Reading Difficulties in Young Children

Abstract

Despite decades of research on reading development and instructional practices that promote reading proficiency, millions of children in the United States still fail to acquire adequate reading skills. This article discusses factors that influence children’s difficulties in reading acquisition, but which have received less attention, relative to basic early literacy skills. Specifically, vocabulary knowledge, behavioral regulation, teacher knowledge and school factors, and individualized instruction predict whether children develop proficient reading skills. Particularly, they explain the reading difficulties of demographic groups that have historically experienced the lowest reading achievement: children living in poverty and English learners. The article offers recommendations and implications for policy.

Keywords

reading reading difficulties vocabulary behavioral regulation teacher knowledge instructional differentiation English learners poverty

Deficits in vocabulary, behavior regulation, teacher knowledge, and instructional fit influence reading difficulties for U.S. children.

Key Points

Many U.S. students fail to develop adequate reading skills.

Children living in poverty and English learners experience the highest rates of reading difficulties.

Weaknesses in vocabulary knowledge, behavioral regulation, teacher knowledge and school factors, and instructional differentiation affect reading difficulties, but receive less attention than do basic skills (e.g., phonological awareness).

Attention to these variables can address the reading difficulties of U.S. children, especially those most at risk.

Introduction

The ability to read is arguably the most vital skill for facilitating school success. Failure to acquire proficient reading skills has broad negative implications for subsequent educational opportunities, employment options, and overall quality of life. Individuals with poor reading skills earn approximately 30% to 42% less than their literate counterparts, and are unable to take on further education to improve their economic well-being (Martinez & Fernandez, 2010; World Literacy Foundation, 2015). The impact of poor literacy skills is felt across society, as illiteracy costs the global economy approximately 1.2 trillion dollars. Because reading skills matter so much for education and employment, poor reading skills are associated with the intergenerational transmission of poverty (Harper, Marcus, & Moore, 2003). Continued attention to reading skills and how to improve the reading proficiency of all children is a critical need for our society.

Much has been learned about how children learn to read and the instructional strategies that best promote successful reading development, as detailed in several landmark publications (Adams, 1990; National Early Literacy Panel [NELP], 2008; National Reading Panel [NRP], 2000; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).To summarize, critical skills include phonological and phonemic awareness (i.e., the ability to identify and manipulate sounds in words) and the alphabetic principle (i.e., the ability to associate printed letters with sounds) to correctly read or “decode” unfamiliar words. Subsequently, through opportunities to read words and meaningful texts, children develop the ability to read words quickly, as if by sight. Reading text smoothly and with minimal conscious effort (i.e., reading fluency) allows readers to devote cognitive resources to comprehending what is read. Reading comprehension also depends on vocabulary knowledge, and other skills such as the ability to infer meaning, connect ideas within and across texts, utilize background knowledge, and monitor one’s comprehension (Cain & Oakhill, 2009). Research has also identified effective approaches and strategies for reading instruction. Overall, evidence supports using explicit and systematic instruction in phonological awareness and alphabetic skills; phonics instruction that directly teaches students to use letter sounds and phonemic awareness to read words; instruction in meaning and knowledge areas, including vocabulary and strategies for comprehending text; and opportunities for practice and review embedded within relevant instructional materials (Adams, 1990; NELP, 2008; NRP, 2000; Snow et al., 1998). Reflecting these advances, contemporary elementary reading curricula commonly target skills important for early reading development and utilize effective instructional strategies (Al Otaiba, Kosanovich-Grek, Torgesen, Hassler, & Wahl, 2005; Slavin, Lake, Chambers, Cheung, & Davis, 2009).

Despite what has been learned about reading development, millions of students across the United States still fail to demonstrate proficient reading skills. According to the most recent data from the National Report of Educational Progress (National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP], 2015), only 36% of fourth-grade students read at a proficient level, not an improvement over the previous 2013 report. Difficulties in acquiring reading skills are experienced predominantly by children from low socioeconomic status (SES) households and English learners (ELs; Mulligan, McCarroll, Flanagan, & Potter, 2015; NAEP, 2015). For example, on the 2015 NAEP assessment, 44% of fourth-grade students from low-SES households and 68% of ELs read below a basic level, indicating significant reading difficulties.

