A Critical Analysis of Eight Informal Reading Inventories, from The Reading Teacher

This post was originally published here...

While not technically a research article I suppose, I thought Nina L. Nilsson piece in April 08 issue of The Reading Teacher was useful and interesting. Nilsson compares eight IRIs on a variety of issues and discusses aspects of their validity.

The eight tests she looks at are:

• Analytical Reading Inventory (ARI; Woods & Moe, 2007)


• Bader Reading and Language Inventory (BRLI; Bader, 2005)


• Basic Reading Inventory (BRI; Johns, 2005)


• Classroom Reading Inventory (CRI-SW; Silvaroli & Wheelock, 2004)


• Comprehensive Reading Inventory (CRI-CFC; Cooter, Flynt, & Cooter, 2007)


• Informal Reading Inventory (IRI-BR; Burns & Roe, 2007)


• Qualitative Reading Inventory-4 (QRI-4; Leslie & Caldwell, 2006)


• The Critical Reading Inventory (CRI-2; Applegate, Quinn, & Applegate, 2008).

She concludes with a section on picking a test to use.

Hugo’s New Book…

Originally published here on June 28, 2008.

I have a review of Hugo Kerr's new book, The Cognitive Psychology of Literacy Teaching: Reading, Writing, Spelling, Dyslexia (& a bit besides) available at Suite101. You can read it here...

So What EXACTLY is Dyslexia? (Part II)

Originally published here on June 4, 2008.

(Read Part I.)

Below you will find a few of the more popular, formal definitions for dyslexia:

• According to the British Dyslexia Association dyslexia is "a combination of abilities and difficulties that affect the learning process in one or more of reading, spelling, writing. Accompanying weaknesses may be identified in areas of speed of processing, short-term memory, sequencing and organisation, auditory and/or visual perception, spoken language and motor skills. It is particularly related to mastering and using written language, which may include alphabetic, numeric and musical notation."


• The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes says that dyslexia is "a brain-based type of learning disability that specifically impairs a person's ability to read. These individuals typically read at levels significantly lower than expected despite having normal intelligence. Although the disorder varies from person to person, common characteristics among people with dyslexia are difficulty with phonological processing (the manipulation of sounds) and/or rapid visual-verbal responding.


• The International Dyslexia Association says that dyslexia "is a language-based learning disability. Dyslexia refers to a cluster of symptoms, which result in people having difficulties with specific language skills, particularly reading. Students with dyslexia usually experience difficulties with other language skills such as spelling, writing, and pronouncing words. Dyslexia affects individuals throughout their lives; however, its impact can change at different stages in a person’s life. It is referred to as a learning disability because dyslexia can make it very difficult for a student to succeed academically in the typical instructional environment, and in its more severe forms, will qualify a student for special education, special accommodations, or extra support services."

The definitions have some common threads. The IDA's definition seems gear toward asserting the legal status of dyslexia as a educational disability. All three definitions are broad and general. And none are particularly clinical in the sense of providing much criteria for testing or for distinguishing people who have some of the symptoms but are not dyslexics from people who are dyslexics.

So now I'll return to my conversation recently on the International Reading Association's listserv for reading teachers. Hugo Kerr put forward a proposed definition for dyslexia as part of that discussion. I think the definition comes from his new book, but I haven't finished it yet. Hugo's definition is

An innate, neurological condition specifically disabling the acquisition and use of literacy.

You can find it here in a post he wrote to the Reading Teachers list, hosted by the International Reading Association. (You can read posts from the larger discussion here, in the archives of that listserv on the IRA's site.)

If you contrast Hugo's definition to the three put forth at the beginning of Part II here, it has some advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it is more concise, more portable than any of the three definitions we started this piece with. The phrase "the acquisition and use of literacy" keeps us from having to specify particular problem areas and covers things that might be involved in literacy even though research hasn't discovered them yet.

Two words make the definition difficult to deal with. The first is innate. I'm not sure it's clear to us what is and what is not innate in humans yet. I know what the word means. I just don't know how we measure it. How do we determine whether a particular behavior is innate - especially if it is a behavior that emerges after birth during some developmental stage.

The second problem word for me is specifically. From discussions with Hugo on the listserv, he seems to me to feel that the problems commonly called dyslexia will eventually be attributed to disorders that don't primarily have to do with literacy. Hugo doubts that we'll ever identify a neurological disorder that specifically affects literacy. In fact, he has said repeatedly that he doesn't believe in dyslexia (for example here, in the listserv post from the IRA's site).

