• The Importance of Reading Ability
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    The ability to read and comprehend at a higher level is a primary predictor of success at every level of life. It is also necessary for joining the dialog of all recorded human history. Higher-level literacy allows an all-access pass to the realms of literary imagination, scientific inquiry, and information transfer across time and space. Readers who can build successfully on prior knowledge to accelerate self-learning will show rapid progress in comprehension of advanced texts. These skillful readers are prepared to grow into their maximum potential.
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    Becoming a skillful reader is a status that is attainable by every student given effective and timely instruction. However, in the last two decades concern over yawning gaps in reading ability among socio-economic groups has taken on a socio-political component driven by high-stakes standardized testing. What was once an individual problem has rightly become a social crisis with ramifications that extend far beyond the classroom. Governmental entities at federal, state, and school district levels use the results of these tests to make decisions impacting curriculum, funding, teacher evaluations (in some regions) and even school closings for chronically low-performing campuses.
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    High stakes indeed! It is crucial to understand that reading is the common denominator. Therefore, efficient and impactful instruction that focuses on higher-level comprehension is more important than ever. Not only are the futures of our young people on the line, but the careers of teachers, administrators, and politicians hang in the balance as well. Given the constant bombardment of questionable information that flows over us every day, being a skillful reader is essential for one's self-preservation in a hostile world.
    
  
  
• The Causes of Reading Deficiency
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    Reading deficiency stems from two main sources: lack of exposure to language at the optimum learning window, and lack of prolonged, systematic instruction. These deficiencies are centered around the areas of vocabulary development, grammar and prior knowledge. On the vocabulary front, academic discussion centers around two types of language: social which is called Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS), and academic which is called Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). If students do not have a command of the academic vocabulary for the specific subject they are studying, they will never be able to become higher-level readers. The good news is, that as they practice reading and analyzing higher-level text, their vocabulary will develop along with their other skills.
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    Prior knowledge involves the reader's ability to make connections between the text and what they already know. (Gleason, 2014) Good readers try to make sense out of what they are reading by comparing it with what they already know to see how well it fits. Readers who need to improve can be taught the strategies used by proficient readers and then through instruction and practice use these strategies independently.
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    A lack of knowledge of grammar can also be a major contributor to reading deficiency especially when comprehension does not come intuitively. The primary problem seems to be that students don't understand how sentences work. Until they have a firm grasp of the form, function, and structure of the sentence, they cannot readily comprehend the meaning of the sentence. Analyzing text and understanding how components are put together to express a complex concept helps students understand and produce similar expressions themselves.
    
  
  
• Grammar and Reading Proficiency
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    Studies indicate a strong correlation between grammatical sophistication and reading comprehension. The greater the students' ability to comprehend what they read, the more familiar they become with speaking and writing complex sentences. Since students, especially those first learning academic English at the Middle or High School level, cannot be assumed to intuit grammatical structures efficiently, systematic instruction in grammar in text allows the fastest path to competence in higher level reading comprehension.
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    Without direct grammar instruction students are left to struggle toward the goal of reading comprehension which for many will remain frustratingly elusive.

Many studies dating back over a century have found that formal grammar instruction is an ineffective and inefficient way of teaching student writing. However, systematic grammar instruction that encompasses speaking, reading and writing into an organic process seems to be effective when working with students learning academic English at the Middle and High School level. As each language strand improves, it seems to pull the others along leading to a stronger command of speaking, writing and comprehending.

Grammar instruction has fallen out of favor in most public schools many of which have opted for an ad hoc approach to convey basic notions of grammar such as subject and verb while teaching grammar, if at all, as a component of teaching writing. When it comes to reading comprehension, grammar is ignored almost entirely. The reason for this gap is the presumption that students intuitively understand the deep structures of grammar and will eventually through trial and error "get it." Other reasons center around a concern for singling out students who are not as linguistically adept as their peers.

Adding to the chorus of those opposed to traditional grammar instruction is the voice of the most influential and best-known linguist of the second half of the Twentieth Century, Noam Chomsky. His contributions to the area of language development all point away from the child needing to be taught "grammar" in the traditional sense. Chomsky believes there is only one human language with a number of local variants. Children are born with a Universal Grammar hard-wired into their brains and use this tool to recognize the type of language they are dealing with and will then set their grammar to the correct one. He calls the set of language learning tools provided at birth the Language Acquisition Device. Since the child already has the tools to learn what is needed, teaching traditional grammar will only impede development by creating confusion.

Another factor in limiting grammar instruction is the belief by some educators that such instruction stifles student creativity. Yet another school of thought argues that there is no connection with understanding the workings of grammar and being able to read or write effectively. During an era where the freedom of the student to "develop" free from constraints has been a driving force in educational thought, grammar has been thrown off the train.

Grammar instruction is based on rote methodologies tends not to transfer effectively to growth in reading or writing ability. This is bad. And an even more toxic unintended consequence is that students exposed to this type of grammar instruction tend to become bored with both the instruction and the homework. Hence an approach that focuses on worksheets and repetition of rules is, for the most part, time wasted. The key shortcoming of the worksheet approach is its lack of authenticity. This lack of authenticity stems from the fact that the real-world is not about filling in blanks. The student either comprehends another's whole message, or they produce their own. These authentic products are then taken apart and examined structurally. Once the tasks have been processed, learning takes root. This is what the Orton Gillingham approach suggests about three useful outcomes of systematic grammar instruction: it assists with comprehension skills, it improves written expression, and it helps with cognitive organization and structure. This methodology is the most efficient for lifting the competent student to the excellent level as well as lifting the struggling student to the level of competency.

It important to understand that low-performing students need to be taught using the following approach: from PARTS to the WHOLE, SIMPLE/CONCRETE to ABSTRACT/COMPLEX, all pathways of the brain should be accessed simultaneously, and constant review of the materials is important while adding one new concept at a time. This helps the child to see how the new concept fits in with the old concept to understand the big picture. (Orton Gillingham Online Academy)

Even though some studies claim that that formal grammar instruction is an ineffective and inefficient way of teaching student writing, systematic grammar instruction that encompasses speaking, reading and writing into an organic process seems to be effective when working with students learning academic English at the Middle and High School level. As each language strand improves, it seems to pull the others along leading to a stronger command of speaking, writing and comprehending. Grammar instruction is a key component in this process.