For Struggling Students…Is Special Education the Answer?

One of the many perks of having a child attend college at a Big 10 university is attending sporting events.  My son, AJ, is a sophomore at Michigan State University and we’ve been fortunate to be able to attend several MSU basketball games this season.  While watching basketball, I’ve been particularly drawn to one player, Adreian Payne.  Adreian is a junior, an amazing talent and will likely be drafted into the NBA.  If you’ve ever coached or are really into team sports you know that there are players who can change the course of the game by their mere presence on the field or court.  Although talented, these players are often not the most talented player, but they possess a certain quality that can galvanzie a team and quickly change the course of the game.  As a novice basketball spectator, I believe that Adreian Payne has that special quality that’s hard to put into words.

Image obtained through Getty Images

Imagine my surprise that when watching a MSU game in the final four tournament when the announcer shared that Adreian had been labeled as cognitively impaired and spent most of his schooling in a self contained classroom and is now a scholar athelete with a 3.1 gpa at MSU.  In a flash he shared that tidbit of information and then quickly returned to commentating the game.  I doubt to this day that the vast majority of the tv viewers understood the profoundity of what was just shared.

What is a cognitive impairment?

A cognitive impairment implies low intelligence.  In the educational world we currently use the term “cognitively impaired” to describe individuals who fall significantly below the average range in intelligence (“mentally impaired” and “mental retardation” are older terms not currently used).  In the school setting (at least in Michigan), a student’s IQ must fall two or more standard deviations below the mean.  That’s translates into a standard score of 70 or below.

Click the following link to download this printable Michigan Criteria for Cognitive Impairment

In addition to low IQ, both the student’s reading and math skills must be significantly below the norm (below the 6th percentile) and the student’s “adaptive behavior” skills need to be significantly impaired.  This means that in addition to low IQ, low academic skills, social, communication and self-help must also be low.

Adreian’s Story

I’ve been scouring the internet trying to piece together Adreian’s story.  Here’s the jist.  Adrien began receiving special education services in kindergarten.  He was in a self-contained classroom and integrated into the general education setting for “specials”.  That meant that he attended music, art and gym with general education students and received all academic instruction in the special education classroom.  Adreian’s mother died when he was 13 and he was raised by his grandmother until her death in 2011.  According to an ESPN publication, a general education math teacher by the name of Richard Gates walked by Adreian’s classroom one day during his freshman year and observed the students watching television.  Mr. Gates questioned the quality of instruction Adreian and his fellow classmates were receiving.  Mr. Gates contacted Adreian’s grandmother, Mary Lewis, and told her that she needed to remove him from the special education program.  Ms. Lewis attended an IEP and basically declined all special education services.  Adreian then attended all general education classes and Mr. Gates tutored him every day for three years.  Just imagine that!  A special education student spending the large majority of the day in a self-contained classroom for 9 years just put into all general education classes.  With hard work and dedication (a lot of it), graduates from high school and attends college.

So why am I so intrigued with this story?  I am the specialist (figuratively speaking) that would have evaluated and placed Adreian in the special education program.

So What Went Wrong?

What I do know about educators is that we entered our careers to help children.  We certainly didn’t become an educator to inflict harm.  I do, however, have tons of questions regarding Adreian’s early educational experiences and the decisions that led to his special education label.  For starters, what was the quality of reading instruction in kindergarten, first and second grade?  Did his school have a reading curriculum? Was his teachers knowledgeable in the 5 key areas of reading instruction? Was instruction differentiated? Did he received intensive small group intervention either in his classroom or through Title One?  If so, was it research-based intervention?  My colleagues who evaluated Adreian, I’m sure followed their state rules and regulations.  I’m sure the diagnostic team, when labeling Adreian, had his best interest at heart.  It’s really difficult to see a child struggle; it’s heartbreaking.  Add to that increasing demands of the curriculum and environmental factors.  It’s human nature to want to make it easier for children and special education is often a way to do that.  But, is it the right thing to do?  I don’t know exactly why or how the decision was made and I honestly don’t know if I would have made the same decision, but with 20-20 hindsight, it was the wrong decision.  Had not Mr. Gates walked by the classroom that day, had the courage to go against the experts within the school and had not Ms. Lewis stood her ground and removed her grandson from special education, Adreian’s life would have turned out very differently.

What Happens When We Label a Student?

