Comprehensive reading instruction for students with intellectual disabilities: Findings from the first three years of a longitudinal study

Abstract

This longitudinal experimental study investigated the reading progress of students with IQs ranging from 40 to 69 (i.e., range for students with mild or moderate mental retardation or intellectual disabilities [ID]) across at least two academic years, as well as the effectiveness of a comprehensive reading intervention for these students across the same period of time. Participants were 59 elementary students who were randomly placed into treatment and contrast groups. Students in the treatment condition received daily, comprehensive reading instruction in small groups of 1–4 students for 40–50 minutes per session across two or three academic years. Measures of phonemic awareness, phonics, word recognition, comprehension, and oral language were included. Findings indicate that students with IQs in the ID range made significant progress on multiple standardized measures of reading. Furthermore, significant differences between the treatment group and contrast group were found on several measures, including progress‐monitoring measures of phoneme segmentation, phonics, and oral reading fluency. Results demonstrate that, on average, students with ID, even those with IQs in the moderate range, learn basic reading skills given consistent, explicit, and comprehensive reading instruction across an extended period of time. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Strengths and weaknesses in reading skills of youth with intellectual disabilities

“…Several reading intervention studies incorporating phonological awareness training for youth with ID have been conducted (e.g., see Lemons & Fuchs, 2010b). These studies have included oral blending of words, onset-rime segments, and individual phonemes; clapping or tapping syllables and phonemes; identifying first, middle, and last sounds; and segmenting words into phonemes (Allor, Mathes, Roberts, Cheatham, & Champlin, 2010; Baylis & Snowling, 2012; Bradford et al, 2006; Browder, Ahlgrim-Delzell, Courtade, Gibbs, & Flowers, 2008; Burgoyne et al, 2012; Cohen et al, 2008; Cologon, Cupples, & Wyver, 2011; Conners et al, 2006; Cupples & Iacono, 2002; Goetz et al, 2008; Lemons & Fuchs, 2010a). …”

Sign it, say it, read it: the effectiveness of American sign language as a supplement to reading instruction for children with Down syndrome

“…The results of this study add to the research indicating that students with ID/DD are capable of acquiring literacy skills with intensive instruction (Allor et al, 2009(Allor et al, , 2010(Allor et al, , 2014Burgoyne et al, 2012). Mounting evidence, including these results, also suggest that learning to read supports language acquisition with this population (Megoni, Silvana, Nash & Hulme, 2013;Colozzo, et al , 2015).…”

Teaching Reading for Students with Intellectual Disabilities: A Systematic Review

“…In this sense, Allor, Mathes, Roberts, Cheatham, and Champlin (2010) examined the effectiveness of comprehensive reading instruction on improving students with intellectual analyze the collected data; pre-post test as the first factor and the groups as the second factor. They found that there were significant differences between the groups.…”