Interventions for Students with Dyslexia

Part 4

INTERVENTIONS

Some specific recommendations: Intervention sessions for students with dyslexia should occur no less than four days a week and should include variations of the same seven elements below. This would be part of a Tier III intervention in an RTI context.

Elements to include in a reading intervention

1. Word work. Direct, explicit, and systematic instruction and practice related to letters and letter patterns. This includes synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, and large unit phonics.

2. Word identification. Direct, explicit, and systematic instruction and practice related to the four word-identification strategies: (a) analogy, (b) morphemic analysis, (c) context clues, and (d) phonics.

3. Maze and cloze work. Students practice identifying words within sentences based on context clues. These can also be used as pre- or post-reading activities or to reinforce word work. (see chapter 11).

4. Comprehension. Direct, explicit, and systematic instruction and practice related to the cognitive processes used in comprehension as well as study skills strategies.

5. Reading practice. Students are able to read and respond to authentic texts that they have chosen. This could also include teacher read-alouds (Braunger & Lewis, 2006), and scaffolded oral reading (Johnson, 2016). This reading

6. Fluency work. Repeated reading and other activities used to develop fluency.

7. Writing. This could include LEA, simple one or two-sentence writing activities, as well as the types of process writing instruction and activities used in writing workshop.

Classroom Supports for Students with Dyslexia

The resources and supports below should be available in the classroom for students who show characteristics of dyslexia. Many of these are appropriate for all learners in a classroom.

1. Emotional support. Reading things takes up much of daily instruction in most classrooms. Reducing the stigma will enhance learning. The first thing I say when working with struggling readers of any age is, “Lots of people have reading problems. It’s no big deal. We can help.” Also, check-ins are helpful such as. “How’s it going? What can I do to help?” Of course, emotional supports and check-ins are appropriate for all students.

2. Audio books. Students with dyslexia need to be exposed to the same vocabulary, concepts, systems of thinking, and language structures as their peers so that they do not to fall behind. There are audio versions of any textbook used in a K-12 public school setting. These should be made available. As well, during free voluntary reading (reading practice) make audio recorded narrative texts available to students.

3. Speech-to-text programs. Most computers come with speech-to-text programs that enable students to have their oral text converted directly into written text. Encourage students to use this for classroom assignments including writing assignments. These programs also read written text back to students as well. Both should be used interchangeably.

4. Smaller parts. Students with dyslexia can become overwhelmed with too much reading instruction (or other instruction). Instruction should be broken into smaller, manageable parts. This does not mean that you need to reduce the overall time, instead instruction should be brief and briskly paced, followed by strategies that get students actively involved. The strategy could be as simple as, “turn to a neighbor and share an important idea.” The point is, the brain learns best when instruction is provided in small bits, followed by a chance to do something meaningful with the new instructional input. The human brain does not learn well when presented with large blobs of instruction followed by meaningless practice.

5. Pause and process time. Insert pause and process (P&P) time into instruction (Johnson, 2016). Instead of extended exposure to a single instructional element, use brief bits of instruction or instructional activities with small bits of P&P time. This enables students to think about and fully process the instructional input. Inserting these small breaks into the learning sessions enables students to engage all parts of the brain and to integrate new information with knowledge already stored in long term memory. This is why in a meaning-based intervention, it is recommended that each individual activity be between two to eight minutes in duration with 15 to 60 second breaks between each. The P&P break could be something as simple as, “How do you think you did on that one?” Or, “Did you notice how you stopped to see if that sentence made sense?” Or, “Alright, what do you think we’ll do next?” Anything to pause, create break, and make a personal interaction with the individual student or students will work here.

6. Simplify homework assignments. Students with dyslexia often learn more if their homework assignments are lessened. Keep in mind the purpose of homework: When used effectively, homework reinforces learning and provides opportunities to extend and practice what is learned in class. As such, students should be able to complete homework assignments with high rates of success (Alleman, Brophy, Knighton, Ley, Botwinski, & Middlestead, 2010). While some homework is helpful, too much homework can reduce learning. In other words, a little homework is good, but that does not mean that more homework is better. And homework should not be used, as is commonly the case, as a measuring and sorting device.

As well, the developmental level of children should be considered when assigning homework. Children need to be children. They need to be outside playing with friends. Any homework before middle school should be minimal. In the same way, adolescents need to be socializing with friends and discovering who they are and want to be. Thus, when assigning homework at these levels, time should be allotted in every class period to complete some or all of it (Johnson, 2019). This enables the teacher to provide feedback and guidance. The academic development of our students should not take place at the expense of their emotional, personal, and social development.

7. Guided notes or outlines for lectures and reading assignments. Guided notes is a strategy in which the teacher gives a student or students a content outline before a class lecture or textbook reading assignment. The notes include the basic structure of the information to be learned with some or most of the information filled in. This acts as a scaffold. Students must then fill in the blanks as they listen or read.

