We will refer to this group of students collectively as students with serious word reading difficulties (RD). The need to teach students with RD to read is urgent, as the consequences of low reading proficiency are serious. Students who do not learn to read adequately are more likely to have pervasive academic difficulties and are at high risk for school dropout ( Alliance for Excellent Education, 2002). Poor reading has also been related to a higher incidence of delinquency ( Center on Crime, Communities, and Culture, 1997) and suicide ( Daniel et al., 2006). In addition, early difficulties with basic reading skills typically result in limited time engaged in text reading ( Juel, 1988 Stanovich, 1986) because of this lack of exposure to text, a decoding problem may eventually become a generalized reading deficit characterized by low fluency, poor vocabulary, and limited world knowledge, all contributing to impaired reading comprehension (Stanovich).Īdding to the urgency of this situation is the fact that, with typical instruction, the vast majority of students who do not learn to read adequately in the early elementary grades remain impaired in reading as long as they are in school ( Francis, Shaywitz, Stuebing, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1996 Juel, 1988 Torgesen & Burgess, 1998). Unfortunately, traditional approaches to special education services often fail to close the gap between students with RD and average readers at best, special education programs tend to stabilize the reading development of students with disabilities so that they do not fall farther behind. For example, in a study of special education reading instruction for students in Grades 3–6, Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin (1998) found that students’ standard scores in reading rose by an average of only 0.04 standard deviations per year. If a student performing at the 5th percentile progressed at this rate, he or she would perform at only the 9th percentile 8 years later ( Torgesen, Rashotte, Alexander, Alexander, & MacPhee, 2003). The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of evidence-based instructional practices for teaching word reading to students with RD.
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