Reading+Remediation

Reading remediation is thought of, by many, to “catch-up” a student that is behind in grade level or strategies. More and more though, reading remediation is viewed as an action to be taken at the time there is evidence of any sort of struggle. It is the hope that proper reading remediation would be the prevention, not the cure for the struggling reader or students with a disability.


 * Blachman, B.A., and Fletcher, J.M., (2004). Effects of intensive reading remediation for second and third graders and a 1 year follow up. //Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 96, No. 3, 444-461//. **The evidence is compelling that early reading programs that emphasize the connections between the phonological structure of spoken words and the alphabet can help close the gap between children who struggle to learn to read and those who learn to read easily. (Blachman, 2004).


 * Boone, R., and Higgins, K., (2007). Using assistive technologies to ameliorate reading difficulties. //Reading Research Quarterly, Vol 42, No. 1, 134-160).// **In their article, Boone and Higgins set out to define the different types of “Assisted Technology” available for students with disabilities. They state, however, that a large population of students who may have a combination of physical and cognitive disabilities would benefit from some form instruction using assisted technology. Many of our students do, in fact, have cognitive disabilities. (Boone, 2007).


 * Allor, J.H., and Chard, D.J., (2011). A comprehensive approach to improving reading fluency for students with disabilities. //Focus on Exceptional Children, Vol. 43, No. 5, 103.// **Efficient and accurate decoding is directly related to comprehension. When a student with disabilities struggles to read words and sentences fluently, it is difficult to understand what is being read. Conversely, when a student struggles with oral language and listening comprehension, building efficient word reading skills is more difficult. There, it is critical to approach reading instruction comprehensively to improve reading fluency for students with disabilities. (Allor, 2011).
 * Gersten, R., Williams, J., and Fuchs, L., (1998). Improving reading comprehension for children with disabilities: a review of research. //A Final Report, 1-103.// **In this research, authors believe that perhaps our struggling students as well as our students with disabilities simply need more help with strategies and skills. They state: “Research consistently confirms that learning and applying skills and strategies is a critical problem for students with learning disabilities. In a sense, much of the history of research on learning disabilities has been teaching students to master the fundamentals of reading and the underlying processes they need to read text and to read with understanding.” (Gersten, 1998).


 * Chard, D.J., Vaughn, S., and Tyler, B.J., (2002). A sysnthesis of research on effective interventions for building reading fluency with elementary students with learning disabilities. //Journal of Learning Disabilities, 35(5), 386-406.// **Fluency is an important component of good reading. Without fluency it is difficult to comprehend what one reads. Many students with learning disabilities score low on measures of fluency because they struggle to read sight words and decode new words. Of the interventions developed to help students with learning disabilities, reading fluency is the most thoroughly researched.