Patterns of reading difficulty provide an educationally useful way to think about

different kinds of reading problems, whether those problems are mainly experiential
in nature (e.g., those common among English learners) or associated with
disabilities (e.g., those typical of children with dyslexia).

This article reviews research on three common patterns of poor reading: specific
word-reading difficulties, specific reading-comprehension difficulties, and mixed
reading difficulties.

The purpose of the article is to explain how teachers can use assessments to
identify individual struggling readers’ patterns of reading difficulties, and how this
information is valuable in differentiating classroom instruction and planning
interventions.

Pause and Ponder

 Which assessments are used in your school to assess children's reading? Do these
assessments enable you to identify different patterns of reading difficulties? If not,
what additional assessments could you use with struggling readers to help you do
so?
 Consider the population of children served at your school: grades, proportion of
English learners, and proportion who have limited home experiences with academic
language or literacy. Which types of reading difficulties might be especially
common?
 What are the strengths and weaknesses of the reading curriculum at your school,
particularly in relation to patterns of reading problems that might be common?
What does the curriculum do well? Which areas need strengthening?

Recently I visited the classroom of a third-grade teacher, Ms. Jackson (all names
are pseudonyms). Like many teachers, Ms. Jackson had a diverse group of
students, which included many children who were English learners or who had
limited home experiences with academic language and literacy. Several children
with disabilities also were included in her classroom, three with learning disabilities
and one with high-functioning autism. Ms. Jackson had great enthusiasm and
dedication for teaching her students, but she was concerned about the number of
children who entered her class with problems in reading, commenting quietly to me
at one point, “So many of them are needy, but in different ways.”

Individual children do vary in important ways, including in their specific interests,

personalities, and prior learning experiences. However, when it comes to reading
problems, three common patterns of difficulties tend to recur repeatedly, and most
struggling readers in Ms. Jackson's class probably fit one of these patterns.
Recognizing the underlying pattern of poor reading is particularly helpful to
providing effective intervention and differentiation of classroom instruction. This
article reviews research on common patterns of reading difficulties and explains
how understanding those patterns is useful both to classroom teachers and literacy
specialists.
What are the three types of reading problems?
As displayed in Figure 1, the three common patterns (often termed profiles) of poor
reading involve specific word-reading difficulties (SWRD), specific reading
comprehension difficulties (SRCD), and mixed reading difficulties (MRD; Catts,
Compton, Tomblin, & Bridges, 2012; Leach, Scarborough, & Rescorla, 2003; Lesaux
& Kieffer, 2010; Lipka, Lesaux, & Siegel, 2006; Valencia, 2011). The descriptions of
common types of reading problems in this article build on continuing scientific
studies as well as earlier research such as that of Valencia and Buly (2004), who
outlined six types of reading difficulties, which are consolidated in these three
common patterns.

Ficure 1. Common Patterns of Reading Problems

Children with SWRD have problems related specifically to reading words, not to
core comprehension areas such as vocabulary or background knowledge. Those
with SRCD have the opposite pattern: poor reading comprehension despite at least
average word-reading skills. And those with MRD have a combination of
weaknesses in word-reading skills and core comprehension areas. Knowledge of
these patterns is useful for helping students with many kinds of reading problems—
not only those involving certain disabilities (Aaron, Joshi, Gooden, & Bentum, 2008;
Nation, Clarke, Wright, & Williams, 2006) but also more experientially based
reading difficulties, such as those sometimes found among English learners or
children from low-socioeconomic-status backgrounds (Allington & McGill-Franzen,
2008; Kieffer, 2010; Lesaux & Kieffer, 2010).
Many studies have shown that children with difficulties in word reading benefit from
explicit, systematic phonics interventions, whereas children with comprehension
difficulties benefit from explicit teaching and modeling of text comprehension
strategies as well as from interventions that promote vocabulary and oral language
development (Aaron et al., 2008; Clarke, Snowling, Truelove, & Hulme, 2010; Ehri,
2004; Snowling & Hulme, 2012). Aaron, Joshi, Gooden, and Bentum (2008) studied
the performance of elementary-age struggling readers who received differentially
targeted interventions, depending on whether they had weaknesses specific to word
recognition (systematic phonemic awareness and phonics intervention) or
comprehension (intervention in comprehension strategies such as questioning and
summarization). Relative to comparison children who received undifferentiated
intervention in resource rooms, the intervention groups made significantly more
progress in their weak area of reading.

Differentiating classroom instruction according to different patterns also may

improve children's reading outcomes. For example, Juel and Minden-Cupp (1999-
2000) observed four experienced grade 1 teachers at two schools serving primarily
low-income students throughout a school year. At the end of the year, overall
reading achievement was lowest in the classroom of the teacher who provided the
least differentiation of instruction.

