What Kind of Early Reading Intervention Should We Provide?

I agree with the thinking and applaud the message clarity. I also believe we need to be more innovative around oral language support by productively enlisting other stakeholders. It’s a 24/7/365 effort to raise a strong reader and families, as well as after-school and summer care providers, need everyday, easy support to play their essential roles. Language skills are hard to address and children need as many opportunities as possible to engage in rich experiences. Especially this year, the dearth of idea-filled back-and-forth conversations outside of school is exacerbating children’s, and teachers’, struggles to grow these key reading-related skills.

As a Kindergarten reading specialist it is very apparent when children have language difficulties. These children have difficulty following directions, understanding a story, and expressing their ideas. When I first learned about the Simple View of Reading I knew I wanted that topic - the importance of both decoding and language to be my dissertation topic. Through my studies I discovered Peterson and Spencer's CUBED language assessment and their Story Champs language intervention and used it last year. If it wasn't a Covid year I would be using them again.
This year our district adopted The Core Knowledge Language Arts curriculum which has two components - Skills (during which the children learn writing and decoding skills) and a Knowledge component which builds their background knowledge and vocabulary. Both areas need to be addressed. I am thrilled that everything I learned through my dissertation work is - finally - being addressed. Unfortunately language difficulties are not quickly or easily "fixed." By age three language gaps can be huge and twice a week with a language therapist or interventionist is not enough. We will see if this curriculum makes a difference - at least the situation is recognized in my district.

I see a lot of the ownership of the problem on school leaders. I don't think this is misplaced, but I do think there is more to it. I work in an urban district and what I hear is an English language deficit even among the English-speaking families. How do we raise the oral language proficiency of the English speakers, before we get to the phonics?

Do you have any suggestions for early language assessments to be used in grades K-2 in the screening process? I see the materials you recommended are for ages 3-5. Thank you!

You are spot on here, Dr. Shanahan. Thank you, as always, for your thoughtful and thought provoking words. Appreciate the research references as well.

Susan
I think it is fine to have kids reading some decodable text within their phonics instruction. However they need to read other kinds of text as well (for instance, I’d combine decodables with controlled vocabulary texts with lots of word repetition — but not pattern books). That way kids get both phonics practice and with a better exposure to the statistical properties of English.

Tim

Nathaniel
Language should be a big part of Tier 1 teaching, but Tier 2 and 3 interventions on language must be available for those kids who fall behind with weaknesses in those skills. We give classroom teaching in decoding and have interventions for kids who need more of that. This is the same thing.

Tim

Julia
First, it isn’t oral language before phonics — it’s both.
I would argue for an approach to English Learners similar to what is happening in California... a daily period of explicit oral English instruction.

Tim

Megan
Those materials are for ages 4-6.I don’t know of language interventions for older kids.

Tim

So many people think of the "speech-teacher" as only someone who can work on speech sounds but speech-language pathologists are trained to work not only on speech (speech sound production, voice, fluency) but also on language (listening, speaking, reading, & writing). We are trained to identify language deficits during all stages of life. In the schools, many SLP's are spread very thin. Even so, I have an open-door policy for any teacher who wants to make a referral or just ask questions about language development. I have found that most teachers are good at spotting language deficits, but they just don't know what to do about it.

For Second Language Learners, the language objective for our instruction is always front and center. Our community has observed for decades the advantages of literacy development in two languages (English and the mother tongue of our English Learners) where attention to oral language development is core to literacy development, while tending to the specifics of literacy development in English vs. Spanish (for example). We understand the similarities of these systems so we can maximize cross-linguistic transfer, and understand the distinctions to so we can be deliberate in teaching unique skills. Any comment on the power of biliteracy development and where decoding has its place in that development would be appreciated.

Sherri Givens - YES! Another SLP here. We should be an integral part of any team of professionals who evaluate/provide support for students presenting with reading difficulties. Underlying language disorders (receptive and expressive deficits) are akin to a foundation of Swiss cheese; every subsequent level is affected including reading and written language.

Awesome blog! As a future teacher, it is very informative to read about the struggles prevalant in students in early elementary and how teachers can approach these issues to help them be successful. I agree that students who struggle with decoding also struggle in language comprehension and language development. They are in some way all connected and difficulty in one area will ultimately impact other areas as you mention. I also agree that schools need to do better when it comes to providing materials to teach literacy.

