essay about reading difficulties

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• Published: 31 March 2017

Helping children with reading difficulties: some things we have learned so far

• Genevieve McArthur 1 &
• Anne Castles 1  

npj Science of Learning volume  2 , Article number:  7 ( 2017 ) Cite this article

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A substantial proportion of children struggle to learn to read. This not only impairs their academic achievement, but increases their risk of social, emotional, and mental health problems. In order to help these children, reading scientists have worked hard for over a century to better understand the nature of reading difficulties and the people who have them. The aim of this perspective is to outline some of the things that we have learned so far, and to provide a framework for considering the causes of reading difficulties and the most effective ways to treat them.

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Introduction.

Over 20 years ago, The Dyslexia Institute asked a 9-year-old boy called Alexander to describe his struggle with learning to read and spell. He bravely wrote: “I have blond her, Blue eys and an infeckshos smill. Pealpie tell mum haw gorgus I am and is ent she looky to have me. But under the surface I live in a tumoyl. Words look like swigles and riting storys is a disaster area because of spellings. There were no ply times at my old school untill work was fineshed wich ment no plytims at all. Thechers sead I was clevor but just didn’t try. Shouting was the only way the techors comuniccatid with me. Uther boys made fun of me and so I beckame lonly and mishroboll”. 1

Alexander’s experience is not unique. Sixteen per cent of children struggle to learn to read to some extent, and 5% of children have significant, severe, and persistent problems. 2 The impact of these children’s reading difficulties goes well beyond problems with reading Harry Potter or Snapchat. Poor reading is associated with increased risk for school dropout, attempted suicide, incarceration, anxiety, depression, and low self-concept. 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 It is therefore important to identify and treat poor readers as early as we possibly can.

Scientists have been investigating poor reading—also known as reading difficulty, reading impairment, reading disability, reading disorder, and developmental dyslexia (to name but a few)—for over a century. While it may take another century of research to reach a complete understanding of reading impairment, there are number of things that we have learned about reading difficulties, as well as the children who experience reading them, that provide key clues about how poor reading can be identified and treated effectively.

Poor readers display different reading behaviours

One thing that we have learned about poor readers is that they are highly heterogeneous; that is, they do not all display the same type of reading impairment (i.e., “reading behaviour”; 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ). Some poor readers have a specific problem with learning to read new words accurately by applying the regular mappings between letters and sounds. 7 , 8 , 13 , 14 This problem, which is often called poor phonological recoding or decoding, can be detected by asking children to read novel “nonwords” such as YIT. Other poor readers have a particular difficulty with learning to read new words accurately that do not follow the regular mappings between letters and sounds, and hence must be read via memory representations of written words. 7 , 13 , 15 , 16 This problem, which is sometimes called poor sight word reading or poor visual word recognition, can be detected by asking children to read “exception” words such as YACHT. In contrast, some poor readers have accurate phonological recoding and visual word recognition but struggle to read words fluently. 17 , 18 , 19 Poor reading fluency can be detected by asking children to read word lists or sentences as quickly as they can. In contrast yet again, some poor readers have intact phonological recoding and visual word recognition and reading fluency, but struggle to understand the meaning of what they read. These “poor comprehenders” 20 can be identified by asking them to read paragraphs aloud (to ascertain that they can read accurately and fluently), and then ask them questions about the meaning of what they have read (to ascertain that they do not understand what they are reading). It is important to note that most poor readers have various combinations of these problems. 21 For example, Alexander’s spelling suggests that he would have poor phonological decoding (since he misspells words like playtimes as “plytims”) and poor sight word knowledge (since he misspells exception words like said as “sead”). Thus, poor readers vary considerably in the profiles of their reading behaviour.

Reading behaviours have different “proximal” causes

Another thing we have learned about poor readers is that the same reading behaviour (e.g., inaccurate reading of novel words) does not necessarily have the same “proximal cause”. A proximal cause of a reading behaviour can be defined as a component of the cognitive system that directly and immediately produces that reading behaviour. 22 , 23 , 24 Most reading behaviours will have more than one proximal cause. Reflecting this, several theoretical and computational models of reading comprise multiple cognitive components that function together to produce successful reading behaviour (e.g., refs 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ). While these models vary in some respects, all include cognitive components that represent (1) the ability to recognise letters (e.g., S), letter-clusters (e.g., SH), and written words (e.g., SHIP), (2) the ability to recognise and produce speech sounds (e.g., “sh”, “i”, “p”) and spoken words (e.g., “ship”), (3) the ability to access stored knowledge about the meanings of words (e.g., “a floating vessel”), and (4) links between these various components. Impairment in any one of these components or links will directly and immediately impair aspects of reading behaviour. Thus, guided by theoretical and computational models, we have learned that a poor reading behaviour can have multiple proximal causes, and we have some idea about what those proximal causes might be. 10 , 11 , 12

Reading behaviours have different “distal” causes

We have also learned that even if two poor readers have exactly the same reading behaviour with exactly the same proximal cause, this reading behaviour will not necessarily have the same “distal cause”. A distal cause has a distant (i.e., an indirect or delayed) impact on a reading behaviour. 22 , 23 , 24 Distal causes reflect the fact that reading is a taught skill that unfolds over time and across development. It depends upon a range of more cognitive abilities, such as memory, attention, and language skills, to name but a few. Depending on children’s strengths and weaknesses in these underlying abilities, and how these abilities affect learning over time, children will have different profiles of developmental, or distal, causes of their reading impairment. Stated differently, there can be different causal pathways to the same impairment of the reading system.

To provide an example, as mentioned earlier, a common reading behaviour observed in poor readers is inaccurate reading of new or novel words, which can be assessed using nonwords such as YIT. Indeed, some researchers have described this as the defining symptom of reading difficulties. 29 According to theoretical and computational models of reading, one proximal cause of impaired reading of nonwords is impaired knowledge of letter-sound mappings. But what is responsible for this proximal cause of poor nonword reading? There are multiple hypotheses. The prominent “phonological deficit hypothesis” proposes a pervasive language-based difficulty in processing speech sounds that affects the ability to learn to associate written stimuli (e.g., letters) with speech sounds. 30 The “paired-associate learning deficit hypothesis” proposes a memory-based difficulty in forming cross-modal mappings across the visual (e.g, letters) and verbal domains (e.g., speech sounds) that affects letter-sound learning (e.g., ref. 31 ). And the “visual attentional deficit hypothesis” proposes an attention-based impairment in the size of the attentional window, affecting the formation of the sub-word orthographic units (e.g., letters) used in the letter-sound mapping process. 32 These three hypotheses illustrate why a single reading behaviour (e.g., poor nonword reading) with a common proximal cause (impaired knowledge of letter-sound mappings) might not have the same distal cause (e.g., a phonological deficit, a paired-associate learning deficit, or a visual attention deficit). These hypotheses also raise the possibility that the distal causes of poor readers’ reading behaviours may vary as much (if not more) than the proximal causes and the reading behaviours themselves.

Poor readers have concurrent problems with their cognition and emotional health

Another thing we have learned about poor readers is that many (but not all) have comorbidities in other aspects of their cognition and emotional health. Regarding cognition, studies have found that a significant proportion of poor readers have impairments in their spoken language. 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 Studies have also found that poor readers have atypically high rates of attention deficit disorder—a neurological problem that causes inattention, poor concentration, and distractibility (e.g., refs 40 , 41 , 42 ). Regarding emotional health, there is evidence that poor readers, as a group, have higher levels of anxiety than typical readers (e.g., refs 43 , 44 ). The same is true for low self-concept, which can be defined as a negative perception of oneself in a particular domain (e.g., academic self-concept; e.g., refs 45 , 46 ).

The fact that poor readers vary in their comorbid cognitive and emotional health problems—as well as in their reading behaviours, and the proximal and distal impairments of these behaviours—creates an impression of almost overwhelming complexity. However, it is possible to simplify this complexity somewhat using a proximal and distal schema. Specifically, comorbidities of poor reading might be categorised according to whether they represent potential proximal or distal impairment of poor reading—or possibly both. For example, a child’s current problem with spoken vocabulary might be considered a proximal cause of their poor word reading behaviour since, according to theoretical and computational models of reading, vocabulary knowledge may directly underpin word reading accuracy or reading comprehension. However, a child’s previous problem with spoken vocabulary, which may or may not still be present, might be considered a distal cause of their poor word reading: A history of poor understanding of word meanings might reduce a child’s motivation to engage in reading (distal cause), which would impair their development of phonological recoding and visual word recognition (proximal cause), and hence their word reading accuracy and fluency (reading behaviour). Thus, the proximal and distal schema can prove useful in clarifying the causal chain of events linking a reading behaviour to a potential cause.

The proximal and distal schema can also be useful in clarifying reciprocal or circular relationships between comorbidities of poor reading and reading behaviours. For example, if a poor reader has low academic self-concept (distal cause), this may stymie their motivation to pay attention in reading lessons (distal cause), which will impair their learning of letter-sound mappings (proximal cause), and hence their poor word reading (reading behaviour). At the same time, a reverse causal effect may be in play: A child’s poor word reading in the classroom (distal cause) may create a poor perception of their own academic ability (proximal cause) that lowers their academic self-concept (behaviour). Thus, the proximal and distal schema can be used to help develop hypotheses as to whether comorbidities of poor reading are proximal and/or distal causes or consequences of poor reading. Ultimately, of course, all of these hypotheses must be tested through experimental training studies.

Proximal intervention is more effective than distal intervention

Poor readers have inspired, and have been subjected to, an extraordinary array of interventions such as behavioural optometry, chiropractics, classical music, coloured glasses, computer games, fish oil, phonics, sensorimotor exercises, sound training, spatial frequency gratings, memory training, medication for the inner ear, phonemic awareness, rapid reading, visual word recognition, and vocabulary training, to name just a selection. It is noteworthy that while many of these interventions claim to be “scientifically proven”, few have been tested with a randomised controlled trial (RCT)—an experiment that randomly allocates participants to intervention and control groups in order to reduce bias in outcomes. RCTs are the gold standard method for assessing a treatment of any kind, and the method that must be used to prove the effectiveness of a pharmaceutical treatment.

In order to make sense of the chaotic variety of interventions that claim to help poor readers, it may again be helpful to use the proximal and distal schema outlined above to subdivide interventions into two types: “proximal interventions” that focus training on proximal causes of a reading behaviour that are proposed to be part of the cognitive system for reading (e.g., phonics training, vocabulary training) and “distal interventions” that focus on distal causes of a reading behaviour (e.g., coloured lenses, inner-ear medication). The idea of making a distinction between proximal and distal interventions is supported by the outcomes of a systematic review of all studies that have used an RCT to assess an intervention in poor readers. 47 These studies assessed the effect of coloured lenses or overlays, medication, motor training, phonemic awareness, phonics, reading comprehension, reading fluency, sound processing, and sunflower therapy on poor readers. One key finding of this review is that it only identified 22 RCTs, which is a small number of gold-standard intervention studies given the huge number of interventions that claim to help poor readers. A second key finding is that the majority of RCTs of interventions for poor readers have assessed the efficacy of phonics training, which trains the ability to use letter-sound mappings to learn to read new or novel words. A third key finding is that only one type of intervention produced a statistically reliable effect. This was phonics training, which focuses on improving a proximal cause of poor word reading (i.e., letter-sound mappings). In contrast, interventions that focused on distal causes of poor reading did not show a statistically reliable effect in poor readers. The outcomes of this systematic review suggest that interventions that focus on phonics—a proximal cause of reading behaviour—are more likely to be effective than interventions that focus on a distal cause. In other words, the “closer” the intervention is to an impaired reading behaviour, the more likely it is to be effective.

