2023 Literature Review, A Master’s Project
Methods to Efficiently Teach Students with Intellectual Disabilities to Decode and Read
Cy Simonsgaard
A Master’s Project
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Education
At King’s College
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
2023
Abstract
Independent decoding and reading skills are essential for intellectually disabled (ID) students to lead engaged, healthy, safe lives in the modern world. Statistics illustrate that ID can significantly impact most students' learning abilities, particularly in reading. For instance, emerging reading skills typically developing children gain in one year take as long as four years for students with ID even with the use of daily intense interventions. Research also shows that most students with ID are leaving their educational settings with low literacy rates and poor outlooks for employment and independence. This literature review was conducted to find the most efficient research-based reading interventions of last ten years that help students with ID decode and read. Intervention designs vary and include both researcher and instructor designed curriculums with and without scope and sequence, pre-packaged curriculums, and technology-based curriculums. In addition, interventions differed in group size, overall duration, frequency of lessons, and effectiveness. Ultimately, most studies highlighted the importance of long-term, small group or 1:1, frequent, repetitive reading intervention for students with ID. Results also indicated that using systematic, explicit phonics-based intervention with fidelity can improve reading skills and quality of life for students with ID. The significance of this research lies in determining the most efficient methods to teach students with ID to decode and read in their daily lives.
Methods to Efficiently Teach Students with Intellectual Disabilities to Decode and Read
It is well documented that long-term outcomes in employment, mental health, safety, and overall quality of life are directly improved by addressing illiteracy and low literacy rates. Nevertheless, according to research, students with intellectual disabilities (ID) typically receive far lower word reading scores compared to their peers (Allor et al., 2014). Studies showed that 17-year-old students with ID exiting school scored 61.7 on average in word identification, while students who received general special education services had an average score of 83.2. The population norm for students exiting public school is 100. To discover solutions, this paper searched for the most efficient method to teach students with ID to decode and overcome the most common barriers to reading. Findings indicated that explicit, systematic phonics-based instruction provided with intense, engaging, 1:1 sessions over a long duration most effectively taught students with ID to decode and read.
In 1997 The National Reading Panel (NRP) was formed to assess the effectiveness of various reading intervention methods, and it determined that phonics-based instruction was the most efficient intervention for U.S. students (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000). A resulting NRP 2000 report provided a teacher guide to use as a national classroom framework. Even though continual consequent federal mandates required U.S. schools to assess and verify reasonable reading advancement in students with ID, low reading scores in the ID population persisted (Lindstrom & Lemons, 2021). Lindstrom and Lemons moreover reported that students with severe disabilities continued to receive low-quality, mostly sight-word, vocabulary and comprehension reading instruction in several observational studies. Sight word reading does not allow students to generalize their learning beyond common taught words or read new words in their environment (Reichow et al., 2019).
Further research into possible barriers to overall reading progress in the ID student population showed that not only was it standard practice that students received mainly sight word for daily living training prior to federal actions, but that the practice continues today (Ainsworth et al., 2016; Allor et al., 2014; Browder et al., 2009; Lemons et al., 2016; Moustafa & Ghani, 2017; Sermier Dessemontet et al., 2021). Reasons for this inertia in reading progress for students with ID corresponded with researchers' difficulties in conducting their studies on the topic. For example, several articles discussed the need for high intensity, frequency, and duration of student lessons to produce even small gains in reading skills (Allor et al., 2014; Afacan et al., 2018; Browder et al., 2009; Hill, 2016; Hua et al. 2018; Jeffes 2015; Lindstrom & Lemons, 2016; Sermier Dessemontet et al., 2021). Each demand had associated costs of time, energy, and financial investment. Additionally, educators and researchers cited complex requirements of precise fidelity to phonics-based interventions, issues with expert and ongoing teacher training and support, and the knowledge gap surrounding generalizing classroom decoding skills into reading that improves daily living (Afacan et al., 2018; Browder et al., 2009; Jacob & Pillay, 2022; Lindstrom & Lemons, 2016; Sermier Dessemontet et al., 2021). Altogether, these topics further hindered students with ID from achieving the reading skills that were already difficult for them.
