?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
One of the goals of our work with many schools and teachers these days is to help regular classroom teachers acquire the skills required to extend the reach of their instruction. By "instructional reach" I mean the range of students they are able to effectively teach to read. We have to remember that the processing weaknesses that underlie dyslexia, or reading disabilities, exist on a continuum, with some children having extreme weaknesses, and others having moderate weaknesses. We advocate the use of explicit and systematic instructional procedures by regular classroom teachers so they can reach more of the "mildly impaired" students than has been the case in the past. When scientists indicate that 20% of studetns have "reading disabilities" what they mean that these students have weaknesses (ranging from mild to severe) that make it difficult to learn to read in existing classrooms, many of which do not really provide the kind of direct and systematic instruction in reading skills that is most helpful to students with mild or moderate weaknesses.
Question from
Yolanda Gonzalez, Parent:
What are your thoughts on private programs that parents can use to help their children with reading problems (i.e., LindaMood Bell). Some of these programs are very expensive. Are they worth it?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
We know that there are a number of clinical teaching methods that are effective in teaching students with reading disabilities when they are delivered with intensity and skill over the right length of time. The name of a program does not guarantee that it will be successful, because what is really important is that it be skillfully taught. I think private tutoring services are a valuable resource to many parents and well worth the money they spend to prevent serious reading difficulties in their children, but just as with any professional service, you need to carefully investigate the reputation of the clinic or individual tutor before you make your choice and invest your money.
Question from
Terry McCarthy, Editor, Pearson Learning Group:
What kind of exposure should a 2-yr old get to ensure good reading practices later on?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
There is not much research that I am aware of that links specific kinds of exposure at age two to later literacy skills, but there are some general things we know that might be helpful. For example, we know that 2 year olds are rapidly building their vocabularies, and that a rich language environment, with responsive communication from parents, is very helpful to this process. Studies have found enormous differences in the language environments of students that begin as early as a year, and that have enormous consequences for the build-up of vocabulary knowledge during the preschool years. Other research indicates that rich communication experiences, rich and varied visual experiences, etc. are all important supports for general cognitive development, which of course should affect reading comprehension skills later on. One study in England done a number of year ago indicated that young children who knew nursery rhymes when three year olds, acquired phonemic awareness more rapidly as 4 and 5 year olds, even when parental education and socio-economic status were controlled.
Question from
Daniel C., parent:
What is the best approach to teaching reading to young students who do not yet have good English speaking skills? Lot's of these kids live in homes where English is not spoken and the TV is much more a part of family life than any sort of reading. Won't the different sounds in their spoken language, combined with a lack of practice, make it hard for them to learn to read?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
You are right that lack of familiarity with the sounds (phonemes) in English, lack of knowledge of the meaning of words in English, and lack of familiarity with the structure of the English language make learning to read in English difficult for students whose native language is not English. I'm not an expert in instruction for students who are English Language Learners, and there is no scientific consensus that I know of as to what is the best approach to teaching these students to read. Some prefer to teach them to read in their native language while they are learning English, and then transition to learning to read in English once their English language skills are developed. Others prefer the supported immersion method in which they are taught to read in English by a bilingual teacher who can provide some explanations in their native language, and while they receive specific instruction in speaking English from another specially trained teacher. Whatever approach is used in your area, the critical things are that the instruction be explicit, direct, and systematic as well as engaging and motivating. Most of the difficulties of ELL children in learning to read are the likely result of weak teaching rather than the specific method (bilingual or immersion) that is used. By my last statement, I don't mean to imply that teaching these students to read in English is not very difficult, it is.
Question from
Amy Beyer, parent, St. George Elementary School:
Do learning disabilities associated with reading vary in severity? If so, how do we find a professional who can help us analyze our child's specific problem?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
Learning disabilities associated with reading certainly do vary in severity. Students with only a mild problem, or lack of talent, in the processing skills required in learning to read can frequently acquire excellent reading skills if they receive high quality, explicit and systematic classroom instruction. Other children may have problems severe enough to require one or more years of skillful and intensive tutorial support. The good news is that very few children are likely to remain poor readers if they receive instruction that is properly targeted, skillfully delivered, and sufficiently intensive. One way to locate a professional in your area who might be able to help you understand your child's difficulties is to consult one of the professional organizations that support children and parents, such as the Learning Disabilities Association of America (
http://www.ldanatl.org), the International Dyslexia Association (
http://www.interdys.org), or the
National Center for Learning Disabilities.