Translating what we know (thus far) into evidence-based practice

At first glance, what we have learned (so far) about poor readers and reading difficulties paints a picture of such complex heterogeneity that it is tempting to throw one’s hands up in despair. And yet, somewhat paradoxically, it is this very heterogeneity that provides some important clues about how to maximise the efficacy of intervention for poor readers. First, the fact that poor readers vary in the nature of their reading behaviours suggests that the first step in identifying an effective intervention for a poor reader is to assess different aspects of reading (e.g., word reading accuracy, reading fluency, and reading comprehension). There are numerous standardized tests provided commercially (e.g., the York Assessment for Reading Comprehension available from GL Assessment) 48 or for free (e.g., the Castles and Coltheart Word Reading Test—Second Edition (CC2) available at www.motif.org.au ) 49 that can be used to determine if a child falls below the average range for their age or grade for reading accuracy, fluency, or comprehension. In our experience, a teacher who has appropriate training in administrating such tests can carry out this first step effectively.

Second, the fact that poor readers’ reading behaviours can have different proximal causes suggests that the next step is to test them for the potential proximal causes of their poor reading behaviours. This is where cognitive models of reading are a useful roadmap, providing an explicit account of the key processes directly underpinning successful reading behaviour. Again, this can be done using standardized tests that are available commercially (e.g., the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Fourth Edition available from Pearson) 50 or for free (e.g., the Letter-Sound Test available at www.motif.org.au ). 51 And well-trained teachers can administer these tests.

Third, the fact that poor readers vary in the degree to which they experience comorbid cognitive and emotional impairments suggests that it would be useful to assess poor readers for their spoken language abilities, attention, anxiety, depression, and self-concept, at the very least. This knowledge will reveal if they need support in other areas of their development, or if their reading-related intervention needs to be adjusted to accommodate their concomitant impairment in order to maximise efficacy. Trained speech and language therapists typically carry out the assessment of children’s spoken language; neuropsychologists are experts in assessing children’s attention; and clinical psychologists have the expertise to assess children’s emotional health.

Once a poor reader’s reading behaviours, proximal impairments, comorbid cognitive, and emotional health problems have been identified, it should be possible to design an intervention that is a good match to their needs. According to the systematic review conducted by Galuschka et al. 47 , current evidence suggests that this intervention should focus on the proximal impairment of a child’s reading behaviour, rather than a possible distal impairment. Two more recent controlled trials 52 , 53 and a systematic review 54 further suggest that it is possible to selectively train different proximal impairments of poor reading behaviours in order to improve those behaviours. The outcomes of these studies and reviews tentatively suggest that proximal interventions can be executed by a reading specialist or a highly-sophisticated online reading training programme.

In sum, over the last century or so, we have learned important things about reading difficulties and the people who have them. We have learned that poor readers display different reading behaviours, that any one reading behaviour has multiple proximal and distal causes, that some poor readers have concomitant problems in other areas of their cognition and emotional health, and that interventions that focus on proximal causes of poor reading behaviours may be more effective than those that focus on distal causes. This knowledge provides some clues to how we might best assist children with reading difficulties. Specifically, we need to assess poor readers for (1) a range of reading behaviours, (2) proximal causes for each poor reading behaviour, and (3) comorbidities in their cognition and emotional health. It should be possible to design an individualised intervention programme that accommodates for a poor reader’s comorbid cognitive or emotional problems whilst targeting the proximal causes of their poor reading behaviour or behaviours. This approach, which requires the co-ordinated efforts of teachers and specialists and parents, is no mean feat. However, according to the scientific evidence thus far, this is the most effective approach we have for helping children with reading difficulties.

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Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (1998)

Chapter: 1. introduction, 1 introduction.

Reading is essential to success in our society. The ability to read is highly valued and important for social and economic advancement. Of course, most children learn to read fairly well. In fact, a small number learn it on their own, with no formal instruction, before school entry (Anbar, 1986; Backman, 1983; Bissex, 1980; Jackson, 1991; Jackson et al., 1988). A larger percentage learn it easily, quickly, and efficiently once exposed to formal instruction.

SOCIETAL CHALLENGES

Parents, educators, community leaders, and researchers identify clear and specific worries concerning how well children are learning to read in this country. The issues they raise are the focus of this report:

1. Large numbers of school-age children, including children from all social classes, have significant difficulties in learning to read.

2. Failure to learn to read adequately for continued school success is much more likely among poor children, among nonwhite

children, and among nonnative speakers of English. Achieving educational equality requires an understanding of why these disparities exist and efforts to redress them.

3. An increasing proportion of children in American schools, particularly in certain school systems, are learning disabled, with most of the children identified as such because of difficulties in learning to read.

4. Even as federal and state governments and local communities invest at higher levels in early childhood education for children with special needs and for those from families living in poverty, these investments are often made without specific planning to address early literacy needs and sustain the investment.

5. A significant federal investment in providing bilingual education programs for nonnative speakers of English has not been matched by attention to the best methods for teaching reading in English to nonnative speakers or to native speakers of nonstandard dialects.

6. The passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provides accommodations to children and to workers who have reading disabilities. In order to provide full access for the individuals involved, these accommodations should reflect scientific knowledge about the acquisition of reading and the effects of having a reading difficulty.

7. The debate about reading development and reading instruction has been persistent and heated, often obscuring the very real gains in knowledge of the reading process that have occurred.

In this report, we are most concerned with the children in this country whose educational careers are imperiled because they do not read well enough to ensure understanding and to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive economy. Current difficulties in reading largely originate from rising demands for literacy, not from declining absolute levels of literacy (Stedman and Kaestle, 1987). In a technological society, the demands for higher literacy are constantly increasing, creating ever more grievous consequences for those who fall short and contributing to the widening economic disparities in our society (Bronfenbrenner et al., 1996). These economic dispari-

ties often translate into disparities in educational resources, which then have the self-reinforcing effect of further exacerbating economic disparities. Although the gap in reading performance between educational haves and have-nots has shrunk over the last 50 years, it is still unacceptably large, and in recent years it has not shrunk further (National Academy of Education, 1996). These rich-get-richer and poor-get-poorer economic effects compound the difficulties facing educational policy makers, and they must be addressed if we are to confront the full scope of inadequate literacy attainment (see Bronfenbrenner et al., 1996).

Despite the many ways in which American schools have progressed and improved over the last half century (see, for example, Berliner and Biddle, 1995), there is little reason for complacency. Clear and worrisome problems have to do specifically with children's success in learning to read and our ability to teach reading to them. There are many reasons for these educational problems—none of which is simple. These issues and problems led to the initiation of this study and are the focus of this report.

The many children who succeed in reading are in classrooms that display a wide range of possible approaches to instruction. In making recommendations about instruction, one of the challenges facing the committee is the difficult-to-deal-with fact that many children will learn to read in almost any classroom, with almost any instructional emphasis. Nonetheless, some children, in particular children from poor, minority, or non-English-speaking families and children who have innate predispositions for reading difficulties, need the support of high-quality preschool and school environments and of excellent primary instruction to be sure of reading success. We attempt to identify the characteristics of the preschool and school environments that will be effective for such children.

The Challenge of a Technological Society

Although children have been taught to read for many centuries, only in this century—and until recently only in some countries—has there been widespread expectation that literacy skills should be universal. Under current conditions, in many ''literate" societies, 40 to

60 percent of the population have achieved literacy; today in the United States, we expect 100 percent of the population to be literate. Furthermore, the definition of full-fledged literacy has shifted over the last century with increased distribution of technology, with the development of communication across distances, and with the proliferation of large-scale economic enterprises (Kaestle, 1991; Miller, 1988; Weber, 1993). To be employable in the modern economy, high school graduates need to be more than merely literate. They must be able to read challenging material, to perform sophisticated calculations, and to solve problems independently (Murnane and Levy, 1993). The demands are far greater than those placed on the vast majority of schooled literate individuals a quarter-century ago.

Data from the National Education Longitudinal Study and High School and Beyond, the two most comprehensive longitudinal assessments of U.S. students' attitudes and achievements, indicate that, from 1972 through 1994 (the earliest and most recently available data), high school students most often identified two life values as "very important" (see National Center for Educational Statistics, 1995:403). "Finding steady work" was consistently highly valued by over 80 percent of male and female seniors over the 20 years of measurement and was seen as "very important'' by nearly 90 percent of the 1992 seniors—the highest scores on this measure in its 20-year history. "Being successful in work" was also consistently valued as very important by over 80 percent of seniors over the 20-year period and approached 90 percent in 1992.

The pragmatic goals stated by students amount to "get and hold a good job." Who is able to do that? In 1993, the percentage of U.S. citizens age 25 and older who were college graduates and unemployed was 2.6 percent (U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Employment and Unemployment Statistics, quoted in National Center for Education Statistics, 1995:401). By contrast, the unemployment rate for high school graduates with no college was twice as high, 5.4 percent, and for persons with less than a high school education the unemployment rate was 9.8 percent, over three times higher. An October 1994 survey of 1993-1994 high school graduates and dropouts found that fewer than 50 percent of the dropouts were holding

jobs (U.S. Department of Labor, 1995 ; quoted in National Center for Education Statistics, 1995:401).

One researcher found that, controlling for inflation, the mean income of U.S. male high school dropouts ages 25 to 34 has decreased by over 50 percent between 1973 and 1995 (Stringfield, 1995 , 1997). By contrast, the mean incomes of young male high school graduates dropped by about one-third, and those of college graduates by 20 percent in the 1970s and then stabilized. Among the six major demographic groups (males and females who are black, white, or Hispanic), the lowest average income among college graduates was higher than the highest group of high school graduates.

Academic success, as defined by high school graduation, can be predicted with reasonable accuracy by knowing someone's reading skill at the end of grade 3 (for reviews, see Slavin et al., 1994). A person who is not at least a modestly skilled reader by the end of third grade is quite unlikely to graduate from high school. Only a generation ago, this did not matter so much, because the long-term economic effects of not becoming a good reader and not graduating from high school were less severe. Perhaps not surprisingly, when teachers are asked about the most important goal for education, over half of elementary school teachers chose "building basic literacy skills" (National Center for Education Statistics Schools and Staffing Survey, 1990-1991, quoted in National Center for Education Statistics, 1995:31) .

