One reason individuals often fail to see the grammatical mistake when reading

PALS

The PALS instructional approach, developed by Doug and Lynn Fuchs, supports reading fluency and comprehension by providing students with multiple opportunities for reading in the general education classroom. There are three versions of PALS: K-PALS, PALS for elementary students, and PALS for high school students (McMaster, Fuchs, & Fuchs, 2006a). In all PALS instruction high-performing students are paired with low-performing students. Instruction includes: (1) partner reading with 2 min retell; (2) paragraph shrinking; and (3) prediction relay. In K-PALS instruction for kindergarten and first grade students, more teacher guidance through extended coaching, and activities for phonological awareness and for reading words and sentences are included. For high school students, PALS is extended by changing partners more frequently than is done with younger students, by adding a system for managing and spending PALS dollars for points earned, and by focusing on reading with expository text. PALS has been evaluated in over 15 years of pilot study, component analyzes, and experimental studies; and has been approved for inclusion in the National Diffusion Network on effective practices (McMaster, Fuchs, & Fuchs, 2006b). Researchers caution that although PALS is effective for a majority of students, approximately 20% of low-achievers and more than 50% of students with disabilities appear to be nonresponsive to the intervention (Al Otaiba & Fuchs, 2006; McMaster, Fuchs, Fuchs, & Compton, 2005). Researchers note supporting intervention fidelity through teacher training and support; consistent/frequent intervention scheduling; and progress monitoring (McMaster et al., 2006a; b).

4.5 Recommendations for Future Research

The primary focus of reading research in students who read braille has been on increasing reading rate and overall reading fluency. We found very little research regarding braille reading comprehension and its underlying processes. It is clear, when looking at Fig. 6.1, that research on braille reading has concentrated on tactile, perceptual issues. Furthermore, it is unclear whether current methods and measures for assessing reading comprehension are valid for students who read braille.

Most standardized tests do not include samples of students who are blind. In addition, most standardized tests are invalid if they are adapted in any way, including transcribing them into braille (Goodman, Evans, & Loftin, 2011). This problem extends to measures of variables that are highly correlated with reading ability, such as IQ and vocabulary. We must determine how to adequately measure reading comprehension in students who read braille, and these measures must have evidence of their validity.

The lack of basic information on braille reading comprehension is a real barrier to developing optimal interventions for students who read braille. There are factors we know to be associated with comprehension from typically developing students, such as vocabulary, and we should use these known factors as a starting place for braille reading research. Some researchers believe it is inappropriate to compare children who read braille to children with NV, because all findings could be attributable to the absence of vision, a variable that cannot be manipulated (Kelly & Smith, 2011). However, a comparison of this kind can be helpful if researchers are interested in comparing development of the two groups (Warren, 1994). Because little is known about the processes involved in reading braille, the comparative approach can provide valuable information on whether children who read braille are developmentally different from children with NV when it comes to reading comprehension. However, at the same time, we should be asking ourselves, “are the same factors associated with reading in braille?”

Many new technologies have emerged and are being widely used by braille readers, such as refreshable braille displays. One example is the prevalence of refreshable braille displays, which are portable and compatible with most iOS devices. However, refreshable braille displays can only display one line of braille at a time. What effect does this presentation of text have on comprehension? How does it compare to reading conventional braille? Some people might also question whether using a refreshable braille display is more efficient than using screen reading software.

There is reason to hypothesize that the auditory attention and memory capacity of students who are blind are larger than of sighted peers (Warren & Hatton, 2003). Students who are blind use auditory input as a learning medium more often than their peers, and this could make listening a more efficient alternative to reading at a certain point in their academic career. However, we have no research to support a shift from primarily reading braille to primarily listening other than the knowledge that reading braille is slow. It is important to know why listening might be more efficient and when a shift from reading to listening is needed. Additionally, reading only and listening only should be compared to audio-supported listening, a condition where reading and listening occur simultaneously.

It is possible that general knowledge deficits are the cause of gaps between reading ability and chronological age expectations (Gillon & Young, 2002). The age of onset of blindness, amount of functional vision, visual diagnosis, and the presence of additional disabilities are just some factors that could potentially affect the quality and quantity of early learning experiences in young readers of braille. Fewer experiences lead to less complete general background knowledge and vocabulary to draw upon when reading. We know vocabulary is highly correlated with reading ability in braille readers (Wall Emerson et al., 2009), yet there is no experimental research on vocabulary instruction. There is a need for research in this area, because children who are blind have little access to braille and fewer experiences than sighted peers, and it is within reason that systematic vocabulary instruction, and other strategies to compensate for the lack of experiential knowledge, can increase reading comprehension.

