Failure to Read—General Coping Behaviors

By the time poor readers have reached the intermediate or secondary school level, have had 6 or more years of school failure, they have developed protective coping behaviors (Brozo, 1990) including the following:

• Avoids reading; hides out and becomes invisible in the classroom
• Attempts but seldom completes literacy assignments
• Acts out through disruptive, defiant, work avoiding behaviors
• Accepts reading failure as “natural” and feels helpless
• Approaches school attempts to “help” with skepticism or disbelief.

Guide to Barrier Reduction

Curtis and Longo (1999, pp. 20-23) and Corvin and Schlosser (1998) provide useful teacher attitudes and strategies for work with reluctant students who have reading and learning problems. The guide provided below is an adaptation of the ideas discussed by these authors.

Teaching Guide for Reading Instruction in the Upper Grades

Focus on appropriate knowledge and skills.
[ ] Use simple, concrete vocabulary (many poor readers have language difficulty).
[ ] Begin instruction at a point that guarantees success (recognize the discouraging effect of years of failure).
[ ] With the lowest reading levels—focus on acquisition and application of word analysis skills followed by the development of fluency in the recognition of words and their meaning
[ ] With intermediate reading levels—provide direct instruction of new words, concepts and ideas, including text reading.
[ ] With advanced reading levels—focus on tasks that require a wide range of reading and writing as tools of integrating information and problem solving.

Use structured and planned instruction.
[ ] Students with a history of failure need to know where their instruction is going and have confidence that their teacher knows where he/she is going. A sensible and predictable program provides hope.

Use materials and strategies that are age-appropriate.
[ ] Avoid using materials that are obviously designed for youth at a younger age.
[ ] With poor readers who are working on decoding skills introduce appropriate words that are hard enough to be outside their reading vocabulary but within their comprehension vocabulary.

Use sequential instructional steps and provide learning in stages.[ ] Progress slowly but with great confidence of success (students need assurance that you can help).
[ ] Be realistic in goals and expectations (progress should be consistent but can be slow).
[ ] Work in short time periods—10 to 20 minutes (reading is hard work for poor readers).
[ ] Follow a predictable sequence, such as: a) instructional objective, b) direct instruction with modeling and demonstration, c) guided practice, d) independent practice, and e) monitored results.
[ ] Learning takes time and practice. Forgetting is common and, even with good intentions and persistence, some students “back slide” and need encouragement.