Reading is the single most important educational skill your students will learn. Understanding the organization and meaning of text and instruction in both phonics and literature is essential to helping young children read. By understanding the prerequisite skills for reading, teachers can build a solid foundation for their students to learn and succeed in school. Here are some ways to create appreciation of the written word, develop awareness of printed language, teach the alphabet, develop phonological and phonemic awareness, teach the relation of sounds and letters, teach children how to sound out words and to spell words, and help children develop fluent, reflective reading.

Create Appreciation of the Written Word

• Share stories with children and invite them to explore a story’s magic.
• Share informational texts and invite children to wonder about the new ideas presented.
• Take every opportunity to point out the ways in which reading is essential to the communications of everyday life (e.g., on labels, instructions, and signs).

Develop Awareness of Printed Language and the Writing System

• Make sure students know how books are organized. They should be taught the basics about books–that they are read from left to right and top to bottom, that print may be accompanied by pictures or graphics, that the pages are numbered, and that the purpose of reading is to gain meaning from the text and understand ideas that words convey.
• Read to children from books with easy-to-read large print. Use stories that have predictable words in the text.
• Use “big books” to help children notice and learn to recognize words that occur frequently, such as a, the, is, was, and you.
• Label objects in your classroom.

Teach the Alphabet

• A strong predictor of the ease with which a child learns to read is his or her familiarity with letters of the alphabet. This familiarity is a critical building block for learning to read.
• It is important to go beyond knowing the names of letters. Students must also develop a sense of the purpose of letters.
• Help them notice the letters in the print that surrounds them and that you share with them every day.
• Engage the students in activities that will help them learn to recognize letters visually.
• Help students learn to form the letters and encourage them to embellish their work with their names and with other first attempts at writing.

Develop the Students’ Phonological Awareness

• In listening and speaking, we pay attention to the meaning of language rather than to its sound. To learn to read, however, students must be taught to attend to the sounds, or phonology, of language. This is necessary for them to understand how speech is represented by print. Children with learning disabilities need special help in learning to develop such phonological awareness.
• Model and demonstrate how to break short sentences into individual words. For example, use the sentence “Frogs eat bugs,” and demonstrate with chips, cards, or other manipulatives how the sentence is made up of three words and how the order of the words matters. Using manipulatives to make sentences, play with each word and put it in order.
• Develop students’ awareness of the sounds of individual words by asking them to clap out syllables and to listen for and generate rhymes.
• Once children are comfortable in playing games with words, syllables, and rhymes, move onto phonemic awareness.

Develop Phonemic Awareness

• Phonemic awareness refers to an understanding that words and syllables are comprised of a sequence of elementary speech sounds. This understanding is essential to learning to read an alphabetic language. The majority of children with reading disabilities fail to grasp this idea.
• In teaching phonemic awareness, the focus of all activities should be on the sounds of words, not on letters or spellings.
• Use strategies that make phonemes prominent in children’s attention and perception. For example, model specific sounds, such as /s/ in the word sat, and ask children to produce each sound in isolation and in many different words until they are comfortable with the sound and understand its nature.
• Begin with simple words and simple challenges, e.g., listen for initial /s/ in sat, sit, sip, and sad . . . or for long /e/ in me, see, bee . . . .
• Teach students to blend phonemes into words. Begin by identifying just one phoneme, e.g., /m/-ilk, /s/-at, working gradually toward blending all the phonemes in words, e.g., /s/-/a/-/t/.
• Teach students to identify the separate phonemes within words, e.g., what is the first sound of soup? What is the last sound of kiss? Beginning phonemes are easier to identify than final phonemes.
• Once students are comfortable listening for individual phonemes, teach them to break up words, into component sounds, e.g., /m/-/oo/-/s/= “moose”.
• Create a sequence of segmenting and blending activities to help students develop an understanding of the relationship between sounds in words.
• Provide children with more support when first teaching a task. For example, model a sound or strategy for making the sound, and have the children use the strategy to produce the sound. Model and practice several examples. Prompt the children to use the strategy during guided practice, and gradually add more examples. As the students master these skills, provide less teacher-directed instruction and more practice and challenge.
• Make teaching phonological awareness a top priority. Opportunities to engage in phonological awareness activities should be plentiful, frequent, brief, and fun.
• Phonemic awareness is essential for learning to read, but it is not enough by itself. It must be coupled with instruction and practice in learning the relationship between letters and sounds.