3.2.4 Literacy

Along with Ferrell (2006), Erickson and Hatton (2007) identified repeated reading as a potentially effective practice for increasing reading fluency and comprehension of students with low vision. Specifically, Layton and Koenig's (1998) intervention using a single-subject design across four students with low vision may be a promising practice for literacy instruction with children with visual impairments. Repeated reading has been found to be effective in improving fluency and comprehension in students with learning disabilities and with nondisabled students (Therrien, 2004).

Savaiano and Hatton (2013) replicated Layton and Koenig's (1998) study and incorporated quality indicators of single-subject research. A variation of Layton and Koenig's (1998) procedure was used by Pattillo, Heller, and Smith (2004) with three students with low vision and with one braille reader who used optical character recognition software for repeated readings. Consequently, three different research groups have used repeated reading with a total of 12 students (one braille reader) to improve reading speed and/or comprehension. However, Layton and Koenig (1998) and Pattillo et al. (2004) were published before quality indicators were available for rating single-subject studies. Even so, we seem to have emerging evidence that repeated reading may be a potential EBP for students with low vision who read print. Repeated reading is relatively easy to implement and can enhance fluency and comprehension; therefore, it should be relatively easy for the field to establish it as an EBP.

Although Parker and Pogrund (2009) reviewed research literature on literacy for students with visual impairments and co-occurring disabilities, seven of the nine studies they identified used quality case study designs, one used a correlational design, and the one study that used single-subject design focused on the use of embedded instruction in general education classrooms (Johnson, McDonnell, Holzwarth, & Hunter, 2004) and was published before quality indicators were available for single-subject research.

Savaiano, Compton, and Hatton's (2014, this volume) recent review of the literature on reading comprehension interventions for braille readers was consistent with earlier reviews of literacy for students with visual impairments (Erickson & Hatton, 2007; Ferrell, 2006; Parker & Pogrund, 2009); we have very limited research to guide practice. Specifically, of the 12 studies in 11 articles that were reviewed, 11 were correlational descriptive studies, and the results from the one single-subject design study showed that the student reached criterion before the intervention was implemented. Although Savaiano et al. used quality indicators to rate the studies that were included, correlational research cannot be used to establish causality. However, the findings from Savaiano et al. (2014) advance our understanding of factors that may impact reading comprehension in readers of braille and provided a potential framework for completing systematic intervention research to identify EBPs for braille readers.

Basic Skills Fluency

It has been our experience that most students referred for academic intervention – even older students – suffer from deficits in basic skills – oral reading fluency, math computation skills, and/or writing skills. Students have often been passed on in the curriculum despite the fact that they have not mastered basic skills. A basic skills problem is easily diagnosed using curriculum-based measures (CBM; Shinn, 1989, 1998). In fact, Foley (2001) recommends their use in correctional educational programs for incarcerated youth. They only take a few minutes to administer and score and have solid reliability and validity data supporting their use (Shinn, 1989, 1998). Basic skill fluency is a critical factor in learning harder skills (Binder, 1996; Howell & Nolet, 2000; Johnson & Layng, 1992). All too often, school personnel fail to assess the prerequisite skills that are necessary for mastering higher-order skills. We strongly recommend that you assess this area. Due to space limitations, we can describe them only briefly. However, you can find more information (including materials, training, norms, and technical adequacy data) at either Aimsweb (www.aimsweb.com) or DIBELS (https://dibels.uoregon.edu/).

For oral reading fluency, three randomly chosen passages (from a single grade level in passages obtained either through Aimsweb or DIBELS) are administered to the student for 1 minute each. The student is instructed to read each passage aloud. The examiner calculates the number of correctly read words and errors per minute for each passage. Student performance is estimated as the median correctly read words per minute and median errors per minute. An example baseline for oral reading fluency is displayed in Figure 15.2. Math computation fluency is assessed by having the student complete math problems on single-skill or multiple-skill worksheets for 2 minutes. Results are calculated as correct digits (and not problems) per 2 minutes. Calculating digits per 2 minutes gives a more fine-grained measure of performance that is more sensitive to change. Materials and instructions can be obtained at http://www.interventioncentral.org/. For written expression, the student is given an age-appropriate story starter, 1 minute to think about what they will write, and 3 minutes to write. Story starters can be found on the Internet. For example, see the Writing Probe Generator at http://www.interventioncentral.org/. Results can be scored as total number of words written, number of correctly spelled words, and/or number of correct writing sequences.

