Katie Stover, Doctoral Candidate

Karen Wood, Professor

University of North Carolina Charlotte

Academic difficulties are only one of the many challenges that struggling readers face daily. According to Dunston and Gambrell (2009), “In addition to changes in reading motivation … some students begin to lose self-confidence, become anxious about school and engage in activities that inhibit rather than facilitate literacy learning.”  In other words, lack of success in reading can create emotional social and emotional problems.

Students who struggle with reading can easily feel angry, frustrated, and alienated from their peers and teachers. Many struggling readers become withdrawn, unmotivated, and resistant to reading. Although they may appear shy or quiet in school, their withdrawal is often a way of coping with an environment they find uncomfortable and, in some cases, threatening.

Daily experiences often undermine their motivation, their interest in reading, and any thoughts they might have had about becoming competent readers. One example is grouping for instruction. Though not a preferred practice, teachers often sort students into groups of advanced, average, and struggling readers, and provide them with different types of instruction and materials. Struggling readers are often compared with their peers—negatively—and are well aware of the differences in instruction and materials. This awareness often ignites feeling of inferiority and inadequacy. Furthermore, because teachers have the power and authority, struggling readers may fear asking for help or speaking in class. Feelings of embarrassment and helplessness often leave them unmotivated and uninvolved in school.

The emotions felt by middle school students who struggle to read are partially determined by their experiences with peers, teachers, and parents. Teachers and parents who focus on the positive rather than the negative can energize and motivate struggling readers. Which response do you think is more likely to motivate struggling readers?

1. “Jim, you really tried. You reread the paragraphs you didn’t understand. And you got 80% of the questions right. Great. Now let’s see how we might get even more questions right.”
2. “Jim, you got 20% of the questions wrong. If you tried harder and paid better attention, you might have gotten 100% right. Progress requires effort, not laziness.”

Teachers and parents can also help struggling readers by creating a social environment that fosters success and communicates to struggling readers that they are valued as much as anyone else. Thus, teachers and parents must not blame struggling readers for their resistance or apathy to reading. Instead, teachers and parents must look beneath the surface to identify and address the sources of resistance or apathy. Typical sources are memories of failure, fear of failing, fear of embarrassment, belittling peers, babyish materials, and impossibly difficult materials. By minimizing or eliminating these sources, teachers and parents can help struggling readers develop a more positive attitude toward literacy, or a more positive literacy identity.

As a parent of a struggling reader, you may want to meet with your child’s teachers to discuss how they might help him or her by taking these actions:

1. Be conscious and aware of his feelings and emotions and how they might affect his actions.
2. Make sure she is emotionally ready for any assignment or task and that with moderate effort success is likely.
3. Develop classroom activities that include rather than isolate him and on which he’s likely to succeed. Consider collaborative assignments where students of all abilities are grouped together.
4. Ensure that the learning environment emphasizes materials and instructional activities that will likely to produce success, every day, in every class.
5. Create a supportive academic setting in which she realizes that trying new things, or “taking risks,” is valued and that she will  not be penalized or ridiculed—overtly or subtly—by her peers for any difficulties she has.
6. Give him a choice and a voice in his assignments.
7. Listen and speak to him so he learns to think of himself as a respected member of the class.

It’s important for parents to know that schools can do a great deal to motivate struggling readers who have become dismayed about reading and whose motivation to read is threadbare. By following the suggestions in this post, teachers (and at home, parents) can create and maintain a caring and trusting environment where struggling readers are motivated to become active learners whose emotional struggles and fear of reading no longer dominate their adolescent years.

References

Dunston, P., & Gambrell, L. (2009) Motivating adolescent learners to read. In K. D. Wood & W. E. Blanton, editors, Literacy Instruction for Adolescents: Research into Practice. NY: Guilford. (p. 269-286), p. 270.

Edited by Howard Margolis, Ed.D. Co-author of Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds (www.reading2008.com).