On average, only 9% of students with disabilities achieved minimum proficiency in reading skills by eighth grade in state testing (Afacan et al., 2018). For students with ID, proficiency was at 3% on average. Meanwhile, expectations for reading from the federal and scientific communities increased for students with ID in U.S. schools (Allor et al., 2020; Browder et al., 2009; Lemons et al., 2016; Lindstrom & Lemons, 2021). The purpose of this capstone project is to discover what research and implementation revealed as the most efficient reading instruction methods and teaching activities for students with ID. The practical significance lies in creating a set of systematic, explicit, multisensory lessons incorporating the findings. All students should learn to decode and read to their maximum potential; science demonstrates that expert intervention makes it possible.
Methodology
This literature review attempted to discover the most efficient methods to teach students with ID to read. It compared evidence-based peer-reviewed articles found using Google Scholar, peer-review based books, and combinations of topic-related internet searches of terms such as literacy, intellectual disability, reading instruction, special needs education, emergent readers, non-responders, and reading interventions. Most resources comprised within this literature review included published dates after 2013. Two resources, Allor et al. (2010) and Browder et al. (2009), were considered seminal to the topic. They highlighted essential findings about legislative effects on student outcomes over time and trends in researched reading intervention successes with students with ID. Two books were chosen because they were the most widely accessible peer-review based manuals available on the subject to parents on Amazon.com. As such, they were likely regarded as trustworthy information by caregivers independently instructing students with ID, and their conclusions motivated comparison against successful peer-reviewed studies. During the research, topics of educational legislation, general beliefs about students with ID, and student barriers to learning became necessary to the review of literature. All references selected explored helping students with ID learn to decode and read independently.
The examination of peer-reviewed articles was organized by U.S. education legislation, demographics for people with ID, article outcomes and recommended interventions, and implementation issues. Effectively, the study culminated in a toolbox of immediately applicable proven practices and activities for students with ID. However, various researchers also highlighted a few curriculums that were not successful with these students and recommended future research to determine and address the many reasons interventions may not succeed (Allor et al., 2020; Jeffes, 2015). Regrettably, scientific consensus on a successful, trustworthy, packaged curriculum available to the schools and public for this student group remained elusive.
Review of Literature
This literature review examined and compared which scientifically researched reading instruction methods most efficiently teach reading skills to students with ID. The successful interventions and their strategies would then be thoroughly analyzed and synthesized for ideologies, activities, key tips, and barriers to learning. While reviewing resources to determine successful patterns in ID reading interventions, needed background information on education legislation, institutional beliefs about students with ID, and obstacles to both learning and research became apparent.
Mounting evidence in scientific research found proof which suggested systematic, explicit phonics-based instruction was most effective during intervention with students with ID (Hill, 2016; Jacob & Pillay, 2022; Reichow et al., 2019, Sermier Dessemontet et al., 2021). Examples to be discussed include Hill's (2016) 11-article meta-analysis that concluded 1:1 or small group implementation and systematic, explicit phonics instruction were keys to literacy, and Lemons et al.’s (2016) and Allor et al.’s (2020) arrays of effective direct-instruction practices successfully used during lessons.
Resources studied for this literature review were organized into three groupings. Interventions tested as scientifically successful were detailed and compared, and resources containing researcher-designed teaching recommendations were discussed. Next, those studies which provided little to no effect size were described. Lastly, obstacles research found in studying the topic and implementing interventions in classrooms was discussed.