This is a great blog! As a mother, who has a young virtual learner at home this is crucial information. Understanding the importance of the connection that both decoding and language comprehension play in the success of a developing strong reader has made a great impact. I am also a future educator, and this information is essential to the role that I will be taking on. Thank you.

Amazing article I never thought about how important language comprehension is in the classroom and I wholeheartedly agree that we should strive to prioritize this more in the classroom.

Dr. Shanahan, I have a 13 year old student with complex communication needs, hearing impairment, CVI and multiple disabilities who cannot decode, but he can recognize sight words. He is now learning to use an eye gaze AAC device, with great intention, but has a long way to go. That being said, in first grade he learned 53 sight words because his teacher figured if the other first graders were learning them, he should too. In second grade he took the same vocabulary/sight word tests as his general education peers and chose the word from a choice of three rather than writing the word due to his motor challenges. In third grade he would answer comprehension question from a choice of 3 answers read to him from short chapter books like Black Beauty, Charlotte's Web, etc. His parents requested prior to the start of 3rd grade that the district begin a reading program. May student began the ALL Reading program 30 minutes 4 days a week. He was successful with beginning blends. Summer came, with no ESY, and a new teacher began instruction in 4th grade. The ALL Program was part of the IEP, but was not used consistently and the teacher did not like the pictures for her student. Last year, the COVID 19 pandemic saw no instruction from March 6th through the end of the academic year. This year a new teacher began Saxon Phonics without using the readers and without attempting spelling, even with an adapted keyboard on his AAC device. This child is destined to be illiterate unless something is done deliberately and intentionally. He must learn to spell if he is ever going to communicate effectively using his AAC device. He is able to understand basic comprehension questions and make inferences from what is read to him. The teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing recognizes his ability to comprehend and to choose recently taught sight words. He has never had an educator stick with an instructional program long enough to measure significant success. Saxon Phonics is not a stand alone program and it has not been used as intended. Where and how do we begin a comprehensive literacy program for this student?

I loved you analogy about comprehension and being able to read. Using another language, like French, we can decode the language, understand it is a sentence and read it aloud, we can even recognize a word or two to possibly understand the topic or what the sentence is about, but we are still truly lacking comprehension. When it comes to intervention, it is important to focus on phonetic awareness, reading ability and writing, but there also needs to be a focus on comprehension. Students should be able to not only read, but also understand what they read, be able to summarize and retell what they read. Without this skill set not only will the struggle in literacy, but that is a necessary tool for almost every aspect of our lives in and out of school. Thank you for this wonderful blog post.

I don't disagree that underdeveloped language proficiency are one of the inhibits reading comprehension, despite adequate decoding ability and fluency.
However, I wonder what intervention might look like for children who lack language facility?

Because children just coming to formalized schooling arrive with only their primary (home) Discourse (J. Paul Gee), how does one go about intervening in the acquisition of a secondary Discourse? Gee refers to big D Discourses (ways of speaking, reading, writing, dressing, listening) as identity kits, ways of being in particular social worlds. I believe this is true. Children will acquire academic Discourse, at least in part, by virtue of the classroom becoming their second family. But the Discourse of the academy is isn't the same as language proficiency. If children don't come from a home environment where language, or at least Standard English and literary language is valued and modeled, they will have "deficits" within a literary social situation.

So, again, I wonder how might at-risk children be identified and helped to acquire the Discourse values in educational settings?

Shouldn't it be expected that once children are competent & fluent readers that they have begun to acquire that Discourse by virtue of classroom participation and exposure to literary experiences and literacy events?

It seems to me that the problem you refer to is not a linguistic problem, but rather a sociolinguistic challenge that asks young children to become part of speech community that is foreign to them. Eventually, as they develop socially, most children learn to consciously code switch to function in academic environments---but code switching is not the same as developing language facility. Shouldn't we allow children to grow into their new identities before intervening---as if they are somehow socially deficient?

Also, correct spelling helps to decode: retordre, not retorde .

Can anyone offer ideas for tier 2 language based interventions?

I wholeheartedly agree that we should be using a two strand approach to reading with all students regardless of their reading ability in the early years of literacy. We should especially employ the use of decoding and reading comprehension of text with students who are struggling developing readers.

I feel like we focus on phonemic awareness and how to teach children to decode. This is important so students can decode words in later grades.
I do feel like the vocabulary is low in our struggling readers.