So why write a definition for something you don't believe in? My conclusion is that Hugo's definition is so narrow in order to define dyslexia out of existence. The definition is in itself a tool for helping to promote the idea that dyslexia doesn't really exist.

Does dyslexia exist? I'm not sure. I do know that it is a persistent concept. Over a century of work on the idea hasn't killed it yet. And I know that brain science is a relatively young field in light of the explosion of technology in the last 25 years.

As someone who provides reading interventions in an elementary school, my primary concern is with what prevents reading. Whether reading failure is the primary cause of some brain problem or is more secondary, the growing importance of literacy in our society probably makes literacy the most important area of impact.

One of the most common complaints about dyslexia research is that the definition is so poor. How do we know what we're testing for in an experiment? Hugo is among those who complain about that problem. Shoddy research: that's the accusation. The difficulty with that is that with the advances that have taken place in technology (and therefore in the types of data we can collect) we don't seem to be sure what we're looking for at the moment. The research is exploratory, and hopefully well soon know enough to design better research. That's how science works.

One thing that will not happen: we will never arrive at some final conclusion about dyslexia, one that allows us to simply say, "so there you have it." That's not how science works.

Want to know exactly what dyslexia is? Ask me again in 10 or 15 years...

So What EXACTLY Is Dyslexia? (Part I)

Originally published here on June 3, 2008.

That is the ten thousand dollar question...

I recently participated in a discussion on the International Reading Association's listserv for teachers, a discussion in which the exact definition of dyslexia featured prominently. As a backdrop to that discussion, let me show you what I found when I went looking for a definition online.

• Speakability, a UK-based support group for people with aphasia, defines dyslexia simply as "difficulty reading."


• The Communications Forum, another UK-based support group for people with communications disorders, dresses their definition up with a few details: "Difficulty with written language. Dyslexia affects reading, spelling, writing, memory and concentration. Sometimes called a specific learning difficulty. Dyslexia can be developmental or acquired."


• Shannon Booth, a neuroscience major at a college in Minnesota, has a definition online that seems simplistic to me, but reflects common perceptions: "A disorder where things are done or read backwards. For example, a "d" and a "b" might be confused."


• inURarea, a UK-based childcare group, expands the definition slightly to exclude some reading problems based on "sensory defect" and specify that it is a neurological condition: "Difficulty in reading due to a defect of brain function other than sensory defect."


• The Nebraska Department of Education says dyslexia is "a developmental reading disability, presumably congenital and perhaps hereditary, that may vary in degree from mild to severe."


• Child Care Aware defines dyslexia as "an impairment in the brain's processing of information that results in difficulty reading, spelling, writing, and related language skills."


• One high school science teacher says that dyslexia is an "impairment in the visual cortex that leads to difficulty in learning to read, write, or spell."

You can probably guess from those seven examples that definitions of dyslexia are spread out along a continuum ranging from the simple two word "reading difficulty" to formulas that are tediously long and complicated. They also range from vague generalities (half the people I know have difficulty reading) to somewhat more specific ideas (like being congenital and hereditary) and the nature and location of the disorder.

The term "dyslexia" was coined by an eye doctor in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1881. While the scientific community has been tinkering with the condition for over 125 years, most of the definitions during the first hundred years are best described as "exclusionary." That is to say that a doctor or therapist would exclude causes for poor reading (is it poor eyesight?...no; is it low IQ?...no; is it a hearing problem?... no; is it lack of access to education?...no), and when the doctor ran out of other choices, the reading problem was determined to be dyslexia. Theories existed about what caused dyslexia, or how dyslexia worked to cause the problems seen in a patient; but the technology to test those theories, to observe brain function, didn't exist until recently.

The growth of linguistics led to new ideas about dyslexia in the 1970's - ideas that revolved about brain function and the processing of the sounds in a language. Phonemic awareness has become one focus of research into dyslexia. If children had some problem identifying the psychological sound units of their language, associating those sounds with symbols (letters) would obviously present problems - and reading would be affected.

The development of neuroimaging in the 1980's and 90's has further served to promote research into dyslexia. It is now possible to observe some aspect of brain function in a living person without invasive techniques like surgery. And far more data on brain function can be obtained than was possible in the past.

