What About Older Students' Reading Problems?

All students of average intelligence or better can be taught to read at an age-appropriate level or better. Nearly all those of below average intelligence can be brought to a level of basic literacy.

Why?

There are a variety of causes of older students' reading problems. In every case, their problems would have been easier to remediate if they had been dealt with right at the start; it is, however, never too late.

Some children have simply never learned to decode. They need systematic phonics, as outlined in our position paper on beginning reading, along with a great deal of practice to develop automaticity and fluency.

Some children are able to decode, more or less, but they run their eyes over the text so quickly that they often misread easy words like 'the' and 'his,' while guessing at or skipping over difficult words. As a result, they typically read two or three words wrong in every sentence and consequently have no expectation that what they read will make sense. These students can be helped by being required to read very easy text aloud with complete accuracy, while at the same time reinforcing and consolidating their phonetic skills. Progress through reading material of gradually increasing difficulty is often gratifyingly fast.

Some children read accurately but have difficulty with comprehension. The source of their difficulty may be limited vocabulary, weak understanding of the conventions of print, or poor general knowledge. In addition, they may lack the skills that allow them to synthesize or summarize information, draw conclusions, make generalizations or relate information drawn from texts to their own knowledge. It is important to diagnose the problem(s) correctly so that the appropriate remediation can be provided.

In short, there is no mysterious condition called 'dyslexia' that makes it impossible for children to learn to read. The notion of 'learning disabilities' is actively harmful to struggling students because it encourages everyone involved to accept imaginary limitations on learning. Instead, students with documented medical conditions that affect their learning should be viewed as requiring teaching methods and materials that enable them to overcome any developmental difficulties, and the same high standards and bright future should be held out to them.

In every case of reading difficulty, an expert teacher should determine the student's weaknesses and deficits and then set about overcoming them. This process should receive top priority, since students will be unable to cope with the work in other subjects as long as they are unable to read grade-level material.