The combined reading intervention programme, which falls into the category of short-term remedial reading intervention programmes (Gillon and Dodd, 1997; Bus and IJzendoorn, 1999; Gonzales
et al
, 2002; Simoset al
, 2002; Alyward, 2003; Templeet al
, 2003; Swansonet al
, 2005; Williamet al
, 2006), is meant to improve the six research 'dyslexic students' phonological awareness by acquiring a better awareness of the sounds of speech, an improved understanding of the connection between the sounds of speech and the letters of the alphabet and an increased ability to analyse words. Anthony and Francis (2005) maintain that '…116
children refine phonological awareness skills they have already acquired while they are learning new phonological awareness skills' (2005, p 256).
Slavin's (2003) claim that the understanding of the progression of cognitive development enables teachers to better cater to the unique needs of each student, a claim supported by the educational inclusion theory (Terzi, 2007), is the foundation of the present reading intervention programme. My research is based on cognitivism as it studies change in phonological awareness, reading in English in the inclusive EFL classroom of the six dyslexic participants as the result of a reading intervention programme. The structure of the intervention follows Ormrod's (1999) belief in reinforcement where the learner is reinforced through a process of retrieving existing knowledge and presentation of new information, on the one hand, and scaffolding which involves instruction, encouragement and assistance to aid a student in mastering a new concept on the other (Slavin, 2003).
My research combined reading intervention programme also reflects constructivism which, as already mentioned in Chapter 2, is the approach to teaching and learning based on the premise that cognition is the result of 'mental construction'. 'Mental construction' is achieved in this research as in each of the thirty six sessions of the intervention programme; the six research participants are required to integrate new information with information taught in the previous session (Gredler, 1997).
Gredler (1997) explains that cognitive theories of learning focus on the mind and attempt to comprehend how information is received, assimilated, stored, and recalled. Gredler's (1997) explanation was taken into account in constructing the present combined reading intervention programme. Understanding the procedure of the reading process in the human brain informed the decision to combine the two complementary
117
approaches to reading in each of the thirty six sessions for the same duration of time, thus involving equally the different brain structures in charge of reading.
The reading intervention programme was implemented in my practice which is located in the central part of Israel where all the six students' schools are located as well. My practice resembled the environments used for pull-out hours for students in inclusive classrooms, therefore making it comparable to that in which EFL support hours would take place, if the Ministry of Education in Israel had the budget to implement them. The participants are familiar with environments in which pull-out hours in Hebrew school subjects take place, and are also accustomed to participating in support lessons in a one-to-one teacher–student environment such as that in which this research was implemented, turning my private practice into real situation scenery for the research participants. Thus, the reading intervention programme was applied to the six students individually and in different times so the six participants never met each other and did not know of the existence of one other.
Reading is not a natural human ability, as discussed in Chapter 2; it needs to be taught and trained, and most human beings respond mechanically to the training of reading and eventually master it whether being taught and trained through a bottom-up approach, based upon grapheme-phoneme correspondence (Gough, 1972, 1985; Carmine, 1977; Broughton
et al
, 1978; Stanovich, 1980; Hohn and Ehri, 1983; Tunmer and Bowey, 1984; Frith, 1985; Goswami, 1991; Ehri, 1992; Ganschowet al
, 1998; Robertson, 2000), or being taught and trained through a top-down approach, based upon whole-word instruction (Kolers, 1966; Broughtonet
al
, 1978; Frith, 1985; Manis and Morrison, 1985; Tunmer and Rohl, 1991;Ehri, 1992; Smith, 1994).118
The present reading intervention programme takes into consideration the effectiveness of these two complementary approaches to acquiring reading skills in a foreign language. However, when teaching reading English as an FL to dyslexic Hebrew speakers in Israel, either approach is often insufficient on its own to bring students to accurate and fluent reading in English, as I have witness over my years of practice. The fact that many of my private students had been exposed to both the top-down and the bottom-up approaches to reading English as an FL, in different contexts and at different times, but still were unable to reach accuracy and fluency in their reading in English, led me to conclude that a combined method of the two approaches is more effective in enhancing phonological awareness and improving reading skills rather than each approach by itself. This has been supported by a number of researchers for nearly thirty years (Stanovich, 1980; Frith, 1985; Eskey, 1988; Goswami, 1991 and Lovett
et al
, 1990, 1994).A second point taken into consideration in the present intervention is Bradey and Shankweller's (1991), Broomfield and Combley's (1997) and Mather and Goldstein's (2001) recommendation to include multi-sensory methods in intervention reading programmes for 'dyslexic students'. These integrate visual, aural and kinaesthetic activities to strengthen the learning experience. Mather and Goldstein (2001) say that content generally needs to concentrate on phonic skills, as these are usually the weakest aspect for 'dyslexic students'. They also suggest that well- structured, phonics-based multi-sensory teaching is fundamental for any reading intervention programme and that reading-while-listening and repeated-reading are useful techniques for developing fluency approaches to improve 'dyslexic students' reading skills.