Teach the Relation of Sounds and Letters

• Students should learn the letters of the alphabet and discriminate each letter from the other, because each stands for one or more of the sounds that occur in spoken words.
• When presenting each letter, model its corresponding sound and have children produce the sound themselves. For children with learning disabilities, the teaching activities must be explicit and unambiguous.
• At first, teach and work with only a few letter-sound correspondences that have high utility in many words (e.g., /m/ in man, mad, him, and ham). Postpone teaching less frequently occurring letters until students have a firm understanding of how left-to-right spellings represent first-to-last sounds (alphabetic understanding).

Teach Children How to Sound Out Words

• After students have mastered a few letter-sound correspondences, teach them to decode words or sound them out. Begin with small, familiar words. Teach the children to sound out the letters, left to right, and blend them together, searching for the word in memory.
• Model sounding out the word, blending the sounds together and saying the word. The ability to sound out new words allows children to identify and learn new words on their own.
• Give children stories containing words that reflect the letter-sound patterns that have been taught, and encourage them to sound out words whenever they are uncertain.
• Help children learn spelling conventions, such as the use of final /e/ to mark long vowels, by comparing and contrasting lots of examples.

Teach Children to Spell Words

• Teach children to spell words by sounding their letters one by one. Model the sounding and spelling process for children as they spell.
• Begin with short words children can sound out, because these words follow regular spelling conventions, e.g., cap, bat, and sit instead of cape, bait or sight.
• Begin with simple words that do not contain consonant blends, e.g., ham and pan instead of slam and plan.
• Encourage students to use spelling knowledge and strategies regularly in their own writing.
• Introduce spelling conventions systematically. Begin with words that exemplify the most frequent and basic conventions, and provide support and practice to help students generalize from these words to others. The goal is to help them see the spelling conventions in the words.
• Use words in which letter-sound correspondences represent their most common sounds (e.g., get instead of gem).
• Develop a sequence and schedule of opportunities that allow children to apply and develop facility with sounds and words at their own pace. Specify what skills to assess and when to assess them so that you will know when to move on. Take into account each student’s background knowledge and pace in moving from sounding out to blending words to reading connected text.

Help Children Develop Fluent, Reflective Reading

• Help children learn to read fluently by requiring them to read new stories and reread old stories every day.
• Help children extend their experience with the words, language, and ideas in books by interactively reading harder texts with them and to them every day.
• Relate information in books to other events of interest to children, such as holidays, pets, siblings, and games. Engage children in discussion of the topics.
• In both stories and informational texts, encourage wondering. For example, “I wonder what Pooh will do now?” “How do you think the father feels ?” or “I wonder what frogs do in the winter? Do you think that’s a problem? Why?”
• Model comprehension strategies and provide students with guided assistance.
• Point out how titles and headings tell what a book is about.
• Help students identify the main ideas presented in the text, as well as the supporting detail. Graphics help to reveal main ideas, and the relationship between text and graphics helps students understand what they are reading.
• Point out unfamiliar words and explore their meaning. Revisit these words frequently and encourage students to use them in their own conversations.
• Show children how to analyze contextual clues to figure out the meaning of an unfamiliar word. Research shows that most vocabulary growth comes from learning new words in reading.

For Further Reading:

• The Reading Brain: Executive Function Hard at Work
• Successful Strategies for Teaching Students with Learning Disabilities
• How Teachers Can Help Students with Learning Disabilities
• “Tricking” the Brain into Reading and Writing

ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education

Author’s note: Versions of this article have appeared in LDA Today, www.LDonline.org and is also included in serialized form in the author’s blog on The Huffington Post..