In addition, however, children who entered first grade with the lowest phonics skills
did best in reading with the teacher who provided the most emphasis on explicit,
systematic phonics for the first half of the school year, with more emphasis on
vocabulary and discussion of text later in the year. Conversely, children who began
grade 1 with strong basic reading skills did very well in reading with a teacher who
provided relatively little direct phonics teaching but emphasized discussion of text
from trade books and meaning-oriented writing activities from the start;
presumably, these children had less need for systematic phonics teaching because
they already possessed these skills. This study suggests that differentiating
classroom reading instruction according to individual children's word recognition
needs and comprehension needs can be beneficial.

Determining patterns of reading difficulties

The three types of difficulties mentioned in the preceding section involve underlying
patterns of strengths and weaknesses in specific language and reading abilities,
sometimes termed components of reading (Aaron et al., 2008; Hoover & Gough,
1990). Important components of reading include phonemic awareness, word
decoding, fluent text reading, vocabulary, and listening comprehension (National
Reading Panel, 2000). The first step in determining a struggling reader's pattern
involves assessment of these abilities that underlie reading development.

Begin by Assessing Key Components of Reading

Table 1 shows the most important components of reading to consider in a
diagnostic assessment of elementary-age struggling readers, with examples of
possible measures to use and suggestions for interpreting them or for additional
measures that may be warranted. Various measures may be used to assess each
area, as long as the assessments are technically adequate (e.g., reliable and valid)
and as long as they provide benchmarks, grade levels, or norm-referenced scores
to determine whether children perform appropriately for their grade or age.
Children who are poor comprehenders (i.e., those with SRCD or MRD) usually
benefit from more in-depth assessment of specific areas of comprehension—for
example, consideration of not only their vocabulary but also their performance on
different types of comprehension questions such as those involving inferencing,
knowledge of text structure, or background knowledge. More in-depth assessment
of all component areas, including standardized testing, is warranted in certain
situations, such as when children are failing to progress in interventions or a
disability is suspected.

Table 1. Key Components of Reading to Assess in Struggling Readers

Examples of Useful
Component Suggestions
Assessments

 Include at least one assessment

containing nonsense words.
 IRI graded word lists
Out-of-context word  If nonsense word decoding is weak,
 CBMs with nonsense words
decoding (and spelling) assess PA.
 Informal spelling inventories
 Spelling inventories may be useful for
screening groups.

 IRI graded passages:  Consider whether the child applies

Oral text reading accuracy child's accuracy of word reading known decoding skills when reading
in context passages or over-relies on context.

 IRI graded passages:

child's rate of reading in context Consider whether fluency problems
involve 1) poor decoding, 2) weak
Oral text reading fluency  CBMs involving oral passage
vocabulary/listening comprehension, or
reading fluency
3) both areas.
 Prosody rating scales

 Informal classroom assessments Consider whether weak vocabulary

Oral vocabulary of child's oral vocabulary accounts for weak listening/reading
knowledge comprehension.

Listening comprehension IRI graded passages: child's  Follow up with multiple measures or
(sentences/passages) listening comprehension for more in-depth assessment if needed.
 passages read aloud by the
teacher

 Answering comprehension
questions about passages read  Follow up with multiple measures or
Reading comprehension more in-depth assessment if needed.
 Maze CBMs

An Example: Ayisha, Ben, and Calvin

Ms. Jackson wanted to determine how best to help three struggling readers in her
class — Ayisha, Ben, and Calvin — who all had low scores on reading
comprehension assessments at the beginning of grade 3. Ms. Jackson had fall
universal screening data for these students, which used curriculum-based measures
(CBMs) involving oral reading fluency and which provided information about all
three children's accuracy and rate of text reading. She also had collected informal
reading inventory (IRI) data for the children, which showed their performance on
graded word lists, in reading graded passages, and in answering comprehension
questions.

This existing assessment data provided some useful information about components
of reading involving out-of-context word reading, accuracy and fluency of passage
reading, and reading comprehension. Ms. Jackson also considered the children's
prosody of oral reading on the IRI passages — that is, whether they read with
appropriate phrasing and expression. Prosody is an important aspect of fluency
because poor fluency may be based in vocabulary and language limitations as well
as in decoding (Kuhn, Schwanenflugel, & Meisinger, 2010; Valencia et al., 2010).
Children might read the words in a passage with ease but still read with halting
prosody because they do not understand the meaning of the text. Timed measures
of oral passage reading are useful for assessing reading accuracy and rate, whereas
rating scales may be more useful for assessing prosody (see, e.g., Benjamin et al.,
2013; Zutell & Rasinski, 1991).