First- to Second-Grade CBM Study

In the second study, conducted at the same school, 99 first-grade students’ end-of-the-year oral-reading fluency was used to predict their initial second-grade oral-reading fluency (Stage, in press). A previous study had indicated that students’ reading progress is influenced by their classmates’ ability level (Share, Jorm, Maclean, & Matthews, 1984). Therefore, slopes for the classroom in which students are instructed may be a more sensitive index for aim lines than slope for grade in a local school (Fuchs, 1998).

The growth-curve analysis showed that students’ first-grade oral-reading fluency significantly predicted their initial second-grade oral-reading fluency (p < .001), but that the classroom effect did not reliably distinguish growth in oral-reading fluency over the course of the year (p = .35). The average growth in the students’ second-grade oral-reading fluency was divided into quartiles so that students who were performing in the lower 25th percentile could be monitored. Figure 7.3 shows the growth curves in oral-reading fluency of the second-grade students by quartile. The difference in the spacing between the three quartile slopes indicates that the students’ oral-reading fluency was not normally distributed. The distribution was positively skewed, with the majority of students performing between the first and second quartiles. Therefore, the growth-curve analysis was also conducted after transforming the first-grade reading-fluency variable by taking the square root of each score (see Tabachnick & Fidell, 1989, for a discussion on the transformation of non-normal distribution scores). The results yielded similar findings. Because the statistical results were not altered, the results of the initial analysis are considered adequate for interpretation and graphic representation.

At the end of the school year, 28 students who continued to score in the lower 25th percentile were invited to attend summer school that provided individualized reading instruction using the Open Court Reading Series (1995), which research has shown is an effective program for at-risk beginning readers (Foorman, Francis, Fletcher, Schatschneider, & Mehta, 1998). On average, students attended 25.5 summer-school days with a standard deviation of 4.4 days. The range was from 29 to 16 days. Growth-curve analysis showed that, on average, students had significant growth (p < .0001) during summer school, but there was individual variability in the summer-school students’ growth over the course of the year (p < .0001). To investigate the number of students who had significant reading growth, the student's slope was divided by twice the standard error. The results indicated that all the students had significant growth at p < .05. A comparison of the summer-school students’ August oral-reading fluency with the general education students’ May oral-reading fluency showed that 71% (20 out of 28 students) of the summer-school students read at least 50 or more words per minute, which was above the 25th percentile rank as determined by the second-grade May distribution. However, it is possible that if the general education students’ oral-reading fluency had been measured in August, they might have shown the same increase, negating the appearance that the summer-school students had actually improved compared to the regular education students (see Cook & Campbell, 1979).

The eight students who did not make sufficient progress were targeted for collaborative problem-solving intervention for the following academic year in order to determine whether they required specialized educational services. That is, students who did not respond to initial early intervention during the regular school year (Tier 1) or additional curriculum modification (more instruction during summer school—Tier 2) became candidates for Tier 3.

Summary

To learn to read, learners need opportunities to learn and integrate numerous underpinnings of reading, identify printed words, develop comprehension, and increase reading fluency. Underpinnings include oral expressive language, listening comprehension, forms and uses of written language, knowledge of the written symbol system, concepts of print, and becoming enthusiastic about reading and writing, motivation. These essential skills and knowledge continue to develop during formal instruction in learning to read and as students continue to build reading competence. To identify printed words, children continue to develop their understanding of the alphabetic system and apply a variety of strategies to decode unfamiliar words. To comprehend, children construct meaning as they interact with the text and draw upon their prior knowledge and experiences. Reading fluency occurs when children's decoding and comprehension enables them to read with speed, accuracy, and prosody. A focus on any one aspect of learning to read should not be at the expense of an emphasis other aspects. To the extent possible, different aspects should be integrated into instruction and the relationship among the processes should be the focus of instruction.

Overview of Literacy Development

Literacy development is similar across languages. All children progress through three general phases: (1) pre-literate; (2) becoming literate; and (3) literate. The pre-literacy phase begins at birth and continues until children begin to develop an understanding of the conventional uses of print. Most children enter school with some knowledge of reading and writing (Graves, 1983). Among the skills and knowledge that children develop before schooling are a well-developed capacity to hear phonological distinctions, phonological awareness, knowledge of letter shapes and names; experience “reading” environmental print; the command of several thousand vocabulary words; and an understanding of the grammar and discourse rules of the language/s they speak (Snow, Griffin, & Burns, 2005). These skills are invaluable resources as students begin formal instruction that includes how letters represent sounds, to expect meaning from texts, to use context to support the decoding of irregular or complex words, and how to bring syntactic and pragmatic linguistic understanding to their reading (Snow et al., 2005). However, children who have had very limited or no exposure to print begin school less prepared to benefit from formal instruction. Though all will have developed phonological awareness, vocabulary, and knowledge of the grammar and discourse rules of their home language, the introduction to letter shapes, names, and sounds, for most, will begin in school. It is for this reason that children need explicit instruction if they are to catch up with their peers.