Education Legislation’s Effect on Reading Intervention for Students with ID
U.S. legislation sought to change reading instruction for students with ID and to convey a modern description of ID with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015. Both federal acts were historic pieces of U.S. education legislation concerning students with ID that intended to implement explicit evidence-based reading instruction in classrooms, increase educator accountability, and increase expectations and reading ability of ID students (Allor et al., 2020). The language within ESSA went so far as ensuring ambitious achievement goals and measurements for these students (Lee, 2018). Even though this legislation was supposed to provide funding for special education literacy interventions and grants to ensure scientifically based literacy instruction in phonological awareness, decoding, and fluency, studies showed that reading instruction for students with ID remained low quality overall (Lee, 2021). Six years after ESSA, ID education continued to be focused on life skills and behavior modification (Lee, 2018; Lindstrom et al., 2021), and reading sessions mainly used purchased whole-word curriculum with only 20% of instructional time dedicated to phonics (Lindstrom et al., 2021).
Early on though, a seminal study by Browder (2009) directly responded to IDEA's premise that every student should be taught to read by producing a useable framework with clear, concise definitions and productive activities. As scientific leaders in reading research, Browder et al. targeted two student outcomes: increased access to literature and increased independence as readers. Three core values of their framework included literacy gains affecting students’ lives immediately and long term, every single student receiving scientifically researched reading instruction, and delivering reading instruction for students with ID at chronological age appropriateness so as not to be humiliating. Browder et al.’s most significant finding was the positive relationship between early reading skills and phonemic awareness training.
Browder et al. (2009) credited their success to basing their instructional framework on the findings of the National Reading Panel Report. The National Reading Panel (NRP) convened in 1997 at the U.S. government’s request and intensively studied five topics around reading education: alphabetics, fluency, comprehension, teacher education and reading instruction, and computer technology and reading instruction (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000). In April 2000, the NRP provided a report breaking these topics into the five components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. In addition, the NRP Report included a detailed definition of reading terms, the panel’s rationale for chosen skills to be taught in classrooms, and instructional approaches for several of those skills (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000). The NRP Report components are still known and relied on as multicomponent reading intervention, an evidence-based and phonics-based teaching method appropriate for students with ID (Afacan, 2017).
In addition to aligning with the NRP Report, Browder et al. (2009) further established that students with ID must receive expert explicit instruction, repetitive practice, and writing experience in the areas of phonological awareness, print awareness, concept of word, and generalization of these skills to their living environments. However, nine years after Browder et al.'s seminal article, Afacan et al. (2018) continued questioning why the sight word approach kept being used in ID classrooms. Teachers had not been trained in other methods, and students were not receiving evidence-based alphabetic principle instruction. Additionally, Ainsworth et al. (2016) and Lindstrom and Lemons (2021) reported an institutional belief that students with ID could not learn phonics due to a lack of ability and behavior issues; therefore, widespread reliance on old teaching methods for these students existed.
Importantly, research into facts about people with ID agreed with the NRP, IDEA and ESSA (Erickson & Koppenhaver, 2020; YouTube, 2018). Students with ID must be expected to learn and be taught the reading skills of phonemic and phonological awareness, decoding with fluency, and comprehension (Afacan, 2018).
Demographics for Students with ID
ID is a specific complex DSM-5 neurodevelopmental disorder. It is commonly confused with IQ or intellectual or cognitive function scoring. Research for this literature review required understanding how the terms relate to each other and the students they describe.
The American Psychiatric Association (2022) defined ID as a person’s significant limitations in intellectual functions, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, abstract thinking, and planning. In turn, these intellectual limitations significantly impair adaptive functions of communication and interpersonal skills, daily living and occupational skills, and independence abilities like personal safety, management of personal care, and time and money management (Special Olympics, 2018). A diagnosis of ID requires deficits in both intellectual and adaptive functioning and includes levels of severity, including mild, moderate, severe, and profound (American Psychiatric Association, 2022).