8. Assistive technology. Assistive technology can be something as simple as audio recorders for class lectures and spell check devices for writing. There are also reading pens in which you move the pen over the words on the page and the text appears on the computer screen. This is good as a note-taking device however, the text can also be read back by the computer. There are also reading pens that can read the text aloud. These currently are fairly expensive.

9. Peer mediated learning activities. Peer-mediated activities included shared reading (Johnson, 2016), cooperative learning activities, T-talks (Johnson, 2019), or any other strategy that create social interaction around books and the content to be learned.

Importance of Voluntary Reading for Students with Dyslexia

Chapter 15 mentioned research conducted by Roseline Fink (Fink, 1996; Fink, 1998). To review, she interviewed successful men and women with dyslexia to see why they were able to be so successful despite their profound “disability”. She discovered that all these successful adults were all allowed to immerse themselves and read in areas of interest as children. Here, they developed expertise, built conceptual and vocabulary knowledge and became familiar with the schemes and structures of the types of texts found in their field. This background knowledge was more important for facilitating reading accuracy and comprehension than letter clues. That is, marginal decoders used context to create meaning with print. Low-level skill mastery was not a prerequisite for higher level thinking and skill construction.

The instructional implications are clear: First, teachers must help all students, but especially students with dyslexia to discover areas of interest. This is done by presenting a wide variety of topics in classes and class discussions, using book talks in which students talk about books and topics of interest, and by having a wide variety of books and other reading material on a wide variety of topics available to students. Second, teachers must allow for daily opportunities to select and read books and other reading materials of interest to them as part of reading instruction.

FINAL WORD

I have presented my views on dyslexia and Orton-Gillingham in this chapter. They are well-referenced, based on solid, peer-reviewed research, and built upon the research-based theoretical perspective elucidated throughout this book. I have presented similar views to different people and groups, both in person and online. Sometimes through the haze of emotion this topic seems to generate, the seven important points below seem not to be clearly heard.

1. Early interventions. I want to be absolutely clear on this point: everybody believes that early interventions are incredibly important for all students who are struggling readers. This includes students with dyslexia. The question has always been, what types of interventions are most effective for struggling readers (including students with dyslexia). As described in this chapter and many places in this book, there is no single approach, no one-size-fits-all program that work best.

2. Short-term bumps. Skills-based programs such as OG often lead to short-term bumps in skills-based measures. This point has never been in question. If you teach something, you are going to get higher scores on post-test measures of that same something. The question has always been, do these short-term bumps transfer to authentic reading contexts and do they result in long term gains in valid measures of comprehension?

3. Exposure to print. Any exposure to print will be helpful. Additional exposure to print, even nonsensical print such as that included in skills-based programs will be of some benefit to students, especially when compared to student who have had no additional exposure to print. The question has always been, are these frequent exposures to nonsensical print of more benefit to struggling readers than frequent exposures to high quality text accompanied by direct instruction related to letters and letter patterns. In other words, is a scripted approach like OG more effective than a meaning-based approach in which an expert reading teacher is empowered to make the choices that are best for individual students?

4. Direct instruction. Everybody believes that direct instruction used as a pedagogical strategy is a necessary part of any reading intervention. The question has always been, when it is used as an approach to reading instruction, does direct instruction result in the acquisition of the higher cognitive processes necessary for advanced reading and thinking? Will direct instruction of low-level reading subskills provide struggling readers with the tools they need to create meaning with print?

5. Expert teacher. Students with dyslexia need expert reading teachers. Everyone agrees with this. The teacher is the most significant variable in determining the quality instruction students receive and the amount of learning that takes place. The question is, will we allow expert reading teachers to use their expertise and experience to meet the needs of the students with whom they work? Or will they be mandated to implement scripted programs with fidelity? Also, is an expert reading teacher one who knows how to implement a particular program or system? Or is an expert reading teacher one who understands how the brain creates meaning with print, who has read a wide range of research related to literacy learning, and who knows and is able to implement a wide range of pedagogical strategies based on the needs of the students with whom that teacher works?

6. Systematic phonics instruction. Everybody believes that systematic phonics instruction is necessary in some form. The question has always been, what system and what form? Who gets to decide what skills will be included in the system? Who gets to decide what system and form will be used to teach these skills? And who gets to decide what system will be used for demonstrating and documenting those skills? Will it be expert reading teachers with daily interaction with their students? Or will it be some entity outside the classroom who knows nothing of the students, teachers, or teaching situations?

7. Research-based reading instruction. Everybody believes that a wide body of peer-reviewed research should be used to make decisions about reading instruction and interventions. As well, everyone believes that reading teachers should only use those pedagogical strategies that are evidence-based. The question has always been, who gets to decide what counts as evidence? Who gets to make these important epistemological assumptions for all of us? Will the same simplistic view of research that is used to come to understand organisms in a petri dish be used to mandate what research methodologies can be used to understand human beings interacting in the real world? Or will a more complex understanding of research be used to navigate the multitude of variables associated human learning?

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