Effective Reading Interventions for School Aged Children

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Effective Reading Interventions for School Aged
Children Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen Florida Center
for Reading Research at Florida State
University New York Branch of IDA, March, 2009
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When there is great diversity among students in
their talent and preparation for learning to read
little variation in teaching will always result
in great variation in student learning.
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Questions for a science of intervention
1. What content or skills should be the focus?
2. What instructional methods are most effective?
3. How should content and method differ according
to student knowledge, ability, and age?
4. How does variability in teacher qualifications
affect outcomes from student interventions?
5. What are reasonable outcomes for effective
reading interventions with young students and
with older students?
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Other questions of equal importance for effective
interventions in schools
1. How can the requirement for additional time
and instructional intensity be funded?
2. What kinds of reward/incentive structures need
to be in place for principals, teachers, and
intervention specialists?
3. How do we recruit and retain teachers who are
effective with struggling students
4. What kinds of scheduling innovations are
required to implement effective intervetions for
all students who may need them?
5
In order to effectively prevent early reading
difficulties, we need to apply two kinds of
knowledge
Understanding, and Motivation to Apply
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Extensive Reading interventions for Grades
K-3 From Research to Practice
Go to Google Type in Center on Instruction Click
on Reading Section Scroll through resources to
find this document
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Extensive interventions
1.Published between 1995 and 2005
2. Focus on students in k-3 within school settings
3. Participants included students with learning
disabilities or other students identified as at
risk ro reading difficulties
4. Interventions provided for 100 sessions or
more. Hrs. varied between 25 and 173
5. Used a treatment/comparison group design and
included sufficient data for effect sizes to be
calculated
6. Identified 12 research studies that met
criteria
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Some conclusions
Extensive interventions can be effective even
when provided by relatively low-cost implementers
when appropriate training is provided and the
interventions are fairly structured and delivered
one-on-one or in groups of two or three students.
All of the effective early interventions examined
in these studies shared four essential elements
training in phonological awareness, decoding, and
word study guided and independent reading of
progressively more difficult texts writing
exercises and engaging students in
practicing comprehension strategies while reading
text.
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Some conclusions
Other elements of these interventions that may be
related to their success include group size
(one-on-one, small group), the daily or
near-daily frequency of the intervention
sessions, and the early identification (in K or
Grade 1) of students in need of intervention.
These elements were evident though not directly
tested in most relevant research studies.
Considerably more research is needed on students
whose response to treatment is relatively low.
Most of these implications apply best to students
who are judged to be among the 20 to 25 most at
risk for reading problems at the beginning of
kindergarten, first, or second grade.
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Effectiveness in preventing early reading
difficulties
In a report published in 2000 based on 5
large-scale prevention studies, Torgesen
estimated that 2 to 6 percent of all students
would remain impaired in word-level reading
skills at the end of first grade, if the most
effective interventions from these studies were
applied to all students who needed them.
In the more recent report, a first grade
intervention study reported by Mathes, et al.,
(2005) estimated that fewer than 1 of students
would remain poor readers at the end of first
grade if their most effective intervention was
available to all who needed it.
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Outcomes from one school that show the impact of
effective early interventions
School Characteristics 70 Free and Reduced
Lunch (going up each year) 65 minority (mostly
African-American)
Elements of Curriculum Change Movement to a more
balanced reading curriculum beginning in
1994-1995 school year (incomplete implementation)
for K-2, then improved implementation in
1995-1996
Implementation in Fall of 1996 of screening and
more intensive small group instruction for
at-risk students
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Hartsfield Elementary Progress over five years
Proportion falling below the 25th percentile in
word reading ability at the end of first grade
30
20
10
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
Average Percentile 48.9 55.2 61.4
73.5 81.7 for entire grade (n105)
King, R. Torgesen, J.K. (2006). Improving the
effectiveness of reading instruction in one
elementary school A description of the process.
In Blaunstein, P. Lyon, R. (Eds.) It Doesnt
Have to be This Way. Lanham, MD Scarecrow Press,
Inc.
