Reaching Struggling Learners
Reaching Struggling Learners
#73 Unraveling the Mystery Behind Student's Reading Struggles
What if the answer to a student's reading struggle was hidden in plain sight? Join me, Jessica Curtis of Teaching Struggling Learners, as we unravel the mystery behind identifying the root cause of reading problems in students. We discuss how essential it is to dig deep to find the real cause before introducing any interventions. You'll gain insights into how collecting data, far beyond the usual academic screening, can offer clues as to when and potentially why your student started struggling.
We also delve into the need for updated screeners, specifically those that check for foundational phonemic or phonological awareness. Uncover how pre-test practice may camouflage ongoing issues and why attendance and behavior problems can be a two-sided coin. Plus, I'll be guiding you through an actionable, step-by-step process that will empower you to support your struggling readers better. So tune in, and let's make a difference in our learners' lives together!
So I get this question a lot from teachers who are working with struggling readers, whether they're in elementary school or sometimes even high school. We've got a lot of struggling readers in high school right now, and the question that I hear a lot is: I know my student is struggling, but how do I determine the cause of the reading problem? How do I figure out? What is that foundational skill that my student is lacking, that I need to get together for them so that they can be successful? Well, that's what we're going to talk about today. Hi, I'm Jessica Curtis of Teaching Struggling Learners. I'm a boy mom and a veteran teacher. You're listening to the Reaching Struggling Learners podcast, where we talk all about helping students succeed academically, socially and behaviorally. Thank you so much for tuning in.
Jessica:So, no matter how a student is identified as a struggling reader, we have to determine the cause of the reading problem. Before we can move forward with any type of interventions or progress monitoring, before we can set goals, before we can do anything else, we absolutely have to determine the baseline cause of the reading problem. So today I want to go over with you four steps that help you to just fine-tune, figure out what is it? What is causing the problem for your student, so that you can move forward with them. So the first thing that you want to do is you want to collect all the available data, the information on the kiddo. Now, I'm not just talking about that universal screener that you know we do beginning middle end of the year. We also want to pull in formative assessments, any previous grades from you know the grade levels. If a kid's in eighth grade, we should probably be looking at elementary school grades and information to figure out when did they start struggling with reading.
Jessica:You want to look at attendance. I know that a lot of our eligibility information is based on attendance. Well, the fact is, sometimes kids are they're absent a lot and they're missing the core reading or lessons. But also it could be are they missing school because they are so frustrated. It can go both ways. Also, I've seen it several times that a student will be doing perfectly fine until you know second grade, for example, and then they read, they miss a month of school firm various reasons, and then all of a sudden, that's when we start seeing a drastic drop in reading ability. Well, probably what happened was during that month that the child was out for whatever reason they might have missed some really core skills that were taught. Or there's also, you know, the trauma and things like that. But if you're just looking at attendance, seeing a big gap in attendance or seeing questionable things going on with attendance, that can be a red flag to tell you where to look for that foundational skill deficit that you're looking for.
Jessica:Again, you want to look at behavior. So attendance and behavior can be it can be a double-edged sword. Attendance and behavior can be caused by a student who is struggling because you know the work is too hard, because they don't know how to read, they don't know how to do the math, whatever it is. But it could also be that behaviors were, or attendance were, what caused the the struggles in the first place. A child who isn't there to hear the lesson because they were out for a week or because they were in the office for the whole day. There's no way that the child is going to be getting that those skills that were being reviewed or being taught. So it does give you quite a bit of insight to figure out that proverbial question of was it the chicken or the egg? Is the attendance or behavior causing the problem, or did the behavior attendance. Originally, was that maybe what started the problem Now, that being said, if the student is struggling partially because of missed learning opportunities, that doesn't mean that oh well, you know, there's nothing we can do.
Jessica:Honestly, that's even more of a reason for us to figure out what skills were. Was that student missing from the very beginning? Let's fill those gaps in and those kiddos can make really really good, very, very solid progress Very quickly. So don't look at it as, oh well you know, the behaviors are causing the learning issue. Well, it goes both ways. You've got to look at the whole kid, not just what's going on right, this second on one piece of paper. So, after you've collected all the data, all the information, and really looked at it from different perspectives, the next thing is you have to analyze that information and look for trends. Does the universal screener say the student can't read fluently? Well, then, look lower at it, look at the phonics. Maybe. If the universal screener is saying it's phonics, maybe we need to do some more formative assessments to figure out Is it a specific phonics skill or is it the foundation, foundational phonemic or phonological awareness that's causing the problem? Again, you have to look for trends and things and finding those trends. Those are some huge clues that can help you figure out where the student is really struggling with, what that foundational skill is, but it also can give you some really good information on how you can fill those gaps more effectively, which means quicker rebound and the kiddo is progressing faster. We all like that.
Jessica:The next thing is step three. We need to update any out-of-date screeners. So phonics skills they tend to be checked in first and second grade, but now if the child's in fourth grade, we probably need to recheck those skills, redo some screeners. That is just a really good way to figure out, first of all, where those original skills really retained or is the child, you know, has they lost some skills because they weren't reviewed enough, and and all that good stuff. So we need to really redo a lot of the screeners. And while you're redoing those screeners, maybe go a little bit further with it.
