The pressure is on. Administrators need to show district wide proficiency outcomes and support educators in keeping their students moving forward to achieve grade-level benchmarks and experience academic success. The challenge for educators is the wide range of learning readiness their students come to class with and how to ensure they all have the skills and knowledge at the end of each year to advance to the next grade. What’s an administrator to do?
Are you mandating that educators teach grade-level content in Tier 1 instruction?
Many educators are being asked, no, not asked, directed, by administrators and district or state mandates to teach grade-level content in Tier 1 instruction. This directive assumes that students have the requisite foundational skills to access the content at grade level; however, we know that many students cannot decode words with the automaticity and accuracy needed to keep pace with grade-level work. This is where stress begins for educators and frustration begins for students. Educators are trying to meet the needs of every child so that the entire class can participate in grade-level work, because that is the directive, when many students cannot read the assigned novel or textbook independently.
Unfamiliar vocabulary can derail students with dyslexia
Think about a middle school English Language Arts block. The assignment for all the students is to read a section from “The Watsons Go to Birmingham” by Christopher Paul Curtis, a top download in the nation from the Learning Ally library. This book has a Lexile level of 920, which is approaching the reading demands of middle school students. The rigor of vocabulary, sentence lengths, and frequency of rare words can be challenging for students who are dyslexic or struggle with reading. The first chapter sets the scene where the family is bundled up together on the couch because the furnace isn’t working. The word “furnace” is an excellent example of a word that might be unfamiliar to students today. In addition to it being unfamiliar, it is also a word that requires knowledge of syllabication, r-controls, and the final stable syllable “ace”. This word could be tricky for a child who is a struggling reader.
Impact on Students and Educators
If students do not have word reading secured and do not have the vocabulary in their lexicon, coming across rare words over and over in long, complex sentences can be stressful for them and can have devastating results. Students who struggle to read and learn often experience academic failings, anxiety and an apathetic approach to the assignment, to school, or, worse, behavior problems.
Meeting the District Mandate
Providing students with a tool to access grade-level material is essential in meeting the directives placed on educators. A simple, easy solution is required to lift the load for educators and build more confident students.
The Learning Ally Audiobook Solution®: Equitable Access to Grade-Level Content
The Learning Ally Audiobook Solution is specifically designed to support students with dyslexia and other learning deficits. By providing struggling readers with access to a vast library of human-narrated audiobooks and audio textbooks, Learning Ally ensures that students can engage with your curriculum’s grade-level content and keep pace with class.
Alleviates Stress of Decoding—Supports Comprehension
Human-read audiobooks are an essential tool for lifting the cognitive demands of word recognition, allowing students to pay attention to the meaning of the text while also supporting vocabulary and fluency. By combining auditory input with visual text, audiobooks create a multimodal learning experience that can benefit students who struggle with print. This intentional focus on content then allows students to raise their hands for group discussions and complete assigned work while their confidence in the classroom grows.
The Foundation for District Success
It is so important to teach grade-level content in Tier 1. But it’s unfair, and in fact a losing proposition, to assert that directive without giving educators and students the support they need to meet the challenge. The best way to ensure district outcomes—from student achievement to educator satisfaction, from proficiency scores to graduation rates—is to ensure your struggling readers, like students with dyslexia, and the educators who support them, have the tools they need to achieve grade-level skills and learnings and advance forward with their classmates. Audiobooks provide a fast, effective way to level the playing field and teach grade-level content to all the students in a classroom.