Kids' reading problems can emerge later
Study finds they can begin in fourth and fifth grades.
"Parents and educators may assume that if children are reading well in the first
and second grades, they will continue to read well in later grades.
That's not always the case, reports a new study: Some youngsters develop "late-emerging"
reading disabilities.
The problem, says study author Hollis Scarborough, is that these children aren't
being identified by schools as having difficulties because tests designed to pick
up these problems are generally administered in earlier grades.
"We found that some kids who are successful readers can show rather abrupt changes
or declines starting in fourth or fifth grades," says Scarborough, a senior research
scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Conn. Haskins is a nonprofit research
center for the study of speech, language and reading. The study appears in the June
issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology.
Scarborough and her colleagues recruited 161 children for this study. The group
consisted of 74 fourth-graders and 87 fifth-graders, and was almost equally split
between male and female. Ninety-five percent of the kids were white. The children
were from 12 different schools in the greater Philadelphia area - six were in affluent
communities and six were in more socioeconomically diverse areas.
The researchers examined the children's reading, language and cognitive skills.
They found 95 students had age-appropriate reading skills, 35 who were identified
with reading problems before third grade, and 31 with late-emerging reading difficulty.
Only nine of the youngsters with a late-emerging reading disability had been identified
by their school.
"Typically, kids with reading disabilities show up early," explains Scarborough.
"One possibility why the schools aren't identifying these kids is that no one expects
this to happen. It's likely that in a year or two a lot of these reading disabilities
will be picked up."
Not all of the kids had the same difficulties with reading, reports the study.
"Some show declines in comprehension, and some kids have problems with recognizing
printed words," Scarborough says.
Thirty-two percent of those in the late-emerging reading disability group had strong
word recognition but difficulty with reading comprehension, while 35 percent had
trouble with words, phonetics and spelling, but had no trouble with overall comprehension.
The remainder of the group - 33 percent - had trouble in both word recognition and
comprehension.
"The number one thing schools can do is to be alert that this does happen," Scarborough
says. To catch these problems, however, requires individual assessment, which is
too expensive and unnecessary to do for all children. However, Scarborough says
if your child seems to be struggling, you should seek an individual assessment.
She cautions that schools may not initially be receptive to the idea.
"It's a child's right to learn how to read," says Susan J. Schwartz, clinical coordinator
at the Institute for Learning and Academic Achievement at the New York University
Child Study Center, who says she wasn't surprised by the study's findings.
She says parents need to make sure their children are getting sufficient and appropriate
help. For a first-grader, whose job in school is almost exclusively learning to
read, Schwarz says extra help once a week is not enough. Likewise, once a week is
not enough for a fourth-grader who is having reading difficulties because his job
is now to read to learn, she says.
If your child isn't getting the help she needs, Schwarz says you can petition the
school district's committee on special education to get extra assistance."