Help Launch The National “Read To Kids” Campaign: Vote On the Web

In the U.S. today, a stark disparity exists between the reading abilities of low-income and higher-income children. Only 50% of low-income 4th graders read at or above the basic level according to the Department of Education’s 2007 Nation’s Report Card. The implications of the growing literacy gap extend beyond the walls of our homes and our classrooms. According to Dr. G. Reid Lyon, Chief of Child Development and Behavior at the National Institute of Health, “surveys of adolescents and young adults with criminal records indicate that at least half have reading difficulties, and in some states the size of prisons a decade in the future is predicted by fourth grade reading failure rates.”

According to the National Commission on Reading report, Becoming a Nation of Readers, “the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.”  However, The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study found that only 36% of kindergarten students of a low socioeconomic status were being read to every day by their parents.  In total, low-income children hear only half to one-third as many spoken words as children in more affluent households.

By reading aloud with low-income children, we can help bridge the literacy gap. To accomplish this, we need a national campaign that emphasizes the importance of parents, teachers and community volunteers reading aloud to children at least 20 minutes a day from birth through high school. Similar to the national physical activity campaign that encourages kids to get their 60 minutes of physical activity every day, we need a similar campaign aimed at encouraging kids to get their 20 minutes of reading aloud every day.

By reading aloud with children, we can improve their interest in and attitudes toward reading and improve children’s fundamental literacy skills, including reading comprehension, vocabulary, reading ability, listening comprehension, attention span and ability to articulate thoughts. Being read to by an adult also helps build a child’s self-esteem and confidence.

A national “Read to Kids” campaign could engage national and local literacy organizations, schools, teachers, parents, authors, publishers and nearly every sector of business and society that understands that our nation’s future depends on our children’s literacy skills.

EVERYBODY WINS! USA Inc Jan 26 @ 03:55PM PST

www.reading2008.com

Once on the site, click Paired Reading . You’ll also see valuable resources about Writing, Spelling, and Thinking. You can download most of these resources.

Visiting the site and studying the materials will give you information that may help you make better decisions for children who struggle with reading.

Howard Margolis © Reading2008 & Beyond  www.reading2008.com

I often respond with three suggestions:

• Don’t try to teach him anything new if it’s likely to cause friction, or fighting, or excessive anxiety.
• Read to him daily. Make sure it’s something he likes, and then, if he wants, and only if he wants, have him read it silently or read a sentence or more back to you. Don’t pressure him to read aloud. If he has trouble with a word, tell it to him.
• Try Toppings’ Paired Reading. Once you know how to use it, it’s simple to use and generally children find it satisfying. They usually like it. Moreover, it’s often effective. It’s supported by some good research.

A Description of Paired Reading

Here’s how Rathvon (2008) described Paired Reading:

Paired Reading is a simple, effective strategy that requires little training for parents and uses the student’s regular classroom materials. During tutoring sessions, the parent and child begin reading aloud together and continue until the child makes an error. The parent supplies the correct word, the child repeats the word and rereads the sentence, and simultaneous (“duet”) reading continues. When the child feels ready to read alone, he or she gives a prearranged signal [e.g., a thumb up], and the parent stops reading while the child continues. Paired Reading improves word identification, fluency, and comprehension for low-performing elementary grade readers, including students with ADHD, and is rated highly by parents and children alike…. For best results, Paired Reading sessions should be conducted at least four times a week, whether at home or at school. (p. 193, italics added)

Training

The reason for italicizing the phrase little training is that a little training can be very helpful: seeing Paired Reading in practice is worth tens of thousands of words. Thus, if your child struggles to recognize words and you think Paired Reading might help, we strongly urge you to request training and support from your child’s school. Because its easy, relatively quick, and inexpensive to train parents and teachers to use Paired Reading, because the children read material from their class or local library, which usually precludes the need for new materials, and because the procedure can help children and raise the school’s test scores, many schools will readily provide training and assistance.

