Sunday, February 26, 2012

Dyslexia and making progress in learning to read

Yesterday I attended the Learning Difficulties Australia conference here in Melbourne. The focus for the conference was the discussion around the effectiveness of the Reading Recovery Program. Three highly respected academics presented: Tom Nicholson (Professor at the University of Tasmania, John Hattie and Dr Kerry Hempenstell.
John Hattie presented some research that showed what the most effective programs are. The program that has the most effect on student learning outcomes is the teaching of vocabulay programs and repeated reading programs. It was also suggested that students with dyslexia, will require more intensive instruction for longer periods of time.

"...we are not suggesting that children diagnosed as having dyslexia cannot make progress in learning to read. Rather, our claim is that these children require more intensive instruction of longer duration of the kind provided in the third tier of RTI models" (Tunmer & Greaney, 2010).
I will talk about the 3 Tiers next time, but basically, this means 1:1 individual programs with the teacher and one student. This may be programs such as Reading Recovery, Bridges etc.

Until next time,
Cheers,
Christine

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