Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (1998) / Chapter Skim
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3. Who Has Reading Difficulties?
3. Who Has Reading Difficulties?
Pages 87-99
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From page 87... ...
Among the reasons public attention has turned to the need for systematic prevention of reading difficulties are the patterns of reading difficulty cited in the first chapter: failure to learn to read adequately is present among children of low social risk who attend well-funded schools and is much more likely among poor children, among nonwhite children, and among nonnative speakers of English. To begin our consideration of who is likely to have reading difficulties and how many children we are talking about, we outline a number of conceptual issues in identifying and measuring reading difficulties in young children.
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From page 88... ...
In this traditional conceptual model, poor readers who do not meet the criteria for a reading disability are characterized instead as having garden-variety reading problems (or "general reading backwardness") , arising from such causes as poor
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From page 89... ...
A categorical model is still reflected in current education policies for the provision of services to learning-disabled children, affecting in particular those with reading disability. Special education services or programs, for example, require children to qualify for services in specific disability categories, such as mental retardation, specific learning disabilities, speech or language impairment, serious emotional disturbance, multiple disabilities, hearing impairment, visual impairment, deafness-blindness, and other health impairments.
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From page 90... ...
Reviewing both population-based studies and numbers of schoolage children receiving special education services, the Interagency Committee on Learning Disabilities (1987) , in a report to Congress, estimated the prevalence of learning disabilities as ranging from 5 to 10 percent.
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From page 91... ...
From this perspective, reading difficulties form the lower tail of a bell-shaped distribution that shades gradually into normal and superior ranges of reading abilities. The population distribution is bell shaped because relatively fewer individuals have extremely high or extremely low reading scores, and relatively more individuals have intermediate scores.
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From page 92... ...
Second, data from research in behavioral genetics employing a range of models and techniques (including admixture, segregation, linkage, and twin studies) have also converged to support the conclusion that reading disability is neither distributionally BOX 3-1 Reading and Hypertension There is considerable evidence to show that reading difficulties repre sent not a discrete entity but instead a graded continuum (Shaywitz et al., 1992)
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From page 93... ...
Assessing Reading Difficulties In terms of the dimensional model, we have defined reading difficulties as the lower tail of a normal distribution of reading ability in the population. In other words, individuals with reading difficulties are those whose achievement levels are lower than those of the rest of the people in the distribution.
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From page 94... ...
A nationally standardized reading test is one that provides information about where a particular test taker's score falls within the distribution that is typical for all children from around the country who are in the same school grade. When using a nationally standardized reading test, therefore, the cut-point for identifying reading difficulties can be set at a particular agreed-on level (e.g., the 25th percentile)
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From page 95... ...
Instead, we are simply suggesting that in interpreting reading test scores it is sometimes appropriate to use criteria other than the national distribution to represent the expectations for achievement for some children. So far, we have considered only how well a child reads relative to an appropriate comparison population -- a "norm-referenced" basis for identifying reading difficulties (i.e., norms)
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From page 96... ...
ESTIMATING THE PREVALENCE OF READING DIFFICULTIES Classroom practitioners, like the designers of the NAEP, are more likely to make criterion-referenced decisions, such as "she doesn't read well enough to understand the fourth-grade history text." Potential employers share this preference; they are looking for high school graduates who can read technical manuals, understand and fill out order forms, and process memos. Educational administrators prefer norm-referencing -- "90 percent of the third graders in my school read above third-grade level" or "70 percent of the children in this school district are below average in reading." Of course, each of these various approaches leads to a different set of conclusions and implications concerning the incidence of reading difficulties.
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From page 97... ...
, 40 percent of fourth graders, 30 percent of eighth graders, and 25 percent of twelfth graders were reading below this level. Among black and Hispanic students, the percentages of fourth graders reading below the basic level are 69 and 64 percent, respectively -- this translates into about 4.5 million black and 3.3 million Hispanic children reading very poorly in fourth grade.
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From page 98... ...
Although some men and women with reading disability can and do attain significant levels of academic and occupational achievement, more typically poor readers, unless strategic interventions in reading are afforded them, fare poorly on the educational and, subsequently, the occupational ladder. Although difficult to translate into actual dollar amounts, the costs to society are probably quite high in terms of lower productivity, underemployment, mental health services, and other measures.
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From page 99... ...
. Note: The center solid bar indicates a confidence interval around the average reading proficiency for a country.
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