Reading Remediation (Grades 3-12)
Effective research-informed reading intervention approaches for English and French immersion learners.
Evokeʼs Reading Remediation program can facilitate significant improvements through direct instruction and training to correct a studentʼs deficits and undo inefficient word recognition habits.
Using proven instructional principles, Evokeʼs intervention approaches directly address word-level reading difficulties, train the skills that promote orthographic mapping (the process students use to become fluent readers), and ensure that the studentʼs learning translates to the general application of skills. Student progress is measured using standardized assessments administered by a professional speech-language pathologist to determine the success of the interventions.
Evoke’s Reading Remediation Program
The right to read.
In February 2022, the Ontario Human Rights Commission released its Right to Read public enquiry report on human rights issues affecting students with reading disabilities. The inquiry determined that despite their importance, foundational reading skills have not been effectively targeted in Ontario’s education system. The report indicated that students who do not develop strong early reading skills can quickly begin to experience negative academic consequences.
Using Evidence-Aligned Reading Instruction Through the Science of Reading
Struggling readers require explicit, structured reading interventions. Students with reading difficulties do not catch up without systematic, intensive intervention and practice. Reading is not innate; it is a skill that must be taught and some students require direct instruction to be successful readers.
What Happens When Students Do Not Learn to Read?
Reading is necessary for many aspects of learning in school, and initial difficulties can increase over time and impede a studentʼs ability to access the curriculum in other subjects. Students with reading disabilities often underachieve academically. When a student expresses frustration or difficulty with reading, or avoids the task, it is often a sign of a deficit that requires intervention. When students have difficulty learning to read, it can affect their confidence in their academic abilities and self-esteem, and lead to significant mental health concerns. When a student does not develop a strong foundation in word reading, it can set them up for further academic struggles. Reading is not natural, it is a skill that must be taught, and a reading disability has nothing to do with intelligence.
What Is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia, or a reading disability in word reading, is a specific learning disability characterized by difficulties with accurate and fluent word reading and poor decoding and spelling abilities. These word-reading difficulties may also result in challenges with reading comprehension, and they can limit a student’s ability to learn vocabulary and background knowledge through reading. Although it is assumed to be neurobiological in origin, there is evidence that most students with dyslexia can learn to read words proficiently with effective, science-based, systematic, and explicit instruction in
foundational reading skills.
How Can Evoke Help?
At Evoke, we identify gaps in students’ reading skills to ensure that intervention is targeted and strategic.
There is an enormous body of scientific research on how students learn to read and the most effective way to teach them. All struggling readers require explicit, systematic, direct, and comprehensive interventions delivered with sufficient intensity.
Based on the Simple View of Reading (SVR), Evokeʼs reading remediation program is designed to assist struggling readings at all age levels. Our curriculum and instruction reflect the scientific research on the best approaches to teach the foundational skills that lead to efficient word reading.
When students are explicitly taught and practice the skills involved in decoding words, the process becomes quicker and, with practice, supports automatic word reading. Poor decoding skills are a barrier to good reading comprehension. When a student must put a lot of time, effort, and attention into reading words, it uses up mental resources (working memory space), making it harder to understand what is read.
Neurocognitive research shows that the brain changes in response to interventions for struggling readers and that those changes extend into young adulthood. At Evoke, using standardized assessments administered by our speech-language pathologist, we begin remediation by identifying the weak component(s) of the student’s reading so that intervention is strategic and targeted. Intervention efforts are directed toward removing the hurdles that are preventing the student from reading. Initial problems in reading persist without intensive intervention.
Proficient reading fluency is critical for all students because of its association with comprehension. Students who lag behind their peers in reading proficiency and do not receive adequate remediation begin to dislike reading, read less than their classmates, and continue to fall behind. Slow, stilted reading is difficult and frustrating. Weak readers are less likely to practice reading and do not improve their skills or build fluency and automaticity. Students don’t get better at reading just by reading because there are many underlying skills required.
Struggling with reading? We’re here to help close the gap!
Contact us to learn more about our specialized reading program.
Why Evoke?
We use proven instructional principles and research-informed intervention approaches to directly address word-level reading difficulties, train the skills that promote orthographic mapping (the process students use to become fluent readers), and provide explicit instruction on the components of language comprehension.
Using practices aligned with the science of reading ensures that students develop into skillful and proficient readers. Student progress is measured using standardized assessments administered by a professional speech-language pathologist to determine which specific skills or knowledge a student has mastered, and which skills or knowledge still need to be taught. Tutoring a student versus remediating reading deficits requires a very different approach. At Evoke, we understand the underlining cognitive deficits that are the sources of reading difficulties and the interventions that lead to improving reading comprehension, fluency, and overall literacy skills.
Successful reading comprehension requires the orchestration of a number of different abilities and processes for its success (Oakhill, Cain, & Elbro, 2019).
French Immersion Learners
Students who have academic difficulties in their first language appear to have similar challenges when trying to learn a second language, and parents are often advised to pull their children out of language classes to avoid the added stress and possible failure. Instead of discouraging those students from trying learning to speak and read a new language, the solution may be simply to address their English language deficits.
A three-year longitudinal study of the overlap and stability of English and French word-reading difficulties in French-immersion students published in July 2022 by researchers at several leading Canadian universities suggests that English-French bilingual children with reading impairments have “significant and persistent deficits in both languages” (Shakory, Krenca, Marinova-Todd et al).
Underlying Common Cognitive Processes Hypothesis: The brain simultaneously engages in a variety of basic cognitive processes in order to read. These cognitive abilities are required for reading in all languages, and deficits in any one of these complex mental operations will impact reading in any language (Geva & Ryan, 1993).
Cross-linguistic transfer occurs when students learning another language have access to and use linguistic resources from their first. A general level of phonological ability is required for word-reading skills to develop in both French and English. Phonological awareness skills transfer between languages; if a student has strong phonological awareness in one language, they are likely to have strong phonological awareness skills in their second language (Durgunoglu, 1998). Because of this cross-language transfer, it is possible to assess reading difficulties and subsequently provide phonological awareness training in English for students enrolled in French immersion programs.
Students who struggle with learning a second language are similarly challenged in their native language. Despite these roadblocks, decades of evidence show that second languages can be successfully taught to students with learning disabilities. French immersion students who struggle with reading would also have difficulty with reading in an English program. The interventions that are appropriate and effective for students learning to read in their first language are effective for students learning to read French as a second language.
Getting Started
Prior to the commencement of the remediation program, students undergo a few standardized assessments (administered by a licensed speech-language pathologist) to identify the specific gaps in their reading skills and determine if they are candidates for the intervention program.
Students recommended for enrollment in the Reading Remediation program work with Evoke practitioners in a one-to-one format. Evoke does not offer group programming. Sessions are delivered online, which allows students to work from a quiet place with fewer disruptions and distractions and for them to proceed, in privacy, at their own pace. Evoke’s reading tutors include educators, linguists, and practitioners with postgraduate certification in speech-language pathology and/or communicative disorders. Student sessions can be scheduled for optimal learning time and lessons are interactive to engage the learner. Remediation sessions are 30 minutes long. Evoke uses the Simple View of Reading (SVR) model to help identify and remediate reading difficulties. SVR helps to inform the intervention approach.