In addition to readily available assessment data, Ms. Jackson also needed further
information about the children's specific decoding skills, vocabulary, and listening
comprehension. She knew that some use of nonsense words is important in
assessing decoding because nonsense words provide information about whether
children can decode unfamiliar words, whereas they may recognize real words from
memory (Siegel, 1999). When she administered this kind of decoding assessment
to Ayisha, Ben, and Calvin, only Calvin did well; Ayisha and Ben both had decoding
problems, mainly in relation to two-syllable words. Ms. Jackson also knew that poor
decoders’ phonemic awareness (PA) — such as children's ability to perform oral
phoneme blending or segmentation tasks — should be considered. However,
neither Ayisha nor Ben had difficulties with blending or segmenting phonemes.
Finally, Ms. Jackson recognized that vocabulary knowledge is particularly central to
both listening and reading comprehension (Pearson, Hiebert, & Kamil, 2007) and
that vocabulary assessments of struggling readers should be oral. If vocabulary
assessments require reading, children with decoding weaknesses may perform
poorly simply because they cannot read the words. When Ms. Jackson probed all
three students’ vocabulary and comprehension performance during classroom
instruction over the next week or so, she found that Ayisha's oral vocabulary
knowledge seemed excellent; Ayisha also consistently performed well in listening
comprehension tasks (e.g., during teacher read-alouds).

However, Ben clearly had vocabulary weaknesses, and both he and Calvin
sometimes had comprehension difficulties even during teacher read-alouds—that is,
they appeared to have weaknesses in listening comprehension. Unlike Ben, Calvin
had good vocabulary knowledge; his comprehension difficulties were more often
tied to problems in recognizing key points of a text, understanding text structure,
and summarization. Table 2 displays each child's performance on important
components of reading.

Table 2. Performance of Ayisha, Ben, and Calvin on Component

Assessments
Component Ayisha (SWRD) Ben (MRD) Calvin (SRCD)

Out-of-context word Grade-

Below grade expectations Below grade expectations
decoding (and spelling) appropriate

Often inaccurate in
Oral text reading Often inaccurate in grade- Grade-
grade-appropriate
accuracy appropriate passages appropriate
passages

Rate below grade

Rate below grade
expectations; prosody often Grade-
expectations; prosody
Oral text reading fluency poor, sometimes but not appropriate rate
often poor because of
always due to decoding and prosody
difficulties decoding
difficulties

Grade-appropriate or Grade-
Oral vocabulary Below grade expectations
better appropriate

Listening comprehension Grade-appropriate or Below grade

Below grade expectations
(sentences/passages) better expectations

Below grade
Reading comprehension Below grade expectations Below grade expectations
expectations
As Ms. Jackson's experience shows, assessing important components of reading
does not require administering an exhaustive battery of tests to every struggling
reader. Classroom teachers often have some student data available from commonly
collected formative assessments and district-wide universal screening and progress
monitoring. They also have observational data based on their students’ everyday
classroom performance. When more extensive assessment is necessary for a
particular child—for instance, if a child's difficulties seem especially serious or
difficult to interpret—classroom teachers can consult support staff such as reading
specialists, special educators, or Title I teachers. These specialists may be able to
help classroom teachers by providing information about available assessments or
by administering assessments. For children with disabilities, detailed assessment
data about important components of reading and language may already be
available in the child's individualized education plan (IEP).

Interpret Assessment Measures to Determine the Pattern of Reading

Difficulty
Once teachers have information about the specific component abilities of individual
struggling readers, they can interpret these data to determine the type of reading
difficulties each student has. Teachers should look for patterns of specific strengths
and weaknesses in important component reading and language skills. They also
should consider the dynamic underlying children's problems in reading fluency as
well as reading comprehension (Spear-Swerling, 2013, 2015), because each
pattern may (or may not) be accompanied by difficulties in reading fluency.
Moreover, slow reading may sometimes be an adaptive strategy, as when a child
intentionally reads slowly better to comprehend a difficult text (e.g., Valencia &
Buly, 2004). Table 3 displays the typical patterns for poor readers with SWRD,
SRCD, and MRD.