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31.8
30
Proportion falling below the 25th Percentile
20.4
20
10.9
10
6.7
3.7
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
Average Percentile 48.9 55.2 61.4 73.5
81.7
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Hartsfield Elementary Progress over five years
Proportion falling below the 25th Percentile
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14.5
9.0
10
5.4
2.4
1996 1997 1998 1999
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FCAT Performance in Spring, 2003
Level 2
70 FR lunch 65 Min.
Level 1
47 FR lunch 46 Min.
Hartsfield Elem. State Average
http//www.fcrr.org/TechnicalReports/Hartsfieldnew
.pdf
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Guidance on essential procedures for implementing
effective interventions with young children
Download at www.fcrr.org. go to the section for
administrators, and then to the section on
Interventions for struggling readers
http//www.centeroninstruction.org/files/Principal
s20guide20to20intervention.pdf
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Teaching Students to Read in Elementary School A
Guide for Principals
Download at www.fcrr.org. go to the section for
administrators
http//www.centeroninstruction.org/files/Principal
s20guide20to20intervention.pdf
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Lessons learned from the Kennewick, Washington
school district
Located in southeastern Washington
Has about 15,000 students 13 elementary
schools, four middle schools, and 3 high schools
25 of students are ethnic minorities, and 48
elementary school students qualify for free or
reduced price lunch
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Lessons learned from the Kennewick, Washington
school district
In 1995, the school board in Kennewick challenged
the elementary schools to have 90 of their
students at grade level in reading by the end of
third grade within 3 years
The primary responsibility for accomplishing this
was assigned to the school principals
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Lessons learned from the Kennewick, Washington
school district
From David Montague, a principal We thought
the board and the superintendent were crazyI saw
in the White Paper that elementary principals
were responsible, and said Why dont they come
down to our building and see the kids that come
to our school? I mean, our kindergarten kids
seem to enter school every year with lower
skills
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The District passed a bond that provided a
district reading teacher for each school, and
began to hold public meetings at a different
elementary school every two weeks. They also
began training principals in what strong
instruction looked like, and they provided a
computer-based, reliable assessment of reading
comprehension for use in grades 1-5 twice a year
After that, the whining died down. The goal
started to grow legs.
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At the schools We began to have serious staff
meetingswe began .looking at the test data to
see how far behind some of our kids were. It was
the first time Washington had ever had such
precise data. In the fall of 1995, 23 of our
3rd graders were reading at second grade level
and 41 of our 3rd graders were reading at a
kindergarten or 1st grade level.
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Washington Elementary School
Growth in of 3rd grade students meeting grade
level standards
School Year
95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06
Percent at Grade level
57 72 72 68 78 94 96 99 94 98 99 98
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From the Principal By the 3rd year, we had
exhausted our work-harder-at-third-grade
strategyMore of the catch-up gain had to be made
at second and first grade. Our first-and
second-grade teachers realized that they had to
become more accountable for their students
learning. Even our kindergarten teachers, who
had spent most of their class time on social
activities, began the transition to teaching
phonemic awareness along with letter and sound
recognition.
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Washington Elementary School
Growth in of 3rd grade students meeting grade
level standards
School Year
95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06
Percent at Grade level
57 72 72 68 78 94 96 99 94 98 99 98
25
Washington Elementary School
Growth in of 3rd grade students meeting grade
level standards
School Year
95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08
Percent at Grade level
57 72 72 68 78 94 96 99 94 98 99 98
3rd grade WSR
86 85 88
5th grade WSR
93 84 80
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Washington Elementary School
How they get additional instructional power in
first grade
During the Morning Reading Block
Small group reading during 1st hour of the day
It puts 13 adults with 75 students during the
first hour in first grade
Struggling students get 13 with most skilled
instructor Advanced students get 17 ratios with
paras and others
In the afternoon
Many students get additional small group or 11
instruction time as interventions
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Washington Elementary School
The reading block for 3 first grade classrooms
1st hour (845-945) Small group instruction 3
classroom teachers 1 District Reading Teacher 2
Title I teachers Specials teacher PE teacher 6
paraprofessionals
2nd hour (945-1045) Whole group instruction
2nd hour (945-1045) Also, during the second
hour, paras, Title 1, and others work in small
groups with 2nd-5th grades
In the afternoon, many students are provided an
additional 40-90 minutes of intervention
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Targeted Accelerated Growth The TAG Loop
1. Diagnostic Testing
2. Proportional increases in direct instructional
time
3. Teaching to the deficient sub-skill
4. Retesting to be sure the skill has been learned
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From David Motague By the fifth year, I was
convinced high performance reading was about more
time and better use of that time. Students who
were behind needed more direct instruction. Some
of them started getting 60 to 90 minutes extra
each day for a total of 180 to 210 minutes a day.
We spent that time on the sub-skills they hadnt
mastered.
Principals and many teachers at these schools saw
the direct connection between increasing
instructional time and increasing reading growth.
Students who were a little behind needed a
little more instructional time. Students who
were a lot behind needed a lot more time. P.
38.
