Chapter 15
Individual Support: The Need for Strategies
Beyond Early Intervention
Introduction
The individual support study developed another of the 10 strands of literacy intervention described in the main study, strand 7, ‘identification of and support for children who are failing’. This was a key strategy for addressing one of the main long-term aims of the study, the eradication of illiteracy throughout the entire school-age population. While the baseline assessments in the pre-school year and Primaries 1 and 2 provided an excellent basis for early identification of reading failure, it was also recognised that two factors relating to the later years of schooling required to be addressed. First, there were many pupils in the upper primary years and in secondary school who were already experiencing reading failure and who were not going to benefit from a literacy intervention focused on the early years. Second, a strategy was needed for the identification and support of children who were still failing even after they had been through the early intervention programme. It was in relation to tackling these factors that the individual support study was developed.
The choice of individual support was a deliberate one. It reflected not only a belief that children who fail to learn to read in the early years require a high level of learning support, but more specifically a view that support provided at group or class level would not offer a sufficiently confident basis for dealing with illiteracy. This view was based both on experience of working with different models of intervention in this population over a period of years and also on the available evidence base.
In relation to lessons learnt by experience, there was no support for the view that children who had failed to learn to read in the early primary stages were going to succeed by the normally available group and class methods in later years. Decades of systematic observation and practice of educational psychologists working in areas of socio-economic disadvantage had supported the opinion that such children could make good progress on one-to-one remedial tuition; that the effects of such tuition were later washed out if programmes were not maintained until the attainment of a functional literacy level; and that group methodologies did not bring about sufficiently fast progress to establish satisfactory outcomes. This had been borne out many times when reading levels at school leaving age were assessed, even after group learning support had been provided.
In relation to the available evidence base, data collected from secondary school learning support teachers regarding the group methods traditionally used by them pointed to the inefficacy of these methods, while the research literature supported good individual instruction. One example of each of these areas is considered further here.
MacKay and Boyle (1994) surveyed the views of primary school head teachers and secondary school learning co-ordinators regarding the actual and ideal contribution of psychologists to pupils with learning difficulties. The results were revealing in illuminating the different attitudes and approaches between primary and secondary in relation to such pupils. While primary schools were emphasising the need for advice on teaching approaches and materials, the concern in secondaries had shifted away from this area to a need for individual support and counselling of pupils with difficulties. This finding was in line with the common experience of psychologists in this area. At primary stage the teaching staff tend to have a view that children who have failed to achieve success in literacy should still have their skills addressed through any strategies as yet untried. On the other hand, in the secondaries there is frequently a view that if pupils have already failed through seven years of primary there is little point in subjecting them to further years of failure on the same set of skills. This is borne out by the negative experience secondary learning support teachers often have of attempting to teach basic literacy skills. There is, however, a recognition that these pupils will often have developed problems in their overall adjustment, and that they will at times need a higher level of psychological support.
In terms of the research literature the value of individual tuition has been highlighted for a very long period. Clay’s Reading Recoveryprogramme (Clay, 1979b, 1993a, 1993b) was introduced in the early 1980s following extensive research in the previous decade. It was designed to enable 6-year-old children who had made poor reading progress to acquire essential literacy competences. The programme lasts between 12 and 20 weeks depending on progress, with daily 40-minute individual lessons with a teacher trained for this purpose. Effectiveness studies have demonstrated Reading Recovery to be a successful strategy, with less than 1% of children being unable to complete the programme satisfactorily (Pinnell, De Ford & Lyons 1988), although methodological criticisms of the evidence have been raised (Chapman & Tunmer, 1991; Iversen & Tunmer, 1993). However, Reading Recovery is expensive, being dependent on a lengthy training course, and despite good evaluation in a UK setting by Wright (1992) its lack of economy was the main reason for its being phased out in UK schools after its introduction in 1993 (Nicolson, Fawcett, Moss, Nicolson & Reason, 1999).
The fact that Reading Recovery on the one hand is supported by effectiveness studies pointing to successful outcomes, and on the other hand may prove too expensive to make it an economically viable option, merits more detailed consideration. It points to the need for studies that identify its successful elements, leading to less expensive interventions incorporating these elements. This was the aim of the study by Iversen and Tunmer, 1993, and it is considered in greater detail here.
