Literacy for Children With Disabilities

Literacy for Children With Disabilities

This article is a useful combination of theoretical information and a summary of research. The authors show the connection between learning disabilities and problems with literacy. They include some statistics to show the significance of the problem of learning disabilities in Australia and New Zealand. The outline of the rest of the paper follows

Section one is an overview of the research in learning difficulties in middle-school years. This is followed by section two which discusses effective literacy instruction and interventions for students with learning disabilities. Section three outlines two of the major factors affecting literacy in children with learning disabilities- the working memory and automaticity. Finally section four describes the study carried out using Quick Smart as an intervention for children with learning disabilities.

The Quick Smart program incorporates both assessment and intervention strategies. The computer program (CAAS) measures and records several aspects of the student's performance, including simple perception, letter naming,-word naming and sentence understanding. In the study described by these authors, a group of students in a middle school in Australia were exposed to the program for a total of thirty- two weeks over a three-semester period. The study reported significant improvements in several skills such as word recognition, sentence comprehension, and performance in standardized tests. There were additional advantages reported by the parents, especially an increase in self-confidence of the students. The authors therefore conclude that "Quick Smart is an example of a rigorous and effective teaching intervention designed for students with learning difficulties in the middle years of schooling" (p.232).

One of the distinct advantages of this article is the combination of theoretical information and report of a research study. The theoretical information is very well organized into the four sections. Each of the first three sections contained a clearly written discussion of different aspects of literacy and the relation to learning disabilities and difficulties. However although the authors say that "the first section provides a brief overview of research on learning difficulties in the middle-school years" (p. 222), the discussion of the research itself could have been more in-depth, beyond only mentioning a general conclusion of the findings by only a few researchers, with perhaps more recent research studies beyond 2005. Useful strategies derived from a meta-analysis done in 1999 for improving reading comprehension were provided. Two important skills were identified as common factors in learning difficulties and these were related to reading problems -- working memory and automaticity.

The Quick Smart program was described. There were many assessment strategies incorporated into the program. The computer assisted component of the program carried out assessments at the beginning, middle and end of the study, and there were also brief assessments on a particular sub-test at the end of some of the lessons. Other assessments were included- a standardized test of reading comprehension before and after the intervention. The program itself also included on-going assessment by many of the activities in the program, for example worksheets. Therefore the importance of assessment is addressed in more than one way.