Question from
Mrs. Lisa M. Dunn, Parent of Dyslexic Student Attending The Shelton School in Dallas:
Our Independent School District in Richardson, Texas is considering The Voyager Program for reading intervention. If you are familiar with this "No Child Left Behind" private corporation and program, could you comment on its application and effectiveness in teaching students with dyslexia. Their company (voyagerlearning.com) claims to be the largest provider of extended-time reading intervention in public schools and theirs is a research-based learning system. Thank you.
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
I don’t feel comfortable commenting in this public forum on the effectiveness, or lack of effectiveness of the Voyager program because I am not familiar with the details of its organization and content. I'm not sure what you mean by a "No Child Left Behind" private corporation, unless you mean that the Voyager program is being promoted as an aid to schools in teaching all children to read. When a program is described as being "research based" it usually means that someone has made a judgment (an independent group, or the company itself) that the instructional routines, organization, and content of the program is consistent with what we know about effective reading instruction from scientific research. It does not usually mean that the program has been proven effective in one or more scientifically valid studies..
Question from
Judith Cohen, Faculty, FIU, Miami, FL:
Has the Pre-K version of the CTOPP been published yet? If so, by whom? If not, when might it be available for purchase? Thank you!
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
We have finished collecting the national standardization data for the Pre-K version of the CTOPP, which has the interesting name of Preschool Comprehensive Test of Phonological and Print Processes (PCTOPPP), because it also has a measure of emerging print knowledge, as well as a measure of vocabulary. Our goal is to finish the manual and have the test published by late summer of this year, and the publisher is PRO-ED Publishing, Inc.
Question from
Mona McNee, Reading Consultant, Liverpool UK:
Teachers are often willing to hear "Do this" but the great need is to STOP doing harmful things, like encouraging beginners to guess (from picture, first letter etc.) What spotlight is there on ther HARM done by wrong teaching, creating "instructional casualties" (Reid Lyon) ?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
I think that when we explain to teachers the benefits of using procedures derived from research, we should also explain to them why these techniques, and not others, are preferred. Practitioners in any field will only give up techniques that they are used to using if they understand why other techniques are better.
Question from
Colleen, NY Parent:
What specific recommendations should I ask from my school for a kindergartener starting in September of 2005 who has a speech, Auditory processing disorder, short attention and sensory issues? (He also gets PT and OT)
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
Children who enter school with the kind of risk factors you describe are going to need very careful and skillful instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics skills, probably in small groups, for an extended period of time in kindergarten and probably extending into first grade. At the same time, you should hope that his kindergarten classroom provides rich opportunities to expand his vocabulary and learn more about how to think and reason about the content of stories and other kinds of text.
Question from
Jack Mead, Learning Specialist, Perelman Jewish Day School:
Can you give some advice about good screening measures in Kindergarten and 1st grade for kids at risk. I've seen DIBELS mentioned a great deal in the literature.
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
The DIBELS measures (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) are currently being widely used in screening and progress monitoring in the early elementary grades because they reliable, and there is a reasonable level evidence that they do, in fact, identify students likely to struggling in acquiring early literacy skills. One nice thing about these tests is that they have multiple equivalent forms, so they can be administered periodically to measure how much a child's skills are improving. There are other reliable screening measures available, like the Texas Primary Reading Inventory, or the Test of Phonological Awareness-2+(which can be administered in groups. These tests measure primarily the skills required in learning to read words accurately and fluently, because it is more difficult to give a brief screening measure to assess vocabulary, for example.
Question from
Amy Beyer, parent, St. George Elementary School:
What tests, beyond IQ and achievement, should parents request from school districts if we suspect our child has a learning disability associated with reading?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
The most common kind of reading disability (particularly among students with IQ in the broadly average range) involves difficulties learning to read words accurately and fluently. Once children have begun to learn to read (mid first grade), the most direct tests of a reading disability are measures of their ability to read pronounceable non words (these are sometimes called measures of Word Attack or Phonemic Decoding), measures of single word reading ability (sometimes called Word Identification), and measures of oral reading fluency (either single word fluency or text fluency). Beyond these reading measures, tests of phonemic awareness and rapid automatic naming, and sometimes verbal short term memory, may help in a diagnosis of reading disability in young children. My colleagues Richard Wagner, Carol Rashotte, and I have developed a test called the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processes that is often used, along with reading tests, to diagnose reading disabilities in young children.
Question from
Leigh Gillespie, Special Educator, Mountain Park Elementary:
Mr. Torgesen, How can we educate our elementary educators about the differences between low achievers and learning disabled students and have them try varied interventions prior to assuming that all students with low reading ability should be "classified"?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
This is one of the biggest problems we are currently trying to solve in education. Another way to say this is how can we help schools and teachers learn to meet the individual instructional needs of all students. We are working on it. The Reading First Initiative, for example, requires schools to administer screening and progress monitoring tests to young children so that they can be identified for extra instruction based on their needs. One of the things we must convince classroom teachers of is that they can actually teach a broader range of students than they are used to being successful with, if they will adopt evidence based teaching techniques, and organize their classrooms so that they can spend part of the their time in small group, individualized instruction.