The Special Challenge of Learning to Read English

Learning to read poses real challenges, even to children who will eventually become good readers. Furthermore, although every writing system has its own complexities, English presents a relatively large challenge, even among alphabetic languages. Learning the principles of a syllabic system, like the Japanese katakana, is quite straightforward, since the units represented—syllables—are pronounceable and psychologically real, even to young children. Such systems are, however, feasible only in languages with few possible syllable types; the hiragana syllabary represents spoken Japanese with 46 characters, supplemented with a set of diacritics (Daniels

and Bright, 1996). Spoken English has approximately 5,000 different possible syllables; instead of representing each one with a symbol in the writing system, written English relies on an alphabetic system that represents the parts that make up a spoken syllable, rather than representing the syllable as a unit.

An alphabetic system poses a challenge to the beginning reader, because the units represented graphically by letters of the alphabet are referentially meaningless and phonologically abstract. For example, there are three sounds represented by three letters in the word "but," but each sound alone does not refer to anything, and only the middle sound can really be pronounced in isolation; when we try to say the first or last consonant of the word all by itself, we have to add a vowel to make it a pronounceable entity (see Box 1-1).

Once the learner of written English gets the basic idea that letters represent the small sound units within spoken and heard words, called phonemes, the system has many advantages: a much more limited set of graphemic symbols is needed than in either syllabic (like Japanese) or morphosyllabic (like Chinese) systems; strategies

for sounding out unfamiliar strings and spelling novel words are available; and subsequences, such as prefixes and suffixes, are encountered with enough frequency for the reader to recognize them automatically.

Alphabetic systems of writing vary in the degree to which they are designed to represent the surface sounds of words. Some languages, such as Spanish, spell all words as they sound, even though this can cause two closely related words to be spelled very differently. Writing systems that compromise phonological representations in order to reflect morphological information are referred to as deep orthographies. In English, rather than preserving one-letter-to-one-sound correspondences, we preserve the spelling, even if that means a particular letter spells several different sounds. For example, the last letter pronounced "k" in the written word "electric" represents quite different sounds in the words "electricity" and ''electrician," indicating the morphological relation among the words but making the sound-symbol relationships more difficult to fathom.

The deep orthography of English is further complicated by the retention of many historical spellings, despite changes in pronunciation that render the spellings opaque. The "gh" in "night" and "neighborhood" represents a consonant that has long since disappeared from spoken English. The "ph" in "morphology" and "philosophy" is useful in signaling the Greek etymology of those words but represents a complication of the pattern of sound-symbol correspondences that has been abandoned in Spanish, German, and many other languages that also retain Greek-origin vocabulary items. English can present a challenge for a learner who expects to find each letter always linked to just one sound.

SOURCES OF READING DIFFICULTIES

Reading problems are found among every group and in every primary classroom, although some children with certain demographic characteristics are at greater risk of reading difficulties than others. Precisely how and why this happens has not been fully understood. In some cases, the sources of these reading difficulties

are relatively clear, such as biological deficits that make the processing of sound-symbol relationships difficult; in other cases, the source is experiential such as poor reading instruction.

Biological Deficits

Neuroscience research on reading has expanded understanding of the reading process (Shaywitz, 1996). For example, researchers have now been able to establish a tentative architecture for the component processes of reading (Shaywitz et al., 1998; Shaywitz, 1996). All reading difficulties, whatever their primary etiology, must express themselves through alterations of the brain systems responsible for word identification and comprehension. Even in disadvantaged or other high-risk populations, many children do learn to read, some easily and others with great difficulty. This suggests that, in all populations, reading ability occurs along a continuum, and biological factors are influenced by, and interact with, a reader's experiences. The findings of an anomalous brain system say little about the possibility for change, for remediation, or for response to treatment. It is well known that, particularly in children, neural systems are plastic and responsive to changed input.

Cognitive studies of reading have identified phonological processing as crucial to skillful reading, and so it seems logical to suspect that poor readers may have phonological processing problems. One line of research has looked at phonological processing problems that can be attributed to the underdevelopment or disruption of specific brain systems.

Genetic factors have also been implicated in some reading disabilities, in studies both of family occurrence (Pennington, 1989; Scarborough, 1989) and of twins (Olson et al., 1994). Differences in brain function and behavior associated with reading difficulty may arise from environmental and/or genetic factors. The relative contributions of these two factors to a deficit in reading (children below the local 10th percentile) have been assessed in readers with normal-range intelligence (above 90 on verbal or performance IQ) and apparent educational opportunity (their first language was English and they had regularly attended schools that were at or above national

norms in reading). This research has provided evidence for strong genetic influences on many of these children's deficits in reading (DeFries and Alarcon, 1996) and in related phonological processes (Olson et al., 1989). Recent DNA studies have found evidence for a link between some cases of reading disability and inheritance of a gene or genes on the short arm of chromosome 6 (Cardon et al., 1994; Grigorenko et al., 1997).

It is important to emphasize that evidence for genetic influence on reading difficulty in the selected population described above does not imply genetic influences on reading differences between groups for which there are confounding environmental differences. Such group differences may include socioeconomic status, English as a second language, and other cultural factors. It is also important to emphasize that evidence for genetic influence and anomalous brain development does not mean that a child is condemned to failure in reading. Brain and behavioral development are always based on the interaction between genetic and environmental influences. The genetic and neurobiological evidence does suggest why learning to read may be particularly difficult for some children and why they may require extraordinary instructional support in reading and related phonological processes.

Instructional Influences

A large number of students who should be capable of reading ably given adequate instruction are not doing so, suggesting that the instruction available to them is not appropriate. As Carroll (1963) noted more than three decades ago, if the instruction provided by a school is ineffective or insufficient, many children will have difficulty learning to read (unless additional instruction is provided in the home or elsewhere).

Reading difficulties that arise when the design of regular classroom curriculum, or its delivery, is flawed are sometimes termed "curriculum casualties" (Gickling and Thompson, 1985; Simmons and Kame'enui, in press). Consider an example from a first-grade classroom in the early part of the school year. Worksheets were being used to practice segmentation and blending of words to facili-

tate word recognition. Each worksheet had a key word, with one part of it designated the "chunk" that was alleged to have the same spelling-sound pattern in other words; these other words were listed on the sheet. One worksheet had the word "love" and the chunk "ove.'' Among the other words listed on the sheet, some did indicate the pattern ("glove," "above," "dove"), but others simply do not work as the sheet suggests they should ("Rover," "stove," and "woven"). In lesson plans and instructional activities, such mistakes occur in the accuracy and clarity of the information being taught.

When this occurs consistently, a substantial proportion of students in the classroom are likely to exhibit low achievement (although some students are likely to progress adequately in spite of the impoverished learning situation). If low-quality instruction is confined to one particular teacher, children's progress may be impeded for the year spent in that classroom, but they may overcome this setback when exposed to more adequate teaching in subsequent years. There is evidence, however, that poor instruction in first grade may have long-term effects. Children who have poor instruction in the first year are more seriously harmed by the bad early learning experience and tend to do poorly in schooling across the years (Pianta, 1990).

In some schools, however, the problem is more pervasive, such that low student achievement is schoolwide and persistent. Sometimes the instructional deficiency can be traced to lack of an appropriate curriculum. More often, a host of conditions occur together to contribute to the risk imposed by poor schooling: low expectations for success on the part of the faculty and administration of the school, which may translate into a slow-paced, undemanding curriculum; teachers who are poorly trained in effective methods for teaching beginning readers; the unavailability of books and other materials; noisy and crowded classrooms; and so forth.

It is regrettable that schools with these detrimental characteristics continue to exist anywhere in the United States; since these schools often exist in low-income areas, where resources for children's out-of-school learning are limited, the effects can be very detrimental to students' probabilities of becoming skilled readers (Kozol, 1991; Puma et al., 1997; Natriello et al., 1990). Attending a

school in which low achievement is pervasive and chronic, in and of itself, clearly places a child at risk for reading difficulty. Even within a school that serves most of its students well, an instructional basis for poor reading achievement is possible. This is almost never considered, however, when a child is referred for evaluation of a suspected reading difficulty. Evidence from case study evaluations of children referred for special education indicate that instructional histories of the children are not seriously considered (Klenk and Palincsar, 1996). Rather, when teachers refer students for special services, the "search for pathology" begins and assessment focused on the child continues until some explanatory factor is unearthed that could account for the observed difficulty in reading (Sarason and Doris, 1979).

In sum, a variety of detrimental school practices may place children at risk for poorer achievement in reading than they might otherwise attain. Interventions geared at improving beginning reading instruction, rehabilitating substandard schools, and ensuring adequate teacher preparation are discussed in subsequent chapters.

DEMOGRAPHICS OF READING DIFFICULTIES

A major source of urgency in addressing reading difficulties derives from their distribution in our society. Children from poor families, children of African American and Hispanic descent, and children attending urban schools are at much greater risk of poor reading outcomes than are middle-class, European-American, and suburban children. Studying these demographic disparities can help us identify groups that should be targeted for special prevention efforts. Furthermore, examining the literacy development of children in these higher-risk groups can help us understand something about the course of literacy development and the array of conditions that must be in place to ensure that it proceeds well.

One characteristic of minority populations that has been offered as an explanation for their higher risk of reading difficulties is the use of nonstandard varieties of English or limited proficiency in English. Speaking a nonstandard variety of English can impede the easy acquisition of English literacy by introducing greater deviations

in the representation of sounds, making it hard to develop sound-symbol links. Learning English spelling is challenging enough for speakers of standard mainstream English; these challenges are heightened for some children by a number of phonological and grammatical features of social dialects that make the relation of sound to spelling even more indirect (see Chapter 6).

The number of children who speak other languages and have limited proficiency in English in U.S. schools has risen dramatically over the past two decades and continues to grow. Although the size of the general school population has increased only slightly, the number of students acquiring English as a second language grew by 85 percent nationwide between 1985 and 1992, from fewer than 1.5 million to almost 2.7 million (Goldenberg, 1996). These students now make up approximately 5.5 percent of the population of public school students in the United States; over half (53 percent) of these students are concentrated in grades K-4. Eight percent of kindergarten children speak a native language other than English and are English-language learners (August and Hakuta, 1997).

Non-English-speaking students, like nonstandard dialect speakers, tend to come from low socioeconomic backgrounds and to attend schools with disproportionately high numbers of children in poverty, both of which are known risk factors (see Chapter 4). Hispanic students in the United States, who constitute the largest group of limited-English-proficient students by far, are particularly at risk for reading difficulties. Despite the group's progress in achievement over the past 15 to 20 years, they are about twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be reading below average for their age. Achievement gaps in all academic areas between whites and Hispanics, whether they are U.S. or foreign born, appear early and persist throughout their school careers (Kao and Tienda, 1995).

One obvious reason for these achievement differences is the language difference itself. Being taught and tested in English would, of course, put students with limited English proficiency at a disadvantage. These children might not have any reading difficulty at all if they were taught and tested in the language in which they are proficient. Indeed, there is evidence from research in bilingual education that learning to read in one's native language—thus offsetting the

obstacle presented by limited proficiency in English—can lead to superior achievement (Legarreta, 1979; Ramirez et al., 1991). This field is highly contentious and politicized, however, and there is a lack of clear consensus about the advantages and disadvantages of academic instruction in the primary language in contrast to early and intensive exposure to English (August and Hakuta, 1997; Rossell and Baker, 1996).

