Grade Level Reading Isn’t “Good Enough”...How to get "Reading Help"

The ability to read well encompasses far more than acquiring the skill that is critical for achieving academic success. Reading strengthens our ability to pay attention and our memory. It also clarifies our thought processes and improves our verbal abilities. Contrasted to struggling readers, students who learn to read early and often not only have better attention, stronger memories and greater vocabularies but, they also have deeper language comprehension and clearer oral and written expression. In short, A reading helps to develop the systems in our brains that are integral to lifelong success. Studies show that adults who are proficient readers have lower rates of divorce, drug use and depression.

Because reading is such a complex cognitive process, it activates many different areas of the brain. Reading can produce visible changes in the organ’s anatomy and physiology. Recent neurological research of children with profound reading and language disorders show that temporal lobes of the brain, the area critical to speech perception, memory, and comprehension are visibly smaller than those of children who are proficient readers. Moreover, neuro-imaging shows how profoundly reading, spoken language and the brain are intertwined.

When we use specific parts of the brain, the number of neurons as well as their interconnections in those areas grows. Conversely, when we neglect an area of the brain fewer connections are established and the area may shrink. In fact, in the competition for space, the brain, at times, actually parses underused areas that allow the brain to make connections that are used more often. To illustrate how that can be useful, violinists devote larger neural circuitry to areas that control the movement of fingers on their left hand. On the other hand, small children who watch a lot of television, when the brain is most rapidly growing, develop the areas of the brain that govern visual processing. Unfortunately this is at the expense of the language processing areas, which include auditory attention control.

For tens of thousands of years all cultures have developed spoken languages. However, the ability to read is a relatively recent human development. Only for the last few centuries have large numbers of people had written language and the power to decipher it. Language is so intrinsic to being human that even isolated groups of deaf people have developed verbal communications, complete with words, syntax and grammar.

As a matter of fact, turning abstract symbols on paper into spoken language is quite a miraculous skill because the brain lacks a specific center devoted to reading. Yet, proficient readers effortlessly and efficiently translate alphabetic squiggles into meaningful spoken words at the rate of three or more words a second. A good reader: 1) decodes words without effort, 2) reads with ease and fluency, 3) uses listening comprehension skills to create meaning, and 4) applies thinking skills to read more interactively.

Unfortunately, large numbers of people struggle with some aspect of reading. Half of adult males and a third of adult females don’t read for pleasure because for them it isn’t a pleasure at all! About 40% of students struggle with decoding, comprehension or reading fluency. Up to 70% of second language learners or speakers of non-standard dialects of English and 30% of children with college-educated parents, read poorly. The harsh fact is that reading difficulties do not go away “down the road.” Students with more involved reading problems, especially if these issues persist past second grade, are at risk of prolonged reading difficulties. About three-quarters of early problem readers who lagged behind their peers in elementary school find themselves with a similar gap in reading ability by the time they reach high school.

Strong reading ability is critical for academic success.  It is significant that even the students who make minor errors when pronouncing words, read slowly, or occasionally miss the meaning of a sentence are at risk of not reaching their full academic potential. Research over the last decade clearly shows that our standard benchmarks, such as reading at grade level, are too low. Grade-level readers have more in common with struggling students than with proficient readers. So many students struggle with print that average reading levels are quite low. Averaging in the scores of the 30 to 70 percent of students who don’t read well significantly lowers averages.

Reading deficits have a profound effect on brain development and academic achievement, so we must be able to identify and remediate the vast majority of reading problems in new ways, including: 1) more prescriptive reading assessments accurately identifying decoding weaknesses, fluency deficits and comprehension problems that are often overlooked by traditional reading programs and 2) by expanding the range of teaching methods so educators can dramatically reduce the number of students with reading issues. The research is clear. With better identification and expanded methods we can reduce the number of students with reading difficulties to fewer than ten percent. The goal is to have all but one or two students in a classroom reading independently, fluently and meaningfully, and very important, happily!