For many students with brain-based learning disabilities, the unrelenting frustration involved in taking in, processing and producing information is a rather chronic condition. The cycle of challenge and defeat is not unlike the punishment of Sisyphus, the king of Corinth who according to Greco-Roman mythology was punished in Hades by having to push a huge boulder up a steep hill, only to have it roll incessantly back down. For kids with LD, there may be occasional plateaus or small ledges on which this stone can rest (summer vacations?), but most of these kids experience school as a difficult, frustrating and emotionally unsettling place. Too few know the joys that come from repeated successes; too many are beaten down very early by the implied message that they are supposed to be able to do what the other kids do, and do it as easily.

Pre-Inclusion

In the pre-inclusionary times of the mid-seventies and early eighties, college graduates who had trained to be special educators found work in learning centers, resource rooms or self-contained programs that were designed to meet the needs of students with Learning Disabilities. They had the time to work with a relatively small number of students and provide them with intensive, direct instruction—an approach that these newly-minted teachers had learned would be effective with these students. When well implemented, that model of service delivery worked amazingly well. Kids with learning disabilities learned. They moved through school with a feeling of competence, and many became successful, happy and productive adults. Many of us who worked in schools at this time thought that these were the “glory days” of the field of Learning Disabilities. But as it often does in special education, the pendulum of change began to swing.

The Inclusion Movement

Over the next several decades–primarily as a consequence of the inclusion movement and the ascension of high stakes testing–we have witnessed a dramatic reduction in specialized, intensive instructional programs for students with LD, and a corresponding large-scale return of students with LD and other types of disabilities to regular classes. While the intentions of the inclusion movement were admirable—a long overdue chance for handicapped individuals to experience the dignity that comes from equal opportunity–the efficacy of so-called inclusion for students with learning disabilities was, and continues to be a huge disappointment.

A majority of the teachers working in general education classrooms had been trained as “regular” teachers and not as special educators. Despite excellent training and praiseworthy teaching skills, many of these professionals find themselves insufficiently prepared or inadequately supported to meet the special needs of students with LD who have been assigned to their classes. If you doubt this, all you have to do is ask them when their boss is not listening. The public assertion that inclusion is an effective approach for students with LD is simply an updated version of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes. The failure of a general education delivery model for students with LD continues to result in long waiting lists at many excellent independent LD schools across the country. Just ask any special education director whose budgets are busted by “out-of-district” placements!

Intensive Instruction

Despite abundant research and clinical observations that students with LD require and benefit from intensive instruction, this model is not often offered in public schools. Intensive instruction is characterized by flexible teaching approaches, use of a wide variety of instructional materials and technologies, and a belief that the goal of teaching is to accelerate student progress by any means possible. This is a species of education that would be headed for extinction, were it not for the visions of a few brave souls who are breeding the few remaining specimens in an effort to increase the herd. And there is a correlation between those out-of-district placement budgets and the efforts to breathe life into an old model. (Which, incidentally, turns out to be much less expensive than the private school option. Ask special education directors how many parents would be overjoyed if the school set up a self-contained, highly specialized, well-staffed in-house LD classroom.)

Suffice it to say that I am worried. As a neuropsychologist specializing in the interaction of stress and learning disabilities, I am worried about the mental health of kids and I am worried about their families. And as a teacher educator, I worry about teachers. A lot. Thousands of good general educators are being asked to educate millions of kids who need more than they have the time or expertise to give. And don’t get me started about the over-use of inadequately trained instructional aides to solve this problem!

All is not gloom and doom. There is hope. From my perspective, one of the major contributions of inclusion which is well conceived and well supported, has been the transformation that takes place when talented and motivated regular and special educators work together as members of a collaborative team. In schools that have “done inclusion right” I have witnessed the emergence of a new breed of professional who creatively builds bridges between curriculum and kids with learning disabilities, ADHD, Asperger Syndrome and other conditions that can derail learning. In the paragraphs that follow, I would like to introduce you what I have come to call the Hybrid Teacher. This might not be a solution for the dearth or (death) of self-contained specialized programs in which intensive specialized instruction can take place, but perhaps it’s a way to do some damage control.

Let me use this opportunity to share the characteristics of this new breed of teacher, so that you will recognize one when you see her or him. In my view, a professional with many of the traits listed below is the closest thing I can find to a “great teacher” for kids with learning disabilities.

The Hybrid Teacher…

Understands the relationship between emotion and cognition.