In any event, limited proficiency in English does not, in and of itself, appear to be entirely responsible for the low reading achievement of these students. Even when taught and tested in Spanish, as the theory and practice of bilingual education dictates, many Spanish-speaking Hispanic students in the United States still demonstrate low levels of reading attainment (Escamilla, 1994; Gersten and Woodward, 1995; Goldenberg and Gallimore, 1991; Slavin and Madden, 1995). This suggests that factors other than lack of English proficiency may also contribute to these children's reading difficulties.

One such factor is cultural differences, that is, the mismatch between the schools and the families in definitions of literacy, in teaching practices, and in defined roles for parents versus teachers (e.g., Jacob and Jordan, 1987; Tharp, 1989); these differences can create obstacles to children's learning to read in school. Others contend that primary cultural differences matter far less than do "secondary cultural discontinuities," such as low motivation and low educational aspirations that are the result of discrimination and limited social and economic opportunities for certain minority groups (Ogbu, 1974, 1982). Still others claim that high motivation and educational aspirations can and do coexist with low achievement (e.g., Labov et al., 1968, working in the African American community; Goldenberg and Gallimore, 1995, in the Hispanic community) and that other factors must therefore explain the differential achievement of culturally diverse groups.

Literacy is positively valued by adults in minority communities, and the positive views are often brought to school by young children (Nettles, 1997). Nonetheless, the ways that reading is used by adults and children varies across families from different cultural groups in ways that may influence children's participation in literacy activities

in school, as Heath (1983) found. And adults in some communities may see very few functional roles for literacy, so that they will be unlikely to provide conditions in the home that are conducive to children's acquisition of reading and writing skills (Purcell-Gates, 1991, 1996). The implications of these various views for prevention and intervention efforts are discussed in Part III of this volume.

It is difficult to distinguish the risk associated with minority status and not speaking English from the risk associated with lower socioeconomic status (SES). Studying the differential experiences of children in middle- and lower-class families can illuminate the factors that affect the development of literacy and thus contribute to the design of prevention and intervention efforts.

The most extensive studies of SES differences have been conducted in Britain. Stubbs (1980) found a much lower percentage of poor readers with higher (7.5 percent) than with lower SES (26.9 percent).  Some have suggested that SES differences in reading achievement are actually a result of differences in the quality of schooling; that is, lower-SES children tend to go to inferior schools, and therefore their achievement is lower because of inferior educational opportunities (Cook, 1991). However, a recent study by Alexander and Entwisle (1996) appears to demonstrate that it is during nonschool time—before they start and during the summer months—that low-SES children fall academically behind their higher-SES peers and get progressively further behind. During the school months (at least through elementary school) the rate of progress is virtually identical for high- and low-SES children.

Regardless of the specific explanation, differences in literacy achievement among children as a result of socioeconomic status are pronounced. Thirty years ago Coleman et al. (1966) and Moynihan (1965) reported that the educational deficit of children from low-income families was present at school entry and increased with each year they stayed in school. Evidence of SES differences in reading achievement has continued to accumulate (National Assessment of Educational Progress, 1981, 1995). Reading achievement of children in affluent suburban schools is significantly and consistently higher than that of children in "disadvantaged" urban schools (e.g.,

NAEP, 1994, 1995; White, 1982; Hart and Risley, 1995). An important conceptual distinction was made by White (1982) in a groundbreaking meta-analysis. White discovered that, at the individual level, SES is related to achievement only very modestly. However, at the aggregate level, that is, when measured as a school or community characteristic, the effects of SES are much more pronounced. A low-SES child in a generally moderate or higher-SES school or community is far less at risk than an entire school or community of low-SES children.

The existence of SES differences in reading outcomes offers by itself little information about the specific experiences or activities that influence literacy development at home. Indeed, a look at socioeconomic factors alone can do no more than nominate the elements that differ between middle-class and lower-class homes. Researchers have tried to identify the specific familial interactions that can account for social class differences, as well as describe those interactions around literacy that do occur in low-income homes. For example, Baker et al. (1995) compared opportunities for informal literacy learning among preschoolers in the homes of middle-income and low-income urban families. They found that children from middle-income homes had greater opportunities for informal literacy learning than children of low-income homes. Low-income parents, particularly African-American parents, reported more reading skills practice and homework (e.g., flash cards, letter practice) with their kindergarten-age children than did middle-income parents. Middle-income parents reported only slightly more joint book reading with their children than did low-income families. But these middle-income parents reported more play with print and more independent reading by children. Among the middle-class families in this study, 90 percent reported that their child visited the library at least once a month, whereas only 43 percent of the low-income families reported such visits. The findings of Baker et al. that low-income homes typically do offer opportunities for literacy practice, though perhaps of a different nature from middle-class homes, have been confirmed in ethnographic work by researchers such as Teale (1986), Taylor and Dorsey-Gaines (1988), Taylor and Strickland (1986), Gadsden (1993), Delgado-Gaitan (1990), and Goldenberg et al. (1992).

ABOUT THIS REPORT

Charge to the committee.

The Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children has conducted a study of the effectiveness of interventions for young children who are at risk of having problems in learning to read. It was carried out at the request of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs and its Office of Educational Research and Improvement (Early Childhood Institute) and the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development (Human Learning and Behavior Branch). The sponsors requested that the study address young children who are at -risk for reading difficulties, within the context of reading acquisition for all children. The scope included children from birth through grade 3, in special and regular education settings. The project had three goals: (1) to comprehend a rich research base; (2) to translate the research findings into advice and guidance for parents, educators, publishers, and others involved in the care and instruction of the young; and (3) to convey this advice to the targeted audiences through a variety of publications, conferences, and other outreach activities. In making its recommendations, the committee has highlighted key research findings that should be integrated into existing and future program interventions to enhance the reading abilities of young children, particularly instruction at the preschool and early elementary levels.

The Committee's Perspective

Our recommendations extend to all children. Of course, we are most worried about children at high risk of developing reading difficulties. However, there is little evidence that children experiencing difficulties learning to read, even those with identifiable learning disabilities, need radically different sorts of supports than children at low risk, although they may need much more intensive support. Childhood environments that support early literacy development and

excellent instruction are important for all children. Excellent instruction is the best intervention for children who demonstrate problems learning to read.

Knowledge about reading derives from work conducted in several disciplines, in laboratory settings as well as in homes, classrooms, and schools, and from a range of methodological perspectives. Reading is studied by ethnographers, sociologists, historians, child developmentalists, neurobiologists, and psycholinguists. Reading has been approached as a matter of cognition, culture, socialization, instruction, and language. The committee that wrote this report embraces all these perspectives—but we acknowledge the difficulty of integrating them into a coherent picture.

The committee agrees that reading is inextricably embedded in educational, social, historical, cultural, and biological realities. These realities determine the meaning of terms like literate as well as limits on access to literacy and its acquisition. Literacy is also essentially developmental, and appropriate forms of participation, instruction, and assessment in literacy for preschoolers differ from those for first graders and also from those for sophisticated critical readers.

Reading as a cognitive and psycholinguistic activity requires the use of form (the written code) to obtain meaning (the message to be understood), within the context of the reader's purpose (for learning, for enjoyment, for insight). In children, one can see a developmental oscillation between these foci: the preschool child who can pretend to read a story she has heard many times is demonstrating an understanding that reading is about content or meaning; the same child as a first grader, having been taught some grapheme-phoneme correspondences, may read the same storybook haltingly, disfluently, by sounding out the words she had earlier memorized, demonstrating an extreme focus on form. The mature, fluent, practiced reader shows more rapid oscillations between form-focused and meaning-focused reading: she can rely on automatic processing of form and focus on meaning until she encounters an unfamiliar pharmaceutical term or a Russian surname, whereupon the processing of meaning is disrupted while the form is decoded.

Groups define the nature as well as the value of literacy in culturally specific ways as well. A full picture of literacy from a cultural

and historical perspective would require an analysis of the distribution of literacy skills, values, and uses across classes and genders as well as religious and social groups; it would require a discussion of the connections between professional, religious, and leisure practices and literacy as defined by those practices. Such a discussion would go far beyond the scope of this report, which focuses on reading and reading difficulties as defined by mainstream opinions in the United States, in particular by U.S. educational institutions at the end of the twentieth century. In that context, employability, citizenship, and participation in the culture require high levels of literacy achievement.

Nature of the Evidence

Our review and summary of the literature are framed by some very basic principles of evidence evaluation. These principles derive from our commitment to the scientific method, which we view not as a strict set of rules but instead as a broad framework defined by some general guidelines. Some of the most important are that (1) science aims for knowledge that is publicly verifiable, (2) science seeks testable theories—not unquestioned edicts, (3) science employs methods of systematic empiricism (see Box 1-2). Science renders knowledge public by such procedures as peer review and such mechanisms as systematic replication (see Box 1-3). Testable theories are those that are potentially falsifiable—that is, defined in such a way that empirical evidence inconsistent with them can in principle be accumulated. It is the willingness to give up or alter a theory in the face of evidence that is one of the most central defining features of the scientific method. All of the conclusions reached in this report

are provisional in this important sense: they have empirical consequences that, if proven incorrect, should lead to their alteration.

The methods of systematic empiricism employed in the study of reading difficulties are many and varied. They include case studies, correlational studies, experimental studies, narrative analyses, quasi-experimental studies, interviews and surveys, epidemiological studies, ethnographies, and many others. It is important to understand how the results from studies employing these methods have been used in synthesizing the conclusions of this report.

First, we have utilized the principle of converging evidence. Scientists and those who apply scientific knowledge must often make a judgment about where the preponderance of evidence points. When this is the case, the principle of converging evidence is an important tool, both for evaluating the state of the research evidence and also for deciding how future experiments should be designed. Most areas of science contain competing theories. The extent to which one particular theory can be viewed as uniquely supported by a particular study depends on the extent to which other competing explanations have been ruled out. A particular experimental result is never equally relevant to all competing theoretical explanations. A given experiment may be a very strong test of one or two alternative theories but a weak test of others. Thus, research is highly convergent when a series of experiments consistently support a given theory while collectively eliminating the most important competing explanations. Although no single experiment can rule out all alternative explanations, taken collectively, a series of partially diagnostic studies can

lead to a strong conclusion if the data converge. This aspect of the convergence principle implies that we should expect to see many different methods employed in all areas of educational research. A relative balance among the methodologies used to arrive at a given conclusion is desirable because the various classes of research techniques have different strengths and weaknesses.

Another important context for understanding the present synthesis of research is provided by the concept of synergism between descriptive and hypothesis-testing research methods. Research on a particular problem often proceeds from more exploratory methods (ones unlikely to yield a causal explanation) to methods that allow stronger causal inferences. For example, interest in a particular hypothesis may originally stem from a case study of an unusually successful teacher. Alternately, correlational studies may suggest hypotheses about the characteristics of teachers who are successful. Subsequently, researchers may attempt experiments in which variables identified in the case study or correlation are manipulated in order to isolate a causal relationship. These are common progressions in areas of research in which developing causal models of a phenomenon is the paramount goal. They reflect the basic principle of experimental design that the more a study controls extraneous variables the stronger is the causal inference. A true experiment in controlling all extraneous variables is thus the strongest inferential tool.