Table 3. Common Patterns of Reading Problems

Pattern Description Strengths Intervention Needs

 Decoding (and
sometimes PA)
below average
 Explicit, systematic phonics
 Spelling below  Good ability to learn orally intervention
average (e.g., through class
discussions and teacher  PA and fluency intervention if
Specific word  Oral vocabulary and needed
read-alouds)
reading difficulties listening
(SWRD) comprehension at  Reading comprehension  Ample opportunities to apply
least average strong when children read decoding skills in oral text
texts they can decode reading, with teacher
 Fluency often below feedback
average due to
decoding problems
 Reading
 comprehension
often below average
due to decoding
problems

 Decoding at least
average
 Reading
comprehension
 Explicit, systematic
below average
intervention targeting specific
Specific reading  Good foundational reading
 Oral vocabulary and comprehension weaknesses
comprehension skills
listening (e.g., vocabulary, inferencing)
difficulties
comprehension may Spelling often strong
(SRCD)  Include oral vocabulary and
be weak
language in intervention
 Fluency may be
weak due to
language limitations
(not poor decoding)

 Decoding below
average
 Reading
comprehension  Individual children usually
below average, even have strengths in specific  Combination of intervention
in texts children can areas of language or needs for first two patterns
Mixed reading
difficulties (MRD) decode reading (e.g., their  Multicomponent interventions
knowledge base about may be especially useful
 Reading fluency specific interests)
often weak due to
limitations in both
decoding and
language

Despite their difficulties with word decoding, children with SWRD usually do well in
situations in which information is presented verbally. These students may shine
during teacher read-alouds and class discussions, able to answer sophisticated
comprehension questions accurately and thoughtfully, especially when text content
has been presented orally. Although some children with SWRD may have
considerable knowledge of sight words, the hallmark of this pattern involves
difficulty decoding unfamiliar words using phonics knowledge. These children also
may have difficulties with reading fluency due to inaccurate or labored decoding,
and they nearly always have poor spelling.
Sight-word knowledge, ability to use context cues, and verbal strengths may enable
some children with SWRD to compensate well enough to score at average levels for
reading comprehension; however, compensation becomes increasingly difficult as
children advance beyond the earliest grades. In relation to implementation of the
Common Core State Standards currently influencing English language arts
instruction in many states (Shanahan, 2013), students with SWRD can grasp
challenging vocabulary and comprehension standards as well as typical readers,
particularly in an oral context or with accommodations for their difficulties in
reading grade-level text, but will need help meeting foundational standards from
the Common Core.

Children with SRCD struggle with reading comprehension despite having at least
average decoding skills. Often, their comprehension difficulties are tied to mild
weaknesses in vocabulary or broad language comprehension, although generally
these difficulties are not severe enough to make them eligible for speech-language
services (Nation, 2005). Poor comprehenders may have weaknesses in many
specific areas, including use of comprehension strategies, text structure, and
background knowledge (Neuman & Celano, 2006; Rand Reading Study Group,
2002). Reading fluency may be poor because of language comprehension
weaknesses—that is, a child may read slowly because he or she does not
understand the text.

Children with SRCD are likely to meet foundational standards from the Common
Core as well as typical readers but may have difficulties with many comprehension-
related standards, such as those involving vocabulary, summarization, author's
craft, or citing evidence from texts. Although they can decode grade-appropriate
texts, they may need considerable teacher scaffolding in order to comprehend them
(see, e.g., Shanahan, Fisher, & Frey, 2012).

Children with MRD have a combination of the problems seen in the first two
patterns: weaknesses in decoding and phonological skills, but also in core
comprehension areas such as vocabulary or listening comprehension. (This is why
Figure 1 shows this pattern in an overlapping area between SWRD and SRCD.)
Unlike readers with SWRD, those with MRD have difficulties in reading
comprehension even when reading texts they can decode well, because of their
core comprehension weaknesses. Reading fluency may be poor due to a
combination of decoding problems and language limitations. These students often
have difficulty meeting both foundational and comprehension-related standards
from the Common Core.

Although students with MRD have more generalized reading problems than those
with SWRD or SRCD, these students typically do have individual areas of strength,
which teachers can capitalize upon in intervention. For example, a student with a
combination of decoding and general vocabulary weaknesses may have a strong
interest in a specific topic, such as animals or sports, about which he or she has
considerable background knowledge and motivation to read.
Ms. Jackson looked at the information from the assessments of component abilities
for Ayisha, Ben, and Calvin, and she also reflected on the dynamics underlying each
child's reading problems. Ayisha's reading comprehension and reading fluency
difficulties obviously were tied entirely to decoding. Her vocabulary was excellent;
her comprehension was consistently strong during teacher read-alouds or when she
was reading text she could decode; and her slow rate of reading and poor prosody
clearly stemmed from labored decoding. Ayisha's pattern of poor reading involved
SWRD.

Calvin had the opposite pattern: good decoding and text reading accuracy, as well
as grade-appropriate fluency (both in terms of rate and prosody), but weaknesses
in reading comprehension and language comprehension. His difficulties in
summarization and lack of knowledge about text structure were apparent whether
he was reading or listening, an indicator of a core comprehension weakness. His
pattern involved SRCD.

Like Ayisha, Ben had problems in decoding, but unlike Ayisha, his difficulties in
reading comprehension were not always tied to faulty decoding; they also appeared
linked to vocabulary weaknesses. Furthermore, his reading fluency problems likely
related to both areas, labored decoding and language comprehension difficulties.
Ben's pattern of poor reading involved MRD.

