Reading Mastery/Engelmann programs

: …..employ what is called “direct instruction.” They have been around for years and years. They are reputable programs in special ed. I am using the language program this year (copyright in the 70’s) because for the first time I am being called upon to do daily oral language therapy with two students in gr. 1 who have 100 performance IQ and 50 verbal!!! I am finding the program to be very workable. I found it on a shelf in the work room, no one has had it down for years and years. It is just what I needed, though. A structured program to TEACH expressive/receptive language to two children with language skills the the single word to 2-3 word utterance level.

: I do not see Sig Engelmann programs such as Reading Mastery and
: Corrective Reading mentioned here. Does anyone use them? I am
: using the Horizons program with primary students and am going to a
: training for Correctitve Reading soon for the older students. I am
: not really familiar with the O-G method.Our whole school uses SRA Direct Instruction. I have been using the Corrective Reading: Decoding Strategies for years now, and it’s a wonderful group program. I’ve also used RMIV, and will be again in a week or two. This program is well-suited for the student who didn’t make it with Whole Language, or at-risk learners and mildly LD students. The regular ed. teachers are not as happy with Reading Mastery, because it does not really extend much beyond concrete reasoning skills. The 7th-8th grade teachers use Corrective Reading-Comprehension in the lower tracks that are below grade level.I find that Corrective Reading: Decoding Strategies does not work well enough with severe LD students. These students require more than just a structured phonics program. They require an individual or small-group multisensory reading and spelling program which Orton-Gillingham (OG) or OG-based programs such as Wilson, Herman, Project Read etc.), Lindamood-Bell systems provide.Marilyn

: d
: I find that Corrective Reading: Decoding Strategies does not work
: well enough with severe LD students. These students require more
: than just a structured phonics program. They require an individual
: or small-group multisensory reading and spelling program which
: Orton-Gillingham (OG) or OG-based programs such as Wilson, Herman,
: Project Read etc.), Lindamood-Bell systems provide.: Marilyn

: I find that Corrective Reading: Decoding Strategies does not work
: well enough with severe LD students.Hi Marilyn,Could you comment further on this for me? What do these severe LD students look like? I am curious because I’ve been trying to decide if Corrective Reading will be adequate for my middle school special day class-LH. Thanks, Holly

: Hi Marilyn,: Could you comment further on this for me? What do these severe LD
: students look like? I am curious because I’ve been trying to
: decide if Corrective Reading will be adequate for my middle school
: special day class-LH. Thanks, HollyThink about it this way: Pretend you’re about to put a model together. You have all the parts in front of you, but you’re at a loss as to what to do with them. Interpreting verbal or diagrams can often be difficult. The severely LD student might know each sound in isolation, but not know how to blend all the sounds together to make words. Instead of being able to read the words, this child might have to go through the sounding out process every time he sees the word. These students have difficulty identifying the number of phonemes in a word, and have difficulty with sequencing these phonemes.Most students will do well with SRA Corrective Reading, but for the ones who can’t, you need to have alternatives to use with them such as multisensory reading/spelling programs. I hope I’ve helped answer your question, but if someone can think of a better explanation, please feel free to jump in.Marilyn