Qualitative methods, including case studies of individual learners or teachers, classroom ethnographies, collections of introspective interview data, and so on, are also valuable in producing complementary data when carrying out correlational or experimental studies. Teaching and learning are complex phenomena that can be enhanced or impeded by many factors. Experimental manipulation in the teaching/learning context typically is less ''complete" than in other contexts; in medical research, for example, treatments can be delivered through injections or pills, such that neither the patient nor the clinician knows who gets which treatment, and in ways that do not require that the clinician be specifically skilled in or committed to the success of a particular treatment.

Educational treatments are often delivered by teachers who may enhance or undermine the difference between treatments and controls; thus, having qualitative data on the authenticity of treatment and on the attitudes of the teachers involved is indispensable. Delivering effective instruction occurs in the context of many other factors—the student-teacher relationship, the teacher's capability at maintaining order, the expectations of the students and their parents—that can neither be ignored nor controlled. Accordingly, data about them must be made available. In addition, since even programs that are documented to be effective will be impossible to implement on a wider scale if teachers dislike them, data on teacher beliefs and attitudes will be useful after demonstration of treatment effects as well (see discussion below of external validity).

Furthermore, the notion of a comparison between a treatment group and an untreated control is often a myth when dealing with social treatments. Families who are assigned not to receive some intervention for their children (e.g., Head Start placement, one-on-one tutoring) often seek out alternatives for themselves that approximate or improve on the treatment features. Understanding the dynamic by which they do so, through collecting observational and interview data, can prevent misguided conclusions from studies designed as experiments. Thus, although experimental studies represent the most powerful design for drawing causal inferences, their limitations must be recognized.

Another important distinction in research on reading is that between retrospective and prospective studies. On one hand, retrospective studies start from observed cases of reading difficulties and attempt to generate explanations for the problem. Such studies may involve a comparison group of normal readers, but of course inference from the finding of differences between two groups, one of whom has already developed reading difficulties and one of whom has not, can never be very strong. Studies that involve matching children with reading problems to others at the same level of reading skill (rather than to age mates) address some of these problems but at the cost of introducing other sources of difficulty—comparing two groups of different ages, with different school histories, and different levels of perceived success in school.

Prospective studies, on the other hand, are quite expensive and time consuming, particularly if they include enough participants to ensure a sizable group of children with reading difficulties. They do, however, enable the researcher to trace developmental pathways for participants who are not systematically different from one another at recruitment and thus to draw stronger conclusions about the likely directionality of cause-effect relationships.

As part of the methodological context for this report, we wish to address explicitly a misconception that some readers may have derived from our emphasis on the logic of an experiment as the most powerful justification for a causal conclusion. By such an emphasis, we do not mean to imply that only studies employing true experimental logic are to be used in drawing conclusions. To the contrary, as mentioned previously in our discussion of converging evidence, the results from many different types of investigations are usually weighed to derive a general conclusion, and the basis for the conclusion rests on the convergence observed from the variety of methods used. This is particularly true in the domains of classroom and curriculum research.

For example, it is often (but not always) the case that experimental investigations are high in internal validity but limited in external validity, whereas correlational studies are often high in external validity but low in internal validity. Internal validity concerns whether we can infer a causal effect for a particular variable. The more a study approximates the logic of a true experiment (i.e., includes manipulation, control, and randomization), the more we can make a strong causal inference. The internal validity of qualitative research studies depends, of course, on their capacity to reflect reality adequately and accurately. Procedures for ensuring adequacy of qualitative data include triangulation (comparison of findings from different research perspectives), cross-case analyses, negative case analysis, and so forth. Just as for quantitative studies, our review of qualitative studies has been selective and our conclusions took into account the methodological rigor of each study within its own paradigm.

External validity concerns the generalizability of the conclusion to the population and setting of interest. Internal validity and exter-

nal validity are often traded off across different methodologies. Experimental laboratory investigations are high in internal validity but may not fully address concerns about external validity. Field classroom investigations are often quite high in external validity but, because of the logistical difficulties involved in carrying out such investigations, are often quite low in internal validity. Hence, there is a need to look for a convergence of results—not just consistency across studies conducted with one method. Convergence across different methods increases confidence that the conclusions have both internal and external validity.

A not uncommon misconception is that correlational (i.e., nonexperimental) studies cannot contribute to knowledge. This is false for a number of reasons. First, many scientific hypotheses are stated in terms of correlation or lack of correlation, so that such studies are directly relevant to these hypotheses. Second, although correlation does not imply causation, causation does imply correlation. That is, although a correlational study cannot definitively prove a causal hypothesis, it may rule one out. Third, correlational studies are more useful than they used to be because some of the recently developed complex correlational designs allow for limited causal inferences. The technique of partial correlation, widely used in studies cited in this report, provides a case in point. It makes possible a test of whether a particular third variable is accounting for a relationship.

Perhaps the most important argument for quasi-experimental studies, however, is that some variables (for instance, human malnutrition, physical disabilities) simply cannot be manipulated for ethical reasons. Other variables, such as birth order, sex, and age, are inherently correlational because they cannot be manipulated, and therefore the scientific knowledge concerning them must be based on correlational evidence. Finally, logistical difficulties in carrying out classroom and curriculum research often render impossible the logic of the true experiment. However, this circumstance is not unique to educational or psychological research. Astronomers obviously cannot manipulate the variables affecting the objects they study, yet they are able to arrive at scientifically founded conclusions.

Outline of the Report

In Chapter 2 we present a picture of typical skilled reading and the process by which it develops. We see this as crucial background information for understanding reading difficulties and their prevention.

Part II presents a fuller picture of the children we are addressing in this report. We survey the population of children with reading difficulties in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4 we discuss risk factors that may help identify children who will have problems learning to read.

Part III presents our analysis of preventions and interventions, including instruction. Chapter 5focuses on the preschool years. Chapter 6 discusses prevention and literacy instruction delivered in classrooms in kindergarten and the primary grades. Chapter 7 presents our analysis of organizational factors, at the classroom, school, or district level, that contribute to prevention and intervention for grades 1 through 3. Chapter 8 continues discussion of grades 1 through 3, presenting more targeted intervention efforts to help children who are having reading difficulties.

Part IV presents our discussion of how the information reviewed in the report should be used to change practice. Chapter 9 discusses a variety of domains in which action is needed and obstacles to change in those domains. Chapter 10 presents our recommendations for practice, policy, and research.

While most children learn to read fairly well, there remain many young Americans whose futures are imperiled because they do not read well enough to meet the demands of our competitive, technology-driven society. This book explores the problem within the context of social, historical, cultural, and biological factors.

Recommendations address the identification of groups of children at risk, effective instruction for the preschool and early grades, effective approaches to dialects and bilingualism, the importance of these findings for the professional development of teachers, and gaps that remain in our understanding of how children learn to read. Implications for parents, teachers, schools, communities, the media, and government at all levels are discussed.

The book examines the epidemiology of reading problems and introduces the concepts used by experts in the field. In a clear and readable narrative, word identification, comprehension, and other processes in normal reading development are discussed.

Against the background of normal progress, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children examines factors that put children at risk of poor reading. It explores in detail how literacy can be fostered from birth through kindergarten and the primary grades, including evaluation of philosophies, systems, and materials commonly used to teach reading.

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Reading Difficulties: Top Strategies for Improving Reading Skills

Reading is a fundamental life skill. However, over 7% of children have a reading disorder , and 20% of the population has Dyslexia .  

Individuals can struggle with reading in various ways. Some experience challenges with decoding , the ability to translate letters into sounds that blend to form forms. Many individuals have difficulty with reading comprehension. This is the ability to understand the information conveyed when reading. 

In this comprehensive guide to reading disorders, we’ll discuss how to identify different types of reading disabilities and what the potential causes of reading disorders are. Most importantly, we’ll review evidence-based strategies that can be used to improve an individual’s reading comprehension skills.   

How to Identify Reading Disabilities

Signs of reading disabilities include limited vocabulary, spelling difficulties, trouble decoding words, and more.  

Being able to recognize the signs of a reading disability is crucial as this is the first step toward providing individuals with the support they need. 

Common signs of reading disabilities include: 

• Limited Vocabulary. Individuals with a limited vocabulary have difficulty understanding and/or using a variety of words functionally. Vocabulary is a foundation for reading comprehension, so difficulties in this area can result in an individual having challenges understanding words that are read. 
• Poor spelling . Difficulty with spelling can cause an individual to have challenges with decoding words and understanding their meanings. Poor spelling is linked to word recognition deficit, also known as Dyslexia . 
• Struggling with comprehension . A reduced ability to understand and recall information presented from text is a sign of a reading disability. Some individuals may be able to read words, but do not understand the meaning they represent. 
• Difficulty decoding words. Individuals who have difficulty decoding words can not consistently sound out words by recognizing the relationship between letters and sounds. This is a fundamental skill required for reading. 
• Reversals and Substitutions . Reversing the letters, when certain letters are read or written as if they appear backwards or upside down, is a sign of Dyslexia, a common reading disorder. Individuals with Dyslexia often substitute one letter for another, such as confusing the letter “b” with “d”. 
• Challenges with Sequencing. Individuals with reading comprehension difficulties often have trouble understanding the order of events within text such as what happened first, next, or last in a story. 

Causes of Reading Difficulties

Understanding the underlying causes of reading difficulties can help therapists, educators, and caregivers customize their support. This can improve how effective reading interventions are. 

Reading is a complex skill influenced by various factors, such as phonological awareness, attention, auditory processing, environmental factors, and more . Here we’ll explore these further. 

Phonological Processing Deficits

Phonological processing refers to how an individual uses sounds within their language to process spoken language and written language, according to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association ( ASHA ).  

Phonological processing includes phonological awareness – the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds. 

Phonological awareness skills have long been recognized as a strong predictor of later reading skills. According to research , these skills are a critical factor in an individual’s ability to comprehend text. An individual who struggles with phonological processing skills such as phonological awareness could be at risk for reading difficulties.    

Genetic and Hereditary Factors

According to research, genetic components related to reading difficulties are present. This means reading disorders can run in families. For example, multiple genes specific to the reading disability Dyslexia have been identified .  

A family history of reading difficulties can be a cause for a reading disorder in an individual. Understanding what specific skill a family member struggled with and what treatment approaches were effective could potentially help in tailoring an individual’s reading improvement plan.  

Brain Processing Differences

Differences in the way an individual’s brain processes information can result in reading difficulties. 

Studies show that although some individuals might be able to recognize and decode words accurately, their processing speed deficits can affect reading efficiency. This includes individuals with ADHD, who may have a slowed processing speed.   

According to Harvard research, subtle differences in the white matter of the brain can affect reading abilities. 

Attention and Concentration Challenges

Individuals who have attention challenges may experience difficulty concentrating on extracting and retaining information while reading. This can interfere with reading comprehension. Distractibility while reading can lead to frequent misinterpretations of the text.  

Specific Language Impairment & Learning Disabilities

Children who have been diagnosed with a specific language impairment and those with learning disabilities are more likely to develop reading difficulties. 