It is widely accepted that to develop literacy, children need instruction in the five components of reading: (1) phonemic awareness (PA); (2) alphabetics; (3) fluency; (4) vocabulary; and (5) comprehension (National Reading Panel, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000). More specifically, students should understand that print corresponds to speech; and that words are composed of phonemes. Students with these skills are more likely to gain the understanding that words are composed of individual letters and that these letters correspond to sounds. Phonological awareness, the ability to hear and manipulate sounds, appears to follow a “language universal” sequence (Goswami, 2006, p. 463). Across alphabetic languages, an awareness of larger units of speech such as syllables and onset/rime precedes the development of phonemic awareness, the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds. The ability to manipulate phonemes in a word usually requires formal reading instruction (Adams, 1990; Goikoetxea, 2005) and is contingent on a teaching method that emphasizes symbol-sound learning and decoding. Thus, children learning to read benefit from explicit instruction of letter-sound relationships.

In addition to phonological awareness, students need to learn both the names and sounds of letters in the first year of schooling. Letter names are important because “a beginning reader who does not know the letters of the alphabet cannot learn to which sounds those letters relate” (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998, p. 851). Learning the sounds of letters is important because mapping sounds to print is a foundational skill in decoding (Ehri, 1991; Juel, 1991; Liberman & Liberman, 1990; Stanovich, 1986). This knowledge helps children build an alphabetic schema which they will use as a resource to read words. As children add letter/sound correspondences to their alphabetic schemata, the number of words they will be able to read will increase. This process is facilitated when children are introduced to letters and their sounds in a systematic manner. Opportunities to practice newly acquired word reading skills in a variety of contexts will move children from phonological recoding to automatic word reading. When children no longer have to sound out a word each time they see it, they have achieved automaticity. When words are known well, both the pronunciation and meaning are accessed automatically (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974). Eventually, chunking larger units is a more efficient way of reading new words. As children become familiar with letter patterns that recur in different words, the grapheme/phoneme connections in the words become consolidated into larger units. This skill is valuable in reading multisyllabic words.

All children should ultimately learn to read accurately and without effort. Fluent reading—the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and expression—is essential to reading comprehension because these skills are indictors that the reader is processing text efficiently. To develop fluency, students need opportunities to read daily, both orally and silently. Oral reading provides students with the opportunities to receive feedback while reading new text or reading text at their instructional level. This helps them build accuracy and speed. Although, fluency is necessary for comprehension it is not sufficient. Students also need to develop comprehension strategies. Thus, instruction in both code- and meaning-focused reading skills is necessary.

Each of these components, individually and when acquired and integrated, allow children to convert sounds to recognizable words, to read fluently, and comprehend what they read. Therefore, they must have the opportunity to learn and practice their emerging skills in isolation and then in context. It is during this phase that reading difficulties often become apparent. Students’ with reading difficulties and learning disabilities begin to lag behind their peers and often need additional instruction in their areas of difficulty. Instruction, then should specifically address those areas.

Characteristics of students with reading difficulties:

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Inability to hear small differences between sounds, not attributable to a hearing loss, particularly vowel sounds.

Poor decoding skills.

Poor reading fluency.

Lack of self-monitoring reading skills.

Poor comprehension and/or retention.

Difficulty identifying important ideas in context.

Extreme difficulty building ideas and images.

Difficulty integrating new ideas to existing knowledge.

Weak vocabulary skills.

Extreme difficulty understanding words or grammar.

Difficulty recognizing high frequency words.

Oral comprehension is noticeably stronger than reading comprehension.

Extreme difficulty focusing attention on the printed marks.

Difficulty controlling eye movements across the page.

Understanding how children learn to read and causes of difficulty is essential in planning and implementing successful reading interventions.

What are the three characteristics of the stimulus of light?

What is ability to focus on a specific stimulus among many in the environment is called?

Which sense best describes an individual's ability to sense their body's position and movement in space?

What is motivation can lead people to interpret the same situation differently true or false?