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Growth is directly proportionate to the quality
and quantity of instructional time. When we
looked at our data student by student, we saw a
painful fact with painful clarity. Most students
who start behind stay behind. Time-starved
reading programs that rely on sudden growth
bursts from extraordinary instruction rarely move
students from the 5th-30th percentiles up to
grade level. P. 48
Catch-up growth is driven primarily by
proportional increases in direct instructional
time. Catch-up growth is so difficult to achieve
that it can be the product only of quality
instruction in great quantity.
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Teacher quality x time growth
Quantity of instructional time can be doubled or
tripled in a semester. Quality of instructional
time cannot. Improving quality occurs over
extended periods of time, at different rates for
different teachers in the same school, as a
constant process of arduous, intelligent labor.
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Teacher quality x time growth
This is why the primary and immediate strategy
for catch-up growth is proportional increase in
direct instructional time.
Catch-up growth rarely occurs unless principals
and teachers have good data, know each students
learning needs, and schedule proportional
increases in direct instructional time.
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To Order New Foundation Press Phone
509-783-2139 FAX [phone]
Annual Growth for All Students, Catch-up growth
for those who are behind Fielding, Kerr, Rosier
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What about interventions for older students who
continue to have reading difficulties in late
elementary, middle, and high school?
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Principle 1
Effective interventions teach academic skills
directly
Training in motor, visual, neural, or cognitive
processes without academic content does not
reliably lead to better academic outcomes for
children with learning disabilities (Fletcher et
al., 2007).
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Principle 2
Address learning deficits directly. Teach the
skills and knowledge required for proficient
reading
Children with auditory processing difficulties
need to learn how to decode students who lack
fluency need to become more fluent students with
weak comprehension/reading strategies need to
become more strategic
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Principle 3
Broad methods of effective teaching for any
struggling learner are helpful for students with
dyslexia
In contrast to instruction for students who learn
easily, interventions for students with dyslexia
must
Be more precisely targeted at the right level
Provide clearer and more detailed explanations -
modeling
Contain more systematic instructional sequences
Provide more extensive opportunities for guided
practice
Contain more opportunities for error correction
and feedback
Allow cumulative review of previously taught
content
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Principle 4
Provide more intensive instruction
The most direct way to increase learning rate is
to increase the intensity of instruction.
Intensity can be increased both by providing
additional time and reducing the size of
instructional group Torgesen, 2005a
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Principle 5
Teach students to be strategic for word analysis,
vocabulary building, and comprehension
Dyslexic students need to acquire effective
strategies for decoding complex, unfamiliar
words, for learning new word meanings, and for
creating meaning from text
Instruction should also explicitly address
generalization to real literacy/learning tasks in
classroom and home
Maureen Lovett (2008)
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The most important goal of reading interventions
for older students who are delayed in the
development of their reading skills because of
dyslexia
Presidents commission on special education.
The ultimate test of the value of special
education is that, once identified, children
close the gap with their peers.
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What do we mean by closing the reading gap?
This phrase might be used in two ways
1. Closing the gap means narrowing the gap
between a students current performance and grade
level reading skills. Requires an acceleration
in the rate of growth in reading skills
evidence change in standard score or percentile
ranking
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Interventions need to produce greater than
average growth
96
Expected Progress
80
64
Raw score in reading comprehension
48
32
16
10 11 12
13
Age
43
What do we mean by closing the reading gap?
This phrase might be used in two ways
1. Closing the gap means narrowing the gap
between a students current performance and grade
level reading skills. Requires an acceleration
in the rate of growth in reading skills
evidence change in standard score or percentile
ranking
2. Closing the gap means bringing a students
reading skills to within grade level standards.
For struggling readers, this requires an
acceleration of development over a sufficient
period of time. The most important grade level
standard involves ability to comprehend complex
text
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Interventions need to produce greater than
average growth
96
100
Expected Progress
80
100
100
64
100
Raw score in reading comprehension
100
48
32
75
16
10 11 12
13
Age
45
Rates of improvement in various reading skills
from interventions with older students
An accurate and widely available metricchange in
standard score per hour of instruction suggests
that we know how to close the gap in terms of
narrowing the gap
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A standard score shows where you fall within the
normal distrubution of reading skills for student
at your age or grade
Percentile Ranks
50th
16th
84th
2nd
98th
100
85
70
130
115
Standard Scores
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Interventions need to produce greater than
average growth
96
100
Expected Progress
80
100
64
100
Raw score in reading comprehension
100
48
32
16
10 11 12
13
Age
48
Average growth rates and final status for
students who begin intervention at different
levels of strength in word reading ability (SS
mean 100, S.D. 15) (Torgesen, 2005b)
Word Attack Word ID P.Comp.