Thus, despite significant advances in understanding reading development and effective reading instruction, reading difficulties continue to be experienced by millions of American children. In understanding reading difficulties, much attention has been paid to the causal roles of basic early literacy skills, such as underdeveloped phonological awareness and alphabetic knowledge, and with good reason. However, the sources of difficulty in learning to read are broader. This article discusses several causal factors related to difficulties in reading acquisition that have received less attention, relative to basic early literacy skills. Specifically, vocabulary knowledge, behavioral regulation, teacher knowledge and school factors, and instructional differentiation are variables at least partially responsible for reading difficulties in U.S. children, particularly explaining the reading difficulties of children who experience the most problems in learning to read. We conclude by offering recommendations and implications for policy.

Vocabulary Knowledge and Reading Development

Language comprehension requires knowledge of word meanings, so vocabulary knowledge is essential to language proficiency. Children’s early language skills (and vocabulary knowledge in particular) form a building block for subsequent reading development, including phonological and phonemic awareness (Sénéchal, Ouellette, & Rodney, 2006; Snow et al., 1998) and word reading skills (Ehri, 2002). Vocabulary knowledge is even more critical in facilitating reading comprehension, because text would be meaningless without knowing the meanings of the words. Vocabulary knowledge and reading achievement interact reciprocally; stronger readers tend to read more, expanding their vocabulary as they read, hence becoming more knowledgeable and proficient readers over time (Joshi, 2005). Thus, vocabulary knowledge in preschool and early elementary school predicts reading achievement in the long-term (Sénéchal et al., 2006).

Vocabulary Deficits and Low SES

As noted, children from low-SES households are one subgroup that experiences the highest rates of reading difficulties in the United States. Not coincidentally, poverty is profoundly associated with early language and vocabulary in young children. Consistently, children from lower SES households demonstrate dramatic deficits in vocabulary knowledge and growth in early childhood through elementary school (Farkas & Beron, 2004; Hart & Risley, 1995). Parents in low-SES households often have lower levels of language proficiency and education (Hoff, 2003; Pan, Rowe, Singer, & Snow, 2005) and are more likely than higher SES parents to experience negative impacts on the frequency and nature of communication with their children, such as higher parenting stress, negative affect, and depression (Hart & Risley, 1995; Pan et al., 2005). As a result, low-SES parents tend to talk to their children less and use fewer words and less complex language, which decreases both the quantity and quality of words their children hear over time compared with children from middle- or high-SES families.

Thus, SES is associated with pervasive gaps in vocabulary acquisition trajectories, and given the importance of vocabulary knowledge for reading development and proficiency, low vocabulary skills help explain the connection between poverty and reading difficulties. Indeed, oral language skills at school entry is one of the primary variables that explains the effect of SES on academic achievement, thereby representing one causal mechanism in the intergenerational transmission of poverty (Durham, Farkas, Hammer, Tomblin, & Catts, 2007). Children from low-SES households enter school at a disadvantage, and without intervention support, face significant barriers toward the long-term development of reading proficiency.

Vocabulary and English Learners

Vocabulary knowledge is a hallmark of language acquisition and a primary obstacle for an individual learning a second language. ELs lag significantly behind their monolingual peers in their vocabulary knowledge (Proctor, Carlo, August, & Snow, 2005; Tabors, Paez, & López, 2003). ELs not only demonstrate less breadth of vocabulary knowledge, but also less knowledge depth about word meanings (August, Carlo, Dressler, & Snow, 2005).

Low vocabulary skills for ELs have critical implications for reading development, and are a primary source of difficulty in developing reading proficiency in English (August et al., 2005; Proctor et al., 2005). ELs may be able to learn the English alphabetic “code” to decode words, but without knowledge of word meanings, reading comprehension will be significantly affected, thereby making it difficult to acquire new vocabulary and learn from text.

Behavioral Regulation and Reading Development

Behavioral regulation includes the ability to sustain attention, exhibit appropriate social and emotional skills, and inhibit inappropriate behaviors (McClelland, Acock, & Morrison, 2006). Behavioral regulation skills that children bring to the classroom have direct bearing on their learning and responsiveness to instruction, and when absent, help account for long-term academic difficulties.