Unless she’s working with a child who is known to have primary emotional disturbance, she does not assume that learning difficulties are the consequence of being upset. Rather, she understands that emotional reactions and in many cases, negative behaviors are coping mechanisms triggered by the stress generated by frustration and fear of what a child sees as inevitable failure. She does not use this understanding to excuse, or allow the student to excuse this behavior, but to help explain it and work through it or around it. She also understands that many of these negative emotions and troubling behaviors go away when students feel competent and successful.

Knows that students learn in different ways.

This does not trivialize by saying: “He’s a visual learner.” The Hybrid Teacher says things like: Because testing and my observations have confirmed that Jamilla can’t hold on to the auditory images of [sounds, syllables, words, sentences, paragraphs, my voice, the voices of many kids and teachers in the cafeteria, the sequence of directions, etc. etc., etc.), I need her to understand that (1) this task is going to be difficult and (2) that she has the skills, or that I am going to teach her the skills to handle this task, and (3) that some of the other kids may not have to use these tools, but that she does, and (4) that she will be successful if she does.

Focuses on the learner first and the curriculum second.

He takes the student to a place of cognitive and psychological safety before venturing into deeper waters of new material. He reviews not what was taught yesterday, but the student’s feeling of success with that material. This teacher understands the importance of creating a positive connection to prior learning, of tapping into a student’s positive emotions about a task or a topic, and helping students recognize and reduce negative influences on learning (e.g., automatically saying or thinking: I can’t DO math!”) by practicing thought-stopping techniques and generating positive self-statements that are tied to actual successful experiences.

Demonstrates the ability to expose students to a variety of stimuli.

He also knows when students are connected emotionally and cognitively to the experience. The Hybrid Teacher also gives students the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned in a variety of ways, and publicly values these alternative ways to display knowledge and skills.

Is guided and energized by finding out what facilitates effective learning and what gets in the way.

The focus of teaching is to minimize the impediments by educating the learner about his own cognitive style, modifying the curriculum without lowering standards, and creating a learning space in which students can feel safe and competent.

Praises the process that students use as often or more than the product they create.

Teachers who ask kids “how did you get that answer” generally get a scowl or a “huh?” response, which isn’t very reinforcing. When Hybrid Teachers get a blank stare in response to this question, they give the student a couple of possible choices (“because you took all the distracting things off your desk,” or “I noticed that you put on the headphones to block out the noise from the classroom.” This can generate an “Oh, yeah” response; the next time the question is asked, that student is more likely to come up with an answer that address how she figured something out. That’s the behavior of a successful learner.

Understands that it’s not about having kids work harder, but rather that they work smarter.

Hybrid Teachers ask kids what strategies they have used in the past to be successful in any kind of learning (in school or outside of school) and helps to translate that skill and recreate that positive learning experience in the classroom. We all know the student who can take apart and rebuild a computer but can’t read. The Hybrid Teacher focuses on how the student learned to do the former and uses that knowledge as a basis for specialized instruction in reading. If a child says “I remember everything I see” the Hybrid Teacher capitalizes on that strength by developing a sight word vocabulary or a symbol system that supplements weak language processing skills. This kind of “mining for assets” leads to increased success and the confidence that comes from it.

Knows that it’s important to separate skill instruction from content acquisition.

A blind student may not be able to read small print, but she can certainly learn content. Making modifications in that case is a “no-brainer.” Hybrid Teachers keep that image in mind when they work with students with visual perceptual difficulties that get in the way of fluent reading. Remember that when poor readers rely on reading to gain knowledge, they miss a lot of information. Students who have problems holding words or sounds in working memory simply cannot benefit from a lecture that’s not supported by visual cues. Remember what it’s like to know just a little Spanish when you try to understand those rapidly delivered directions to the airport in Mexico City.

Is willing to take a risk when it comes for advocating for a student with LD in her classroom.

It takes courage tell an administrator that “This kid will just not be successful without some significant supports—more than I’m able to give in this classroom even though I’m awesome.”

Examines his classroom practices to identify what works and what doesn’t.

These teachers are more likely than other teachers to want to work with another adult, ask for feedback about performance, go to professional conferences and inservice training with the needs of individual students in mind, and be willing and able to teach others what they know.

