literacy & dyslexia

Reading Instruction and Intervention

Reading Instruction

Unlike language and vision, literacy does not come naturally. There is no genetic program for its development. Rather, all learners must be taught to read and write.

Knowledgeable and skilled teachers of reading understand both what to teach and how to teach it. The content of effective reading instruction is comprehensive and includes:

• The component skills identified by the National Reading Panel Report (NICHD, 2000), including:
  – Phonemic awareness
  – Phonics
  – Fluency
  – Vocabulary
  – Comprehension
• Their related elements of language and cognition, including:
  – Phonology
  – Orthography
  – Syntax
  – Semantics
  – Understanding alphabetic principle
  – Morphology

The acronym POSSUM helps teachers remember that all of these elements are foundational skills that need to be connected in the early reading circuit.

Structured literacy approaches deliver this content explicitly and systematically with targeted feedback.

Early, Intensive Intervention

Our group has been conducting research on intervention for two decades, along with colleagues Robin Morris and Maureen Lovett. Our randomized control treatment studies, which were funded by NICHD, indicate two critical findings for intervention:

• First, early intervention is best, particularly when based on early assessment data that includes measures on phoneme awareness and rapid automatized naming (RAN).
• Second, explicit, systematic, multi-component interventions that address the major elements in POSSUM have the best efficacy when taught with fidelity (Morris et al., 2012; Lovett et al, 2017; Lovett et al., 2022).

Our new study, funded by the Office of Special Education Programs, is investigating whether early screening data can be used as the basis for differential intervention that targets the strengths and weaknesses of individual children. The importance of early assessment and early multi-component intervention is key to ameliorating the so-called “dyslexia paradox,” where diagnosis only comes in later grades despite the evidence that early intervention works best.

Research and Resources

Lovett, M. W., Frijters, J. C., Steinbach, K. A., De Palma, M., Lacerenza, L., Wolf, M., & Morris, R. D. (2022). Interpreting comprehension outcomes after multiple-component reading intervention for children and adolescents with reading disabilities. Learning and Individual Differences, 100, 102224.

Lovett, M. W., Frijters, J. C., Wolf, M., Steinbach, K. A., Sevcik, R. A., & Morris, R. D. (2017). Early intervention for children at risk for reading disabilities: The impact of grade at intervention and individual differences on intervention outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109(7), 889–914. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000181

Lyon, R. (1998). Overview of reading and literacy initiatives [Statement given to the Committee on Labor and Human Resources]. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. https://texasldcenter.org/files/resources/Reid_Lyon_Testimony_to_Senate. pdf.

Morris, R. D., Lovett, M. W., Wolf, M., Sevcik, R. A., Steinbach, K. A., Frijters, J. C., & Shapiro, M. B. (2012). Multiple-component remediation for developmental reading disabilities: IQ, socioeconomic status, and race as factors in remedial outcome. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 45(2), 99-127.

Ozernov-Palchik, O., & Gaab, N. (2016), Tackling the “dyslexia paradox”: Reading brain and behavior for early markers of developmental dyslexia. WIREs Cognitive Science, 7, 156-176. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1383