Typically, students are identified as having a specific learning disability (SLD) around 2nd or 3rd grade.  We are usually able to determine a cognitive impairment much sooner.  When a child is determined through an evaluation as having a disability, an IEP (Individual Educational Planning) meeting is held.  The IEP team makes a placement decision and determines how much time the student will receive instruction in an alternative placement.  Typically students with a SLD spend about 1-2 hours in a special education classroom where a student with a cognitive impairment may spend much more time.  The problem is that what begins as “getting a little extra help to close the gap” turns into more and more time spent receiving instruction in the special education classroom as the child grows older.  At those beginning IEP meetings, we rarely tell parents that the possibility of their child exiting special education is extremely slim.  Compounding the issue is that special education classrooms are often filled to their limit in terms of numbers.  Why would we think a student can close the gap  if placed in a classroom with 18 students ranging in age from kindergarten to fifth grade with vastly different needs?  Generally speaking, the more time the student spends out of his/her general education classroom, the more the gap continues to widen.  Unconsciously or even consciously, another issue is that we tend to lower expectations for our students receiving special education services.

So What are Some Solutions?

I wish I had all the answers.  I do know, however, that collectively we can do better.  Here are some of my thoughts:

1.  As diagnosticians, we cannot make mistakes.  We have to evaluate not only the child, but the quality of instruction the child had and currently is receiving.  We need to be able to distinguish if the student’s low performance is a result of a severe neurologically-based deficit or a result of inadequate instruction.  It’s not ethical to label students as having a disability when in fact the real issue was inadequate instruction.

2.  Prior to being evaluated for special education, the student must receive high quality supplemental small group or individual instruction using a research-based program.  We use an Orton-Gillingham based program.  There are several other programs such as Reading Recovery, Lindamood-Bell which also provide systematic and explicit instruction.  The intervention must be delivered by a qualified professional and with fidelity.

3.  If a child is to be placed in a special education classroom, the instruction needs to be more intensive and more “expert” than what he/she would receive in general education.  This means group size must be smaller and the teacher must be highly trained in reading instruction.  We cannot continue to fill special education classrooms to their limit and expect results.

4.  Especially in the early grades, reading instruction in the special education classroom should not supplant instruction provided in general education.  The student needs more instruction.  The reality is that there are only so many minutes in the day–something will have to give, but it shouldn’t be reading when reading is the area of deficit.

5.  An increased effort for co-teaching should be made in many schools.  In a co-taught classroom, a special education and general education teacher are both responsible for delivering instruction within the general education classroom.  Supports for learners having difficulty (either special education students or general education students) can be provided within the classroom.  Here are a few resources on co-teaching.

6.  Students with learning difficulties will require accommodations to be successful within the general education classroom.  Fortunately, technology has advanced (e.g. text to speech) to the point where it is much easier now to alleviate some of the barriers to accessing text.  A thoughtful accommodation plan will need to be developed for students to be meaningfully integrated into the general education classroom.

7.  Keep expectations high.  One of my favorite sayings is, “go as fast as you can, but as slow as you need to.”

So What About IQ? 

The reality is is that IQ does predict school performance, and to some extent, school performance predicts success later in life (as measured by job happiness and income).  It’s a long-held belief that IQ doesn’t change–no matter what you do.  In essence, you live with the cards you’re dealt and those around you “adjust expecations”.  There was an article recently published in the AFT magazine entitled “What Every Educator Should Know About IQ”.  The thing is is that there are two kinds of intelligence-fluid intelligence and crystalized intelligence.  Fluid intelligence refers to the ability to reason quickly and think abstractly.  Fluid intelligence declines with age.  Crystalized intelligence consists of the knowledge and skills that are accumulated over a lifetime.  Crystalized intelligence improves with age and with experiences.  Can we change our IQ and the IQ of our students?  Of course we can!

We can learn a lot from Adreian’s story.  Most of all, we need to have high expectations for all students.  Our beliefs determine our behavior.  Do we believe that all children can succeed?  Do we believe that we can have a significant impact in the lives of all students?  Can we change the course of someone’s life?  We can.

