Two recent changes in federal law have made an impact on reading instruction in the United States, particularly for students for whom learning to read is difficult. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), signed into law in 2002, requires that all students meet an achievement standard in reading by the year 2014. NCLB also recognizes that reading specialists are highly qualified to instruct students who struggle with reading, even if those students have been identified as having a learning disability. In addition, with the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 2004, a new method of identifying students with learning disabilities is recommended. This preferred method of identification is called Response to Intervention (RTI). Students are identified as requiring special education services after their lack of response to evidence-based instruction in reading has been documented. The process through which the instructional practices are documented and monitored is called Problem Solving. This study was a qualitative investigation of the role of the reading specialist in the Problem Solving model. Participants in this grounded theory study included reading specialists employed by one of five large K-12 school districts implementing Problem Solving. Questionnaires were sent to 207 reading specialists in the Prairie West Consortium. The responses to the questionnaires were examined, and those responding to the questionnaires were offered the opportunity to participate in an interview with the investigator. Follow-up interviews with 10 individual reading specialists were conducted. Through an examination of data including the responses to the questionnaires, interview transcripts, and handouts from Problem Solving training meetings, a theory was developed regarding the role of the reading specialist in Problem Solving. Because of his or her unique professional preparation, the expertise of the reading specialist was found to be essential to successful implementation of Problem Solving. Findings indicated that it is the reading specialist who can identify the research-based instructional strategies most beneficial to students who struggle with reading. Through collaboration with other professionals on the Problem Solving team, the reading specialist can help create a vision for the model in his or her district or school. The reading specialist can also assist his or her team in considering the student's story in conjunction with assessment data, including curriculum-based measurement. The study concludes with implications for practice and future research. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.] Descriptors: Educational Strategies, Reading Consultants, Federal Legislation, Learning Disabilities, Questionnaires, Problem Solving, Literacy, Response to Intervention, Special Education, Reading Instruction, Models ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway, P.O. Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Tel: 800-521-0600; Web site: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml
Click on the movie below to watch the Rosa Parks Elementary School S-Team members discuss their current method of identifying struggling readers (time: 0:53).
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Transcript: Identifying Struggling Readers The S-Team at Rosa Parks Elementary believes that there must be a better way to help their struggling readers. They are also frustrated that so many students have to wait and eventually fail before they can qualify for special ed services. Rosa Parks Elementary, like most schools in the country, uses an IQ-achievement discrepancy model to identify struggling readers who have learning disabilities. This is the traditional method, which has been used for over three decades, so some of the team members assume that it must be a good approach. However, others wonder if the system they are using might be part of the problem. The S-Team members realize that they don’t really know very much about their current process, other than it refers a student to a school psychologist and then test results come back. They decide they should learn more about how the identification process works. What Is the IQ-Achievement Discrepancy Model?
The Normal Curve Many psychologists, as well as education professionals, medical professionals, and others, are interested in characteristics of people, such as intelligence, academic achievement, height, or weight. When these characteristics are measured in large groups of people, the measurements tend to create a pattern referred to as the normal curve or the bell curve (see Figure A below). Most people have scores or measurements on these characteristics that fall within the average range. The further away from average that a score is, the fewer people will exhibit that score. Figure A Figure B (below) is based on invented data about women’s height. Let’s use it to illustrate an example. If the average (or mean) height of a woman in the United States is 5’4″, most women (68%) will exhibit a height between 5’2″ and 5’6″. Only 16% (13% + 3%) of women will be taller than 5’6″ and only 3% of women will be taller than 5’8″. The same is true for the other side of the normal curve; 16% of women will be shorter than 5’2″ and 3% will be shorter than 5’0″. Figure B (Close this panel)
A student with an average IQ score (around 100) is expected to receive average (or grade-level) scores on achievement tests. So a fourth grader with an average IQ score (represented by the red bar in the figure to the left) and a reading achievement score at the fourth-grade level (represented by the yellow bar) is performing as expected. Click here for definitions to the terms used in the graph.
Terms Used in the Graph Standard Score is the score obtained on a standardized test, where the mean is set at 100 and the standard deviation is usually set at 15. Standard Deviation is how much a student’s score deviates from the mean, or average, score. Grade Equivalents are expressed in the form “grade.months,” so here the “average reader” (4.7) is reading at the level of a student in the seventh month of the fourth grade. IQ Score is an overall score obtained on a standardized test of intelligence. For the scores shown on this graph, the average scores fall between 85 and 115, and 100 is the mean. Reading Score is an overall score obtained on a standardized test of reading achievement. For the scores shown on this graph, the average scores fall between 85 and 115, and 100 is the mean. Discrepancy is the amount of difference between a student’s scores on a standardized test of intelligence and a standardized test of achievement. (Close this panel)
Students with learning disabilities, however, exhibit unexpected learning difficulties because their level of achievement is far below what is predicted by their IQ scores. This figure shows scores for a fourth-grade student who qualifies for special education services because of a reading disability. The student demonstrates a discrepancy between expected achievement and actual achievement. He has an IQ score of 100 (as indicated by the red bar), but his reading score is 68 (as indicated by the yellow bar). Though his IQ score indicates that he should be reading at least at the fourth-grade level, he is instead reading at the first-grade level. Because of the discrepancy, this student has been identified as having a reading disability. Many teachers, like those at Rosa Parks Elementary School, express concern and frustration that the IQ-achievement discrepancy model rarely identifies students with learning disabilities in the early grades. Rather, these students often struggle for years before they are finally identified. Click on the movie below to learn why it can take so long for students to be identified as having learning disabilities and to then qualify for special education services (time: 1:46).