As already mentioned, Brown (2007) claims that in cognitive theories of learning, repetition and rote (students' practice and imitation) play an
119
essential role. These are meaningful activities, when contextualised and purposeful, for the teaching of word identification, a skill identified with the top-down approach to reading. Repetition and rote are also meaningful for the explicit instruction of combining phonemes and segmenting and blending speech sounds, skills identified with the bottom- up approach to reading.
A third point taken into consideration is the primary reading and spelling characteristics of dyslexia which are discussed in
The
Dyslexia Handbook
Revised
(2007, 2010). These include difficulty in reading real words in isolation, difficulty in accurately decoding pseudo words, lack of reading fluency and accuracy, and difficulty with learning to spell.As already mentioned in Chapter 2, the reading and spelling characteristics are the result of difficulty with the development of phonological awareness, including segmenting, blending and manipulating sounds in words, and difficulty with learning the sound/symbol association of the letters of the alphabet. These activities were included in the top- down or bottom-up intervention activities of this research.
Another point which I took into consideration in creating the reading intervention programme was the success of short term intervention programmes in the improvement of reading through the training of phonological awareness (Gillon and Dodd, 1997; Bus and IJzendoorn, 1999; Gonzales
et al
, 2002; Simoset al
, 2002; Alyward, E., 2003 and Templeet al
, 2003; Swansonet al
, 2005; Williamet al
, 2006).In conclusion, the reading intervention programme was implemented in 40-minute sessions, twice a week for 18 weeks, for a total of 36 sessions based on the number of phonemes of the English language phonological system (Brand, 1984; Davies and Ritchie, 1998). In order to achieve a real combination each session consisted of twenty minutes of top-down
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reading approach activities and of twenty minutes of bottom-up reading approach activities.
For the twenty minutes of top-down activities I used activities which I constructed, based upon my experience as an EFL teacher for 'dyslexic students' speakers of Hebrew in Israel, top-down activities suggested by Brand (1984) in her book
Spelling Made Easy
and top-down computer activities suggested by Davies and Ritchie’s (1998)THRASS.IT
.For the twenty minutes of bottom-up reading approach activities of each session, I used activities which I constructed, based upon my experience as an EFL teacher for 'dyslexic students' speakers of Hebrew in Israel, bottom-up activities suggested by Hornsby and Shear (1993) in their book
Alpha to Omega
and bottom-up computer activities suggested by Davies and Ritchie's (1998)THRASS.IT
.Each session began with five minutes of self-constructed oral activities (Appendices 2 and 3) based on both my own experience and research of others in the areas of the effects of spoken language training on word reading, reading accuracy and reading comprehension ability (Gillon and Dodd, 1997 and Gonzales
et al
, 2002).The activities below are typical multi-sensory cognitive activities used in each of the 36 lessons:
• presentation of new information through the introduction of a new phoneme, providing scaffolding first orally and then in print, in order to teach the phoneme/grapheme correspondence of the new phoneme (Ormrod 1999; Slavin 2003)
• teaching the grapheme/phoneme correspondence rule of the new phoneme and connecting it to previously presented phonemes (Gredler 1997).
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• enhancement of the participants' vocabulary in English and practising the reading of words out loud in order to enhance the ability to connect the sound of the words with their meanings through the use of reading-while-listening and repeated-reading (Mather and Goldstein 2001).
• repeated practice reading sentences constructed from new words (Brown 2007).
• additional oral repetition of phonemes or whole words to improve the understanding of the connection between the sounds of speech and the letters of the alphabet, or alternately the sounds of whole words and frequent spelling patterns, focusing on difficulty in segmenting, blending and manipulating sounds in words, and difficulty learning the sound/symbol association of the letters of the alphabet.
• practice in detection of phonemes or whole words through the use of computer programmes as a multi-sensory method, integrating visual, aural and kinaesthetic activities in order to strengthen the learning experience (Brady and Shankweller 1991; Broomfield and Combley 1997; Mather and Goldstein 2001).
A sample of a typical top-down approach followed by bottom-up approach session can be seen in Appendix 2. A sample of a typical bottom-up approach followed by top-down approach session can be seen in Appendix 3.