Empty the SLD/ESE classrooms?
Tim Conway, PhD
President at The Morris Center clinics, CEO NOW! Programs; Dyslexic & Brain Scientist published in Neuropsychology, Neuroimaging, Neurorehabilitation and Neurodevelopmental Disorders Diagnosis & Treatment
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report (2015), traditional elementary reading instruction results in <36% of students learn to read at a Proficient Level - a consistent outcome of standard reading instruction for over 20 years! Maybe the majority of students are not capable of learning to develop proficient reading skills?
A Neuro-developmental method (evidence-based) results in 97% of high-risk students learning to read at or above the average range. Maybe it's not the students learning ability that results in the poor reading skills documented on the NAEP report?
Follow-up data from 2 years after the treatment stopped, shows even greater gains in reading speed AND accuracy. Maybe the problem is that standard reading instruction is not based on truly evidence-based methods and that's why the outcomes have not improved in over 20 years?
The same Neuro-developmental instructional method provided to 3rd and 4th graders (with LD/Dyslexia, IEP's and receiving ESE services), yields an average gain of >20 standard score points in phonological decoding skills in 8-WEEKS; 40% of these students were staffed out of ESE within a year of the neuro-developmental intervention. So, maybe these remarkable outcomes from scientific research on "Intensive Remedial Instruction...." really indicates that children's learning abilities are not a likely cause of the poor national outcomes of standard reading instruction?
Imagine - if public schools employed evidence-based instructional methods, based on truly scientific and unbiased research, then maybe we really could empty the SLD classrooms. Just think of the unscathed self-esteems this could help develop! The impact of improved reading skills on self-esteem might look like this boy.