What really matters when working with struggling readers

Abstract

We can change the future for struggling readers. However, to do so requires that we rethink almost every aspect of the instructional plans we currently have in place. What benefits children who struggle with learning to read the most is a steady diet of high-quality reading lessons, lessons in which they have texts they can read with an appropriate level of accuracy and in which they are also engaged in the sort of work we expect our better readers to do. The instruction we currently provide struggling readers too often focuses on isolated lessons targeting specific skill deficits. Too often these lessons involve the least powerful instructional options as we expect struggling readers to complete worksheet after worksheet, skill lesson after skill lesson, and engage them in round robin oral reading activities. We've known for two decades that when classroom reading lessons for struggling readers are meaning focused, struggling readers improve more than when lessons are skills focused (Knapp, 1995). Nonetheless, skills-focused instruction still dominates the lessons we offer struggling readers. One thing that every educator who reads this article might do is to respond to each of the following characteristics of research-based reading lessons for struggling readers: ■ Do we expect our struggling readers to read and write more every day than our achieving readers? ■ Have we ensured that every intervention for our struggling readers is taught only by our most effective and most expert teachers? ■ Have we designed our reading lessons such that struggling readers spend at least two-thirds of every lesson engaged in the actual reading of texts? ■ Do we ensure that the texts we provide struggling readers across the full school day are texts that they can read with at least 98% word recognition accuracy and 90% comprehension? ■ Does every struggling reader leave the building each day with at least one book they can read and that they also want to read? We can teach virtually every child to read. Now the question that we face is this: Will we use what we know to solve the problems faced by the children who struggle to become readers? Unless you were able to respond positively to each of the five questions just posed, then there is work to be done. However, the time has come to recognize that struggling readers still exist largely because of us. If every school implemented the interventions that researchers have verified and if every teacher who is attempting to teach children to read developed the needed expertise, struggling readers would all learn to read and become achieving readers. However, it remains up to us, the educators, to alter our schools and our budgets so that every child becomes a real reader. I hope we are up to the challenge.