Deficits in behavioral regulation in preschool are related to long-term reading achievement (McClelland et al., 2007). A child’s inability to regulate behavior at school entry predicts later reading difficulties in elementary school (Gray, Carter, Briggs-Gowan, Jones, & Wagmiller, 2014; Stipek, Newton, & Chudgar, 2010) and can predict long-term behavioral difficulties throughout later grades (Mesman, Bongers, & Koot, 2001). Behavioral regulation difficulties in kindergarten are also a primary factor determining whether early reading difficulties will persist into later grades (Spira, Bracken, & Fischel, 2005). Unfortunately, pre-service teachers often receive insufficient training in behavior management strategies, and teachers report feeling unprepared to deal with behavioral issues in their classroom (Freeman, Simonsen, Briere, & MacSuga-Gage, 2014).

Behavior Regulation, Low SES, and Reading Development

Similar to the differences observed for vocabulary and language, children from low-SES households are at risk of deficits in behavioral regulation (Morgan, Farkas, Hillemeier, & Maczuga, 2009; Wanless, McClelland, Tominey, & Acock, 2011). Although externalizing behaviors (“acting out”) typically decline beyond early childhood in the general population, low SES is one factor associated with chronic emotional and behavioral issues (Hill, Degnan, Calkins, & Keane, 2006; Reiss, 2013).

Context matters, as children’s behavior is influenced by both the skills they possess and the skills of other students in their environment (Skibbe, Phillips, Day, Brophy-Herb, & Connor, 2012). Disruptive behavior occurs more frequently in schools that educate a greater proportion of children from low-SES households (Stichter et al., 2008), and children with poor behavioral self-regulation are more likely to attend school settings marked by more disruptive peer behavior and less productive use of instructional time (Day, Connor, & McClelland, 2015). Although early childhood programs for low-SES children benefit academic skills in the short term, the level of disruptive behavior in these settings may create greater long-term risk (Magnuson, Ruhm, & Waldfogel, 2007).

Further complicating the problem, many teachers in high-need schools (especially in preschool settings) are not well equipped to manage behavior or establish classroom environments that encourage behavioral regulation skills (Raver et al., 2008). Teachers in classrooms that educate a greater proportion of students from low-SES families demonstrate lower classroom management skills, greater use of verbal negatives and harsh strategies, and lower ratios of positive to negative feedback, compared with teachers in schools with higher SES populations (Phillips, Voran, Kisker, Howes, & Whitebook, 1994; Stichter et al., 2008).

Thus, children from low-SES households are not only more likely to enter school with lower behavioral regulation skills that negatively affect their reading acquisition, but they are also more likely to be placed in classrooms with greater peer disruptive behavior and lower behavioral regulation, and have teachers less equipped to establish environments that foster behavioral regulation skills. These factors have significant long-term implications for children’s ability to acquire proficient reading skills.

Teacher Knowledge and School Factors

Teachers’ knowledge of reading development and instruction is associated with growth in students’ early reading skills (McCutchen et al., 2002; Piasta, Connor, Fishman, & Morrison, 2009; Podhajski, Mather, Nathan, & Sammons, 2009). Simply, teachers with more expert knowledge of reading produce more students with stronger reading skills.

Teacher Knowledge, School Factors, and Low SES

Teachers from schools that educate a higher percentage of low-SES students are themselves often less educated, hold fewer certifications, are less experienced, and are less effective at increasing student achievement, compared with teachers in higher SES settings (Sass, Hannaway, Xu, Figlio, & Feng, 2012). Perhaps more important to reading development, teachers in schools that educate a greater percentage of students living in poverty demonstrate lower content knowledge of reading skills and development (Moats & Foorman, 2003) and provide less literacy-rich environments, with fewer opportunities to engage with print (Duke, 2000). Students experience greater growth in reading when their teachers have more extensive knowledge of reading development and instruction, but unfortunately, expert knowledge of reading tends to be lowest among teachers of at-risk students.

Teacher Knowledge, School Factors, and ELs

Research in bilingual education has consistently described the benefits of stronger skills in an individual’s native language on the development of a second language. Native language proficiency predicts the rate of second-language acquisition and knowledge transfer from one language to another (Cummins, 2000). Spanish-speaking youth who enter school with lower levels of receptive vocabulary and phonemic awareness may be at particular risk of reading underachievement (Kelley, Roe, Blanchard, & Atwill, 2015). Accordingly, bilingual education (i.e., dual-language programs), which develops students’ skills in their native language while they learn English, is superior to English-only programs (e.g., English immersion, English as a second language) in promoting reading and language outcomes for ELs (Rolstad, Mahoney, & Glass, 2008; Slavin & Cheung, 2005).

