"Effective instructional environments clearly can prevent learning disabilities,
particularly when they're done in Kindergarten, grade one.
You can even start in preschool. In preschool we should have
oral language curriculums that include exercises that involve attention to parts of
words like rhyming for example, so the child learns to listen to
internal sounds that words would make. I'm not talking about teaching
phonics to for four-year-olds or anything of that sort. I think actually exposure
to a broader oral language curriculum for all children. But particularly children
who are at risk, because they go to head start, or title one schools,
or things of that sort are particularly important.
In kindergarten the curriculum needs to include exposure to
phonological awareness which is a overarching understanding that
words have internal structures that are related to sound.
They need exercises and games that help them develop that skill.
There's good experimental evidence that shows that children who are
exposed to phonological awareness teaching in kindergarten develop better reading
outcomes in grades one and two. By the time you get to grade one
you need a good, strong core reading curriculum and teaching practices
that allow teachers to differentiate instruction according to children's
individual strengths and weaknesses. So a good core curriculum includes
explicit instruction that's teacher-led, where the teacher models, and
demonstrates what the child needs to learn. It includes explicit instruction and
phonics which is the rules where letters and sounds are connected.
It doesn't have to be drilling. It's a mis-characterization to say that every
child needs to be drilled in phonics in isolation. Because a good core
curriculum includes components that promote practice and opportunities to
read, engagement. It should include comprehension exercises.
And, so we talked about strong curricula as including phonics fluency
and comprehension that are integrated in a meaningful sort of way.
Not in a balanced way. That means phonics and isolation, comprehension
instruction and isolation, that's much less effective than an integrated program.
And then for children who don't respond adequately particularly in first grade
they need a tutorial type of intervention. They need to spend 90 minutes
a day in the language arts instruction, and they need another 30 to 40 minutes
in small group instruction. That is the most powerful way that I know
to prevent a reading problem. In studies that we've done we've been able to
reduce the number of children who are at risk from approximately 20% of first
graders to 2% of first graders just through this tiered, layered intervention.
Strong core instruction for everyone, which absolutely reduces risk, and then
you reduce risk even further by increasing time on tasks and increasing the
amount of differentiation. And this occurs in the context of universal screening and
progress monitoring. Then some children, and it should be a very small number
of children. If you have a strong core curriculum and effective
tutorial intervention, they need some type of intensive intervention.
And that will often focus on a component skill that the child has not learned.
It might focus, for example, on very intensive instruction in phonics.
It could focus on very intensive instruction in fluency.
It could be very intensive instruction in vocabulary if the child is able to
decode, but can't comprehend. And those need to be probably an hour a day.
Sometimes they need to extend for years, and if the child isn't reading on
grade level that child is, have, has, a persistent reading problem,
and that's probably a disability at that point."