Emotional and Psychological Factors

Various emotional and psychological factors such as anxiety, having a negative or positive attitude towards reading, and self-efficacy can greatly impact an individual’s reading ability. 

An individual’s level of motivation and interest are critical in the process of learning skills such as how to read. Studies have shown that how interested an individual is in a topic impacts their reading comprehension for text related to that topic.  

Types of Reading Disorders

Recognizing and understanding different types of reading disorders can guide effective intervention and support. These are some common reading disorders: 

Dyslexia involves difficulties translating printed text to speech. Individuals with Dyslexia often have difficulty with accurate word recognition and decoding. This can lead to labored reading at a slower rate. Signs of Dyslexia include letter or number reversals. 

Alexia refers to the loss of reading abilities that were previously proficient. This can occur due to a brain injury or illness. An individual with Alexia is typically able to spell, write, and speak, but has difficulty reading. 

Hyperlexia involves highly proficient decoding skills, such as the ability to read at a very young age, along with below-average oral language skills. A child with Hyperlexia may have an increased preference and focus on letters and numbers, but low language comprehension skills and delayed expressive language skills.  

Phonological Processing Disorder

A Phonological Processing Disorder involves difficulty recognizing and manipulating sounds. This can lead to difficulties decoding words when reading. 

Individuals with a phonological processing disorder may have trouble with tasks such as identifying or naming rhyming words, or naming certain sounds heard within words. 

Strategies for Improving Poor Reading Comprehension

Developing and implementing effective strategies is critically important to enhance reading skills. Let’s discuss some practical strategies that have been proven to help individuals overcome reading difficulties.

Vocabulary Building

• Consistent reading and exposure to books can introduce individuals to a wide variety of words and their meanings. 
• Having caregivers narrate daily activities out loud and sing songs can increase a child’s vocabulary. 
• Create flashcards to practice understanding the meaning of new vocabulary words. 
• Incorporate the use of educational apps and games. 

Reading Aloud

• Encourage the individual to read aloud, which may improve their decoding skills and reading comprehension. 
• Reading aloud to a helpful listener gives the individual opportunities to practice and allows the listener to suggest supportive strategies. 

Contextual Clues

• Learning to use context clues can help individuals infer the meanings of words they may have difficulty reading. 
• Teach individuals how to identify context clues and encourage them to look for these clues while reading text. 
• Stress the importance of the meaning conveyed by words. 

Assistive Technologies

• Text to Speech (TTS) can be used to read electronic text (on websites, documents, etc.) as the individual sees it.
• Audiobooks or books with audio features that allow an individual to follow along with text can improve their reading fluency skills. 
• Utilizing Display Control on a screen allows the individual to alter the text size, font, color, or spacing. 

Visual Aids

• Graphic organizers can be utilized to improve reading comprehension by allowing the individual to take notes while reading. 
•  Magnified text and guided reading strips can improve an individual’s ability to focus and track the text as they read. 

The Benefits of Using Forbrain in Reading

Forbrain is an innovative auditory stimulation headset that is designed to enhance various aspects of communication, including reading comprehension. The unique device delivers sound directly to the individual’s inner ear through bone conduction technology. This can enhance the auditory feedback loop. 

Forbrain is designed to benefit individuals with reading difficulties in the following ways: 

• Enhance Auditory Processing: Enhanced auditory processing skills can lead to an improved ability to accurately decode words and understand spoken language. 
• Improve Articulation : The immediate auditory feedback that Forbrain provides can help individuals correct articulation errors. This can enhance the individual’s reading fluency when reading aloud. 
• Encourage Focus and Attention: The sound delivery method that Forbrain provides may help increase attention for individuals who have difficulty focusing during reading tasks.   
• Expand Vocabulary: Hearing words articulated with clear, intelligible speech can improve an individual’s vocabulary.   
• Build Confidence: The improved articulation and comprehension skills that Forbrain is designed to provide can lead to stronger confidence in the individual’s reading abilities. The individual may then have a more positive attitude towards reading and be willing to read more frequently. 

FAQs on Reading Difficulties

Reading disorders are multifaceted and require a comprehensive understanding in order to provide individuals with the most effective support. Here are some frequently asked questions surrounding reading difficulties.  

How do reading difficulties affect learning?

Having a reading difficulty can negatively impact learning, because it can prevent individuals from being able to participate in various academic tasks. 

Reading comprehension difficulties can impact an individual’s ability to understand and retain information taught across different subjects. Decoding, fluency, and comprehension skills are required for academic tasks such as reading directions and solving word problems. 

How do reading difficulties affect communication?

Reading difficulties can result in difficulties with the receptive and expressive areas of communication. 

Reading difficulties can make it difficult for individuals to understand written directions or other information presented through text. Challenges reading aloud can make it difficult for an individual to verbally communicate with others. 

Do speech problems affect reading?

Yes. Children with speech sound disorders may be considered more likely to have reading difficulties. This is because of potential deficits in their auditory, phonologic, and verbal memory skills. Children with articulation disorders may have trouble sounding out words accurately due sound substitutions, distortions, or omissions present when they speak. Speech and language disorders are common , and affect up to 10% of children. These children should be monitored for reading difficulties due to the co-occurrence of these disorders.  

What is the most important factor that affects reading?

Phonological processing skills are the building blocks for reading development, and are the most important factor affecting an individual’s reading ability. This includes an individual’s ability to recognize and manipulate sounds of language. Phonological processing plays a critical role in several key components of reading, such as: 

Decoding words : translating written letters into the sounds. 

Fluency : the speed at which an individual can proficiently read requires strong phonological awareness skills. 

Vocabulary development: Phonological awareness, a component of phonological processing, has been linked to the ability to understand and retain new words.

How do you treat reading difficulties?

Reading difficulties should be treated through a comprehensive approach that tailors to an individual’s specific areas of need. 

Early intervention can result in the best outcomes for individuals who have a reading disorder. Therefore, children who are at risk for a reading disorder due to factors such as those with a family history of the disorder should be monitored for the need for intervention. 

Appropriate assessments of reading skills should be completed at a young age to facilitate early intervention. A Speech-Language Pathologist can complete a literacy evaluation using standardized assessments. The results of these assessments can pinpoint an individual’s areas of difficulty (i.e., phonological awareness, reading comprehension, decoding, fluency). 

Intervention for reading disorders can be provided by a Speech-Language Pathologist or reading specialist. Reading programs such as the Orton Gillingham Reading Program or Lindamood-Bell can be implemented by a trained specialist or therapist during individual sessions or within small groups.

Many reading programs follow a multisensory approach to reading instruction; encouraging the individual to use senses such as touch, sight, hearing, and movement, to connect language with letters and words. 

Assistive technology can also be incorporated into an individual’s treatment program for a reading disorder. This includes technology such as text to speech programs and Forbrain , an auditory stimulation headset. 

Gabel, L. et al. (2021). Identifying Dyslexia: Link between Maze Learning and Dyslexia Susceptibility Gene, DCDC2 , in Young Children. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1159/000516667

Habibian, M. et al. (2015). The Role of Psychological Factors in the Process of Reading. DOI: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1081247.pdf

Jacobson, et al. (2012). Working Memory Influences Processing Speed and Reading Fluency in ADHD. DOI

Liu, H., et al. (2022). Factors influencing secondary school students’ reading literacy: An analysis based on XGBoost and SHAP methods. DOI: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.948612/full 

Milankov V, et al. (2021). Phonological Awareness as the Foundation of Reading Acquisition in Students Reading in Transparent Orthography. DOI .

“Reading Difficulties in Young Children” by Clemens et al. Essay

Analysis and reflection analyze.

The article under investigation is Reading Difficulties in Young Children: Beyond Basic Early Literacy Skills by Clemens, Ragan, Widales-Benitez. It is devoted to the analysis of reading skills among children and the most common problems that might appear during their education. Traditionally, the acquisition of early literacy skills is considered one of the most important processes that impact the further development of a child and his/her skills in the future (Clements, Ragan, & Widales-Benitez, 2016). For this reason, the authors examine factors that stipulate the emergence of difficulties in reading acquisition.

The article is written by three researchers. Nathan Clemens, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of school psychology at Texas A&M University. He has already created numerous research works devoted to the investigation of early academic skills and has acquired several grants. The second author, Kelsey Ragan, also works at Texas A&M University with Clements to investigate the above-mentioned issue and formulate its most important aspects. Finally, Oscar Widales-Benitez is their colleague working at the same University and cooperating with these authors to reveal the most problematic aspects of the sphere.

In the selected paper, the authors state that vocabulary knowledge, behavioral regulation, teacher knowledge, and school factors, and individualized instruction are the central factors impacting early literacy skills in children and stipulating their outcomes (Clements et al., 2016). In such a way, the researchers suggest that the implementation of a particular policy aimed at the mitigation of these difficulties might result in numerous positive shifts in childrens early literacy and academic successes. Clements et al. (2016) also promote the idea of the gradual implementation of the recommended policy.

In general, the paper could be analyzed regarding the teaching context. The fact is that the formation of early literacy in children and the cultivation of their cognitive skills are the fundamental tasks of teachers nowadays. For this reason, the key problems that are described by the authors in their paper are important for the improved comprehending of the methods to overcome all challenges and create the basis for the further development of a child (Clements et al., 2016). Additionally, the in-depth understanding of the root causes that result in the deterioration of early literacy in children can help teachers to create a more beneficial environment free of stressors and factors that might result in poor outcomes.

Resting on my own field experience, I should also say that the paper becomes important for a better understanding of how to work with children who might have problems with the acquisition of important literacy skills or some other experiences. Therefore, speaking about such factors as vocabulary knowledge, behavioral regulation, teacher knowledge, and school factors, and individualized instruction (Clements et al., 2016). I should also emphasize a significant role they play in the formation of the needed competence in children and their successful development. In such a way, one can admit the high practical use of the selected paper.

As it has already been stated, the authors assume that the introduction of a particular policy aimed at the investigation of the most important factors that impact children might help to solve the problem and attain better academic successes in children regarding their enhanced literacy skills. In such a way, the focus on improved outcomes could be considered one of the apparent advantages of the researchers argument (Clements et al., 2016). Moreover, enumerating the essential factors like vocabulary, instruction, etc., the authors cultivate teachers enhanced understanding of the problem.

At the same time, there are several drawbacks and limitations to the authors assumptions. First, the authors lack credible pieces of evidence proving their assumptions and showing that the enhanced attention devoted to formulated factor might trigger significant alterations in wide populations, now only in children living in poverty and English learners (Clements et al., 2016). Additionally, there are several limits regarding the number of participants and investigation of literature devoted to the issue. For this reason, the authors emphasize the necessity of future research of the sphere and its significant complexity.

Nevertheless, cogitating about the basic ideas of their paper, the authors provide relevant information about how the outlined obstacles might impact literacy levels in children and how they might benefit from the implementation of policies suggested by the researchers. Moreover, the paper investigates the existing perspectives on the issue with the primary aim to reveal the current approach to early literacy skills and their cultivation in children (Clements et al., 2016). For this reason, the investigators manage to support their basic assumptions with a detailed explanation and credible pieces of evidence.