If, however, your child’s school will not, and your child is eligible for special education, send a written request for training, assistance (e.g., books), and an IEP meeting to your child’s IEP Team. At the meeting, make sure that your request for training and assistance is listed and explained in the parents’ concerns section of your child’s IEP. Keep in mind that if your child’s school denies your written request for parent training, which can be a related service under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA), it must, within a specific number of days, send you a written, detailed explanation. Its written response:

Must include …. (1) A description of the action proposed or refused by the [school]; (2) An explanation of why the [school] proposes or refuses to take the action; (3) A description of each evaluation procedure, assessment, record, or report the [school] used as a basis for the proposed or refused action; (4) A statement that the parents of a child with a disability have protection under the procedural safeguards of this part … (5) Sources for parents to contact to obtain assistance in understanding the provisions of this part; (6) A description of other options that the IEP Team considered and the reasons why those options were rejected; and (7) A description of other factors that are relevant to the [school]’s proposal or refusal. (IDEA Regulations from §300.503 of the Federal Register of August 14, 2004)

The Steps

In discussing Paired Reading, Lipson and Wixson (2003) listed the steps:

The child and parent read together at the same time from a book that the child has selected. When the child feels ready, he or she reads alone…. The activity is … done for approximately 15 minutes every day.

1. Child selects a book to be read.
2. Child and adult read together until the child, using a prearranged signal (e.g., a nudge), indicates that he or she is ready to read alone.
3. The child reads independently until an error is made or a word is encountered that is not read correctly in 5 seconds.
4. The adult immediately rejoins the child in reading together.
5. Reading together continues until the child gives the signal again and the procedure is repeated or the session ends.

Parents are encouraged to praise children for appropriate signaling, self-correct­ing, fluent reading, decoding difficult words independently, and for thinking about the story while reading. (pp. 530-531)

Our Advice

If you think your child will find reading with you or another member of your family rewarding or satisfying, get the training and try Paired Reading. If it works, continue it and learn more about it, such as how to discuss what was read and how and when to reward your child if, after a while, his motivation and attention wanders. If you think he might do better with tutoring from a college student, make sure the student gets the training. If it looks as if Paired Reading is causing your child to become highly anxious or creating tension in the family, end the reading. Look for other ways to help your child; many are discussed in chapters 6 and 13 of Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds.

Resources

Lipson, M.Y., & Wixson, K.K. (2003). Assessment and Instruction of Reading and Writing Difficulty: An Interactive Approach (3^rd ed.).Boston: Allyn& Bacon.

Margolis, H., & Brannigan, G. G. (2009). Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds. Voorhees, NJ: Reading2008 & Beyond (www.reading2008.com).

Rathvon, N. (2008). Effective School Interventions (2^nd ed.). Evidence-Based Strategies for Improving Student Outcomes. NY: The Guilford Press.

Howard Margolis © Reading2008 & Beyond

www.reading2008.com

In a previous post we argued that it’s “A Tough Time For Children And Adults With Disabilities.” Politicians are cutting critical services, using budget shortfalls as the excuse, when in many cases the underlying motivation is encased in political philosophy, opportunism, and the belief that people with disabilities and their families won’t or can’t effectively challenge the cuts. We recommended several action steps.

Action Steps

We suggested that people who care about children, youth, and adults with disabilities, any kind, should:

• Ignore bumper sticker phrases like “reduce taxes,” “higher standards,” “throw the bums out.” These are usually shorthand phrases for inflaming anger or bigotry and gaining political power, not phrases for strengthening knowledge or insight and improving lives.
• Read about and study policies that will help your children and then become politically active in supporting them. Keep holding politicians accountable: keep asking them questions, keep examining their votes, keep examining the bills they offer, keep calling them, keep withholding support for those whose actions don’t immediately help your child and other children, keep supporting those whose actions do, join and actively support organizations that support your views. Consider running for office so you can institute and support policies that help children.
• Learn, learn, learn. And share your learning. Keep writing to newspapers and magazines and blogs. Call radio shows. Let them know what you think and why: provide compelling facts and logic, not bitterness and bluster.
• Help schools to get the resources they need to help your child and all children; then keep holding the schools accountable for their actions. If they have the resources, they should have the accountability. Do the same for state agencies that are supposed to serve adults with disabilities (http://www.reading2008.com/blog/a-tough-time-for-children-and-adults-with-disabilities-what-to-do.htm).