What Good Is Dyslexia?

Originally published here on May 29, 2008.

In recent days I've been involved in a discussion on a listserv hosted by the International Reading Association (I'm an IRA member) about dyslexia. The listserv promotes discussion among professionals who work in the field of reading.

The discussion recently has been fruitful for me. We have a listserv member who (for a variety of reasons) objects whenever the word "dyslexia" is mentioned on the list. He doesn't believe in it. Some listserv members seem to think of him as a curmudgeon; others seem to see him as something more like light unto the gentiles, a savior for the reading community. And many wish, simply, that he'd shut up (which is about what they also think of me). His name is Hugo Kerr. And he resides in Wales (where I myself have some ancestral ties).

Without going into much detail about Hugo at the moment (I'll do that in future posts), I'll just say this for now. Hugo has made me think recently about what usefulness the concept of dyslexia has. My conclusion is that it has very little usefulness.

My county's school district brought in a woman to speak to us a few years ago at a workshop for elementary grade teachers. Her name was Susan Barton. She was impressive and convincing as a speaker. She talked about dyslexia. We pursued the issue. Many in the county (me included) were trained in instructional methods designed to address problem associated with dyslexia. And we looked into methods for identifying dyslexia in our student population.

What we discovered was that identifying dyslexia is time consuming and expensive. And the issue went away.

My recent conversations on the listserv with Hugo have made me think again about dyslexia. And what I've clarified for myself is this: There is no apparent benefit in the framework of American education to going the whole nine yards and determining (with whatever degree of certainty is available) that a student does or does not have dyslexia.

IDEA 2004, the law on disability in the US for American education, runs to just over a gajillion words. The term dyslexia appears in the law exactly once - as part of a definition for the far more important legal term specific learning disability. It is given as an example of conditions that may be included under the label of specific learning disability. Dyslexia itself is never defined in the law.

Nor is it defined (or even mentioned) by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM-IV). That document gives medical diagnostic criteria for ADHD, Asperger's syndrome, autism, bipolar disorder, conduct disorder, mental retardation, tourette's, and much more. It doesn't acknowledge the existence of dyslexia.

If a child can't read (or can't read as well as they should), my job as an interventionist is to ask why. I start to look for approaches to instruction that would help them. The truth seems to be that the concept of dyslexia doesn't help me with any compliance issues related to federal or state law (my state's special education law merely parrots the single mention of dyslexia in federal law). And while I know that some children benefit from a multi-sensory approach to reading, or from particular types of structure in the instructional framework, I can't see that being able to say that this or that child is "dyslexic" is helpful in any way.

So I guess Hugo wins that one...

Richard Allington PodCast on Response to Intervention

Originally published here on March 26, 2008.

If you're looking for some insight into RtI, there's an excellent podcast available at the International Reading Association's website. If clicking on the word "podcast" above doesn't get it for you, you can go here and you'll find the podcast under "online resources" about halfway down the page.

I'm a fan of Richard Allington - and not just because he teaches at the University of Tennessee (thoguh I do know all the words to "Rocky Top"). Dr. Allington is a past president of the IRA and has several good books out.

Among the insights in this 13 minutes podcast (the download is about 12 megabytes):

• RtI does not necessarily mean a three-tier model


• Not all RtI curriculum are appropriate for all reading problems (duh)


• There is not a huge amount of research yet to show that RtI will be effective

I especially appreciated two points he made. First, in order for an RtI curriculum to be useful in solving the problem of a student being behind, it has to deliver more than a year of progress in one year. It doesn't help (not much, at least) to take a student who is two years behind and learning 5 months worth of skills each year, and put that student in an intervention program that gets them to learn seven months worth of skills a year. Slowing the rate at which students fall behind is not the goal. The goal is for them to catch up. Second, students are rarely the problem. If a program doesn't work, it's probably because the program isn't suited for that student.

I also learned a new term: sound outable. Dr. Allington used that phase a couple of times. I'd never heard that before; usually I hear people say "decodable." I smiled and put the term away for later use...

Listen to Dr. Allington's podcast on RtI.

Thoughts on Response to Intervention as a Means of Identifying Learning Disabilities

Originally published here on March 25, 2008.

