Finding Roadblocks to Reading Success

When I first started becoming aware of the many mechanisms that have to be in place and functional in order to read, I really thought it was pretty amazing that anyone ever learns how to read let alone become proficient. Frequently, we accept the evaluations that school districts give us because we do not know enough to ask pertinent questions. We do not know enough to recognize what is missing. We do not see that there are fundamental deficiencies that will make it impossible for a child to learn to read without addressing those deficiencies. It is critical that the advocate be aware of all of the areas that have to be assessed and addressed.

It would be great to call this “Top Ten” skills to reading proficiency. Unfortunately, it is more like the top 40 or so. As you go through the list of skills outlined below, you will recognize many of the skills as they are usually reported in the evaluations from the school district.  The list is here to give you a checklist of what information should be in a comprehensive reading evaluation. That comprehensive reading evaluation should be called for whenever you have a child more than 6 months behind in reading. Please do not wait until they hit the wall in third or fourth grade.  By then the child is usually at least two years behind in reading skills. Remember one year behind takes two years to catch up and two years behind takes five years to catch up.  The earlier the appropriate intervention the more likely a functional outcome is possible.

Word Reading

Assesses early reading (phonological awareness), word recognition, and decoding skills. Involves the naming of letters of the alphabet, the identification and generation of rhyming words, the identification of beginning and ending sounds of words, the blending of sounds into words, and the matching of sounds with letters and letter blends. It includes word reading with accuracy and automaticity.

Letter identification

Letter identification using all 26 letters of the alphabet with both upper and lower case Phonological Awareness

Listening Skills

• The ability to attend to and distinguish environmental and speech sounds from one another
• Alertness: Awareness and localization of sounds
• Discrimination: Recognize same/different sounds
• Memory: Recall of sounds and sound patterns
• Sequencing: Identify order of what was heard
• Figure-ground: Isolate one sound from background of other sounds
• Perception: Comprehension of sounds heard

Syllable-Structure Awareness Tasks

Syllable segmentation: e.g., "How many syllables (or parts) are in the word
Syllable completion: e.g., "Here is a picture of a rabbit. I'll say the first part of the word. Can you finish the word ra_____?"

Syllable identity: e.g., "Which part of complete and compare sound the same?"
Syllable deletion: e.g., "Say finish. Now say it again without the fin"

Onset-Rime Awareness Tasks

Spoken word recognition: e.g., "Do these words rhyme: shell bell?" Spoken rhyme detection or rhyme oddity task: e.g., "Which word does not rhyme: fish, dish, hook?"
Spoken rhyme generation: e.g., "Tell me words that rhyme with bell?"

Onset-Rime Blending

Phonemic awareness tasks

• Alliteration awareness (phoneme detection and sound or phoneme categorization): e.g., "Which word has a different first sound: bed, bus, chair, ball?"

• Phoneme matching: e.g., "Which word begins with the same sound as bat: horn, bed, cup?"
• Phoneme isolation: e.g., "Tell me the sound you hear at the beginning of the word food"
• Phoneme completion: e.g., "Here is a picture of a watch. Finish the word for me: wa_____ “
• Phoneme blending with words or non-words: e.g., "What word do these sounds make: m...oo...n?"
• Phoneme deletion, also referred to as phoneme elision: e.g., "Say coat. Now say it again but don't say /k/"
• Phoneme segmentation with words or non-words: e.g., "How many sounds can you hear in the word it?
• Phoneme reversal: e.g., "Say na (as in nap). Now say na backwards"
• Phoneme manipulation: e.g., "Say dash. Now say it again, but instead of /æ/ say /I/"[
• Spoonerism: e.g., felt made becomes melt fade

Phonemic Categorization

Phonemic Blending

Sound-Symbol Relationships

• High frequency “sight” words
• Initial or final consonants
• Consonant digraphs (/th/, /sh/, /ph/, /ch/)
• Consonant blends (/sl/, /fr/, /pl/)
• CVVC (consonant, vowel, vowel, consonant pattern)
• Syllabication (dividing the word into syllables)
• Prefixes, suffixes, and roots
• Applying pronunciation and accent rules

Next week we will go into the other areas not yet addressed.(Yes there is more :)

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AUTHORS

Marie Lewis is an author, consultant, and national speaker on best practices in education advocacy. She is a parent of 3 children and a Disability Case Manager, Board Certified Education Advocate, and Behavior Specialist Consultant. She has assisted in the development of thousands of IEPs nationally and consults on developing appropriately individualized IEPs that are outcome based vs legally sufficient. She brings a great depth of expertise, practical experience, and compassion to her work as well as expert insight, vision, and systemic thinking. She is passionate and funny and she always inspires and informs.

MJ Gore has an MEd in counseling and a degree in elementary education and natural sciences. She worked as a life-skills and learning support teacher. She has been honored with the receipt of the Presidential Volunteer Service Award. She is the Director and on the faculty at the National Special Education Advocacy Institute. Her passion is social justice, especially in the area of education. She is a Board Certified Education Advocate who teaches professional advocates, educators, and clinicians the best practices in education advocacy.