In NJ, It’s Time to Act

If you live in NJ and you have a child with developmental disabilities, read this Action Alert and then follow the steps recommended. Act: If you don’t, your child and family may suffer. If you don’t live in NJ, save the column as it may well apply to your situation.

NJ’s Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD)

Changes How it Will Provide New Day Service Placements

By S. Paul Prior, Esq. and Herbert D. Hinkle, Esq.

In a move that will likely have significant impact on individuals with developmental disabilities scheduled to graduate in June 2010, the Division of Developmental Disabilities (“DDD”) announced today that it is changing how it will provide new day program placements. Unless families act quickly, their children may be without any services when educational entitlements end. Under federal law, a person with a disability found eligible for special education and related services is entitled to a free and appropriate public education until age 21. In New Jersey, educational services extend to the June following the student’s 21st birthday.

Despite the fact DDD describes day services as the “backbone of the system that serves individuals with developmental disabilities,” the agency “In response to recent developments in the state’s fiscal situation” will now provide day services, including self-directed day services, only on an “emergency” basis. Pursuant to DDD’s rules, the criteria for an emergency placement in a day program are:

1. The individual has been placed in a Division funded residential placement and does not have a current day program;

2. The individual would become homeless without a day placement; or

3. The individual requires supervision which is not available during the day and is at risk of imminent peril.

This is a developing issue and parents should check our website often (www.hinkle1.com) for updates as information becomes available.

In the meantime, parents must act quickly to do the following:

1. Make sure your child’s name is on the day program waiting list. This request should be directed to your case manager in writing. If you have made this request previously, do not assume DDD has a record of it, additional verification may be needed.

2. Gather information now about what will likely occur if your child does not have day services available. Will your child regress? Will behaviors re-emerge or become worse? Will there be a serious risk to the health, safety, or welfare of the child or other family members living with him or her? Your child’s school, doctors, and therapists may be good sources for this information.

Most importantly, do not wait until June to request day services. Over the years, particularly when state resources are limited, we have helped families develop arguments, strategies and provided strong advocacy, maximizing the potential that services will continue with little or no gaps.

The attorneys at Hinkle, Fingles and Prior are available to speak at your school, agency or parent groups on this important topic. (www.hinkle1.com)

Howard Margolis @ Reading2008&Beyond (www.reading2008.com/blog)

Guest Post

by

Melissa Orkin, M.A.

Clinical Fellow

Center for Reading and Language Research, Tufts University

As a Clinical Fellow at the Center for Reading and Language Research (CRLR) at Tufts University, I regularly speak with parents who are frustrated with the development of their child’s reading skills. Many of the families have children who have been diagnosed with reading disabilities yet others have found that although their children can adequately sound out words, they are struggling with fluency and comprehension.

Our approach to reading instruction at the CRLR is based on all we know about how inter-connected processes in the brain contribute to reading development. Over the last two decades, significant advances in brain imaging have provided a clearer picture about the neural network that contribute to an individual’s “reading circuit” (Tan, Spinks, Eden Perfetti, & Siok, 2005; Sandak, Mencl, Frost, & Pugh, 2004). This picture reveals that in order to fluently read and comprehend text it is necessary to activate many aspects of a child’s visual and linguistic knowledge. In other words everything the child knows about oral language contributes to the development of written language (Wolf, Gottwald & Orkin, 2009).

Consider the processes involved in analyzing a single word like “duck.” Within milliseconds of being presented with the word, readers are required to activate visual memory in order to recognize letters; phonological knowledge to connect the letters with their corresponding sounds; vocabulary to determine the most likely meaning of the word; and grammatical understanding to ascertain the function of the word in the sentence.