Despite their superiority, dual-language programs have faced opposition and elimination in many parts of the country including California, Massachusetts, and Arizona. Few ELs in the United States are served by dual-language programs, and more than one third of the nation’s schools do not have specialized supports for ELs (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2012; U.S. Department of Education, 2015). In addition, many teachers of ELs lack knowledge of specific skills necessary to teach reading (Lesaux, 2006) and show gaps between their perceived and actual knowledge of fundamental literacy skills (Barr, Eslami, Joshi, Slattery, & Hammer, 2016).

Students’ Diverse Learning Needs and the Need for Differentiated Instruction

American schools are becoming more ethnically diverse, and the percentage of children learning English as a second language or living in poverty has increased across the past two decades (Kena et al., 2016). Despite the increasing diversity, most reading instruction is “one-size-fits-all”: Educators generally have not been successful in differentiating instruction to meet the unique learning needs of their students (Tomlinson, 2014). Child × Instruction interactions (Connor, Morrison, & Katch, 2004) show how an individual student’s strengths and weaknesses may affect learning, given the focus of a teacher’s instruction. For example, students who entered first grade with low reading skills benefited from instruction on code-focused skills (i.e., phonics), whereas students who were already reading independently benefited more from meaning-focused instruction that targeted vocabulary and comprehension strategies (Juel & Minden-Cupp, 2000).

Therefore, another factor that may perpetuate the persistent reading difficulties of U.S. children is educators’ failures to provide sufficiently differentiated instruction. Despite prior calls for differentiated instruction (e.g., Tomlinson & Kalbfleisch, 1998), teachers feel unprepared to teach students with diverse learning needs (Forlin & Chambers, 2011) and struggle to differentiate instruction, even when provided support and ongoing professional development (Connor et al., 2009).

Differentiated instruction relies on accurate interpretation of assessment data to understand students’ learning needs (Tomlinson, 2014). However, interpreting charts and graphs can be difficult for teachers (Wayman et al., 2011), and formal training in data interpretation is lacking in teacher preparation programs (Mandinach & Gummer, 2013). In addition, low content knowledge of reading development among teachers (Binks-Cantrell, Washburn, Joshi, & Hougen, 2012; Cunningham, Perry, Stanovich, & Stanovich, 2004), especially among teachers in high-poverty schools, casts further doubt on their ability to translate reading assessment data into actionable instructional decisions.

Policy Implications

Several implications for policy and future research aim at reducing the rates of reading difficulty for U.S. students. In particular, these efforts can target students from low-SES households and ELs, who have historically experienced the lowest rates of reading proficiency. These suggestions may improve systems and support in four key areas.

Supporting Vocabulary and Language Development

Vocabulary interventions in preschool and early elementary school can improve vocabulary skills. In a meta-analysis of vocabulary interventions in preschool and kindergarten settings (Marulis & Neuman, 2010), interventions for vocabulary skills improved vocabulary knowledge, especially those implemented by trained teachers or researchers (effects were largest for researchers), as opposed to child care providers or parents. In addition, intervention that used explicit (i.e., direct instruction) strategies or the combination of explicit and implicit strategies was more impactful, as opposed to implicit strategies alone. However, children from middle- or high-SES households benefited more than children from low-SES households, and the interventions were not powerful enough to close vocabulary gaps for children who needed it the most. The amount of vocabulary learned in some interventions (e.g., 8-10 words per week) is not enough to close vocabulary knowledge gaps with peers (Nagy, 2007).

Clearly, vocabulary instruction and intervention need to improve. Targeted research funding should identify stronger interventions to improve vocabulary knowledge, as well as supporting their implementation for at-risk children. Preschoolers may need different types of instruction, depending on word types (i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives; Hadley, Dickinson, Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, & Nesbitt, 2016). Because new vocabulary learning is facilitated by connecting new information to previously learned information (Rupley & Nichols, 2005), research should target vocabulary interventions that seek to establish connections between words, thus enhancing children’s knowledge networks to promote vocabulary growth (Pollard-Durodola et al., 2011). More extensive knowledge networks, in turn, make it easier for children to acquire new vocabulary incidentally, setting into motion the ability to independently build greater vocabulary knowledge without the continued need for explicit instruction.

Federal and state initiatives might explore ways to promote robust vocabulary instruction (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2013) in their schools, directly teaching high-utility vocabulary words using multiple contexts and interactive instruction with language familiar to students. Other efforts might include programs to improve the richness of early childhood educators’ talk during read-aloud activities (Gonzalez et al., 2014), and explore the use of technology to improve implementation fidelity in settings where teacher training is low (Kelley, Goldstein, Spencer, & Sherman, 2015).