Iversen and Tunmer questioned aspects both of the method and of the philosophy of Reading Recovery, and asked the fundamental question as to whether its specific procedures and instructional strategies were more effective than any other remedial approach. In particular they questioned Clay’s (1985, 1991) argument that instruction in alphabetic coding should normally arise incidentally in the context of reading connected text. To determine whether the Reading Recovery programme would be more effective if systematic instruction in alphabetic coding were incorporated, they divided first-grade at-risk readers into three matched groups of 32 children each: a modified Reading Recovery group (individual instruction), a standard Reading Recovery group (individual instruction) and a standard intervention group (small group instruction using normally-available learning support structures). The children in the modified Reading Recovery group received explicit alphabetic instruction involving phonograms. Both Reading Recovery groups out-performed the standard intervention group and reached the criterion required for discontinuation of the programme. However, the modified group reached the criterion much more quickly. It was also found that the children selected for the groups were particularly deficient in phonological processing skills and that their progress in the programme was strongly related to the development of these skills.
This study followed a rigorous methodology throughout in terms of assessment and selection for the programmes, matching and allocation to groups, training of teachers in assessment and intervention, reducing possible bias in assessing outcomes and analysing and interpreting results.Triplets for the three groups were exactly matched on the basis of their scores from key subtests of the assessment. All had very low scores on a series of literacy assessment measures. They were assigned to groups on a quasi-randomised basis, but because of geographical constraints, assignment could not be completely randomised. Since the teachers in the modified and standard Reading Recovery groups were trained in different sessions at different locations, they were not aware of any differences in their procedures. They also taught children who were not target pupils in the study, and had no knowledge of who the target pupils were. These steps served to reduce possible teacher bias in judgements about when a child’s programme should be discontinued.
One-way analyses of variance of the means of the three groups were carried out for all measures used at discontinuation, and a full breakdown of means and standard deviations was provided. There were no significant differences in test scores between the two Reading Recovery groups, but both performed significantly better than the standard intervention group on each of the 10 measures assessed. The Reading Recovery groups were also compared with children from their own classrooms who were judged by their classroom teachers to be performing at an average reading level. Not only did they perform as well as these classroom controls, but on several measures they performed better.
As research has frequently indicated the advantages of individual over small group instruction for failing readers (Bloom, 1984), it is unsurprising that the two Reading Recovery groups performed better than the standard intervention group. The key significance of this study, however, lies in the mean number of lessons required to reach discontinuation criteria between the two Reading Recovery groups. The mean for the modified group was 41.75 lessons, while the mean for the standard group was 57.3 lessons. That is, the standard Reading Recovery programme took much longer to reach the same point. In this respect it was 37% less efficient than the modified programme involving alphabetic instruction. The measures used at discontinuation were repeated at the end of the school year and no differences in performance had arisen between the two Reading Recovery groups.
This study represents a very positive and rigorous evaluation of Reading Recovery as an effective programme, but points the way to modifications that increase its effectiveness and its economy. It is possible that the extra time spent by children on the standard Reading Recovery programme produced benefits of a kind that could not be assessed using the battery of standard tests adopted for this study. The study did not report any qualitative measures involving the views of teachers or pupils on their participation, attitudes, enjoyment of reading or desire to engage in reading for pleasure. For example, the greater emphasis in the standard programme on story book reading and writing may lead to greater motivation to read and more pleasure in the reading process, or other factors not assessed by the static battery of testsused.
The study also opens up a number of additional questions of central importance to the current investigation. It may still be asked whether it is the distinctive methodology of Reading Recovery that is effective in addressing reading failure, or whether it may not simply be that it is an intensive programme of sound individual instruction carried out competently at a frequency that is likely to lead to success. In the Iversen and Tunmer study, in addition to the expense of an intensive training programme for teachers in the use of the method, they opted in every group for teachers who were reading specialists with a master’s degree in reading.
The study reported here recognises the superiority of individual as opposed to group instruction for poor readers. However, in seeking to establish methods of addressing reading failure that have economic viability for applying widely in disadvantaged populations, it has focused on using a variety of staff and volunteers to carry out a programme that is inexpensive in materials and that involves only a minimal level of training.
Aims
The aims of this study were:
- to identify the children at P7 stage throughout the authority with the most significant reading difficulties
- to carry out an effective intervention for acquiring key literacy skills based on individual support.
