STRUGGLING READER AND INSTRUCTIONAL METHODS

Struggling Reader And Instructional Methods

Struggling Reader and Instructional Methods

Introduction and Research Question

Problems of struggling readers seem to start already in elementary education with decoding. At the end of elementary education, about 10% of the students lag behind for three years in decoding. The decoding results of another 15 percent of the students at the end of elementary education lag behind for two years. These students are not able to read classical reading books especially made for their age.

Most problems with decoding start already in the early years of elementary education: 10% of the 6-year-old students is not able to read in one minute more than 18 one syllable words without mistakes, while most of their peers in the classroom can already read twice as many words of one syllable in one minute. Of course, one year later, these students also reach this criterion (the ability to read in one minute at least 18 one syllable words without mistakes). Their peers in the classroom however have than already started with reading comprehension and a new arrear has risen for these same students.

Our hypothesis is that there should be done much more in adapting teaching to the needs of struggling readers. In a international comparative study of the inspectorates of education in England, Belgium (Flanders), Germany (Lower Saxony) and the Netherlands was found that the average scores in adapting teaching to the different needs of students of teachers in Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands did not differ significantly, but the average scores of the teachers in these three countries on adaptive teaching were lower than the average scores of the teachers in England. So improvement seems possible for the Dutch teachers. The Inspectorate of Education of the Netherlands (2007) observed that teachers in schools with no struggling readers at all, scored 10 to 15 percent higher on 'differentiating instruction to the needs of students' and 'taking special measures for struggling readers than teachers in schools with struggling readers'. They found in a survey study on almost 1,400 students of 63 elementary schools that learning gains in decoding in classrooms with 6-year old students differ substantively. In half a year, in some classes students reached learning gains of 35 words; in other classes during half a year learning gains were no more than 10 words. In the same study, Houtveen and Van de Grift found that direct instruction, efficient organization of the instruction' and 'regular testing of achievements and taking measures for students who tend to fall behind' was significant related with high learning gains in reading (decoding).( Carnine, 1979)

The findings of these studies inspired to set up a quasi-experiment in which the teachers of the experimental group were specially trained in the kind of teaching needed for struggling readers. The central research question of this quasi experiment is: Can we improve the results of struggling readers with optimizing the opportunities to reach the minimum targets for reading, using teaching techniques specially designed to instruct struggling ...