OTHER STRUGGLING READERS

DYSLEXIC STUDENTS REPRESENT ONLY ONE PART OF THE MANY STRUGGLING READERS REFLECTED IN THE NATION'S REPORT CARD SCORES. WHAT IS CAUSING THE OTHERS TO STRUGGLE? THE RESEARCH HAS IDENTIFIED SEVERAL CONTRIBUTING FACTORS AND HOW TO ADDRESS THEM.

THE DECLINE OF HANDWRITING

One study suggests that handwriting instruction and practice is being minimized in schools and is contributing to reading related disabilities. It's not uncommon for students to spend more time "filling in the blanks" rather than writing sentences and paragraphs. Since neuroimaging studies have found that handwriting builds the reading circuit, handwriting should play a greater role in the typical school day.

ADD/ADHD

If your child struggles to read and has not been identified as atrisk in a dyslexia screening or formally diagnosed with dyslexia, there may be other factors at work. For example, ADD/ADHD can interfere with the process of learning to read. Being responsive to reading instruction requires focus and for many students the attention deficit symptoms must be addressed before reading instruction can be successful. Comprehensive assessment would be appropriate if your child has not responded to instruction and dyslexia has been ruled out.

HOME AND SCHOOL LITERACY ENVIRONMENT

Reading acquisition can also be influenced by the home literacy environment, the child's household socioeconomic status (SES), teacher training at the university level, and the type of reading instruction offered by the school.

Students from low SES households often enter school with weaker oral language skills, especially vocabulary. Reading acquisition is harder for them. The good news is that a seven-year longitudinal study found that the same explicit instruction that works for dyslexic and other students can level the playing field for students who come from low SES households. Although a strong home lit

eracy background is helpful, explicit instruction can open the door to a literacy-rich academic life for those who enter school without it.

Teacher preparation programs may also be implicated in the number of students who are not reading at or above proficiency levels. For decades, teacher education programs have focused on everything but explicit and systematic phonics instruction. Most teachers who graduated from these programs had no idea where to begin when they entered the classroom. With no other guidance, many were forced to rely on the literacy program selected by the district for their scope and sequence for reading instruction.

These programs were often developed by curriculum publishers who followed the theories and trends prevalent in the teacher education programs, a school of thought and practice commonly referred to as balanced literacy. This approach minimizes the importance of explicit and systematic phonics instruction. Even after the 2000 National Reading Panel settled the question and recommended that explicit phonics instruction be included in the essential components of reading instruction, many schools continue to offer balanced literacy programs.

The rationale behind balanced literacy is that if children can just dive in and start reading books they enjoy with some guidance, they will love reading and become good readers. But this method encourages students to rely on context, pictures, and a lot of guessing to "read," without building the foundational phonics and fluency skills needed for comprehending what is being read. The Nation's Report Card scores for recent decades certainly do not provide a strong endorsement for the balanced literacy approach. Fortunately, the pendulum is finally beginning to swing away from the balanced literacy approach towards the explicit and systematic early reading instruction recommended in the body of research commonly called the Science of Reading (SoR).

FILLING IN THE BLANKS: Neuroimaging studies have found that handwriting builds the reading circuit; handwriting should play a greater role in the typical school day.