For next week in class, your job will be to teach your assigned literacy development stage to a small-group.  Using your K & H Textbook and your assigned chapter (4, 5, 6, or 7), write a blog entry describing your literacy development stage.

*What are the characteristics of students at this stage?

*What is the focus of reading instruction at this stage (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, or comprehension)?

*What methods/materials/strategies are used with students in this stage to support literacy (reading/writing/language)?

There are other "overall strategies" that are used with students in all literacy stages.  If you find any methods/materials/strategies that would benefit students in any literacy development stage, list them separately.

This is due by class time on June 4.

Characteristics of the special education, emergent reader student at the high school level are extensive.

I’m not going to speak to all the needs as special education needs are as unpredictable as a very unpredictable thing. However, in my experience, I find that most of my students who struggle with reading are in the orthographic or automatic stages of word learning.

Even with the implementation of various RTI’s in the elementary grades, some special education students at the high school level require intervention to support their reading development.

Characteristics of struggling readers in the later grades include but are not limited to:

1. Late-Emergent Reading Disabled Students: These are students who were able to keep up with early reading demands but for whom later demands became too great. Several research studies confirm that there is a category of students who will progress as typically developing students or respond positively to early intervention, only to develop reading problems in the later grades (Compton, Fuchs, Fuchs, Elleman, & Gilbert, 2008; Leach, Scarborough, & Rescorla, 2003; Lipka, Lesaux, & Siegel, 2006).

2. Instructional Casualties: Although there has been a strong emphasis on improving reading instruction in the early grades, not all schools have strong reading programs in place. There will continue to be students who have not been the recipients of strong reading instruction in the early grades who will require supports in the later grades (Vaughn et al., 2008).

3. English Language Learners: In the past decade, the number of English language learners (ELLs) has increased by 57% (Maxwell, 2009). All schools will need to provide instruction and intervention to meet the needs of a growing ELL population.

4. Students Requiring Ongoing Intervention: Students who received intervention at the early grades may make progress, but perhaps not at a rate that is sufficient to allow them to be successful in the general education program without ongoing intervention. These students may require continued intervention in later grades before they are able to successfully perform at grade-level benchmarks.

Summative assessments from the previous year are valuable in identifying struggling readers and allowing for schools to develop an intervention program that will address the needs of their students.

A common perception is that the problems that older struggling readers face are primarily due to a lack of vocabulary and comprehension skills (Catts, Hogan, & Adlof, 2005). However, evidence suggests that older struggling students may have problems with comprehension, decoding, and/or fluency (Compton et al., 2008; Leach et al., 2003; Lipka et al., 2006). Among the initial pool of identified at-risk students, targeted screening tests of word-level reading skills, fluency, and comprehension can be used to identify students for specific intervention placements within a school (Torgesen & Miller, 2009).

In my work with high school students, I have encountered students who struggle with decoding words that are two or more syllable in length and include vowel digraphs and vowel diphthongs. Many do struggle with fluency and tend to halt their reading. I have found it helpful to provide fluency instruction after a read aloud and then have the student practice re-reading the same passage until they are comfortable with their own performance. Usually, students know when they are under-performing or performing at lower levels than their peers. It is at this stage of their development, among the high school population, that they would rather give up than to risk learning remedial reading skills alongside their peers. 

For this reason, individualized instruction is essential to helping these students build skills and confidence to continue using these skills individually and in group settings.

In my experience, at the high school level, even struggling readers can have good comprehension. However, I have noticed that students with emotional issues usually have the poorest comprehension.

There are many assessments at the 4-12 grade level that measure the specific reading problems of struggling students.

Guided reading, technology, independent reading and buddy reading can be fruitful activities used as RTI’s to aid struggling readers. I believe the most important RTI however, is to identify a strategy, implement it as instructed and make sure the same teacher is consistent with the follow through of the intervention from inception to completion before reassessing.