Policy can also work to improve language instruction for ELs and ultimately bolster their development of English reading skills. As reviewed, dual-language programs that seek to develop children’s first language appear to be the most effective in reading and language outcomes for ELs. Federal and state policies should encourage dual-language programs in schools (not restrict them) and provide resources and training to support their implementation.

Responsibility also falls on university teacher-training programs to produce teachers who are skilled in providing dual-language instruction. Training programs should continue to emphasize strategies that have demonstrated effectiveness for ELs, and continually re-evaluate their training models in light of advances in bilingual education (e.g., Rolstad, 2015).

Classrooms That Support Children’s Behavioral Regulation Skills

Teacher-training and professional development programs need to emphasize classroom behavior management and strategies for developing children’s behavioral regulation skills. Training programs should emphasize basic strategies, such as teaching and monitoring classroom rules, using praise and recognition systems that reinforce appropriate behavior, providing high opportunities for students to actively respond, and using a continuum of strategies to effectively address inappropriate behaviors (Pas, Cash, O’Brennan, Debnam, & Bradshaw, 2015; Simonsen, Fairbanks, Briesch, Myers, & Sugai, 2008).

Ongoing professional development should also target school leaders to enhance their understanding of class-wide intervention programs that have demonstrated efficacy in improving behavioral regulation skills for students in preschool and later grades, such as the Incredible Years (Webster-Stratton, Reid, & Stoolmiller, 2008). School leaders and state education agencies should consider additional support for teachers in the highest need schools where teachers risk burnout the most. For example, supporting the mental and emotional health of teachers in high-need, under-resourced preschools showed positive effects on classroom management and student outcomes (Raver et al., 2008).

Improve Teacher Expertise and Differentiated Instruction

Students experience stronger reading outcomes when their teachers are more knowledgeable about reading development and instructional strategies. Thus, programs and initiatives need to attract and retain knowledgeable, effective teachers in high-need schools (Sass et al., 2012). As well, ongoing professional development programs can improve the expertise of teachers about reading instruction (Binks-Cantrell et al., 2012), especially in settings that educate a high percentage of children from low-SES households and ELs. These should continue to be long-term policy goals.

In the near term, technology offers ways to enhance teachers’ instructional quality and classroom management. As noted, we need to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to reading instruction for diverse learners. Technology can remove barriers to data-driven individualized instruction. For example, the Individualizing Student Instruction (ISI) intervention (Connor & Morrison, 2016) uses software-driven algorithms to guide teachers’ individualized reading instruction based on their students’ strengths and weaknesses. The ISI intervention has demonstrated positive effects on kindergarten through third-grade teachers’ differentiated instruction, students’ reading achievement, teachers’ classroom behavior management, and students’ behavior regulation skills. These results are more notable considering that a majority of children from the studies were from low-SES households. Differentiated instruction guided by technology, combined with ongoing professional development, may be a way of enhancing teacher effectiveness in schools with a greater number of at-risk children.

Conclusion

This article highlighted several factors associated with young children’s reading difficulties that have received relatively less attention than the role of basic early literacy skills. These neglected factors have broad implications for reading development, being some of the primary mechanisms of reading difficulties for children who experience the risk factors associated with poverty and second-language acquisition. Although our review is not an exhaustive account of all the reasons why children fail to develop proficient reading skills, continued policy and research efforts toward improving early vocabulary skills, behavioral regulation, teacher knowledge of reading development, and instructional differentiation will likely lessen reading difficulties.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Reading Difficulties in Young Children

Abstract

Keywords

Tweet

Key Points

Introduction

Vocabulary Knowledge and Reading Development

Vocabulary Deficits and Low SES

Vocabulary and English Learners

Behavioral Regulation and Reading Development

Behavior Regulation, Low SES, and Reading Development

Teacher Knowledge and School Factors

Teacher Knowledge, School Factors, and Low SES

Teacher Knowledge, School Factors, and ELs

Students’ Diverse Learning Needs and the Need for Differentiated Instruction

Policy Implications

Supporting Vocabulary and Language Development

Classrooms That Support Children’s Behavioral Regulation Skills

Improve Teacher Expertise and Differentiated Instruction

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

References