As our understanding of the reading brain has deepened, we have employed this knowledge to inform our approach to reading instruction and remediation. Over ten years ago, the CRLR created the RAVE-O (Reading, Automaticity, Vocabulary, Engagement & Orthography) program, an innovative reading curriculum whose purpose is to teach the young reading brain how to build up and connect multiple sources of visual, cognitive, and linguistic information and rapidly retrieve them during reading (Wolf & Katzir-Cohen, 2001). By combining some of the best existing teaching practices with newly-designed strategies, the program systematically addresses the following component skills necessary for fluent reading and comprehension:

Phonological awareness. This refers to an individual’s knowledge of the sound structure of spoken words. Proficiency in phonological awareness, or the ability to segment and blend sounds, is necessary to “sound out” most words during reading. Each lesson in RAVE-O begins with a phonological review of the sounds in targeted words to ensure a strong sound/symbol understanding.

Orthographic Knowledge. . This consists of an understanding of how specific sounds map onto letters. In RAVE-O we not only emphasize the sounds of individual letters but also pay special attention to letter patterns, particularly the onsets “d” and rhymes patterns “uck” in words.  By attending to “chunks” of words rather than individual sounds a reader can more quickly recognize and read a word.

Semantic Knowledge. This refers to both the size of an individual’s vocabulary and also the strength and depth of his/her word knowledge. Locker, Simpson & Yates (2003) found that the more knowledgeable children are about a word, its multiple meanings, and various pragmatic and syntactic contexts of use, the more rapidly the word is processed during reading. One prominent feature of the RAVE-O program is its emphasis on the multiple meanings of words in various contexts. Consider the multiple meanings of the word “duck”. When functioning as a noun, it represents a web-footed, swimming bird; as a verb, it means to avoid. In fact, a great many of the most common children’s words are equally polysemous and may pose comprehension challenges if not fully understood.

Syntactic Knowledge. This refers to both the understanding of how words are used within different grammatical or syntactic contexts. It is essential for the child’s fluency and comprehension. RAVE-O instructors regularly lead children in discussions about the role of words in text. These conversations are particularly helpful in discerning between verbs, nouns and adjectives and as a result foster deeper comprehension among struggling readers.

Morphological Awareness. This refers to the conventions that govern word formation, and the ways in which roots and affixes create new word meanings. For example, adding the suffix morpheme “s” to the root “duck” creates a plural noun, while adding “ed” results in the past verb form “ducked”. Morphological awareness is important in reading because it clarifies the role the word plays in sentence structure which helps determine its meaning, and as a result aids in comprehension. In RAVE-O students are explicitly taught the importance of morphemes through the introduction of specific suffixes or “ender benders” which help children quickly recognize common endings and further understand their impact on a word’s meaning.

In short, RAVE-O’s basic premise is that the more the child knows about a word, the faster the word is decoded, retrieved, and comprehended. As parents and educators strive to provide students with instruction that is effective in fostering the development of fluent comprehension, it is important to consider a student’s performance in all the componential skills listed above. This information will not only provide a more complete reading profile but should also inform an educator’s approach to remediation. At the end of all our efforts, we want to help children learn to read fluently enough so that they have time not only to comprehend the text, but also to think their own thoughts.

To learn more about the Center for Reading and Language Research and RAVE-O visit http://ase.tufts.edu/crlr

References

Locker, L., Simpson, G. & Yates, M. (2003). Semantic neighborhood effects on the recognition of ambiguous words. Memory & Cognition, 31(4), 505-515.

Sandak, R., Mencl, W.E., Frost, S.J., & Pugh, K.R. (2004) The neurological basis of skilled and impaired reading: Recent findings and new directions. Scientific Studies of Reading, 8(3), 273-292.

Tan, L.H., Spinks, J.A., Eden, G.F., Perfetti, C.C., and Siok, W.T. (2005). Reading depends on writing in Chinese. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, (24) 8781-8785.

Wolf, M., Gottwald, S., & Orkin, M (2009). Serious word play: how multiple linguistic emphases in RAVE-O instruction improve multiple reading skills. Perspectives in Language and Literacy.