Jessica:If you're doing a screener for phonemic awareness, go back a little bit. Go back to phonological or phonemic awareness. Check and see if the student is struggling with sound and out words. Check and see can they manipulate phonemes in the word If really easily not just a matter of can they do it, but does it come naturally to them? It can a child's segment or blend sounds together easily. They don't have to think about it really hard.
Jessica:If it's not an automatic skill, especially with a kiddo that's in third, fourth, fifth, eighth grade, if those skills aren't automatic, now obviously if you just tell an eighth grader, hey, segment this word for me. They're probably going to look at you like you have 10 eyes. You gotta say, hey, segment the word cat. I'm gonna. You know what. I'll show you what how to do it. C-at, that's how you segment the word. Can you segment the word dog for me? Give them an example, maybe a couple examples to clue their brain into. Oh, I get it, I okay, I know what you're talking about. Now, I haven't done that since I was four years old. All right, that's fine. But if it's, if it's something that they can do really easily after a quick review, wonderful, not something you need to stress about.
Jessica:But if it's something that's really labor intensive for that child, that they really have to work through segmenting or blending word or sounds and words, then that's something that that's a skill you really should review with them because that's going to help them with the phonics skills that you're going to want to teach them and again you make the. You make the easier stuff easy for the kiddo. The harder stuff isn't going to be as hard for them. It's always what we want to do. So here's the thing sometimes kids do well on screeners because Early on, especially first, second, maybe even into third grade, those skills though those specific words, were really practiced right before the test and we always say, ooh, bad teachers, because you know, don't teach the test.
Jessica:But the reality is sometimes that's just what happens good, bad and different. I'm not gonna weigh in on that. But Sometimes when teachers know, oh, I gotta remember to do that phonics screen or that end of your phonics screener, hey guys, we're going to practice our vowel sounds really quick. We're gonna practice our blends really quick, we're gonna practice this stuff. Okay, now I'm gonna pull you up and we're gonna do phonics screeners. Kids might do better on it because it's fresh in their minds and but it's. It may not be something that they are, they're used to doing or that they were, they were comfortable doing, but that review Just boosted them enough that it makes it look like oh, he did well on that screener.
Jessica:So sometimes it's a good idea to Reduce screeners, maybe change the screener up a little bit, just to double check and make sure that the skill was actually mastered, that there wasn't some underlying cause no, we're not saying anything nefarious was planned but that there was no underlying cause that made that child perform a little bit better. Then they may actually have been able to do so. We have our three steps. The first one was to collect all the information, the data, all that. The second step was to analyze that information and, you know, look for those trends. The third one was update any out-of-date screeners, any out-of-date information. And then the fourth and final one is start with the lowest, most basic skill, even if it's one or two things.
Jessica:Okay, for example, there's a student that I've been working with and a delightful seventh grader who um Struggled very, very much with reading and he, the child, was illiterate, quite frankly. Fabulous child, fantastic individual, very intelligent. But when I did a phonics screener, the child wasn't able to identify all the letters of the alphabet, specifically the sounds. There were only I think it was four or five sounds that the student wasn't solid on. But that's where we started. Yep, seventh grader, 12 year old kid.
Jessica:We started with letter sounds. Now, part of the reason that that was vitally important Is because two, three, three of those sounds Were vowel sounds, which we all know. There's only five vowels. So if you don't know three of them, you you got a. You got to start there. But the fact is, even though it was only what four, four, five, maybe three or four letter four, I don't know. I don't know, it wasn't, it was single digits and we started at letter sounds Because that's where the skill deficit started. The student was good on phonemic awareness, the student was good on phonological awareness, except where, I will say, we needed to work on segmenting. But we started with letter sounds Segmenting and we use the letter sounds that the student knew to start blending words together, very the CVC words.
Jessica:Again, starting at the single most basic, the Foundational skills. You have to start somewhere and if you don't start on that bottom rung, then the rest of it, you can't build that house, you can't build that foundation with only 80% master. You have to get it to a hundred percent. They have to be able to do it. And the thing is with with starting with those quote-unquote baby skills, the really easy skills. It is fantastic because you get to show progress really quickly, right off the bat. Within I think it was a week and a half or two weeks, I was able to show the kid oh hey, look, you already have mastered this skill and this skill you can move on. We've already done the. You've already mastered this because, guess what? That's where you need to start and now we're gonna be moving on.
Jessica:Showing quick gains is a huge confidence booster for the student and for the teacher. It helps to keep them and us motivated. It is super frustrating when you are banging your head against a wall trying to get a student to learn something that, first of all, they're not ready to learn, but also something that it's too advanced, so the progress that they're making is going to be slow. We say it all the time that lesson was like pulling teeth. If a lesson is like pulling teeth 99% of the time, it means that those students were not ready for that lesson. They didn't have the underlying prerequisite skills ready to go into that lesson. So back it up a little bit or a lot, depending on what you got to do and grab those quick early wins.
Jessica:Help yourself, help your student with the motivation and, on top of filling in gaps, to make the rest of the learning easier, faster and more enjoyable. So those are my four tips tricks to determining the cause of a reading problem and, of course, getting your foot in the door to fixing said reading problem. I guess that's a little bit of a bonus for you today. Next week we are going to be talking about how to look at that information and to create goals that just make sense and bonus are easy to track. So make sure you tune in next week for that. Until next time, may your coffee be strong, your students calm and your life easy. Bye.