Many children have been diagnosed as "learning disabled" or have been misunderstood in regard to their reading problems and have come to understand that they are in some way "abnormal". Children who are labeled as "struggling readers" have wonderful talents that many times go unnoticed because their inability to read overshadows the gifts that they possess. The children and parents who come to Reading Connections often report that they have been blamed for their child's inability to read and that they have been told they may not be trying hard enough and/or are unmotivated. Sometimes, parents state that they have been told that their child's main reading problem is comprehension and, if they would simply read to the child, he/she would become more proficient in overall reading skills. The parents note that they often read to their child, usually on a daily basis, and still do not see the progress with their child that has been described. This is very frustrating for the parents because they do not know what else to do. The children note equal frustration because they contend that they are trying as hard as possible.
Statement of Literacy Levels in the United States
Trends in today's American society show that literacy is becoming more essential to all Americans, while statistics are showing that literacy rates are much lower than most people realize. According to the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey conducted by the National Institute for Literacy, out of 191 million Americans, there were forty-four million people over the age of sixteen who scored at the basic (first) literacy level with a subgroup of eight million people who did not have the ability to perform even the most simple literacy tasks. Another forty-five million adults scored at the second (of five) literacy level. Furthermore, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (which continually updates the reading progress of student in public and parochial schools) revealed in its 1998 report that the national levels from the years 1992, 1994, and 1998 were as follows: 62-65% of fourth grade students scored below the proficient level; 64-68% of eighth grade students scored below the proficient level; and 54-60% of twelfth grade students scored below the proficient level. More specific to our local area, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction announced that 25.6% of the third-graders tested on the 2000 state reading test scored below the proficient level, while more than one-third of students with disabilities and more than half of those with limited English proficiency were not tested.
Clearly there is an overwhelming need for additional support for children who are having difficulties with reading, and this is the role which we at Reading Connections Inc. have chosen to fill. Mary Bowers' insistence on finding the most efficient and effective way to help children led her to complete a Masters Degree in Leadership and Learning. Through her studies, she had the opportunity to complete a thesis entailing extensive research on what brain researchers have been able to find in terms of how the brain processes language. According to current brain research, the necessary component of instruction that needs to be assessed and implemented for children with reading difficulties is a program in which brain-technology is coupled with a systematic phonetic approach so that it coincides with how the brain processes information. Eminent brain researcher, Dr. Sally Shaywitz, contends that students must have a multi-sensory, sound-by-sound approach to instruction; without these types of procedures, the brain must work too hard to decode the words, and therefore it is unable to do an efficient job processing information in order for the learner to read automatically or comprehend to his/her level of intelligence [Reading and Attention Disorders: Neurobiological Correlates (pp.113-128)]. Current research is also showing that there is a difference in the ways that the left and right hemispheres process information, and this brought Bowers to the conclusion that children who have difficulty with reading are actually those whose right hemisphere is dominant and processing language—it is the right hemisphere that so desperately requires the sequential, multi-sensory phonics.
Using our multi-sensory, sequential phonics procedures, we have worked with over 650 students on reading, spelling, and comprehension. In a recent study of a random sampling of 126 of our past students, we found the following results upon working with each child twice a week for a half-hour each session: those children who demonstrated no at-home practice made an average of 3.23 years gain in one year of instruction; those who practiced one to two days a week for twenty minutes each day made 4.5 years of gain in one year of instruction; and those who showed consistent practice six days a week for twenty minutes each day made an average of 6.2 years of gain in one year of instruction.
We at Reading Connections work to alleviate the pain and frustration for both the child and the parents. We believe that the main concern is to offer an efficient and effective method to the child to allow him/her to be able to read words independently, thereby promoting the ability to access the comprehension at their developmental level. The changes in the children's ability to read greatly enhance their self-esteem, allowing them to become productive, positive people in our society.
Instruction/Brain Research
Our focus at Reading Connections Inc. is to reach out to as many children as possible who require an alternative method of instruction. We do not consider our service to be tutorial, but rather it is a form of instruction which is totally unique to what children have experienced before. All lessons are performed on an individualized basis so that we can tailor the instruction to each child's needs. Brain researchers have found that the brain learns sound-by-sound, and therefore the type of reading instruction that needs to be provided must match that type of processing. The instructional procedures used at Reading Connections Inc. sequentially decode words while using this necessary sound-by-sound approach. This results in the student learning to use the tools that allow them to read automatically.
| Brain researchers are demonstrating, through brain scan technology, that children who struggle with reading have these problems due to a biological processing difficulty rather than a lack of ability and/or motivation. The two hemispheres of the brain work together to process information. However, when a stressful experience occurs, the dominant hemisphere may be doing the majority of the processing. Children struggling with reading experiences may be right-hemispheric dominant processors. |  |
The right hemisphere does not demonstrate efficient decoding processes with the typical types of instruction. The right hemisphere processes information randomly, through pictures first and then words, with a right-to-left lateralization. (This may be why children have difficulty processing letters, numbers and words in a left to right sequence.) It also processes at a much slower rate (whole-to-part processing may take longer), needing more time to take in information. Repetition of information for the right hemisphere may be necessary, thereby allowing sufficient long-term memory storage of the sound system in the columns of the cortex or modules of the brain. This is the reason why the procedures we use repeat each sound at least four times for each letter(s)/sound combination.
According to the brain research, the input of this sound-by-sound information could be more powerful if the tactile, visual and auditory senses were utilized simultaneously to send the sounds into the brain. The thalamus processes incoming pieces of information from the senses and then sends these pieces of information to the neuronal systems that gather and send the information to be stored in the columns of the cortex. These long-term memory storage columns dedicated to the storage of the pieces of sound/letter associations need enough of the sound information in storage so the printed word can later be processed. Researchers have indicated that the angular gyrus processes these sounds into words. However, when enough storage of the sound information is not available, this brain region demonstrates underactivation as it works to process words. When this underactivation occurs, the frontal gyrus then shows overactivation. The frontal gyrus is working too hard to access information gathered from within the brain. It is our speculation that, if the storage of the sounds was not an issue, the angular gyrus and the frontal gyrus would show normal activation. Other language regions could then be activated to allow for the final goal of reading words automatically.
Besides the general phonemic awareness and phonics instruction, it may also be necessary for the brain to be able to store the sounds as the child processes the word using multi-sensory procedures. The word then becomes the tool for sending those sounds to be stored in the cortex of the brain so the language centers can process the sounds into words, sentences and meaning. These procedures are especially important for the right hemisphere if it is the hemisphere doing the processing of the sounds.