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Success for Struggling Readers When students reach middle school, subject matter demands are greater. Academic success depends on ability to interpret informational texts. Ability to interpret informational texts begins with accurate and fluent reading.
Much current reading focus for older struggling readers is on teaching comprehension. Dr. Glavach’s research and work show that focusing only on comprehension does not address the underlying problems that most struggling readers have with comprehension. Comprehension problems often are the result of inaccurate word recognition and poor reading fluency. If students do not recognize words fast enough and read fluently, the words are gone from short-term memory and meaning is lost. Dr.Glavach discovered that when comprehension and the underlying problems of decoding and fluency are addressed, middle school and high school are not too late for students to learn to read well. Programs that Dr. Glavach wrote while teaching for five years in a large urban public high school reading laboratory were successful beyond his expectations. Students made dramatic progress. Over half of the reading laboratory students made 3 to 5 years progress in one year, and most were successful in core academic classes. (For more information about the student success, refer to the book How to Short-Circuit Reading Intervention available on this web site.) In 2005, Core Reading was among programs chosen by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) for a possible visit by First Lady Laura Bush.
Dr. Glavach’s research and work prove that middle school and high school are not too late for students to learn to read with fluency and comprehension.
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