Knows how to work as a team with the student as the key member.

Building and maintaining relationships with the family takes time and a sincere desire to hear the family’s story. Giving the family the time to tell a teacher what worked and what didn’t in the past, or what the struggles are around homework, yields data that may be more important than any test score. Reaching out to physicians to get and give information if medication or health issues are involved is an important skill. Working with ancillary personnel in the school (speech therapists, occupational therapists, etc.) and helping them help the teacher incorporate therapeutic interventions in the classroom is critically important.

Understands that cultural and language factors play an important role in learning.

Just because a student “speaks good English” doesn’t rule out the possibility that there is confusion between the first and second language or that delays in language processing or reading are related to the simultaneous translation that’s going on in the student’s head. Hybrid Teachers are able to read subtle but important behaviors such as eye contact or physical proximity, and accurately interpret them in the social/cultural context of the child. She knows how to differentiate a language difference from a learning disability or knows who to ask.

Is able to cover the curriculum by understanding the child.

To consider each child as a unique individual is for these teachers not just a euphemism; this belief is acted upon minute by minute, even in large and diverse classrooms. Each child is connected to the teacher by a line. For some students, it’s a gossamer spider’s thread that registers every movement of the learner; for others it’s a large ship’s cable that takes a powerful action to get it to move. The Hybrid Teacher is connected to kids and kids are connected to this teacher most of the time. This allows the teacher to be responsive to not only the student with LD, but all learners in the classroom.

The Last Word:

I know that there are other traits that distinguish this teacher. The reader can add to this list, as I will as time goes on. By the way, I forgot to mention: The Hybrid Teacher is always a twin, or has been cloned, so that one of them can sleep, eat, do research on best teaching practices and go to the toilet while the other teaches.

In all seriousness, it is a delight to watch these teachers in action. They are everywhere if you look. They may be young or old; they can be professionally trained or “natural” teachers. Parents need to seek them out, reward them, advocate for more time, money and resources to support them, praise them for their work and bring them flowers. If your child gets one of these teachers every two or three years, he or she is probably going to be ok. Administrators need to pay these people more money, praise them more, show them off more. They are the hope for children with learning disabilities in these changing and challenging times, and my experience suggests that we have reason to be hopeful. Let me know if you know one of these exquisite creatures.

For Further Reading

How Teachers Can Help Students with Learning Disabilities

Resources on Teaching and Learning

Successful Strategies for Teaching Students with Learning Disabilities

Author: Jerome J. Schultz, Ph.D.
For over 35 years Dr. Jerome (Jerry) Schultz has specialize in the neuropsychological assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with learning disabilities, ADHD, Asperger Syndrome and other special needs. He earned his B.A. and M.A. from The Ohio State University and holds a Ph.D. from Boston College. Having started out his professional career as a middle school special education teacher, he subsequently directed several hospital or university-based clinics for children and families. He is now on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School in the Department of Psychiatry, and teaches psychologists and psychiatrists about students with special needs.

In addition to his clinical work and teaching, Dr. Schultz serves as an international consultant and offers professional development to schools and organizations on issues related to the neuropsychology and appropriate education of children with special needs. He is respected for his realistic, practical and supportive work with teachers who are committed to meeting the needs of children with fragile emotions and challenging behaviors. Currently, Dr. Schultz serves as the in-house mental health consultant to several large public school systems in the Boston area.

Dr. Schultz served for many years as the Expert on Learning Disabilities and ADHD at www.familyeducation.com, a website for parents and teachers, and has been a contributor to www.ldonline.org. He sits on the Editorial Advisory Board of the LDA Journal, Learning Disabilities, and is on the Advisory Board of www.insideADHD.com, and www.myEdGPS.com. His highly praised book Nowhere to Hide: Why Kids with ADHD and LD Hate School and What We Can Do About It examines the relationship between stress and learning. Dr. Schultz is the Chair of the Professional Advisory Board of LDA and has been a frequent presenter and keynoter at LDA State and National Conference. Learn more about Dr. Schultz at www.jeromeschultz.com. Twitter: @docschultz, Huffington Post Blog: www.huffingtonpost.com/jerome-schultz/.