In contrast, Intelligence Quotient (IQ) measures a person’s match between mental capacity and problems assigned to be solved, or relative intelligence. (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). IQ is a performance score on a standardized test in relation to other’s the same age. A score of 100 is considered average, and 75 and below indicates a limitation in intelligence functions (Special Olympics, 2018; What is cognitive impairment? Make, take, and teach, 2013). All students participating in articles researched for this literature review scored an IQ of 70 or below, and most students scored less than 60 (Afacan et al., 2018; Allor et al., 2020; Sermier Dessemontet, 2021; Prasetyaningrus & Faradila, 2019).
DiBlasi et al. (2019) described the complex understanding between IQ and reading as three divisions. For typically progressing students, and even those with mild learning disabilities, IQ scores do not predict reading outcomes. However, links between skills like phonological processing and word recognition and lower IQ scores have been found for students with ID. Additionally, within the ID student population, significant inter-individual differences were routine. There is great individual variability in reading outcomes for students with ID, even though the ID population predominantly struggles with reading acquisition.
In addition to links between ID diagnosis, IQ scores, and reading outcomes, researchers are investigating emergent reader subskills and the connections between them. Channell et al. (2013) defined each of the three measurable subskills of word recognition, also known as identifying novel words in print, as phonological decoding, orthographic processing, and rapid automatic naming (RAN). The second subskill, phonological decoding, means recognizing grapheme and phoneme correspondence in novel written words. It contains two subskills of its’ own: phonological memory and phonological awareness. Phonological memory is the ability to hold speech sounds in working memory for the time it takes to decode each word. Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate individual speech sounds in words.
After synthesizing 50 years of research data on these five reading subskills for both typically developing readers and students with ID, Channell et al. (2013) discovered that most research determined phonological awareness was crucial to the skill of decoding and was likely one of the main reasons students with ID did not master reading with decoding. Their meta-analysis also discovered 14 studies that confirmed phonological memory deficits linked with poor decoding in students with ID. Conversely, Channell et al. found limited research on orthographic processing and RAN as factors in emergent reading for students with ID. They hypothesized that orthographic mapping may be an area of strength while stating that RAN was still unanswered.
After conducting their own reading assessment trial with a sample size of 17 students with ID, Channell et al. (2013) concurred with their meta-analysis results. Participants performed poorly on all phonological memory and phonological awareness tasks compared to typically developing readers. This meant that phonological decoding tasks were also negatively impacted and were the most significant barrier to reading. In contrast, testing showed that orthographic processing and RAN did not heavily impact reading outcomes for students with ID. The researchers cautioned against generalizing these findings due to the small sampling but stressed that emergent readers with ID must be examined in detail when considering reading limitations and abilities.
Importantly, researchers and educators must consider that 6.5 million people in the U.S. have ID, most people with ID live in their communities, and they want to live safe, healthy, productive lives – the same as their peers (YouTube, 2018). To do this, becoming literate is crucial (Moustafa & Ghani, 2017; Sermier Dessemontet, 2021).
Successful Interventions
Of the resources examined, 11 were examples of researchers directly developing and testing reading intervention methods with students with ID resulting in positive effects. Meta-analyses accounted for four of the 11 peer-reviewed articles, which altogether contained 34 studies within them. The intervention testing duration of all 42 studies included in this project lasted 5 sessions to four years. Intervention settings consisted of five conducted in small groups, five as 1:1 sessions, and five meta-analyses containing a combination of the two.
