“Wait and See” or “Early Intervention”?

The world of reading intervention can be confusing for parents and teachers alike.  In the education world, the mantra is: “every child learns at his own pace”.  This seems plausible: we learn to walk at different ages, we learn to ride a bike at different ages, why wouldn’t we learn to read at different ages too?  I would often pass this message on to parents, telling them that while their child is not progressing as quickly as expected in reading, I was working with them daily and they will eventually progress.  However, deep down, I was very worried about their child’s learning.  And, once I delved into the research, I realized that my worries were confirmed by research.  The “wait and see” approach that goes hand in hand with the “every child learns at his own pace” belief is the worst approach possible. The research I describe below, clearly shows that early intervention in reading is the best approach.

If your child is not progressing as expected in the early years (kindergarten or grade one), his or her best chance of being a successful student is with early evidence-based intervention.  Do not wait for a diagnosis.  Many psychologists will not diagnose a learning disability in reading (or dyslexia) until direct instruction and intervention have been used.   Do not wait to see if he or she “catches up”.  Ensure that your child receives the help needed. 

The research base:

Based on a verse in the Gospel of Matthew, the “Matthew Effect” in reading is often used to describe a “rich get richer and poor get poorer” scenario in regard to reading skills. Stanovich (1986) described how difficulties with phonological awareness at a young age can lead to difficulty reading due to slow development of decoding, which can lead to an overall lack of motivation in reading. A lack of motivation in reading significantly impacts the volume of reading children can experience causing them to progress at a much slower rate than their peers (the poor get poorer). This slower rate causes the achievement gap to widen and eventually encompass many areas of academics, not just reading ability. Stanovich cites, as an example, a longitudinal study in which kindergarten students low in phonological awareness were compared to peers with adequate ability in phonological awareness. By grade one, there was a four-month separation in reading ability between the two groups: By grade two, the gap was nine months (Jorm, Share, Maclean, & Matthews, 1984 cited in Stanovich, 1986).

Canadian students are not immune from the Matthew Effect. A 2011 longitudinal study of 382 Canadian students in Saskatchewan confirmed Stanovich’s theory.  Students who scored low in a test of phonological awareness in kindergarten continued to progress below their peers in reading measures every year until the study’s end at grade three, with the achievement gap widening each year (McNamara, Scissons, & Gutknecth, 2011).

Stanovich believed that educational researchers need to study effective instruction to ameliorate this situation (Stanovich, 1986) and help the “poor” get “richer”. Since Stanovich’s 1986 work, a considerable amount of research has been published that links early reading intervention to greater reading success. O’Connor, Bocian, Sanchez and Beach’s (2014) longitudinal study followed a sample of over 1200 students from kindergarten through grade three in California. The students were assessed three times per year in reading and received intervention if their scores ever indicated that they were at-risk for reading difficulties. The groups of children receiving intervention were fluid due to students’ response to the intervention, meaning that if a student receiving intervention became proficient, he or she would be exited from the intervention lessons. Similarly, if a child not receiving intervention fell below expectations, he or she would be added to the intervention lessons. The researchers found that after three years, a large proportion of students who received intervention starting in kindergarten were exited before the end of grade two (45%), while only 26% of the students who began intervention in grade one exited before the end of grade two, supporting the theory that providing reading intervention earlier leads to more success.

Marita Partanen and Linda Siegel’s (2014) longitudinal study conducted in North Vancouver also linked early reading intervention to greater reading success. Following a group of 650 students from kindergarten to grade seven, Partanen and Siegel found that screening for pre-reading skills and providing intervention in kindergarten led to most children scoring in the average range for reading in grades one through seven, concluding that “our study provides long-term evidence of the success of early literacy interventions” (p. 16). This study lowered the average number of students eventually diagnosed with dyslexia, a specific learning disability in reading that affects an individual’s word decoding skills. One of the study’s authors, Linda Siegel, a University of British Columbia professor and Editor-In-Chief of the International Dyslexia Association’s publication Perspectives on Language and Literacy, explained the need for identifying those students at risk of reading failure when they are still at the pre-reading stage by writing,

• It is much easier to prevent the problems from becoming serious than to wait until they are fully developed.

