READING GOALS: THE 70% AND 80% PROBLEM Grade placement has little to do with establishing a goal and set of objectives that are ambitious BUT realistic. Realistic means that with the proper supports and services, extensive and coordinated, the childs progress will accelerate if he makes a moderate and persistent effort and uses the appropriate strategies taught to him (or her). Proper goals are the result of Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance (PLAAFP) that adhere to the CARE standards (Comprehensive, Accurate, Relevant, Explicit; Negotiating Your Childs IEP: A Step-by-Step Guide , Amazon Kindle). Thus the PLAAFP, identifying what the child can do quickly and accurately, without excessive stress, is instructionally far more important than age or grade placement. For reading comprehension, 80% is instructional level, implying a 20% error rate that schools design instruction to eliminate. Its highly probable that to reach the goal of 80%, the teacher will teach the child at his frustration level, which is BAD and will likely erode his (or her) self-efficacy, motivation and cause lingering emotional problems. For reading comprehension, instructional level is the level at which a student can read with assistance from a teacher. Both oral and silent reading should be free from behaviors that often indicate serious difficulty, such as finger pointing or tension. Although oral reading may be less fluent at this level than at the independent level, it should retain some sense of rhythm and expression…. The examiner who is counting all rniscues should use a criterion of 90% accuracy, and the student should correctly answer 70% of the questions asked. Materials written at this level should be chosen for reading and content-area instruction This placement assumes that the teacher will introduce words and concepts that are likely to be unfamiliar to the readers. She or he presents the identification and meaning of these concepts and provides appropriate background knowledge necessary for understanding the material. Obviously, when students are placed at the instructional level, the teacher should not say, ‘Read Chapter 5 and well have a test tomorrow’ [Leslie, L., & Caldwell, J. (2006). Qualitative Reading Inventory-4. Boston: Pearson, p. 25]. For word recognition in passage reading, frustration level is 90 percent or less and comprehension scores of 50 percent or less [Johns, J. L. (1988). Basic Reading Inventory, 4th ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, pp. 82-83]. Signs of anxiety may make this level too difficult for some children. Recently, the Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, published research from the University of Minnesota demonstrating that effective fluency instruction requires materials on which children achieve at least 93% accuracy. The quotes in this post may help IEP teams and parents who believe that a childs goals are using criteria that may impair their childs progress and emotional well being. Here on two more that may help. A childs instructional level is the grade level construed to represent the level at which instruction should be geared .... [It] is that [level] which immediately precedes frustration level .... At the instructional level, the child must work at reading .... When children are reading material written at their instructional levels, their teachers must ensure that they master the new and challenging words and concepts in the material. To do so the teacher must discuss the material with the children, increase their level of information regarding the content to be read, present new vocabulary words, and generally provide them with sufficient skills to enable them to grasp the content of the material. .... The term instructional level means that instruction must take place .... The teacher must be alert to the students level of comfort with material designated at him or him instructional level. In contrast, the frustration level should be avoided. This is the level where reading breaks down. Frustration level indicates the reader either cannot recognize a sufficient number of words to grasp the meaning of the passage or is unable to understand the concepts represented by the words .... Continuing to expect a child to read material at him or him frustration level can create serious achievement and emotional problems. [Newcomer, P. L. (1986). Standardized Reading Inventory (manual). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed, p. 26.] If we want to produce a generation of truly learned students, then the learning student cannot experience success at only a few milestones in his/her career. Each must experience a constant stream of success Allington, R. L. (2001). What really matters for struggling readers: Designing research-based programs. NY: Longman, p. 47]. Sorry, but this post may have a few typos and awkward sentences. This evening, time permitting, Ill correct them. © Howard Margolis, Ed.D., LLC, 2014 Howard Margolis is Editor Emeritus of the Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, Professor Emeritus of Reading Disabilities & Special Education, and co-author of Negotiating Your Childs IEP: A Step-by-Step Guide (Amazon Kindle) and Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds (Amazon).
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 12:35:31 +0000
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