Six studies with measurable successful positive responses to intervention implemented systematic, explicit, evidence-based, direct instruction of phonics-based programs (Allor et al., 2010; Allor et al., 2014; Allor et al., 2020; Hunt et al., 2020; Reichow et al., 2019; Sermier Dessemontet et al., 2021). In four of the studies, researchers worked with Early Literacy Skill Builder (ELSB) and Early Intervention in Reading, both researcher-designed curriculums with many similarities (Allor et al., 2010; Allor et al., 2014; Hunt et al., 2020; Reichow et al., 2019). Two studies were rare four-year longitudinal studies led by Allor et al. and focused mainly on increasing the intensity of lessons with daily, fast-paced, positive, and engaging sessions. The intensity in both studies was controlled by the teachers’ active management of each lesson, teaching fidelity to phonics-based lessons, and ongoing teacher training and support. Allor et al.'s (2010) seminal article contained expertly designed word, sentence, and text-level activities, including images and instructions educators could implement immediately. The follow-up Allor et al. (2014) article quantitatively explained the test model, treatment and contrast groups, and the calculations behind the successful effect size of the second longitudinal study. Both studies show empirical evidence for using phonics to teach students with ID to read and heavily highlight intensity. The only significant differences between the 2010 and 2014 studies included a move from 1:1 to small group intervention and increased lesson frequency by including homework for students and care providers to complete together.
Hunt et al. (2020) conducted a nine-month replication of a previous Browder 2008 investigation using ESLB to teach early reading skills to students with ID, autism, and non-verbal disabilities. Dr. Browder designed ESLB as a scientific NRP multicomponent reading curriculum based on intensive, repetitive, systematic, and controlled instruction. Hunt et al.’s 80-student randomized controlled trial retested the efficacy of ESLB. They found that students made more considerable gains in phonic, phonological awareness, decoding, and comprehension compared to the control group. The youngest participants, those in kindergarten and first grade, made the greatest gains. Constraints to implementing the Hunt et al. (2020) study include unknown generalizability due to the small sampling size and the high cost of the curriculum.
Allor et al. (2020) also led the research behind the third successful effect size article and developed Friends on the Block, a combination sight word and decoding curriculum, in a two-year study of 18 students with ID. The research focused on addressing increasing intensity of lessons to master reading skills, generalizing new skills to all reading, and providing additional age-appropriate reading material for students with ID. Intervention returned to the higher intensity 1:1 teaching model and continued with explicit, systematic phonics-based decoding lessons but included scripted daily sight word lessons in all Friends on the Block books. Another notable difference from the two previous studies was that student mastery of each new phoneme introduction was no longer required; prior research found mastery teaching impractical. Intervention changes to this 2020 research stemmed from students with ID requiring more than a year to achieve minimal reading skills in the 2010 and 2014 studies. Allor et al. attempted to reach optimal pacing for students with ID. The study found that Friends on the Block caused a direct increase in the reading of sight words and decodable words and resulted in moderate to strong positive effects for every student in the analysis.
A fourth positive effect phonics-based program researched was a seven-month randomized controlled trial with 48 students with ID conducted by Sermier Dessemontet et al. (2021). The treatment group was divided into small groups of two to four students and given progressive scripted lessons designed by Sermier Dessemontet et al. called the Corrective Reading Program. The program progressed from introducing letter-sound correspondence to decoding and spelling lessons containing those sounds. Before adding new sounds and letters, students repeated lessons until they achieved mastery. Mastery before progression is typical of most phonics-based programs. Sermier Dessemontet et al. reported results across four reading skills. They compared them between the treatment and control groups' standardized pretests and posttests to prove quantifiable gains in the reading and spelling of CVC syllables. Even though no significant growth was measured in phonological awareness or letter-sound knowledge, the more complex nonword and word reading and spelling results proved that explicit phonics-based intervention efficiently taught small groups of ID students to read.
Ineffective Interventions
Of the four researched peer-reviewed articles that failed to produce measurable effect size, only one employed a phonics-based intervention method. Jeffes (2015) conducted a mixed methods qualitative and quantitative analysis of the Toe By Toe reading intervention over ten weeks during 60-minute daily lessons with 30 students. Jeffes’ qualitative research included student and teacher interviews on regularly occurring feelings and opinions about their reading ability, Toe By Toe intervention, and the support they usually received around reading. The treatment and control groups underwent a typical battery of neuropsychological standardized normed reading, fluency, and comprehension tests and quantitative analysis. Results of the study revealed that limited gains were made and only in the emphasized focused phonics areas. Jeffes agreed with teacher reports that reading gains were far too limited for the time and 1:1 intensity needed to run the Toe By Toe program.