Effective instruction and interventions for each pattern

Clearly, interventions for Ayisha, Ben, and Calvin need to differ in some important
ways. The far-right column of Table 3 shows the intervention needs associated with
each type of reading difficulty.

Children with SWRD, such as Ayisha, typically require highly explicit, systematic
phonics intervention. Ayisha did not have problems in phonemic awareness, but for
children with these weaknesses, PA intervention should be integrated with phonics
instruction (Ehri, 2004); children can learn PA skills such as phoneme blending and
segmentation in the context of decoding and spelling words from specific phonics
categories. More advanced students with SWRD like Ayisha — those learning to
decode two-syllable or multisyllabic words — often benefit from learning
syllabication strategies and structural analysis. Struggling decoders also must apply
their developing decoding skills in oral reading of text that provides a reasonable
match to their word-reading skills, with teacher guidance and feedback (Cheatham
& Allor, 2012; Vadasy, Sanders, & Peyton, 2005).

Children with SRCD, like Calvin, need interventions focused on the specific
comprehension areas in which they are weak. Because knowledge of text structure
and the ability to summarize texts were areas of difficulty for Calvin, Ms. Jackson
modeled for him how to identify key points in texts and construct a summary. She
also used graphic organizers to teach him about text structure. Ms. Jackson taught
these skills in the context of oral activities, such as during read-alouds and
classroom discussions, as well as in the context of Calvin's own reading. Many
comprehension abilities can be developed through listening as well as reading, and
including oral language development as part of the intervention may be particularly
useful for children with SRCD (Clarke et al., 2010).

Children with MRD, like Ben, need phonics interventions and opportunities to apply
decoding skills in reading text, coupled with explicit teaching targeting their specific
comprehension weaknesses. Ben's difficulties in comprehension tended to involve
vocabulary. For children with limitations in this area, direct teaching of target
academic words and strategies for inferring word meanings from context, as well as
morphological instruction focused on the meanings of root words and affixes, is
often effective (Goodwin & Ahn, 2013). Vocabulary development should occur
through oral activities such as teacher read-alouds as well as through students’
reading. Multicomponent interventions that address multiple components of reading
in an integrated way (e.g., Gelzheiser, Scanlon, Vellutino, Hallgren-Flynn, &
Schatschneider, 2011) also may be especially valuable for students with MRD.

For all types of reading difficulties, the suggestions for intervention in Table 3
should be implemented as part of a more comprehensive program of English
language arts instruction, with strong collaboration between classroom teachers
and interventionists to ensure an effective program. For example, children with
SWRD, like Ayisha, need instruction in vocabulary, language, and comprehension;
however, they do not need intervention in these areas and can usually receive their
vocabulary and comprehension development as part of the core general education
program, as long as any necessary adaptations of instruction are made (e.g., oral
presentation of grade-level material that children cannot read themselves).
Likewise, children with SRCD, like Calvin, need to learn the foundational decoding
and spelling skills that are part of the expectations for their grade, but they do not
need intervention in these areas.

Of course, most classroom teachers have very limited time for implementing
interventions with struggling readers. However, information about common types of
reading difficulties can still be helpful to general educators in differentiating
classroom instruction. A primary-grade teacher like Ms. Jackson could differentiate
instruction through small flexible groups, with one group to meet the most frequent
needs of third graders with SWRD (e.g., additional explicit phonics instruction
focused on syllabication and decoding of two-syllable and multisyllabic words) and
another to meet the most frequent needs of those with SRCD (e.g., additional
instruction in vocabulary and background knowledge). Children with MRD might
participate in both groups. This approach is unlikely to meet the needs
of all struggling readers in a class, but it could still benefit many students.

Indeed, this is what Ms. Jackson did for Ayisha, Ben, and Calvin. Ayisha and Ben
made very good progress with this approach. Calvin made some progress, but he
ultimately needed more intensive intervention through a reading specialist, to which
he responded well.

Additional information about the patterns

Early- and Late-Emerging Reading Problems
Each pattern of reading difficulties may emerge relatively early or relatively later in
schooling, with early-emerging problems generally defined as reading difficulties
evident by grade 3 and late-emerging problems as those first manifesting in grade
4 or later (Leach et al., 2003). Ayisha, Ben, and Calvin's problems, apparent at the
beginning of grade 3, would all be considered early-emerging.

