LD Blog

On Charles Fox’s Special Education Law Blog, there is a post entitled “Guided Reading: Is It Really Appropriate for Students with a Reading Disability? by Lisa Hannum” that some readers may find valuable. Ms. Hannum questions the utility of guided reading activitities for students with Learning Disabilities in reading, expressing her concern that it fosters guessing and use of other strategies that are inefficient and that lead to mistakes.

Guided reading is popular among advocates of “balanced literacy” approaches to reading instruction, and Ms. Hannum is right that there is reason to doubt its value for students who do not read well. Along with self-selected reading, writing, and “word work,” guided reading is one of the “four blocks” that the decendents of whole language recommend. Although the advocates claim that these methods align with scientifically based reading instruction, the research is not consistent with those claims.

Here are two illustrations of research that examined guided reading:

• In Connie Juel’s and Cecilia Minden-Cupp’s study of reading development among young children, guided reading worked reasonably well for students who came to school with high literacy skills.
• In the widely known study by Barbara Foorman and colleagues, guided reading was part of the control-group condition; children taught under the control-group conditions did not learn to read as well as those who received systematic, explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics.

To learn about guided reading from its advocates, see Guided Reading by I. Fountas and G. Pinnell (1998, Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH). To read the research I’ve mentioned, read these articles:

Foorman, B. R., Francis, D. J., Fletcher, J. M., & Schatschneider, C. (1998). The role of instruction in learning to read: Preventing reading failure in at-risk children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 37-55.

Juel, C., & Minden-Cupp, C. (2000). Learning to read words: Linguistic units and instructional strategies. Reading Research Quarterly, 35, 458-492.

To read a description of a sensible approach to preventing and treating Learning Disabilities in reading, see this paper:

Foorman, B. R., & Torgesen, J. (2001). Critical elements of classroom and small-group instruction to promote reading success in all children. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 16, 203-212.

To read a thorough take-down of how guided reading and other examples of repackaged whole language methods misrepresent themselves as scientifically based, see Louisa Moats’ article, “Whole-Language High Jinks: How to Tell When ‘Scientifically-Based Reading Instruction’ Isn’t.”

Mr. Fox indicated that Ms. Hannum’s entry is the first of two posts, with the second one promising to provide guidance about appropriate practices.