Marshall Roberts, chairperson of dyslexia support and advocacy group Code REaD, says the current implementation of evidence-based literacy instruction underway at scale in some jurisdictions might actually leave those with the lowest skills worse off, or at least in the short term.
He fears we might come to see these students as ‘implementation casualties’.
“I'd actually argue that for kids that are really resistant to quality instruction, who really need that extra repetition and that extra granularity, they may even be slightly worse off in the current rollouts that are happening,” Roberts tells EducationHQ.
The big issue is that the focus has been on overhauling teachers’ instruction at the Tier 1 level, with Tier 3 interventions not yet up to scratch under schools’ Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), he suggests.
“Looking at Tassie as an example, a lot of the rollout has focused on Tier 1, so your standard classroom instruction, and that's been fantastic and it's going to reach a lot of kids that way, and we're going to see a lot of turnaround, I think, as a result of that.”
But there’s a double-edged sword here, he adds.
“There might be kids who, let's say on oral reading fluency, they might have been at the 30th or 40th percentile, who just needed a little bit of explicit instruction to bring them up to speed.
“So those kids are going to flourish under this new structured literacy model – but because it's only been rolled out in Tier 1, the kids who are really resistant to even good instruction, if they're not getting that extra repetition that they need at Tier 3, then they're going to be even further behind the rest of their cohort [who have moved up].”
But saying those children lowest end of the proficiency spectrum will be “worse off” under structured literacy is really only relative, Roberts flags.
“Dyslexics will likely be better off compared to where they'd be under balanced literacy, but I suspect they might end up further behind their peers despite their own small progress because their peers will benefit from structured literacy more.”
He says that once schools establish ‘genuine’ Tier 3 supports, structured literacy should see us get much closer to the possibility of having 95 per cent of children literate once they leave primary school.
Roberts has previously outlined his concerns around the structured literacy rollout via his blog.
“The major focus is on curriculum rather than teacher training (and should be … if viewed through a utilitarian lens),” he writes.
“It’s also easier, not just more effective, to change materials than it is to create more highly skilled staff.”
Yet nobody would dispute that Tier 3 literacy intervention needs to be carried out by the best trained staff available, he adds.
“I’m also yet to meet an educational consultant who thinks principals and higher-ups generally have a genuine understanding of how much work is involved in remediating an instruction-resistant reader.”
Roberts argues that although structured literacy might not be perfect – and we are ‘nowhere near having an answer from science yet’ as to what is the absolute best possible method of teaching whole classrooms of students how to read and write – it does the best job out of the current instructional choices.
“But there’s nuance within 'the best job', and I’m more worried about the kids at the bottom of the curve not getting enough than I am about the kids at the top facing opportunity costs,” he notes.
Earlier this week Code REaD called time on the misguided but common idea that a child who is struggling with reading needs six months of targeted intervention before receiving a dyslexia diagnosis.
“Ideally, we say that a diagnosis shouldn’t even be necessary, especially with multi-tiered systems of support in place," Roberts says.
“Because those kids who are struggling will automatically end up in tier 3 intervention and be getting that early intervention faster and sooner, which is all you can do, really.
“The best way you’re possibly going to ameliorate dyslexia is through targeted intervention.”