My Favorite Resources for Dyslexia and Learning Disabilities

We are often asked by parents if we think their child has dyslexia when the child is having difficulty learning to read.  This question certainly is raised if the child is reversing letters or numbers in writing.   There seems to be a certain mystic around the term “dyslexia”.  “Dyslexia” simply means “difficutly with words” as dys means “difficult” and lexia, “words”.   The term “dyslexia” is used mostly used within the medical profession when describing children who are struggling with reading.   In the school setting, when a child’s reading difficulty is so severe that he or she requires special education, the child is often labeled with a “Specific Learning Disability” (SLD).   We know that dyslexia occur on continuum.  The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) reports that perhaps 15-20% of the population may have some of the symptoms of dyslexia (slow and inaccurate reading, poor spelling and writing, or mixing up words).  It is estimated that approximately 6-7% of the school population have academic difficulties so severe that they require special education under the category of SLD (the vast majority being reading realted).  So, in other words, children whose reading difficulties are so severe that they require special education are in fact dyslexic (have difficulty with words).  There are, however, children who have difficulty with reading, who do in fact meet the definition of “dyslexia”, however do not require special education services within the school.  The Dyslexia Basics article authored by the IDA is a helpful article that you can provide to parents.  The article addresses the definition, symptoms, causes and treatment of  dyslexia and learning disabilities.

If an article just isn’t enough, and you’d like more information on dyslexia and reading difficulties, my all time favorite resource book is Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz.  Dr. Shaywitz is a pediatric neuroscientist from Yale University.  It’s a great book for both parents and teachers.

Whether children qualify for special education services or not, we do know that children with reading difficulites benefit from systematic and explicit language-based intervention to improve their reading skills.   These children often benefit from the use of a multisensory approach (using all the senses).   In addition, instruction needs to be provided within small groups so that the teacher can provide immediate and corrective feedback and  students need added practice (more than children who are learning to read normally) on specific skills.  The Orton-Gillingham approach is often associated with the multisensory, phonics-based, explict/systematic instruction geared towards students with dyslexia.   In our schools, we use a program based on the Orton-Gillingham methods, Phonics First, through the Reading and Language Arts Center (RLAC).  Most of our Title One teachers, Reading Specialists and special education teachers have received this training.

While looking through the education section at a local book store I found this book, School Success for Kids with Dyslexia.  I love this book as it is geared more towards the intervention component for students with reading difficulties.

The intervention section of the book requires the use of a “Phonics Deck”.  You can certainly make your own (and the book tells you exactly what to do), or you can download the deck I created for you.  You’ll need the phonics deck for both the assessment and intervention.  Be sure to print the deck single-sided to doubled-sided on cardstock as I provided key words for the correct pronunciation of the sound.  There are 154 cards covering vowels, consonants, vowel teams, initial and final blends, r-controlled vowels, consonant digraphs, special phonograms, consonant +le, Vowel+Consonant+Consonant, and Final Stable Syllables.

Click the following link to download the Phonics Cards Phonics Deck

Here are a few of my favorite online resources.  Reading Rockets is really my favorite website for all things education-related.  Here’s a link to their Dyslexia page.  Be sure to watch the brain imaging video clips which can be found in the multi-media section–absolutely facinating!

Click HERE to go to Reading Rockets Dylexia Resource page

LD Online is another awesome website with tons of great information on learning disabilities.  Click HERE to access this webpage.

While poking around these websites I found a link to a HBO documentary on dyslexia that looks absolutely fabulous.  I watched the movie trailer and it features Dr. Sally Shaywitz and many high achieving people with dyslexia.  Check out The Big Picture website.  There are tons of resources too.  It’s brand new and I just ordered it!

I hope you find these resources valuable in helping to understand dyslexia/reading disabilities.  If you have favorite resources, just leaving a comment below.

Why Students Reverse Letters

Many parents become quite concerned when looking at their child’s writing and see that their child is confusing letters such as b/d, p/q or m/w.  Letter and word reversals have become so strongly associated with dyslexia that it’s no wonder why parents are anxious when they see such confusions.  As educators, it is important for us to understand why students reverse letters and to provide parents with the best information possible.

Learning to Read

Before we talk about reversals, let’s take a moment and think about what we are asking children to do when we are teaching them to read.  In our system, learning to read is based on the alphabetic principle.  This means that a child must understand that letters have sounds that make words when combined together.  Letters are “abstract”.   There are 26 letters of the alphabet and letters consist of a series of sticks, circles and curves that when combined in different ways, make different letters.  Each of the 26 letters has an uppercase and a lowercase letter.  Sometimes the letters look similar and sometimes they look very different.