Hypotheses
The following hypotheses were proposed:
1that the experimental pupils in the secondary study would achieve higher reading scores than the controls
2that the children on the programme in the primaries would show large gain scores.
Programme
The programme selected for individual support was ‘Toe By Toe’ (Cowling & Cowling, 1993). Its sub-title describes it as ‘a highly structured multi-sensory phonetic approach to literacy’. The creator of the system, Keda Cowling, developed it painstakingly over a 25-year period as an answer to the frustrations she experienced as a teacher in addressing the needs of children with dyslexia. This programme was selected on the basis of content, method and cost-effectiveness.
In terms of content, it was phonics-based, and contained all the necessary building blocks of sounding, blending and rules required for the development of sound competence in literacy. In terms of method, it was direct. It provided individual instruction in exactly those aspects of literacy that were going to be most beneficial. It also followed a routine whereby learning was reinforced and consolidated so that it would be thoroughly established. It contained all the ingredients required for fast success in each of the skills taught, and was therefore likely to be motivating to children who had previously experienced failure. This was an important consideration, especially as the programme was not designed to entertain – it contained no pictures, no colour and nothing to give any light relief from sheer hard work. All of the rewards arose from success. In terms of cost-effectiveness, it cost a fraction of a programme like Reading Recovery, as it did not depend on a lengthy and expensive training programme. Indeed, the absolute simplicity of the scheme commended it to any user without training. It did not even require a separate ‘teacher’s book’ to support the manual, as everything was plain on each page of the programme itself. Nevertheless, the project was supported by a small training input.
Cost-effectiveness was further supported by the fact that it did not require teachers to do the tuition. It could be done by anyone with the skills and ability to sit down regularly with the child and provide the tuition.
The programme itself works its way systematically through individual letter sounds, digraphs and blending exercises, mainly using nonsense words to encourage fast and accurate word-attack skills. There are also fluency exercises using whole sentences. A key feature is the teaching of ‘polynons’ and ‘syllable division’. Polynons are described as words that are both polysyllabic and meaningless. Their only function in to serve the needs of word-building and syllable division. Syllable division is described as a multi-sensory activity in which students learn to divide words physically with a pencil stroke prior to reading polysyllabic words.
Toe By Toe does not have an index or even a contents page. These omissions are deliberate. An essential feature of the scheme is that it starts at the beginning, and is followed systematically right through to the end. It is not designed for picking and choosing selected exercises to boost a chosen skill. Rather, it is based on a commitment to the view that children with reading difficulties have often failed using other methods and have uneven development of skills. The programme aims to address this by ensuring that all necessary basic skills are taught in a strict and comprehensive sequence. Those who already have abilities in particular areas find that they quickly move through the exercises covering these areas, so time is not wasted by dwelling on material that has been previously learnt successfully.
Each double page of Toe By Toe follows the same format. On the left-hand page there is a box with simple instructions for the tutor or ‘coach’. There is also a column headed ‘other information’, containing any background comments of interest or relevance to the lesson being covered. On the right-hand page there is a grid with the date at the top showing the sounds or words to be read during that lesson, together with spaces for achieving three consecutive ticks to demonstrate competence on each item. It is recommended that up to 20 minutes is spent using Toe By Toe each day. Sample pages from the manual are shown in Appendix 5.
Toe By Toe: results of other studies
Prior to this study a number of unpublished studies using Toe By Toe had provided an encouraging basis for its use as an effective intervention. These included a pilot study carried out by the learning support department in the secondary school selected for the current project. The pilot study involved 14 pupils at S1 stage, and 10 pupils in S2. The S1 pupils began with an average reading age of 7y 11m and following the programme this had risen to an average of 9y 11m, a gain of two years in reading age over a period of eight months. The range of gains was nine months to 3y 8m. The S2 pupils began with an average reading age of 8y 3m rising to 10y 0m, a gain of
1y 7m, with a range of five months (gained by a pupil who was often absent) to three years. These pupils started at various different times in the session and the period over which the gains were made varied from pupil to pupil.
The school’s pilot study had two limitations that this study intended to address. First, it showed gain scores only for pupils who had taken the programme, as there were no controls. Second, gains were measured on a test with a ceiling of 10y 6m (the Salford Reading Test). Ten out of the 24 pupils in the above S1 and S2 samples scored above this ceiling, indicating that gains were likely to have been greater than those reported.