Wolf, M. & Katzir-Cohen, T. (2001).  Reading fluency and its intervention. Scientific Studies of Reading, 211-239.

Author

Melissa Orkin, M.A. is a doctoral student in the Applied Child Development Department at Tufts University working with Dr. Maryanne Wolf. Currently she is a graduate research assistant and clinical fellow at the Center for Reading and Language Research. Melissa received a B.A. from Arizona State University and an M.A. in Applied Child Development from Tufts University. She has worked as a Reading Specialist in the classroom and as an Educational Clinician in private practices throughout the Boston area. Her research interests focus on how emotions affect motivation and learning. More specifically, she is investigating the ways in which the beliefs and goals of children with reading disabilities relate to their ability to handle academic challenges.

Editor

Howard Margolis, Ed.D.

http://www.reading2008.com/blog

A Guest Post by

Timothy Rasinski, Ph.D.

Professor, Kent State University

A recent survey of “What’s Hot and What’s Not” in Reading found that reading fluency is no longer a hot topic and that it should not be hot.  As a person who has written widely about reading fluency and have done a fair amount of research into fluency, I found this a bit disturbing.  From my work in the Kent State University Reading Clinic, I know that many children who experience significant difficulty in reading have problems in fluency.  When appropriate fluency instruction is provided, overall reading achievement improves, sometimes dramatically.

The problem with fluency comes from its association with reading fast. One way to assess reading fluency is by measuring speed of reading.  And since reading speed is associated with fluency and overall reading proficiency, the logic seems to be that one way to improve reading fluency and overall reading proficiency is to teach children to read fast.   This, I believe is a serious corruption of the notion of fluency. And if fluency is nothing more than reading fast, then I would agree that it should not be a hot topic in reading.

Fluency is important to the extent that it is association with reading comprehension.  Most everyone reading this post is a fluent reader. How did you become fluent? I would think that it wasn’t by instruction in speed reading, but through lots of meaningful practice. We become fluent at anything through lots of practice – wide and deep practice.

By wide practice, I refer to the kind of reading most of us do, reading one thing after another. This is clearly an important kind of practice.

Deep reading involves reading a passage more than once. Many of our struggling readers read a text once and they don’t read it well. Rather than move on to the next piece, I believe that sometimes we need to ask them to read it several times until they can read it well, or fluently. Otherwise, if we never give students a chance to read texts well, we are allowing them to practice mediocre reading.  And if that is the case, we shouldn’t be surprised if we end up with mediocre results.

Deep or repeated reading works. Research shows that when students read a text more than once and then move on to a new passage, improvement shows up on the new passage. But the question becomes how to get students to read a text more than once. In many fluency programs on the market now, the reason for repeated reading is to read fast.  I think this is fake fluency.

When I think of the need for practicing a text, I think of the idea of performance. If I knew I were to perform a poem, script, or song for an audience, I would want to engage in practice. And the practice is not aimed at reading fast, but at conveying meaning through a meaningful and expressive interpretation of the passage.

In our reading clinic, and working with teachers around the country, we have used repeated reading of readers theater scripts, poetry, song lyrics, dialogues, monologues, letters, jokes, and other texts to improve reading fluency and make meaning.  Our results with our struggling readers have been very impressive. We have seen struggling readers turn themselves into confident readers who read for meaning and enjoyment. This, to me, is the true approach to reading fluency – authentic practice guided and supported by caring and informed teachers.

Author: Timothy Rasinski, Ph.D.

Timothy Rasinski is a professor of literacy education at Kent State University. He has written over 150 articles and has authored, co-authored or edited over 15 books or curriculum programs on reading education. He is co-author of the award winning fluency program called Fluency First, published by the Wright Group. His scholarly interests include reading fluency and word study, reading in the elementary and middle grades, and readers who struggle. His research on reading has been cited by the National Reading Panel and has been published in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, Reading Psychology, and the Journal of Educational Research. As well as publishing numerous best selling books with Teacher Created Materials and Shell Education.