Early-emerging reading difficulties often involve problems in decoding — that is,

either an SWRD or MRD pattern (Leach et al., 2003)—because learning to decode is
central to children's early reading development (Ehri, 2004). Still, some decoding
problems do not manifest in the earliest grades, and frequently these weaknesses
involve decoding of complex or multisyllabic words rather than one-syllable words
(Catts et al., 2012; Lipka et al., 2006). A child might have mild weaknesses in
phonological skills that do not greatly affect her decoding of simple words but that
become more problematic as she advances into grades 4 or 5 and encounters
harder words.

As Calvin's example shows, reading problems involving SRCD can appear in the
earliest grades. More often, however, these problems are late-emerging (Catts
et al., 2012; Leach et al., 2003), related to escalating demands for reading
comprehension in grades 4 and up. A student with mild weaknesses in vocabulary
or background knowledge might progress normally in reading comprehension at
first but have more difficulties as the expectations for comprehension increase
across grades. These students do often have early languageweaknesses, but the
language weaknesses may not actually affect reading until the middle or upper
elementary grades.

Research on late-emerging reading problems suggests that screening and

intervention for both broad language weaknesses and phonological weaknesses
may help prevent future reading difficulties (Scarborough, 2005). Also, these
studies indicate that even the best primary-grade screening and intervention efforts
cannot be expected to prevent all reading problems, so providing opportunities for
reading intervention beyond the primary grades is essential.

Prevalence of Different Patterns in Specific Groups of Children

The prevalence of different types of reading difficulties depends not only on grade
level but also on the school population. For instance, many studies suggest that
children from certain demographic groups, such as English learners and those from
low-income families, may tend to have weaknesses in vocabulary, academic
language, and academic background knowledge (August & Shanahan, 2006; Barone
& Xu, 2008; Neuman & Celano, 2006). Teachers at schools serving these
populations, such as Ms. Jackson, can expect to encounter relatively greater
numbers of children with MRD or SRCD as opposed to SWRD. Some children will
experience decoding problems, but because they may often have vocabulary
weaknesses too, they may tend to demonstrate a pattern of MRD rather than
SWRD. If schools serving these populations provide a strong emphasis on
vocabulary and academic language from the earliest grades, this may help to
prevent many children's reading difficulties.
 Certain patterns also tend to be associated with some disabilities. Children with
high-functioning autism often have a pattern of SRCD, with poor reading
comprehension despite average or even better-than-average word decoding skills
and with comprehension difficulties connected to the specific cognitive-linguistic
weaknesses associated with autism. Conversely, children with dyslexia typically
display a pattern of SWRD (Huemer & Mann, 2010) usually associated with
phonological weaknesses. Although assessment of individual poor readers’
component abilities always is important, teachers’ awareness of the patterns
commonly associated with these disabilities can provide an initial basis for planning
instruction and accommodations.

As the preceding discussion suggests, individual children's experiences (including

instructional experiences), as well as their intrinsic abilities, can influence their
patterns of reading difficulties. Children can have vocabulary weaknesses because
of language disabilities or simply because they were not exposed to the vocabulary
words; they can have decoding problems because of a learning disability such as
dyslexia or because of inadequate phonics instruction. However, knowledge about
causation is not necessary for information about the child's pattern of reading
difficulty to be valuable in instruction; children with decoding or vocabulary
weaknesses need intervention in those areas regardless of the ultimate cause of the
weaknesses.

Points to remember
Information about individual poor readers’ patterns of reading difficulties provides
an extremely helpful starting point for teachers of reading. Children with SRCD
aren't likely to profit from phonics intervention, whereas those with SWRD and MRD
generally are. Successful phonics intervention should enable struggling readers with
SWRD to attain grade-appropriate reading comprehension, whereas those with MRD
also will require a comprehension component in their interventions. A fluency
intervention that emphasizes speed and automaticity of word decoding may help
children with SWRD and MRD, but it is unlikely to help a disfluent reader with
SRCD, who may benefit much more from interventions focused on vocabulary and
comprehension development.

Children with different patterns of reading difficulty also tend to benefit from
different technology supports (Erickson, 2013) and to display different kinds of
strengths that can be tapped in the classroom. And they require different types of
progress-monitoring measures to gauge their progress during intervention — a
measure sensitive to decoding growth for SWRD, one sensitive to growth in
vocabulary and/or comprehension for SRCD, and both types of measures for MRD.
Information about common patterns of reading difficulties may be only a starting
point, but it is a valuable foundation for differentiating instruction and planning
effective interventions in reading.

Take Action!
 Identify a struggling or at-risk reader in your classroom.
 Consider available assessment data, and administer any additional assessments of
language or reading needed to help you identify the child's pattern of reading
difficulty.
 Think about whether the child's difficulties involve decoding only, comprehension
only, or a combination of both areas. If the child has problems in reading fluency,
consider whether those problems involve decoding, language comprehension, or a
combination of both areas. Also, consider the child's strengths.
 Decide on the child's pattern of reading difficulty.
 Use this information to differentiate instruction or plan an intervention. Also, decide
the best way to monitor the child's progress.