The question is what do severe LD students look like?Well, your description, to me, doesn’t go far enough. You mention students who have to sound out each word. Hey, I would be *happy* if some of the kids I have worked with in the past had sounded out words!To me, a student with *severe* LD is one who has had appropriate reading instruction and simply cannot read at all — can’t read a street sign, can’t get the right cereal off the shelf without turning it to see the picture, can’t use a computer because he can’t read “log on”, and so on. OR a student who was in that state previously, but who has been brought along by intensive tutoring and still needs support to keep learning a task that is exceptionally difficult for him.I have to specify appropriate reading instruction; I tutored, for three years, a gifted boy whose school program simply never actually taught reading, but expected kids to catch it like a disease; he was a Grade 4 non-reader (effective reading vocabulary under 50 words, accuracy 50% or less on any others). He had gotten B grades up to Grade 3 by using his high intelligence and good vocabulary and coping skills (says a lot about the system’s testing systems, too). But he was *not* dyslexic, simply untaught. He got up to grade level reading in a year and a half once he actually started reading lessons.On the other hand, I worked for a year with two brothers who really were severely LD. One, age 8, was being warehoused in a MR classroom; he barely knew the alphabet when I started with him. He also had dis-ordered speech, weird eye-tracking (looked *away* from the ball when trying to catch), no idea of spatial relations, and other physical problems. The other, age 12, had Kleinfelter’s Syndrome. He had spent two years in Grade 1 classrooms, where he had been made absolutely miserable, and then since he was so mixed up, he had been shunted to a classroom for the emotionally disturbed. When we started, his reading level was too low to be really measured, somewhere in the low Grade 1 level, below 100 words vocabulary, and totally inaccurate. He also could not do any arithmetic meaningfully (he could stick two fingers on a ruler and “add” but with no sense of what you could use it for) and could not count accurately past six. He could order a few things pictorially, but could not at all order verbally; could not tell you if you put your socks on before or after your shoes. (makes arithmetic interesting …) These boys had not been well-taught, but they had been taught. You would usually expect kids who had been in school (including kindergarten) for four and eight years respectively, and who had had extensive special education, to retain something of what had supposedly been taught to them. The special ed consultant told me that the older boy (the one who couldn’t count) had learned the three times table. Well, he had been exposed to it, I guess, and had faked his way through it enough to fool the special ed people, but “learned” is too strong a word. On the other hand, they weren’t slow learners or MR. The older boy had repaired his own bike for years, babysat the younger brother responsibly, and could find his way (taking brother with him) all around a mid-sized town of 25000 people, even though he could not read a single sign to tell him where he was. When we started reading work, he progressed quite quickly, from essentially non-reader to Grade 3/4 with support in the course of a year. His math was less successful because it took most of my time to figure out what was going on; by the time we moved back far enough, the year was over. The younger boy, when exposed to real reading teaching and actually expected to learn, progressed through the Grade 1 level of both reading and math at exactly the normal rate. He couldn’t understand verbal directions of how to write at all, but after I formed the letters holding his hand, and practiced for a few weeks, he printed like any other beginner; by the end of the year it was hard to tell his printing from my models.So this is waht I would call *severe* LD — first of all, reasonably normal basic intelligence (not MR); second, zero effect from the usual approaches to teaching and even the usual special ed, absolutely unable to read before intervention; and third, definitely able to learn once you get down to the nitty-gritty and figure out what is really needed.

: So this is waht I would call *severe* LD — first of all, reasonably
: normal basic intelligence (not MR); second, zero effect from the
: usual approaches to teaching and even the usual special ed,
: absolutely unable to read before intervention; and third,
: definitely able to learn once you get down to the nitty-gritty and
: figure out what is really needed.Dear Victoria,Well, my students IQ range is below average (75-85). I don’t think many of them have that typical discrepancy that usually qualifies students for special education. Rather, they are flat-liners: they achieve at the level their IQ would suggest. So I am trying to decide if this type of student would do well with Corr. Read. I have found over the 3 years I have been teaching that A LOT of practice and slow introduction of skills is necessary for success.Holly

Dear Holly, The IQ range ,that you talk about, is where most of my students are. IQ really doesn’t have a lot to do with whether the students will learn to read or not. I use PG and all of my kids have learned to read, on or close to grade level. I have one student who was misdiagnosed MR for the past 6 years and she is making wonderful improvement. PG is wonderful for these kids because there aren’t any rules or abstractions, (silent E) to confuse them.

: The question is what do severe LD students look like?: So this is waht I would call *severe* LD — first of all, reasonably
: normal basic intelligence (not MR); second, zero effect from the
: usual approaches to teaching and even the usual special ed,
: absolutely unable to read before intervention; and third,
: definitely able to learn once you get down to the nitty-gritty and
: figure out what is really needed.Your definition of what a severe LD student looks like is an excellent one. I realize my answer was rather simplistic, but my point was only to try and describe the type of student who has not benefited from SRA Corrective Reading in my experience with the program. Perhaps, I should have been more specific, and said that some of my severely dyslexic students did not progress in the way I had hoped, and required a multisensory reading program before they began making progress.Marilyn

: Dear Victoria,: Well, my students IQ range is below average (75-85). I don’t think
: many of them have that typical discrepancy that usually qualifies
: students for special education. Rather, they are flat-liners: they
: achieve at the level their IQ would suggest. So I am trying to
: decide if this type of student would do well with Corr. Read. I
: have found over the 3 years I have been teaching that A LOT of
: practice and slow introduction of skills is necessary for success.: HollyI don’t have much experience with students in low IQ range (if IQ is measured meaningfully — since most IQ tests are so reading-based, IQ scores can be misleading). Certainly extensive practice and slow introduction of new skills is a sensible way to go. Most programs go too fast and furious in regular classrooms, and then spend years remediating what was never really learned in the first place; so it seems even more important to spend the extra time with your students.Some years ago, I read an article, I believe in Scientific American, about teaching people institutionalized for severe mental retardation to read. Nobody thought it was possible, but the teacher/researcher, using a simple phonics program and slow small steps, was able to get many of the patients to basic literacy. They were taught capital letters, since most of what they wanted and needed to read was directional signs in the hospital — nice to be able to recognize “MEN”, “WOMEN”, “STAFF ONLY” for instance.Anyway, if reading is possible for this population, that says something about the usual low expectations for the rest of the students in the country!