1. What Do We Mean by “America’s Reading Crisis?”
Louisa Moats, Ed.D.

2. We Used to Think That reading problems were primarily visual
That boys and left-handers were at greater risk
That children would grow out of their problems
That learning to read should be “natural”
That intelligence predicted reading ability
That we couldn’t diagnose reading problems until children failed to learn

3. Research Has Changed Our Views
30 years of research in reading development and learning difficulties at multiple sites by hundreds of researchers from many academic disciplines (educational psychology, cognitive psychology, neurosciences, linguistics, genetics, etc.)
Several thousand articles, book chapters, books
Funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD); United States Department of Education (USDOE); universities and private foundations

4. What Research? National Reading Panel (2000)
National Research Council (Snow, Burns, and Griffin, 1998)
American Psychological Society (Rayner, Foorman, et al., 2001)
Learning First Alliance (1998, 2000)
American Speech-Language Hearing Association (2001)
National Association for the Education of Young Children

5. Research Findings (NICHD)
Boys and girls are equally likely to fall behind in reading.
About 40% of all children (white, black, all SES levels) are at risk for problems, depending on the quality of instruction
When instruction is optimal, we can help all but about 5% by the end of first grade get the basics of reading

6. How Many People Have Reading Difficulties?
17 % of children have reading disabilities
40% of all children are “at risk”
70% of poor, Black and Hispanic children may be “below basic”
According to the National Institutes of Health (NICHD Branch)

7. What causes reading difficulties?
Not just “being poor”
I.Q.
Not simply “low IQ”
Not simply because parents didn’t read enough

8. Which of these is most important?
Knowledge of the world
Being read a story every day
Knowing the letter names
Having good eyesight
A good vocabulary
Having an intact family
Awareness of speech sounds
Overall maturity
Right handedness

9. Which of these is most important?
Knowledge of the world
Being read a story every day
Knowing the letter names
Having good eyesight
A good vocabulary
Having an intact family
Awareness of speech sounds
Overall maturity
Right handedness

10. Moats

11. IQ Tests Are Irrelevant to Identifying Reading Problems
Reading Difficulty Groups
IQ- Consistent
Age Adjusted Standardized Score 1
0.5
IQ-Discrepant
-0.5 -1
-1.5
Problem Solving
Concept
Phonological
Rapid Naming
Vocabulary
Paired Associate
Visual Motor
Formation
Awareness
Learning
Moats

12. Children Don’t Catch Up…
Once children fall behind, they are likely to stay behind and the gap is likely to widen
C. Juel, 1994 (Harvard Graduate School of Education)
J. Torgesen, K. Stanovich, F. Vellutino (NICHD)
A. Biemiller (Toronto)
R. Good, E. Kame’enui, D. Simmons (U. of Oregon)
S. Shaywitz and J. Fletcher (Connecticut Longitudinal Study)

13. Growth Rate Toward Reading Achievement Is Established Early
Moats

14. The Natural History of Reading Difficulty
Trouble with speech sounds (K)
Trouble learning the alphabetic code (1st)
Slow, laborious reading (2nd, 3rd)
Little practice, limited reading (3rd, 4th)
Stagnant vocabulary (4th +)
Can’t comprehend…
Would rather clean toilets than read…

15. Grades K-2, Symptoms Trouble segmenting and blending sounds
Poor letter-sound recall
Poor application of phonics
Inconsistent memory for words & lists
Mispronouncing words, not connecting with word meanings
Inability to spell phonetically

16. Grades 3-4, Symptoms Phonic decoding is a struggle
Inconsistent word recognition
Poor spelling
Over-reliance on context and guessing
Trouble learning new words (spoken)
Confusion about other symbols

17. Grades 5-6, Symptoms Poor spelling, poor punctuation
Reverts to manuscript from cursive
Organization of writing is difficult
Decodes laboriously, skips unknown words
Avoids reading, vocabulary declines

18. Grades 7-8, Symptoms Slow reading, loses the meaning
Persistent phonological weaknesses, less obvious
Poor spelling and writing
Confusions of similar words
Does better with structured, explicit teaching of language

19. Grades 9+, Symptoms Trouble with foreign language study
Writing and spelling problems persist
Reading is slow and labored, can’t sustain
Longer writing assignments very difficult
Can cope when given extra time, study strategies, and structured language teaching

20. Prognosis of Discrepancy-Defined and “Low Achievers” Francis et al
Moats

21. In other words…
There is every reason to intervene early with any child “at risk” for reading difficulty.
Our goal is to change the prediction of long term outcomes.
Children needing intervention should be identified in ways that do not require an IQ measurement.

22. Dyslexia: Brain Activation Differences
Brain of a normal reader (or non-dyslexic) activates at the back
Brain of a dyslexic reader activates primarily in the front
S. Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia

23. Comprehensive, Integrated Instruction: It is Rocket Science!
Comprehension and Written Expression
Reading Fluency
Vocabulary Knowledge
Phonics, Word Study, and Spelling
Phoneme Awareness
[foundation in oral language]
-Put Reading First, 2001

24. It’s LANGUAGE! Phonological processing – awareness of speech sounds
Orthographic processing – attention to and memory for letters and letter patterns in printed words
Morphology – the meaningful parts of words and how they are typically spelled
Word meanings (semantic processing)
Sentence sense (syntactic processing)
Academic discourse – paragraph organization and genre structures, figurative language, word choice and word use in formal contexts, inferential comprehension

25. INSTRUCTION
What Can You Do to Help?

26. Begin to Teach All of This
Listening to speech
Recognizing speech sounds
Letters and letter patterns
Blending sounds into words
Building background knowledge
Comprehending and using spoken language
Vocabulary – building word meanings

27. Phoneme Awareness AND Phonics: They Are Not The Same!
Phoneme awareness provides the foundation for learning phonics and for differentiating similar words in speech
/b/ /r/ /I/ /t/
b r igh t

28. Reading Aloud to Your Child Builds His Vocabulary

29. A Child with a Large Vocabulary has an Advantage in Learning to Read
He learns the word while listening to the story...
“When we flash you a signal you will have to open the door and bail out with the help of emergency rockets.”
...Then your child can more easily sound out the word if it is part of his listening and speaking vocabulary.
rock-ets

30. An Achievable Goal
Almost every child with reading difficulty will progress yearly in relative standing, as a consequence of early, expert, intensive, collaborative intervention based on an understanding of best practices supported by research.