Altogether, the given work could be considered an important source that can be used to attain the enhanced comprehending of early literacy skills in children and the way they should be formed to achieve the most desirable results. It demonstrates the most important obstacles that deteriorate results and stipulate the appearance of undesired outcomes in children. Moreover, it could be used as the basis for the future investigation of the topic and its in-depth analysis. In such a way, the article should be recommended for researchers working in the sphere.

Clements, N., Ragan, K., & Widales-Benitez, P. (2016). Reading difficulties in young children: Beyond basic early literacy skills. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3 (2), 177-184. Web.

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• Problems of Reading and Literacy
• Comprehensive Literacy Model
• Article Reflection about Literacy
• Fourth-Grade Slump in Reading and Writing
• Group Learning and Cheating in Classrooms
• Activities for Children with Basic Language Proficiency
• Literacy Challenges at the Postsecondary Level
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Reading and writing difficulties in bilingual learners

• Published: 18 April 2023
• Volume 73 , pages 1–5, ( 2023 )

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• Qiuying Wang 2  

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In the context of globalization and immigration, bilingualism and biliteracy are increasingly common around the world. Many children learn to read and write in a bilingual and multilingual setting. Despite the widely reported benefits of bilingualism and families’ and school systems’ perceptions of learning a second language as a strength, many challenges are faced in the education of bilingual children with reading and writing difficulties. This special issue aims to deepen our understanding of the sources of reading and writing difficulties in bilingual learners and to explore effective identification, classification, and instructional practices to address the issues across early childhood to adolescence. The reading and writing difficulties are broadly defined and may include difficulties in word-level decoding skills and/or meaning-based competencies such as vocabulary and text comprehension, spelling, and text-level writing.

Dyslexia is the most common form of reading/learning disabilities. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede the growth of vocabulary and background knowledge (International Dyslexia Association, n.d. ). Another group of children is called poor comprehenders, who consistently struggle with reading comprehension. Poor comprehenders are prevalent but often go unnoticed by teachers and clinical practitioners because of their adequate word decoding skills, but persistent difficulties in linguistic comprehension emerge in later school years (Hulme & Snowling, 2011 ; Nation et al., 2004 ). Some other children with reading comprehension difficulties struggle in both word decoding skills and linguistic comprehension.

Accurate and timely identification of learners with reading and writing difficulties is a long-term concern and challenge for educators and researchers worldwide. Given the increasing linguistic diversity across the globe, this issue is not unique to North America where most research has been published. Although considerable progress has been made for monolinguals, such research on bilingual learners is still lacking (e.g., Francis et al., 2019 ). Cultures, languages, and scripts are all important for understanding reading and learning difficulties (McBride, 2019 ).

Bilingualism itself is not a risk factor, but it is associated with reading difficulties in some learners. Identifying reading difficulties accurately and timely in children learning English as a second or an additional language is challenging because difficulties with acquiring a new language can mask signs indicating the risk of dyslexia (Hall, 2009 ). It is imperative in the education system to be able to distinguish second language acquisition from reading and writing difficulties among bilingual learners from early childhood to adolescent periods (Olsen, 2010 ; Parrish et al., 2006 ). So far, sources of reading difficulties in bilingual children reported in the literature include limited code-based skills and linguistic comprehension including vocabulary and oral comprehension (Kieffer & Vukovic, 2012 ), working memory (Swanson et al., 2020 ), inference-making skills and reading engagement (Barber et al., 2022 ), among many other factors.

Reading and writing are closely related skills; research shows substantial correlations between reading and writing achievement. Most poor readers also struggle with writing (MacArthur, n.d. ). Bilingual learners may experience writing difficulties in one or both of their languages. For instance, a study examining the writing abilities of bilingual Korean and Spanish-speaking students in the United States found that the students had more difficulties with their writing in English than in their native languages (Cho & Brutt-Griffler, 2015 ). In another study with bilingual Spanish-English speaking students in a U.S. high school, Guzman-Orth et al. ( 2019 ) found that the students struggled with writing in both languages, but their difficulties were more pronounced in English. In a review of the literature on bilingual learners with writing difficulties, Miller et al. ( 2017 ) identified several factors that contribute to writing difficulties. These include a lack of proficiency in one or both languages, cultural differences in writing conventions, and differences in the writing process between languages.

Overall, research suggests that bilingual learners may experience reading difficulties, writing difficulties, or both of them. The extent of reading and/or writing difficulties in their first or second language may vary. The recent report showed an alarming and stable trend of co-occurrence of reading and writing disabilities in elementary students, ranging from 30% in first grade to 47% in fourth grade, with 50% of first-grade students with reading and writing disabilities continuing to manifest this co-occurrence through the fourth grade (Costa et al., 2016 ; Chua et al., 2016 ) found that, among five conventional tests (phonological awareness, vocabulary, spelling, letter identification, rapid digit naming), spelling was most predictive of word reading difficulties in Kindergarteners learning English as L1 or L2. The prevalence and causes of co-occurrence of reading and spelling/writing difficulties in bilingual students remain less understood. Further research is needed to better understand the underlying causes of these difficulties, which will inform the development of effective strategies for supporting bilingual learners with reading and/or writing difficulties.

Topics in this special issue include sources of reading and writing difficulties in school-aged children from a variety of language and cultural backgrounds in an international setting. Sources of reading and writing difficulties include oral language, executive function, and other basic psycholinguistic skills such as phonological awareness and rapid naming (RAN). Specifically, the aspects of reading difficulties range from word reading to reading comprehension, and writing difficulties include spelling, written summary, and composition skills. Collectively, the set of eight papers provides insights into effective identification and evidence-based instructional practices to support this at-risk student population. Participants feature Spanish-English bilinguals in the U.S. and Spain, French-English bilinguals in French immersion schools in Canada, and Chinese-English bilinguals in Hong Kong and mainland China.

The first four articles included in this special issue investigated the interconnections of oral language, executive functioning, and reading among Kindergarten to first-grade Spanish-English bilinguals in the U.S. (Goodrich et al., 2023 ; Relyea et al., 2023 ) and the stability of reading difficulty classification of first to third grade French-English bilinguals in French immersion schools in Canada (Shakory et al., 2023 ; MacKay et al., 2023 ). The next three articles (Cheah et al., 2023 ; Li et al., 2023 ; Álvarez-Cañizo et al., 2023 ) explored spelling and writing difficulties in Chinese-English bilingual children in Hong Kong and mainland China, and in Spanish-English dyslexic children in Spain. The last article (Zhang et al., 2023 ) investigated the effect of orthographic presence on learning spellings and meanings of morphologically complex words in a sample of linguistically diverse students in the U.S. Below is a summary of each article.

Goodrich and colleagues’ study reported that oral language skills, mainly vocabulary knowledge, and morphosyntactic ability, in Spanish and English were associated with English reading achievement among Spanish-speaking bilingual kindergarten and first-grade children in the U.S., which underscores the importance of children’s oral proficiency in Spanish in identifying bilingual students at risk for reading difficulties.

Relyea’s study explored the U.S. first-grade multilingual children’s profiles of executive function and how the profile membership was associated with their English reading achievement. The results highlight the importance of children’s executive function for the early identification of and tailored intervention for multilingual children at risk for reading difficulties.

Shakory and colleagues investigated the overlap of word reading difficulties in English and French, and the stability of English and French word reading profiles in French immersion children from grades 1 to 3. The findings suggest that English-French bilingual children with reading impairments have significant and persistent deficits in both languages. The presence of co-occurring word reading difficulties in both L1 and L2 has implications for accurately identifying reading difficulties with common underlying reading deficits.

MacKay et al.’s study investigated the early predictors of word reading difficulties in English-French grades 1–3 bilingual readers. The results indicated that kindergarten English phonological awareness and RAN distinguished between good and poor French word readers longitudinally.

Cheah and colleagues examined the cognitive correlates of Chinese and English spelling skills in second and third-grade Chinese- English Hong Kong bilingual children. The findings highlight the critical role of delayed copying in differentiating spelling difficulties in both Chinese and English, the importance of phonological awareness for spelling in English but not in Chinese, and the role of automaticity in bilingual spelling difficulties. The dissociation of spelling in Chinese and English reported in this study is explained by the typological distance between the two writing systems.

Li et al.‘s study examined the quality of summary writing of bilingual adolescents enrolled in an English immersion program in China and the relation of summary quality to their reading comprehension and language learning in L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English). For English language learning, typical readers outperformed poor decoders and poor comprehenders on summaries of themes, main ideas, and important details. For Chinese language learning, typical readers performed better than poor comprehenders on main ideas and important details, and poor decoders outperformed poor comprehenders on main ideas.

Álvarez-Cañizo and colleagues examined similarities and differences in written composition in English L2 and Spanish L1 in Spanish children with dyslexia. Results showed similar writing performance (writing speed, lexical diversity, productivity, and spelling accuracy) in L1 and L2; basic language skills (reading and spelling accuracy, and oral vocabulary) were associated with writing performance in English and Spanish. The findings are explained by cross-language transfer and suggest that basic reading skills and transcription skills influence written composition skills in Spanish-English bilingual children.

Zhang et al.’s study explored the orthographic facilitation effect in learning morphologically complex English words among upper elementary Spanish-speaking and English-speaking students attending schools in the US. Results show that students can retrieve meanings or spellings of complex words better with the presence of spelling compared to no spelling.

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Zhang, J., Wang, Q. Reading and writing difficulties in bilingual learners. Ann. of Dyslexia 73 , 1–5 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-023-00282-8

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David Wallace-Wells

Are smartphones driving our teens to depression.

By David Wallace-Wells

Opinion Writer

Here is a story. In 2007, Apple released the iPhone, initiating the smartphone revolution that would quickly transform the world. In 2010, it added a front-facing camera, helping shift the social-media landscape toward images, especially selfies. Partly as a result, in the five years that followed, the nature of childhood and especially adolescence was fundamentally changed — a “great rewiring,” in the words of the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt — such that between 2010 and 2015 mental health and well-being plummeted and suffering and despair exploded, particularly among teenage girls.

For young women, rates of hospitalization for nonfatal self-harm in the United States, which had bottomed out in 2009, started to rise again, according to data reported to the C.D.C., taking a leap beginning in 2012 and another beginning in 2016, and producing , over about a decade, an alarming 48 percent increase in such emergency room visits among American girls ages 15 to 19 and a shocking 188 percent increase among girls ages 10 to14.

Here is another story. In 2011, as part of the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a new set of guidelines that recommended that teenage girls should be screened annually for depression by their primary care physicians and that same year required that insurance providers cover such screenings in full. In 2015, H.H.S. finally mandated a coding change, proposed by the World Health Organization almost two decades before, that required hospitals to record whether an injury was self-inflicted or accidental — and which seemingly overnight nearly doubled rates for self-harm across all demographic groups. Soon thereafter, the coding of suicidal ideation was also updated. The effect of these bureaucratic changes on hospitalization data presumably varied from place to place. But in one place where it has been studied systematically, New Jersey, where 90 percent of children had health coverage even before the A.C.A., researchers have found that the changes explain nearly all of the state’s apparent upward trend in suicide-related hospital visits, turning what were “essentially flat” trendlines into something that looked like a youth mental health “crisis.”