Hua et al. (2018) and Erickson and Koppenhaver (2020) employed interventions using sight word reading methods intended to lead to comprehension for students with ID. Erickson and Koppenhaver (2020) published Comprehensive Literacy for All: Teaching Students with Significant Disabilities to Read and Write, a book available on Amazon.com. In it, systematic teaching is supported but with “diverse” methods, and NRP Report findings are called an “extreme” definition of comprehensive literacy instruction. Erickson and Koppenhaver promote a looser framework of whole-word study, self-directed reading, and comprehension exercises delivered with instructional flexibility. The only published scientific journal study found on Comprehensive Literacy Instruction was written by Erickson in 2017 and was a description of the curriculum, did not contain student participants, was not qualitative, quantitative, pretest-posttest, or contain treatment and control groups (Erickson, 2017). Additionally, Erickson’s 2017 article did not provide citations or references validating their curriculum.
Hua et al.’s (2018) qualitative and quantitative study of the Reread-Adapt Answer-Comprehend (RAAC) curriculum focused on oral reading fluency and comprehension. This single-subject design study used a small sample size of six students over fifteen 1:1 sessions and reported failed results in increasing fluency and comprehension. The RAAC method used short 5-W comprehension questions on cue cards to guide teacher-led shared reading sessions. Hua et al. reasoned that the lack of effect size was due to students needing more systematic phonics instruction than RAAC provided, so tripling the five to fifteen sessions would be required. The intervention sessions themselves needed to be more frequent and intensive. A live RAAC session at https://raacintervention.weebly.com confirmed that RAAC’s curriculum focus on oral reading fluency with comprehension outpaced emerging readers’ and students’ with ID skills (Therrien, n.d.).
Finally, Prasetyaningrum and Faradila (2019) conducted a study with just three students during twelve 1:1 sessions. While Grace Fernald’s evidence-based intervention method of Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, and Tactile (VAKT) method was employed, and Prasetyaningrum and Faradila reported students achieving some accurate reading of studied words, they also reported that no control group was used. The same sight words were used for practice in all 12 sessions and reading gains were possibly due to memorization not ability to decode and read outside of treatment.
Details in Jeffes’ (2015), Erickson and Koppenhaver’s (2020), and Prasetyaningrum and Faradila’s (2019) studies demonstrated that educators and researchers must be cautious when seeking student intervention methods. Most articles researched included additional caveats regarding either obstacles to researching students with ID or barriers the students faced in generalizing promising discoveries.
Challenges to Research and Student Implementation
Lessons drawn about challenges to research and implementation of effective reading intervention for students with ID were essential to consider. The most tallied obstacles from the examined articles in this literature review included extended duration and high intensity of intervention to achieve progress, demand for teacher fidelity to phonics-based instruction, multiple elevated requirements of teachers to employ researched teaching methods, and complexity of students generalizing skills learned during reading intervention. Afacan et al. (2018), Allor et al. (2014), Browder (2009), and Sermier Dessemontet et al. (2021) all referenced each other's work as they discussed discovering and confirming that students with diagnoses of ID or having lower than average IQ levels need well over one year for progress in reading interventions to become evident. Lindstrom and Lemons (2021) and Sermier Dessemontet et al. (2021) discussed the importance of phonics-based reading session intensity. Research found teachers self-reported mainly using boxed sight word curriculum and supplementing with 20 % phonics instruction during reading lesson time (Lindstrom & Lemons, 2021). Students with ID typically needed a minimum of three one-hour systematic direct instruction phonics lessons per week for over one year to make progress. The differences between research findings and real-world practice did not equate to success for students with ID.