What is reading comprehension?

Researchers have defined reading comprehension as a multi-faceted process where

readers construct meaning as they interact with the text.

Comprehension is only possible if the reader activates prior knowledge and past
experiences to actively respond to the reading material.

The way each child uses their background knowledge and strategies to understand the
text then leads to different interpretations of the reading material.

What are some of the difficulties in reading

comprehension?

Often, the main problem with reading comprehension is that children lack the
strategies to actively engage with the text so that they can understand it.

Some of these strategies that may prove to be challenging for them include decoding
the words and making inferences.

As a result, children find it difficult to understand what they are reading. Research has
revealed that the explicit teaching of such strategies can improve reading
comprehension.

Here are some ways how you can help improve your child’s reading comprehension.
1. Excite your child about reading and help them make
connections to the story

When reading, there is no need to jump straight into the story. Get your child to first
look at the book cover or title of the story and make predictions about what the story
is going to be.

Excite your child about reading by activating their background knowledge about the
story. Then have them recall what they already know about the topic mentioned in the
story. This will enable them to connect better to what they are going to read, and thus
increase their levels of reading comprehension.

2. Decoding difficulties can hinder reading

comprehension

There is no use in reading a complex text if your child is unable to comprehend it. If a
lot of effort is used to decode the words in a text, it is likely that your child will not
understand what he/she is reading.

Scholastic recommends the five-finger rule. If there are more than five words on a
page that your child does not know, the text is too difficult. Choose a book that your
child is able to recall details of and is able to tell you what he or she knows about the
story.

Read also: 3 Tactics to Boost Your Kid’s Math Score by Improving Reading
Comprehension

3. Set Reading Goals

According to Reading Rockets, a good reader will set goals before reading. What is
the aim of reading the text? Is it to find the main idea or to analyse the characters in
the story? Encourage your child to think aloud as he or she begins reading while
keeping in mind the goals for reading.
4. Read along with your child and model the use of
comprehension strategies

Our children model everything that we do.

What better way to teach reading comprehension than to model the use of these
strategies explicitly?

Here are some examples:

Identify the main ideas in the story

As you read the passage, show your child how you think aloud. Highlight the main
ideas and important points in the text and say,

I’m highlighting these main ideas as it will help me to understand what this story is about.
Related: Foolproof Ways to Jumpstart Your PreSchool Child’s Reading Journey
in Singapore

Stop at areas that require you to make in ferences

Many children struggle with making inferences.

Making inferences is the finding of information about events or characters that are not
provided directly.

Show your child how they can look for clues in the passage or use their background
knowledge to make inferences.

Ask questions about the text

Show your child how to ask questions about the text. This will encourage them to
think about what they are reading. Such questions include, “Why did the character
choose to do that?” or “What do you think will happen in the end?”.

These questions can encourage the reader to actively look for answers as he/she reads
along, and this will facilitate reading comprehension.

Read also: 4 Surprising Ways Creative Art Supports Your Kid’s Reading
Comprehension & Cognition

5. Carry out different after-reading activities to

encourage a deeper level of understanding

After reading, encourage your child to think deeper about the various story elements
by carrying out different activities.

For example, have them visualise the different characters in the story by drawing out
the characters as depicted in the story.

Alternatively, draw a story map to show the sequencing of the story.

These after-reading activities can enable your child to develop a deeper understanding
of what they have just read.

Related: Find Out How Reading Fires Up Your Kid’s Creative Writing Brain

Practice makes perfect

The best way to help your child with comprehension reading is to work continuously
with your child using the strategies as mentioned above.

With regular practice, your child can overcome these reading comprehension
difficulties.
Interventions:

Explicit Instruction
That's what explicit phonics means—that we start with the simplest sound in
a word and then build out from there - from patterns to syllables and then the
whole word. Explicit phonics is a key component in the broader structured
literacy approach.
“There's more than one way to skin a cat" is an idiom (or saying) that means there are
multiple ways to accomplish something. In most cases, it is absolutely true; there is
usually more than one solution to a problem and different ways to approach most tasks.
When talking about teaching reading, there are several approaches that have been
researched and debated. The aforementioned idiom also means that an issue can be
approached in different ways, but the final result will be the same. With reading, that is
not the case. The manner of instruction is just as important, if not more so, as what is
instructed, and it significantly affects the results.

What Is Explicit Phonics Instruction?

Explicit phonics, part of the structured literacy approach, also referred to as synthetic
phonics, builds from part to whole. It begins with the instruction of the letters
(graphemes) with their associated sounds (phonemes). Next, explicit phonics teaches
blending and building, beginning with blending the sounds into syllables and then into
words. Explicit phonics is scientifically proven and research based.