Could both of these stories be partially true? Of course: Emotional distress among teenagers may be genuinely growing while simultaneous bureaucratic and cultural changes — more focus on mental health, destigmatization, growing comfort with therapy and medication — exaggerate the underlying trends. (This is what Adriana Corredor-Waldron, a co-author of the New Jersey study, believes — that suicidal behavior is distressingly high among teenagers in the United States and that many of our conventional measures are not very reliable to assess changes in suicidal behavior over time.) But over the past several years, Americans worrying over the well-being of teenagers have heard much less about that second story, which emphasizes changes in the broader culture of mental illness, screening guidelines and treatment, than the first one, which suggests smartphones and social-media use explain a whole raft of concerns about the well-being of the country’s youth.

When the smartphone thesis first came to prominence more than six years ago, advanced by Haidt’s sometime collaborator Jean Twenge, there was a fair amount of skepticism from scientists and social scientists and other commentators: Were teenagers really suffering that much? they asked. How much in this messy world could you pin on one piece of technology anyway? But some things have changed since then, including the conventional liberal perspective on the virtues of Big Tech, and, in the past few years, as more data has rolled in and more red flags have been raised about American teenagers — about the culture of college campuses, about the political hopelessness or neuroticism or radicalism or fatalism of teenagers, about a growing political gender divide, about how often they socialize or drink or have sex — a two-part conventional wisdom has taken hold across the pundit class. First, that American teenagers are experiencing a mental health crisis; second, that it is the fault of phones.

“Smartphones and social media are destroying children’s mental health,” the Financial Times declared last spring. This spring, Haidt’s new book on the subject, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, debuted at the top of the New York Times best-seller list. In its review of the book, The Guardian described the smartphone as “a pocket full of poison,” and in an essay , The New Yorker accepted as a given that Gen Z was in the midst of a “mental health emergency” and that “social media is bad for young people.” “Parents could see their phone-obsessed children changing and succumbing to distress,” The Wall Street Journal reflected . “Now we know the true horror of what happened.”

But, well, do we? Over the past five years, “Is it the phones?” has become “It’s probably the phones,” particularly among an anxious older generation processing bleak-looking charts of teenage mental health on social media as they are scrolling on their own phones. But however much we may think we know about how corrosive screen time is to mental health, the data looks murkier and more ambiguous than the headlines suggest — or than our own private anxieties, as parents and smartphone addicts, seem to tell us.

What do we really know about the state of mental health among teenagers today? Suicide offers the most concrete measure of emotional distress, and rates among American teenagers ages 15 to 19 have indeed risen over the past decade or so, to about 11.8 deaths per 100,000 in 2021 from about 7.5 deaths per 100,000 in 2009. But the American suicide epidemic is not confined to teenagers. In 2022, the rate had increased roughly as much since 2000 for the country as a whole, suggesting a national story both broader and more complicated than one focused on the emotional vulnerabilities of teenagers to Instagram. And among the teenagers of other rich countries, there is essentially no sign of a similar pattern. As Max Roser of Our World in Data recently documented , suicide rates among older teenagers and young adults have held roughly steady or declined over the same time period in France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Germany, Greece, Poland, Norway and Belgium. In Sweden there were only very small increases.

Is there a stronger distress signal in the data for young women? Yes, somewhat. According to an international analysis by The Economist, suicide rates among young women in 17 wealthy countries have grown since 2003, by about 17 percent, to a 2020 rate of 3.5 suicides per 100,000 people. The rate among young women has always been low, compared with other groups, and among the countries in the Economist data set, the rate among male teenagers, which has hardly grown at all, remains almost twice as high. Among men in their 50s, the rate is more than seven times as high.

In some countries, we see concerning signs of convergence by gender and age, with suicide rates among young women growing closer to other demographic groups. But the pattern, across countries, is quite varied. In Denmark, where smartphone penetration was the highest in the world in 2017, rates of hospitalization for self-harm among 10- to 19-year-olds fell by more than 40 percent between 2008 and 2016. In Germany, there are today barely one-quarter as many suicides among women between 15 and 20 as there were in the early 1980s, and the number has been remarkably flat for more than two decades. In the United States, suicide rates for young men are still three and a half times as high as for young women, the recent increases have been larger in absolute terms among young men than among young women, and suicide rates for all teenagers have been gradually declining since 2018. In 2022, the latest year for which C.D.C. data is available, suicide declined by 18 percent for Americans ages 10 to 14 and 9 percent for those ages 15 to 24.

None of this is to say that everything is fine — that the kids are perfectly all right, that there is no sign at all of worsening mental health among teenagers, or that there isn’t something significant and even potentially damaging about smartphone use and social media. Phones have changed us, and are still changing us, as anyone using one or observing the world through them knows well. But are they generating an obvious mental health crisis?

The picture that emerges from the suicide data is mixed and complicated to parse. Suicide is the hardest-to-dispute measure of despair, but not the most capacious. But while rates of depression and anxiety have grown strikingly for teenagers in certain parts of the world, including the U.S., it’s tricky to disentangle those increases from growing mental-health awareness and destigmatization, and attempts to measure the phenomenon in different ways can yield very different results.

According to data Haidt uses, from the U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the percent of teenage girls reporting major depressive episodes in the last year grew by about 50 percent between 2005 and 2017, for instance, during which time the share of teenage boys reporting the same grew by roughly 75 percent from a lower level. But in a biannual C.D.C. survey of teenage mental health, the share of teenagers reporting that they had been persistently sad for a period of at least two weeks in the past year grew from only 28.5 percent in 2005 to 31.5 percent in 2017. Two different surveys tracked exactly the same period, and one showed an enormous increase in depression while the other showed almost no change at all.

And if the rise of mood disorders were a straightforward effect of the smartphone, you’d expect to see it everywhere smartphones were, and, as with suicide, you don’t. In Britain, the share of young people who reported “feeling down” or experiencing depression grew from 31 percent in 2012 to 38 percent on the eve of the pandemic and to 41 percent in 2021. That is significant, though by other measures British teenagers appear, if more depressed than they were in the 2000s, not much more depressed than they were in the 1990s.

Overall, when you dig into the country-by-country data, many places seem to be registering increases in depression among teenagers, particularly among the countries of Western Europe and North America. But the trends are hard to disentangle from changes in diagnostic patterns and the medicalization of sadness, as Lucy Foulkes has argued , and the picture varies considerably from country to country. In Canada , for instance, surveys of teenagers’ well-being show a significant decline between 2015 and 2021, particularly among young women; in South Korea rates of depressive episodes among teenagers fell by 35 percent between 2006 and 2018.

Because much of our sense of teenage well-being comes from self-reported surveys, when you ask questions in different ways, the answers vary enormously. Haidt likes to cite data collected as part of an international standardized test program called PISA, which adds a few questions about loneliness at school to its sections covering progress in math, science and reading, and has found a pattern of increasing loneliness over the past decade. But according to the World Happiness Report , life satisfaction among those ages 15 to 24 around the world has been improving pretty steadily since 2013, with more significant gains among women, as the smartphone completed its global takeover, with a slight dip during the first two years of the pandemic. An international review published in 2020, examining more than 900,000 adolescents in 36 countries, showed no change in life satisfaction between 2002 and 2018.

“It doesn’t look like there’s one big uniform thing happening to people’s mental health,” said Andrew Przybylski, a professor at Oxford. “In some particular places, there are some measures moving in the wrong direction. But if I had to describe the global trend over the last decade, I would say there is no uniform trend showing a global crisis, and, where things are getting worse for teenagers, no evidence that it is the result of the spread of technology.”

If Haidt is the public face of worry about teenagers and phones, Przybylski is probably the most prominent skeptic of the thesis. Others include Amy Orben, at the University of Cambridge, who in January told The Guardian, “I think the concern about phones as a singular entity are overblown”; Chris Ferguson, at Stetson University, who is about to publish a new meta-analysis showing no relationship between smartphone use and well-being; and Candice Odgers, of the University of California, Irvine, who published a much-debated review of Haidt in Nature, in which she declared “the book’s repeated suggestion that digital technologies are rewiring our children’s brains and causing an epidemic of mental illness is not supported by science.”

Does that overstate the case? In a technical sense, I think, no: There may be some concerning changes in the underlying incidence of certain mood disorders among American teenagers over the past couple of decades, but they are hard to separate from changing methods of measuring and addressing mental health and mental illness. There isn’t great data on international trends in teenage suicide — but in those places with good reporting, the rates are generally not worsening — and the trends around anxiety, depression and well-being are ambiguous elsewhere in the world. And the association of those local increases with the rise of the smartphone, while now almost conventional wisdom among people like me, is, among specialists, very much a contested claim. Indeed, even Haidt, who has also emphasized broader changes to the culture of childhood , estimated that social media use is responsible for only about 10 percent to 15 percent of the variation in teenage well-being — which would be a significant correlation, given the complexities of adolescent life and of social science, but is also a much more measured estimate than you tend to see in headlines trumpeting the connection. And many others have arrived at much smaller estimates still.

But this all also raises the complicated question of what exactly we mean by “science,” in the context of social phenomena like these, and what standard of evidence we should be applying when asking whether something qualifies as a “crisis” or “emergency” and what we know about what may have caused it. There is a reason we rarely reduce broad social changes to monocausal explanations, whether we’re talking about the rapid decline of teenage pregnancy in the 2000s, or the spike in youth suicide in the late ’80s and early 1990s, or the rise in crime that began in the 1960s: Lives are far too complex to easily reduce to the influence of single factors, whether the factor is a recession or political conditions or, for that matter, climate breakdown.

To me, the number of places where rates of depression among teenagers are markedly on the rise is a legitimate cause for concern. But it is also worth remembering that, for instance, between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s, diagnoses of American youth for bipolar disorder grew about 40-fold , and it is hard to find anyone who believes that change was a true reflection of underlying incidence. And when we find ourselves panicking over charts showing rapid increases in, say, the number of British girls who say they’re often unhappy or feel they are a failure, it’s worth keeping in mind that the charts were probably zoomed in to emphasize the spike, and the increase is only from about 5 percent of teenagers to about 10 percent in the first case, or from about 15 percent to about 20 percent in the second. It may also be the case, as Orben has emphasized , that smartphones and social media may be problematic for some teenagers without doing emotional damage to a majority of them. That’s not to say that in taking in the full scope of the problem, there is nothing there. But overall it is probably less than meets the eye.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.

Further reading (and listening):

On Jonathan Haidt’s After Babel Substack , a series of admirable responses to critics of “The Anxious Generation” and the smartphone thesis by Haidt, his lead researcher Zach Rausch, and his sometime collaborator Jean Twenge.

In Vox, Eric Levitz weighs the body of evidence for and against the thesis.

Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie deliver a useful overview of the evidence and its limitations on the Studies Show podcast.

Five experts review the evidence for the smartphone hypothesis in The Guardian.

A Substack survey of “diagnostic inflation” and teenage mental health.