Essentials of Assessing, Preventing and Overcoming Reading DIfficulties- believe the research

A couple of weeks ago I had a conversation with a colleague about the reading instruction we were presenting using the building approved program, LLI. I commented that the students were not paying attention to text clues and relying only on picture clues and memorized text. In the last couple of weeks several articles I had read talked about the challenge of picture clues being the tool of the weak reader whereas strong readers relied on letter and word clues. She argued that she did not believe the research. That picture clues were essential.

This showcases an important concern in education- confirmation bias. We believe the research that agrees with our beliefs. I have seen the phenomenon in gifted education and now I am seeing it in literacy instruction. Since our schools of education promote balanced reading instruction as key and popular reading programs utilize the strategies, it must be so. Unfortunately we seem to buying into a plan that has only modest impact on reading.

Essentials of Assessing, Preventing and Overcoming Reading Difficulties by David A. Kilpatrick identifies this challenge in the opening of the text. He acknowledges the challenge of research access- few teachers who are not currently pursuing higher education at a college or university have access to peer reviewed research in journals. In my experience, even those teachers who subscribe to some sort of educational magazine choose ones that are experiential articles and ones that have quick ideas or discussions of issues such as Mailbox, American Educator, Edutopia, Educational Leadership, The Mathematics Teacher or The Reading Teacher. These publications provide ideas for right now and results of individual experiences, rarely anything solid about research. They tend to be easy to read and provide practical material to support the classroom in the moment, not peer reviewed research articles.

Researchers seem stymied by the disconnect. I am not. Time is a precious commodity for teachers. They need to budget it carefully. Quiet time to read articles from journals they may not have access to is limited. Reviews of materials are often discounted if they do not agree with the bias of the individual. Books tend to be more accessible, but the time and bias issues still abound. Books, however, tend to be more available to individuals who are choosing to pursue information in their field.

This text is an attempt to present research in an accessible way. The writing is straightforward. While multitudinous in text citations demonstrate the basis of the information, the deep statistical information that fill research articles are not present. Each chapter ends with a test yourself multiple choice quiz to help focus the reader and act as a check for understanding. I am looking forward to digesting this text with its advice for helping struggling readers.