An academic intervention program for EFL university students with reading disabilities: this program focuses on linguistic, cognitive, and metacognitive strategies to help English as a foreign language (EFL) students read academic texts.(English as a Foreign Language )

Publication: Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy

Publication Date: 01-OCT-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 International Reading Association Inc.

Institutions of higher learning worldwide have a foreign-language requirement. Brod and Huber (1996) stated that approximately two thirds of all four-year institutions of higher learning in the United States have such a requirement. If postsecondary, foreign-language courses are required worldwide, even in a country whose dominant language is the lingua franca of the world, an even stronger case can be made for learning English in the Israeli academic context. Israeli university students need a reasonably high level of reading comprehension in English for required course material. Nadel and Fishman (1977) reported that 76% of the books and periodicals in Israeli university libraries were in English. It is a fair assumption that the percentage has increased since 1977. Thus, all Israeli colleges and universities have an exit-level, English-language requirement, which is particularly problematic for students with reading disabilities.

The problem

In the past, students with reading disabilities wishing to attend university were not even able to meet the entry requirements. The few who were accepted found university-level studies so difficult that many dropped out (Wolinsky & Whelan, 1999). With the progress of research in the diagnosis and remediation of reading disabilities, many of these students are now able to attend and complete their academic education. Nonetheless, nearly 52% of adults with reading disabilites have difficulty learning a foreign language (Vogel, 1998). Thus, in many cases the final obstacle in their pursuit of an undergraduate degree is the institution's foreign-language requirement.

Many academic institutions have ignored the problem; others have waived the foreign-language requirement. Such solutions often undermine the purpose of university-level, foreign-language courses, which are designed and suited to students' academic reading needs. Other academic institutions accommodate students with reading disabilities by allowing them to meet the requirement by passing related substitution courses. This is certainly a better solution, but it does not provide the maximal benefits of appropriate teaching. Furthermore, such accommodation has been recently challenged. In a lawsuit brought against Boston University, a group of students having difficulty learning claimed that the university had not provided appropriate accommodation to their needs. Although an isolated example, this case brought the issue to the foreground of political and educational policy (Sparks & Granschow, 1999; Wolinsky & Whelan, 1999).

An alternative and more affirmative option is a foreign-language course especially designed to suit the needs of the undergraduate with reading disabilities. Such a course could cater to the student's particular needs and the university requirements. This article presents an accommodation and remediation program that meets the special needs of the reading disabled without undermining or compromising the educational purpose of university-level, foreign-language courses.

Language, cognitive, and reading difficulties

Reading disabilities have been defined as "language-based disabilities involving several types of language deficits (phonological, syntactic, and semantic), inferencing deficits, and metacognitive monitoring deficits" (Westby, 2002, pp. 73-74). Students with reading disabilities often fail to attain appropriate age- and grade-level reading skills (Bruck, 1990; Gough & Tunmer, 1986).

Students with reading disabilities often exhibit native language (L1) difficulties, which include subtle to overt phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic L1 difficulties (Cziko, 1978; Granschow, Sparks, Javorsky, Pholman, & Bishop-Marberry, 1991; Schwarz, 1997; Sparks & Granschow, 1991; Velluntino & Scanlon, 1986). Studies relating L1 proficiency to second-language (L2) competence (T.L. Brown & Haynes, 1985; Koda, 1988; Wagner, 1993) indicate a positive correlation between L1 proficiency and L2 reading skills. If this is the case, then learners with reading disabilities are operating under a distinct disadvantage because their L1 language acquisition is impaired.

The language deficits of students with reading disabilities are compounded when they read another language (Miller-Guron & Lundberg, 2000). Second-language readers' difficulties often stem from their inability to employ first-language syntactic, semantic, and discourse constraints (Cziko, 1978). Furthermore, the foreign-language reader who has difficulties must cope with new L2 linguistic information on a faulty L1 base. Sparks and Granschow (1991) formulated the "linguistic coding deficit hypothesis" to explain that the difficulties students with reading disabilities have with foreign-language learning are the result of linguistic coding problems in their L1, which subsequently interferes with their L2 learning.

In addition to language difficulties, students with reading difficulties are often characterized by their lack of reading-strategy processing (Swanson, 1990; Torgesen, 1977). Swanson termed them "actively inefficient" (p. 51). The strategy use of such readers can be categorized by their poor implementation of reading strategies at three appropriate stages.

* Prereading. Students with reading disabilities read without (a) considering how to approach the material, (b) activating prior knowledge, or (c) knowing the purpose of their reading (Cook, 1989).

* Reading. Students with reading disabilities cannot stay focused; they are easily distracted. These readers do not anticipate or predict and cannot organize or integrate new material when reading (Cook, 1989). They do not make inferences from text or integrate ideas from different parts of the text to create accurate representations (Oakhill & Patel, 1991). Furthermore, these readers are often less skilled in seeking and using the structure of a particular text as an organizational framework (Miranda, Villaescusa, & Vidal-Abarca, 1997). In addition, they do not use the text structure or contextual analysis to assist in comprehension. When students with reading disabilities do not understand texts, they cannot employ fix-up strategies (Cook, 1989). Such readers frequently exhibit difficulty in understanding main ideas and supporting details and in making inferences (Bakken, Mastropieri, & Scruggs, 1997). They typically do not relate what is being read to previous knowledge (Bos & Vaughn, 1994) and are also less able to detect and correct text inconsistencies (Garner, 1987).

* Postreading. Students with reading disabilities cannot summarize major ideas, reflect on their reading, or seek additional information from outside sources. When they stop reading, they stop thinking about the text and consider success in reading tasks a matter of luck. Raphael and Pearson (1985) found that such readers often are unaware that different reading assignments pose different kinds of questions (e.g., whether the questions are literal, require an integration of the text, or rely on prior knowledge).

Students with reading disabilities often lack the awareness to monitor reading strategies (Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002), and they seldom indicate their need to overtly monitor their reading (Jimenez, Garcia, & Pearson, 1996). These readers are particularly weak in strategy use and knowledge about strategy use. They...

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