Learn strategies for teaching explicit phonics instruction and earn free PD credit:
READING WORKSHOP

What Is Implicit Phonics Instruction?

Implicit phonics, also referred to as analytical phonics, moves from the whole to the
smallest part. Phonemes associated with particular graphemes are not pronounced in
isolation. Students analyze words and look for the common phoneme in a set of words.
Through comparison and identification, they deduce which grapheme to write or which
phoneme to read. Blending and building are not usually taught, and students identify
new words by their shape, beginning and ending letters, and context clues. This
analysis (breaking down) of the whole word to its parts is necessary only when a child
cannot read it as a whole word. This is a whole-language approach.

Which Approach to Teaching Phonics Is Best?

Research has been conclusive that explicit phonics instruction is the most effective.
The U.S. Department of Education, the National Research Council, and the National
Reading Panel have all conducted research and have released finding reports that
support this statement. The National Reading Panel’s report on its quantitative research
studies on areas of reading instruction was published in 2000. The panel reported that
several reading strategies are critical to becoming good readers: phonics for word
identification, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. With regard to phonics, its
meta-analysis of hundreds of studies confirmed the findings of the National Research
Council: Teaching phonics (and related phonics skills, such as phonemic awareness) is
a more effective way to teach children early reading skills than is embedded phonics or
no phonics instruction (taken from National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development [2000]. Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read:
An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its
implications for reading instruction [NIH Publication No. 00-4769]. Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Government Printing Office).

Scientific research has clearly demonstrated that explicit phonics instruction is the
single-most effective approach for all students. Obviously, many students can learn to
read without such instruction; however, it is not only the at-risk students who achieve
greater success under a phonics regime – so do those in the average and below-
average reading groups (those who do OK but do not excel). A large-scale study by
Barbara Foorman and colleagues from the University of Houston found that explicit,
systematic phonics was by far the most effective approach. It was also more effective in
reducing the occurrence of reading problems than any of the one-on-one tutorial
programs that were evaluated, including Reading Recovery. Her findings are consistent
with both currently accepted theories of reading development and instruction and with
other empirical research emphasizing student outcome measures.

Learn strategies for teaching phonics to beginn

One clear conclusion, both from van den Broek’s work and that of others
(e.g., Storch & Whitehurst, 2002), discussed earlier, is that models
that presuppose that the development of basic reading skills (e.g., phonological
skills and word decoding) must precede the development of
comprehension skills, need to be questioned. A perspective that fits
better with recent data is that comprehension skills develop simultaneously
with basic language skills and have their roots in early narrative
30 TYPICALLY DEVELOPING CHILDREN
comprehension. This alternative approach has implications both for
reading comprehension interventions and assessment.
In terms of interventions, a clear implication is that we should be
careful not to focus on the teaching of decoding skills to the exclusion
of other skills—that is, we should not wait until children are proficient
in decoding before beginning instruction in oral language skills such
as vocabulary, syntax, inference making, and comprehension monitoring.
Not only are oral language skills linked to the code-related skills
that help word reading to develop, but they also provide the foundation
for the development of the more-advanced language skills needed
for comprehension. Research on children with oral language impairments
also supports this conclusion. For example, follow-up studies of
children with language impairments before they start school show that
the nature of their reading problems changes over time to include
problems with both decoding and comprehension (e.g., Snowling,
Bishop, & Stothard, 2000; Stothard, Snowling, Bishop, Chipchase, &
Kaplan, 1998).
There is already substantial evidence for the effects of early phonemic
awareness training on later reading, but little work has been
done on early awareness of syntactic/narrative skills and later comprehension.
Clearly, more work is needed to explore the types of early
intervention that will improve young children’s appreciation of narrative
structure, but van den Broek’s work suggests that early interventions
could make use of televised or aurally presented stories. Indeed,
Palincsar and Brown (1984) showed that the comprehension skills of
prereaders could be successfully improved with aurally presented text.
Another direct implication of van den Broek and colleagues’
work relates to assessment. This work has shown that assessments of
comprehension in preschool children, who are not yet able to read,
are highly predictive of later reading comprehension skill. Thus, narrative
understanding measured aurally, or by means of televised stories,
could be used to predict future reading comprehension performance
and such assessments might also be used to predict which
children are likely to experience later reading comprehension difficulties
(in much the same way as early measures of phonological
skills have been used to predict which children might be at risk of
developing dyslexia).
In sum, there is now converging evidence that there is a common
basis of basic language skills that underpin the development of written,
as well as spoken, language comprehension. This knowledge should
lead to better specified models of how the skills crucial to successful
language comprehension are acquired, and should result in concomitant
progress in both interventions and assessment.