Assist Students With Literacy Difficulties. The Studies

¶ … assist students with literacy difficulties. The studies all used the academic classroom as the center of education and tested different learning methods.

Factors that influence the book selection process of students with special needs" is a study to learn how students with special needs react to choosing their own reading material. The results show that these children use a similar process as that of other students. The students with special needs do use more factors then typical children but it is clear that they want to read the same stories as typical children.

Many studies have concluded that choice is a necessary motivator to children and has a positive impact on their education. The most natural forum for self-selection is learning to read. Every child has different interests, unique needs and backgrounds and therefore tends to choose different books to read. There are different factors that affect children's book selection. These factors include topic or subject matter, author, writing style, and illustrations or the book cover, characters, and book summaries. Students who are allowed to choose their reading material often enjoy reading. Worthy (1999) concludes that when children are interested in their learning material they improve in "learning, motivation, effort and attitude." (p. 609)

The study was open-ended and favored interviewing students and to chat about their reading experiences. The test subjects were 31 middle school students enrolled in northwestern Ohio schools. All students had special learning needs that were documented. The students discussed what attracted them to different books. After a quick pilot study to ensure the students were comfortable, the children were brought into two groups and asked a set of questions about their interests in different books. Student responses were grouped and analyzed according to fields such as subject matter, author, writing style etc.

Many of the students spoke about topic or subject matter with horror books being the most popular of thirteen different topics mentioned. Authors, writing style, characters, cover/illustrations, book summary, length, recommendations, relation to movies/television were all factors mentioned by the children in selecting their books.

The findings conclude that students with special needs should be offered the same reading selection as typical students. This selection should be large covering different topics teachers should be aware of what children read during free time and become acquainted with these popular selections. Teachers should also help children in their decision process in matching their desires with an appropriate book. Universities need to implement curriculum that addresses the need for children with special needs to choose their own readings. Students with special needs are not so different, and should not be forced to learn differently, only helped along. After all, "children with special needs are children first." (p. 617)

The second study is titled "Writing instruction for struggling adolescent readers: A graduate release model" and concludes that "new accountability systems focus on writing, struggling students need daily, coordinated instruction that is meaningful." (p. 396)

Since reading and writing is so correlated it is necessary for teachers to focus on both reading and writing in the literacy development of struggling adolescent youth. Students writing abilities are usually judged by a standardized accountability system. Although independent writing tests have been increased the results have not improved.

This study uses a gradual release of responsibility model to help struggling adolescents with reading and writing. This model transfers the responsibility to perform a task from the teacher to the student. The study was conducted in a class during a semester in an urban high school in San Diego. 31 students were enrolled in the ninth-grade class.

All students in the class were struggling readers and the class was aimed to help them with their literacy. The class was designed to transform from a teacher-controlled class to a student directed environment.

The class utilized modern writing education such as Language Experience Approach, Interactive writing, Writing models, Power writing and Generative sentences. This all led to Independent writing for the students. Students writing improved during the semester in fluency, accuracy, and length of response. Students increased their words per minute from 4.9 to 19.1.

Students also had fewer writing errors and increased their Reading Test scores from 5.47 to 6.88.

The strongest result is that it is important to accelerate achievement as quickly as possible. The gradual release model is important because it balances a students learning with their output. Reading and writing is connected and students should be able to recognize this in their work. Students also seem to benefit from daily writing instruction and a well-organized writing curriculum.

The last study is "A brief experimental analysis for identifying instruction components needed to improve oral reading fluency." 4 students with reading problems were instructed and closely monitored in reading fluency. "Instructional treatments were combined with prior conditions until there was improvement in oral reading fluency." (p. 83)

Reading different passages including HCO passages tested the four students. Intervention strategies were then used when the children read these passages. These included baseline (no response), reward, repeated readings, listening passage preview and experimental design and procedures.

All children improved their reading fluency during instructional passages. All students also improved their reading in HCO passages. The results conclude that instructional component to teaching can increase children's oral reading fluency. These procedures can be conducted quickly throughout the school year. Only some treatments will lead to improvement, but it is also important to learn which treatments are ineffective in certain students.

The three studies all try and understand how to improve literacy for students with special needs. The students were varying ages and different techniques were used but all groups had had previous trouble with reading/writing skills. The studies all proposed alternative methods to helping students learn.

The first method was by far the least direct. It is more passive because it only desires to help better understand the student. The other studies are more interested in active participation with the struggling children. In essence, they give students with special needs special help. These two studies are more concerned with refining the instruction process and taking a more proactive role in helping improve the students' reading levels.