Science demonstrated the superiority of multicomponent phonics-based instruction for students with ID as far back as 2000 with the NRP Report, and NRP researchers highlighted the need for fidelity in teaching. Browder et al. (2009) followed up the NRP Report with a model of how teachers and schools could implement the findings and determinations of the NRP. Teaching with fidelity faced obstacles. Browder et al. considered expert teaching skills learned from research as key to guiding students from early elementary non-readers to adult independent functional readers. To achieve this long endeavor successfully, Afacan et al.’s meta-analysis attributed the success of seven individual studies to targeting phonemic awareness during intensive reading intervention (Afacan et al., 2018). Additionally, integrating teaching components of intervention adherence, dosage, quality, student responsiveness, and lesson differentiation were recommended to increase student reading outcomes. As students received this expert instruction over years of intervention sessions, it was also necessary to ensure skills gained increased their quality of life (Browder et al., 2009). Functional independent reading in daily life is the goal for students with ID. To be independent, generalization of decoding skills to novel texts in new situations outside the classroom needed to occur with relative fluency (Hua et al., 2018). Hua et al. explained, and Allor et al. (2014) agreed that researchers must plan for generalization as an element of their studies, and educators must continually include generalization of reading skills in their lesson plans. Without this, students were learning skills in a bubble.
The final most tallied barrier to research was the burden of ensuring quality phonics-based instruction would have on classroom teachers. Teachers were considered liaisons between researchers and students, or theory and practice (Hill, 2016.) The responsibility of teaching each student with ID to read is immense. Two main hurdles researchers defined were support and time (Afacan et al., 2017; Allor et al., 2014; Hill, 2016; Jeffes, 2015; Sermier Dessemontet, 2021). The school day is limited, and science proving that 1:1 and small group reading instruction resulted in the fastest gains. However, delivering evidence-based phonics instruction increased the time teachers must modify individual lesson plans, assess for progress, and provide appropriate reading materials (Afacan et al., 2017; Allor et al., 2014). Achieving this while managing typical student concerns like absences and behaviors while keeping lesson intensity at an optimum level was a central concern of researchers and teachers.
Both groups were also equally concerned with training and support (Afacan et al., 2017; Allor et al., 2014; Jeffes, 2015). Researchers found that while many teachers were not prepared to give specialized phonics-based intervention, school budgets were too stretched for the cost, and school staff was too limited to allow for the teacher absences for training.
Students with ID need to learn to decode and read because it increases personal safety, opportunity, and social ability. Over the last two decades, U.S. legislation, educational researchers, and the educational community have discovered that reading success is possible with systematic, explicit, direct instruction of multicomponent phonics-based reading intervention. Of all resources included in this study, only one phonics-based framework failed to achieve a positive effect size with student participants (Jeffes, 2015). Reasons for lack of effect size included the study’s short 10-week duration, and the required teacher support for achieved gains was unfeasible. Resources that reported both improvements in reading skills and lack thereof acknowledge that reading success comes at a slow pace, and teachers must keep up fidelity, intensity, and engagement over a long duration. More research is needed, but science is proving every student with ID can be reached with the appropriate decoding and reading methods.
Professional Contribution
The study examined evidenced-based literature to find reading intervention frameworks, methods, and activities leading scientists found most helpful and efficient in teaching students with ID to decode and read. Along with finding successful interventions, the study encountered ineffective programs and teaching challenges faced in implementing all remedial reading curriculums. With the information acquired from the research reviewed, a website will be created to allow parents, therapists, and educators to conveniently access the most current scientifically based reading interventions and recommendations for students with ID. The site will be designed to include information on researchers and universities currently at the forefront in the field of literacy, links to evidence-based curricula, and examples of accepted activities for their students with ID. Additionally, an online caregiver dictionary will allow visitors to define reading terms such as phonemic awareness with links to videos and examples of student activities that increase in difficulty. This resource is intended to give caregivers memorable examples of how their students with ID should be receiving daily reading instruction in their educational environment. The website will be presented to faculty and staff as a professional contribution.
References
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