• It is much cheaper to provide early intervention than to wait until intervention requires more intense remediation and therefore becomes much more costly.

• Early identification and intervention will reduce, and, in many cases, prevent serious social and emotional consequences of not paying attention to these problems.

• The brain of a young child is more plastic and amenable to change than that of an adolescent or adult (Siegel, 2018, p. 5).

A review of the literature reveals that researchers in the area of reading acquisition are in agreement with Siegel’s viewpoint. Kindergarten literacy intervention, or simply intervention at the pre-reading stage, leads to more growth in reading than waiting to intervene in later grades (Al Otaiba et al. 2007; Desrochers & Glickman, 2009; Kilpatrick, 2015; National Reading Panel, 2000; National Research Council, 1998; Norton & Wolf, 2012; Ozernov-Palchik et al., 2017; Seidenberg, 2017; Schuele & Boudreau, 2008).

What can intervention look like?

 Once a student is identified as needing intervention, there a variety of ways a teacher can fit intervention into their day.   Most teachers will find time when students are working independently to work with a small group of students with similar needs.  This group can work on phonics along with phonemic awareness, morphology, and practice reading connected text.  

Some teachers make note of concepts that students need to master and provide explicit instruction in these skills.  Some will work through a research-based program such as one of the following: 

• UFLI Foundations

• Reading Simplified

• The Phonics Companion

• Lively Letters

If your child is receiving small group support at school, ask your child's teacher for information on the concepts they are working on so you can follow up at home too.  Ensure your child attends school regularly so they are present for these lessons, too.  

References

Al Otaiba, S., Folsom, J., Schatschneider, C., Wanzek, J., Greulich, L., Meadows, J., Connor, C. (2011). Predicting first-grade reading performance from kindergarten response to tier 1 instruction. Exceptional Children, 77(4), 453–470. Retrieved from www.cec.sped.org

Desrochers, A., & Glickman, V. (2009). Criteria for the evaluation of reading assessment tools. Encyclopedia of Language and Literacy Development (pp. 1-9). London, ON: Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network. Retrieved from http://literacyencyclopedia.ca/pdfs/topic.php?topId=280

Kilpatrick, D. (2015). Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

McNamara, J. K., Scissons, M., & Gutknecth, N. (2011). A longitudinal study of kindergarten children at risk for reading disabilities: The poor really are getting poorer. Journal of Learning Disabilities. doi: 10.1177/0022219411410040

National Early Literacy Panel. (2008). Developing early literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Washington, DC: National Institute for Literacy.

National Research Council. 1998. Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6023.

Norton, E. S., & Wolf, M. (2012). Rapid automatized naming (RAN) and reading fluency: Implications for understanding and treatment of reading disabilities. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 427–452. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100431

O’Connor, R. E., Bocian, K. M., Sanchez, V., & Beach, K. D. (2014). Access to a responsiveness to intervention model: Does beginning intervention in kindergarten matter? Journal of Learning Disabilities, 47(4), 307–328. doi:10.1177/0022219412459354

Ozernov-Palchik, O., Norton, E. S., Sideridis, G., Beach, S. D., Wolf, M., Gabrieli, J. D. E., & Gaab, N. (2017). Longitudinal stability of pre-reading skill profiles of kindergarten children: implications for early screening and theories of reading. Developmental Science, 20(5), 1–18. doi: 10.1111/desc.12471

Partanen, M., & Siegel, L. S. (2014). Long-term outcome of the early identification and intervention of reading disabilities. Reading and Writing, 27(4), 665–684. Doi: 10.1007/s11145-013-9472-1

Schuele, C. M., & Boudreau, D. (2008). Phonological Awareness Intervention: Beyond the Basics. Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 39(1), 3-20. doi: 10.1044/0161-1461

Seidenberg, Mark (2017). Language at the speed of light: How we read, why so many can’t, and what can be done about it. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Siegel, L. (2018). The pathway to making early intervention a reality. Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 44(3), 3. Retrieved from: dyslexiaida.org.

Stanovich, K. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21(4), 360–407. Retrieved from http://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com.