Beginning Level
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Study recently reported in the Netherlands Gerrets
en, et. al, 2008)
193 children between 7 and 14 years of age
All below the 25th percentile on ability to read
accurately 13 between 11th and 25th
percentile 53 between 2nd and 10th
percentile 34 below 1st percentile or
below
Overall average was below the 5th percentile on
pretest measure of word reading accuracy/fluency
All had IQ above 85
Received approx 43 hours of instruction over 52
weekly sessions of computer supported
instruction, plus approximately 52 hours of
computer supported practice
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Average growth rates and final status for
students who begin intervention at different
levels of strength in word reading ability (SS
mean 100, S.D. 15)
Word Attack Word ID P.Comp.
Beginning Level
Growth rate for impaired group .17 ss/hr.
(30th)
Growth rate for severe group .18 ss/hr.
(14th)
Growth rate for very severe group .32 ss/hr.
(4th)
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Average growth rates and final status for
students who begin intervention at different
levels of strength in word reading ability (SS
mean 100, S.D. 15)
Word Attack Word ID P.Comp.
Beginning Level
Across a number of different methods and group
sizes, we know it is possible to narrow the gap
We have not yet demonstrated publicly that we
understand what must be done to close the gap
52
Factors that affect the rate of improvement
1. The number of hours of treatment that are
provided
Truch (2003) showed that rate of gain decelerates
substantially as treatment time lengthens

Gave 80 hours of instruction using Phonographix
to 202 students ranging from 10 to 16 years of age
Word Identification
First 12 - .74
Next 12 - .11
Next 56 - .10
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Factors that affect the rate of improvement
1. The number of hours of treatment that are
provided
2. The previous instructional history of the
students in the intervention sample
WA WID COMP.
54
Factors that dont seem to affect rate of
improvement
1. Whether students begin intervention with word
level scores below the 5th percentile or whether
they are between the 6th and 16th percentile
True for word level skills
May not be true for comprehension
55
Average growth rates and final status for
students who begin intervention at different
levels of strength in word reading ability
Word Attack Word ID P.Comp.
Beginning Level
Across a number of different methods and group
sizes, we know it is possible to narrow the gap
We have not yet demonstrated publicly that we
understand what must be done to close the gap
56
Factors that dont seem to affect rate of
improvement
1. Whether students begin intervention with word
level scores below the 5th percentile or whether
they are between the 6th and 16th percentile
True for word level skills
May not be true for comprehension
2. Teacher student ratio varying between 11 or
14
3. Whether instruction is multi-sensory or not
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It matters little what else they learn in
elementary school if they do not learn to read at
grade level.
Fielding, L., Kerr, N., Rosier, P. (2007).
Annual growth for all students, catch-up growth
for those who are behind. Kennewick, WA The New
Foundation Press, Inc.
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Questions or Discussion
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References for studies cited
Torgesen, J.K. (2000). Individual differences in
response to early interventions in reading The
lingering problem of treatment resisters.
Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 15,
55-64.
Mathes, P. G., Denton, C. A., Fletcher, J. M.,
Anthony, J. L., Francis, D. J., Schatschneider,
C. (2005). The effects of theoretically different
instruction and student characteristics on the
skills of struggling readers. Reading Research
Quarterly, 40, 148182.
Torgesen, J.K. (2005a). Recent discoveries from
research on remedial interventions for children
with dyslexia. In M. Snowling and C. Hulme
(Eds.). The Science of Reading. (pp. 521-537).
Oxford Blackwell Publishers
Torgesen, J.K. (2005b). Remedial Interventions
for Students with Dyslexia National Goals and
Current Accomplishments In Richardson, S.,
Gilger, J. (Eds.) Research-Based Education and
Intervention  What We Need to Know. (pp.
103-124). Boston Intenational Dyslexia
Association.
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References for studies cited
Lovett, M. Programming for the struggling reader
in later grades Does research inform Practice?
Presented at meetings of the International
Dyslexia Association, November, 2008
Lovett, M. W., Barron, R.W., Benson, N.J. (2003).
Effective remediation of word identification and
decoding difficulties in school-age children
with reading disabilities. In H. Lee Swanson,
Karen Harris, Steve Graham (Editors), Handbook
of Learning Disabilities. New York Guilford
Publications
Fletcher, J.M., Lyon, G.R., Fuchs, L.S., and
Barnes, M.A. (2007).  Learning disabilities 
From identification to intervention.  New York 
Guilford Press
Gerretsen, P.F., Ekkebus, M., Blomert, L.
Attaining a normal reading and spelling level in
severe dyslexia is possible evaluating a
computer assisted dyslexia intervention.
Unpublished (submitted) manuscript, 2008.