Early Intervention is Essential
Robert Belden, April 27th, 2024
Before I became a structured literacy specialist, I didn’t truly understand the process by which people learn to read. Truth be told, nobody did until relatively recently. Reading research is ongoing and what we know now is so much more extensive than it was forty, twenty, or even ten years ago.
One common idea that has now been proven wrong through research is the notion that if a young child is delayed in reading, simply waiting is enough. The reasoning behind this idea is that children grow at different rates and some children are ready to read before others are, but the age at which a child is ready to read does not impact their overall reading development over the long term.
This seems like a reasonable hypothesis at first glance, but research has proven that it is wrong. When students are delayed in their reading development they by and large do not make up the gap on their own. Instead, they simply continue to fall farther behind.
Research based early intervention, such as the structured literacy therapy we offer, is essential for helping delayed readers bridge the gap and become competent readers.