As an IRA member, I subscribe to the International Reading Association's listserv. Recently, someone brought up the subject of response to intervention and how it relates now to identifying learning disabilities. I thought I'd share my statements on the listserv here, as well...

My perspective is this:

1. RTI is a useful model; but it is a concept, not a curriculum. How effective it is depends on what specific curriculum package you're using.


2. Abandoning the old discrepancy model allows students with real disabilities to be identified and placed earlier - sometimes MUCH earlier. That's good.


3. Reading and/or learning disabilities come in varieties. They are not homogeneous and generic. RTI may serve to tell you that there is a problem, but it will not necessarily tell you what the problem is. Figuring that out may require some sort of a more technical cognitive evaluation (which may or may not include an IQ test). Federal law no longer REQUIRES IQ tests to legally identify learning disabilities, but psychological or cognitive tests are sometimes still useful.


4. The old discrepancy model provided a mathematical definition for learning disabilities (achievement is 71, IQ is 88, in our state that big of a discrepancy implies a learning disability). RTI by itself leaves much more room for professional judgment - and people will disagree when a committee sits down to discuss it. One person will say, "Johnny is responding to our intervention; so he doesn't seem to me to have a disability." Another person will say, "Johnny's response to our intervention, while it exists, is not adequate to allow him to ever catch up with his peers; so he DOES seems to me to have a disability." At the end of the discussion the group will either flip a coin to decide whether to place Johnny in special education or fall back on other tools for determining whether he has a disability.

As I understand IDEA 2004, it says that:

• the discrepancy model cannot be used exclusively by your state anymore


• RTI has to be one choice available for considering whether a student has a learning disability


• and your state is free to look for other methods of determining whether a student has a eligible disability.

I don't think IDEA 2004 makes clear exactly HOW you use RTI decide whether a student has a disability. It is a marvelous general education tool, especially when employed as Allington suggested, in a manner where they curriculum in the tiers compliment each other instead of competing with each other. It may well prevent reading disabilities in particular children from becoming such profound problems that the child will have to be identified as needing special education services. But it's effectiveness and usefulness in identifying learning disabilities is only now beginning to be tested...

The role of RtI in identifying learning disabilities is sure to be the topic of much more discussion as IDEA 2004 gets further implemented in individual states...

Strengthening Ties Between Special Education and Reading Services

Originally published here on March 19, 2008.

I went to a week long workshop last year at the end of school. It was presented in our country by the Institute for Multi-Sensory Education and (if memory serves) we had reading specialists, kindergarten teachers, and elementary school special education teachers at the workshop. At the time it didn't occur to me that I might be watching an actual change in philosophy. But I've come to realize that the workshop was a turning point in the relationship between special education and reading...

A few months into this year I was sitting at the table where most of our teachers eat lunch. It was me, our school improvement facilitator (SIF - a math person), two reading specialists, a general education teacher, and a couple of other school staff. The reading specialists and the SIF had been to a meeting at the central office the previous day and one of them explained to me as we ate our lunches that now we were all married. In retrospect, I thought it was ironic that I wasn't invited to the meeting

I said something profound - like, "huh?"

One of the reading specialists said, "They told us yesterday that we should think of ourselves as married now to the special ed people at our school..."

"Mmmmm..." I offered. They laughed. Maybe giggled is a more accurate term. I have a very nice wife whom I'm extremely fond of. They all know her. So the metaphor had humor.

The truth is that special education and reading have worked more closely together this year than I recall in my short career. When I started teaching a few years ago, the two were in separate worlds. I realized quickly that we dealt with the same problems, but often didn't have a shared vocabulary to discuss those problems in. I've met many a reading person that doesn't have much understanding of disabilities and many a special education professional who was weak (to be polite) on reading issues. The chasm between the two has puzzled me.

So I was, well, positively tickled to hear Dr. Lynn Boyer (Executive Director, Office of Special Programs, Extended & Early Learning) express support for the Reading Research Symposium last week in Charleston. The Reading Research Symposium is searching for next year's funding (or was last week) and Dr. Boyer suggested that special education money might be used to ensure that the Symposium came off next year. I was sincerely thrilled.

My hope is that more special education people will be pulled into reading issues. And the truth is that funding the Symposium with special education funds might result in more special education people attending. Hopefully the day is not far away when reading people will be well versed in learning disability issues and special education professionals will have a much greater understanding of reading issues...