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Transcript: Identifying Learning Disabilities It can be confusing, at first, to understand why it takes several years for a student to meet the eligibility criteria for a learning disability. Most people ask, “If a student has a learning disability, wouldn’t he or she have one in the first grade as well as in the third grade?” The answer to that question is “Yes!” Unfortunately, current methods just don’t do a good job of identifying learning disabilities during the early elementary-school years. As students progress through the elementary grade levels, their academic skills should progress at a parallel rate. However, there is a small group of students, those with learning disabilities, who demonstrate average intellectual ability but who lag behind in reading achievement. These students’ reading skills are, in effect, progressing at a snail’s pace while their classmates’ skills are developing much more rapidly. Since the average kindergarten or first-grade student’s reading skills are fairly limited, many assessments are not sensitive to the small gap in skills exhibited by struggling young readers. Since the discrepancy needed to meet the qualifying criteria for a learning disability is quite large, it often takes several years for the gap between the performance of the lagging students and that of their peers’ to become large enough to meet eligibility for special education services. For this reason, students are often not identified as having a learning disability until the third grade or later. It’s not that their skills are getting worse or that they somehow develop a learning problem somewhere between Kindergarten and third or fourth grade—they’ve been struggling all along. They were just not identified sooner because the IQ-achievement discrepancy was not yet large enough to qualify them for special education services. Another limitation of the IQ-achievement discrepancy model is that it does not assess or inform the quality of instruction received by students. Some students may be identified as having learning disabilities when, in reality, they simply have not experienced classroom instruction that meets their learning needs. Furthermore, the assessments that are used to identify a learning disability do not yield information that can easily be used to guide subsequent instruction. Click on the audios below to hear two experts discuss other concerns about the IQ-achievement discrepancy model. Doug Fuchs is a national expert in the areas of reading instruction and learning disabilities. Leonard Baca is a nationally recognized leader in the areas of bilingual and multicultural special education. Listen as Doug Fuchs discusses the issue of linguistic diversity in relation to administering and scoring progress monitoring probes. Next, listen to Leonard Baca discuss concerns about using Spanish translations of English language assessments.
Doug Fuchs, PhD (time: 1:45)
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Leonard Baca, PhD (time: 1:05) View Transcript
Transcript: Doug Fuchs, PhD A lot of people have raised concerns about the validity of IQ-achievement discrepancy. First, there’s lots of ways of thinking about intelligence not captured by or explored by IQ tests. Second, IQ and academic achievement are presumed to be independent by IQ-achievement discrepancy but, in fact, are often not independent of each other. In the case of word reading, the capacity to read individual words, the skills that underlie that capacity, like phonological awareness, are seen as equally distributed across poor readers with a discrepancy and poor readers without a discrepancy. In other words, the cognitive processes that are presumed connected with early reading acquisition are virtually the same across groups that show an IQ-achievement discrepancy and groups that do not. And so, on this basis, people ask, “Why maintain the distinction?” And then, finally and probably most important, is the criticism that IQ-achievement discrepancy requires many, many, many kids to fail repeatedly before they show a discrepancy. The Office of Special Education Programs, in its Annual Report to Congress, has a very dramatic and persuasive graph showing that when the grade at which most kids are identified as LD is fourth grade. So their achievement has to sink far enough down so that there’s a discrepancy. And that’s a major concern of IQ-achievement discrepancy.
Transcript: Leonard Baca, PhD The discrepancy model has long been under scrutiny, and perhaps attack, from numerous places because of its lack of a theoretical base primarily. But, also with linguistically different kids, we notice that they tend to show a discrepancy even if they have no learning disability—more of a minor discrepancy between IQ and achievement. So that’s a concern that we’ve expressed all along. But, in addition, it also is a concern, depending on the particular test instruments that you use, you can either widen or narrow that discrepancy. For example, if you give a verbal IQ test, you tend to drive the IQ down. And if you give a nonverbal IQ test, you tend to drive the IQ up. If you were to measure the achievement in the native language, you might be able to raise that achievement score. So part of the concern around the discrepancy was that it was manipulable depending on the instrument you chose. To summarize, here are some concerns about the IQ-achievement discrepancy model:
Advantages of the IQ-Achievement Discrepancy ModelAlthough many professionals are frustrated with the IQ-achievement discrepancy model, the model does possess a few advantages that might appeal to some schools:
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Response to intervention is the federally preferred method of identifying learning disabilities.
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