Student with a Severe Reading Disability Achieves Important Gains using Laureate’s Sentence Master as part of a Multi-Faceted Reading Intervention Program.

Miller, L.L. & Felton, R.H. (2001). "It’s one of them ... I don’t know": Case Study of a Student with Phonological, Rapid Naming, and Word-Finding Deficits. The Journal of Special Education, 35(3), 125-133.

Background
This report presents a case study of a student with a severe reading disability. Despite being identified as learning disabled in the first grade and receiving special education services starting in the second grade, at the start of seventh grade the student was still reading at a beginning-second-grade level. Testing showed that the student had severe deficits in phonemic awareness, decoding skills, sight word recognition, and reading fluency, as well as moderately impaired language. A multi-faceted intervention program was implemented in seventh grade and continued for four years.

Methods
Reading intervention centered on four key skills associated with reading. Phonemic awareness and simple decoding was trained using the Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program for Reading, Spelling, and Speech (LiPS; Lindamood & Lindamood, 1998). This curriculum includes vowel and consonant sounds and simple letter combinations. Additional decoding skills were trained using a subset of the Language! curriculum (Green, 1998), which teaches English syllable and spelling patterns. Laureate’s Sentence Master (Blank, 1996) was used to train automatic recognition of noncontent words. These include, for example, articles, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, and prepositions such as a, the, you, is, and, of, to, etc., which account for more than half of the words on an typical printed page and are critical for reading comprehension. Presenting these words in increasingly complex sentential contexts also provided critical training in English syntax. Finally, fluency was developed using readers that are part of the Language! program. More time was spent on the LiPS program and Sentence Master during the first year of the intervention.  The intervention schedule called for twice weekly 45-60 minute sessions with the literacy teacher during the school year. The student was also scheduled to use the Sentence Master independently two or three times per week. Extensive testing was used to establish baseline performance, monitor progress, and evaluate outcomes.

Results
The student participated in 170 sessions over four years. Standardized testing showed that the student made clear progress in each of the skill areas targeted. Phonological awareness improved to an age-appropriate level. Standardized scores on a test of reading skills (the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised; WJ-R; Woodcock & Johnson, 1989) showed substantial gains in sight word recognition, decoding, reading rate, and reading accuracy. The student completed all levels of the Sentence Master and was able to read 97 percent of the words and spell 85 percent of the words in post-testing. Scores on a state-designed reading assessment improved from the first percentile at the start of the intervention, to the 20th percentile in grade 10.

Discussion
This case study concerned a student who had not learned to read despite years of regular and special education. Testing at the start of seventh grade showed that the student had reading scores with a grade equivalent of 2.1 and an assortment of serious deficits associated with reading skills, including weaknesses in receptive and expressive language, poor word-retrieval and naming skills, and deficits in phonemic awareness and decoding skills.  A multi-faceted intervention program targeting key skill areas yielded improvements in reading ability that, by tenth grade, placed the student very close to the level required for high school graduation.