Question from
KDawson, parent:
Assessment may be able to show when a student is in need of support or remediation, and what to target, but what is the best way to determine the course of assistance or remediation; the intensity (how often), the setting (group or individual) and duration (when is it ok to stop support)?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
The best way to adjust instruction along the lines you indicated is to monitor student progress in whatever intervention setting they are initially placed. If they are not showing good gains in their reading skills after a month or so, that would be an indication that perhaps they should be taught in a smaller group, for longer periods, more frequently, or by a more skillful teacher. If you are thinking about formation of the initial instructional program, I would say that the further behind the student is, the more intensive, explicit, supportive, and skillful the instruction needs to be.
Question from
Renee Hartford, Speech Language Pathologist Central Elementary School East Bridgewater MA 02333:
when you say "let no child escape from first grade" without the skills for fluent reading in second grade, are you assuming this includes that already identified as disabled and receiving sped/speech and language support?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
I meant this phrase to stand as a serious goal for first grade teachers and intervention support specialists. I do acknowledge that there may be some students whose disabilities are so severe that this is not, in fact, a realistic goal. However, I also believe these students are extremely rare (probably less than 1 or 2%). The foundational preparation for becoming a fluent reader in second grade is to have acquired the skills required to identify previosly unknown words in text accurately by using a combination of phonemic analysis and context. Another way to say this is to let no child escape first grade without having reasonable proficiency in the use of phonemic decoding skills (phonics) and other clues to identify unknown words in text. That was kind of repetitive, but I want to communicate that we know what the skills are that serve as the foundation for growth in reading fluency (of course this growth also requires extensive reading practice), and our goal should be to insure that no child leaves first grade without them.
Question from
Carol Murphy, MA, CCC-SLP, Board Certified Educational Therapist, Director, Speech and Learning Services, La Selva Beach, CA:
I read with interest the chat with Dr. Stevan Kukic, past Chair for the National Center for Learning Disabilities Professional Advisiory Board. His statement, "Language is the basis of academic competency", is one I totally agree with. Classrooms are linguistically based and language driven with students listening, talking, reading and writing all day. Given that this is true, how will the crucial expertise of speech/language pathologists be utilitzed in screening, assessing, and remediating those students who are at risk in the area of language? Further, will speech/language pathologists be used to educate all professionals in the developmental progression of language and how this impacts learning to read?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
This question really falls a little outside my area of expertise. It is certainly true that the expertise of speech/language pathologists can be productively applied for students with various types of language disorders, and it is also true that it should be useful for teachers to understand more about language development in the children they are teaching, as well as its relationships to reading growth.
Question from
Dick Schutz, Staff, 3RsPlus:
When will the first report of the results of the Haan Foundation Study be released?
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
We are completing the analysis of the results right now, and expect that the technical report will be through the review process at IES sometime in May, and would be ready for public release at that time.
Deanna Stecker (Moderator):
Information about the Haan Foundation Study is available at
http://www.haan4kids.org/power4kids/. The Institute of Education Sciences (IES)
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ies/index.html will be reviewing the report.
Question from
Elizabeth Cox Parent:
My daughter is 6 yrs old in 1st grade. I tried to have her tested for a learning disablility. In the meeting they decided that since she is currently working at an average reading level that an evaluation is not needed. She does have ADHD and is on medication. She struggles with reading. Mainly reading comprehension. Her teacher has recognized that when she does assignments related to reading on the computer, she excells, but when it is on paper she does poorly. On her spelling tests, she sometimes gets 100% and sometimes 0%. She struggles to pronounce words by using the letter sounds, instead I think she memorizes the words she knows. When I show her a new word and try to get her to sound it out she has a difficult time with this. Do you have any sugesstions on how I can better help her. I am afraid that if I do nothing as the school sugessts, she will eventually fall behind in her reading.
Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen:
One thing you might consider is to consult with a clinical psychologist or other professional who is skilled in the behavioral management of ADHD. Although medication can be very helpful to many students with ADHD, the best results are usually achieved by a combination of medical and behavioral interventions. If your daughter is in mid first grade and still struggling in "sounding out" words, then it would, indeed, be a good idea to provide some tutorial support for her. If you cannot afford to hire a skilled tutor, there are a number of commercial, game like programs that can be helpful in teaching phonemic decoding skills if used consistently by parents.
Deanna Stecker (Moderator):
That concludes our discussion for today. Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful questions and thanks to Dr. Torgesen for his time today.
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