Sometimes letters look very different depending upon if they are handwritten or typed.  Even typed letters look different depending upon the font.

There are certain letters that have the same stick, circles and curves, but if you switch the direction, they are different letters with different sounds.  Up until this point, the child knows that an object is an object no matter if it’s upside down or turned about, but not so with letters.  Direction now matters.

Well, then each letter has a sound.  Wait-not so simple-some letters have two sounds.  The letter “c” has the /k/ sound as in the word “cat” and a /s/ sound as in the word “circle”.  The sound that is used depends upon the position it is in the word and the other letters around it.  Sometimes letters are in a word, but they say nothing at all (like the “e” in “name”).  Sometimes two letters are put together to make a whole different sound (“s” and “h” together make the /sh/ sound).  When you think about it, it is amazing that most of our young children learn to read relatively easily.

What we know about reversals and dyslexia/reading disabilities (RD)

Fortunately, neuroscientists have at their disposal brain imaging techniques (fMRI, PET) that allows them to see exactly what is happening in the brain as a person reads.  Such techniques have helped us understand the nature of learning to read as well as differences that are present in people who struggle with reading.  Based on these and other studies, what we know about reading has strong scientific basis.  Current research tells us that the root cause of dyslexia/RD lies in the way the brain processes sounds.  With the large majority of children, the issue is with language processing at the phoneme (sound) level and not a problem with visual processing.  There is no evidence to suggest that children with dyslexia/RD see letters and words backwards.  Backwards writing and letter reversals are very common in the early stages of writing.  Students who have dyslexia/RD do not “mirror write” or reverse letters with any greater frequency than those who do not have reading difficulties.  When children reverse letters, it is a sign that orthographic representation (forming letters and spelling) is not fully developed.  While it is true that children with dyslexia/RD continue to reverse letters longer than children without reading difficulties, this is primarily due to delayed development in reading rather than a separate issue with visual processing.

Addressing Reversals

Although reversals are common in kindergarten, first and second grades, students who continue to reverse letters past second grade should receive targeted intervention.  A screening by an Occupational Therapist may be helpful at this point.  There are several strategies that can help cue students, regardless of age, that can be used.

• For students who reverse multiple letters (b/d, m/w, p/q), address one discrimination at at time.  Over-teach one of the letters before introducing the other.  For example, if you are addressing the b/d reversal, over-teach writing of the “b” before introducing the “d”.
• Use multi-sensory materials while teaching the letter(s).  Making and tracing the letters using playdoh, wikki sticks, shaving cream, hair gel in a baggie, yarn, puffy or glitter glue will help.  Be sure the child says the letter name and sound while tracing the letter (“b” says /b/ while tracing the letter-repeat multiple times).
• Use visual cues to cue correct letter formation.  A common visual cue is to teach the “b” as a “bat with a ball” to cue that the stick is formed first while writing the letter.  The “d” is cued as a “drum and a drum stick”.  Placing a visual cue on the student’s desk or in front of the classroom also helps.

Click the following link to download free b/d cue cards for student desks. Reversal Cue Cards for Student Desks

• Another strategy that one of our reading teachers shared is using mouth formation as a cue.  I like this strategy because it doesn’t “take the student out of the reading process”.  Using this strategy, students are taught that when they make the /b/ sound, the crease between the upper and lower lip is straight just like the line in the “b”.  When making a /d/ sound,  the tongue is curled just like the curl is first when writing the “d”.

With any child who struggles to learn to read, it is important that vision is tested.

Note:  The word “dyslexia” means “difficulty with words”.  Dyslexia is a term most commonly used by the medical profession, researchers and clinicians.  Reading abilities exist on a continuum.  Whether a clinician determines whether an individual has dyslexia is based upon an arbitrary cut-off point on how far behind age/grade level he/she feels an individual needs to fall.  In the school setting, the term “Specific Learning Disability” (SLD) is used to describe students who are significantly below grade level to the point that the student requires special education services.   Within this post I used the term “Reading Disability” (RD).  It is certainly possible that a student may have an outside diagnosis of dyslexia; however, not qualify for special education services in the school.

If you would like more information on dyslexia/reading disabilities check out my favorite reference book:  Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Probles at Any Level by Sally Shaywitz, M.D.