Editor: Howard Margolis, Ed.D.

© Timothy Rasinski

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/launch_a_national_read_to_kids_campaign.

To learn more about the Campaign, read the description below. Thanks.

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/launch_a_national_read_to_kids_campaign

February 19, 2010, 2:12PM

In Dagesq’s comment about my comment, he referred to me as someone in the “edutocracy” who has a “vested interest” in afterschool programs. In a sense, he’s right. As someone who has devoted my professional life to helping children and their families, I do have a vested interest in seeing to it that children who need quality afterschool programs—programs that help society, save money, and help children succeed in school—get them.

If children do not get good afterschool programs, if they wander the streets because their parents must work to feed and house them, if they don’t get the academic help they need, many of them will get into trouble, serious trouble. This creates enormous costs for society: social, emotional, and economic. Economically, for example, retaining children costs districts hundreds of millions of dollars annually and street gangs and juvenile delinquency depress property values and accelerate costs for courts and prisons. Thus, I have a vested interest—as a father and grandfather and teacher and someone who drives a 9-year old car and lives in a row home—in preventing this. And one of the best and cheapest ways of preventing such devastation to people and neighborhoods is to give children the afterschool services they need.

Howard Margolis, Ed.D.
Professor Emeritus of Special Education, CUNY
www.reading2008.com

You can read everything about the need for afterschool programs and the attack on them at www.nj.com. Chapter 8 of Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds, is devoted to Solving Conflicts.

Howard Margolis © Reading2008 & Beyond   www.reading2008.com

]]> http://www.reading2008.com/blog/one-way-to-handle-an-attack-agree.htm/feed 0 http://www.reading2008.com/blog/how-you-can-save-afterschool-programs-for-children-in-need.htm http://www.reading2008.com/blog/how-you-can-save-afterschool-programs-for-children-in-need.htm#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:48:48 +0000 admin http://www.reading2008.com/blog/?p=1835 Hello All,

Today I posted a comment on www.nj.com (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/02/affordable_after-school_care_n/1607/comments-newest.html). You can find it below.

I wrote my comment to counter the many hate-inspired, loathing comments I read that were directed at poor kids, kids with disabilities, and their families. My hope is that these hate-inspired comments represent a minority. My fear is that the minority will win–as it often does–when people who care about kids remain silent. What’s important is that people who want to save afterschool programs speak out, to counter hateful and biased comments.

If you post a comment, some people will disagree with you; they may verbally attack you. So what? It’s part of citizenship, it’s part of standing-up for what you believe. And if you believe that afterschool programs will help kids–rich, poor, tall, short, with disabilities, at-risk for disabilities, without disabilities–post a comment. You’ll be doing good, which might make you feel good.

You can post a comment at http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/02/affordable_after-school_care_n.html#_logout

Thanks,
HM

Posted by Howard Margolis, Ed.D. February 18, 2010, 3:05PM

Afterschool programs provide a safe haven after school, allowing poor parents to hold jobs.

But just as important is the research on the effects of afterschool programs on children. The research shows that afterschool programs help children, cost little, save money, improve academic performance, improve attendance, improve behavior, and strengthen the motivation of children to excel in school. The greater the number of children that develop these characteristics, the lower the costly grade retention rates, the stronger the work force, the lower the juvenile delinquency rate, the lower the emotional and fiscal cost of crime, and the greater the economic prosperity of the state. Cutting afterschool programs makes no academic or economic sense. These programs save money, lots of money. Cutting afterschool programs is not an economic move. Its a philosophical battering of the poor, the kind that will create or sustain the poverty that Charles Dickens so deplored.

A summary of the research on afterschool programs and how they save money can be found at http://www.reading2008.com/blog/save-money-improve-lives-support-afterschool-programs.htm

Howard Margolis, Ed.D.
Professor Emeritus, Special Education & Reading Disabilities, CUNY

Howard Margolis © Reading2008 & Beyond

www.reading2008.com/blog