After reading about the Oelwein method, I have to say that I have come full circle in my views about teaching reading to students with Significant Cognitive Disability (SCD), and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
What I mean by that, is after reading Literacy Skill Development for Students with Special Learning Needs: A Strength Based Approach, (Brown & Oelwein, 2007), I was reminded of the teaching method I learned over 16 years ago, and had used as an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) tutor, when I worked in the ABA program at the St. Amant Centre, here in Manitoba. The method used in ABA, called Discrete Trial Teaching, is very similar to the Oelwein method I just read about today.
I wonder why I did not immediately think of ABA and Discrete Trail Training when I first set out to research information about teaching reading to students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities (SCD) and Intellectual Disabilities (ID)? It is odd, considering my very positive experience with the method, and my knowledge of the research that proves its effectiveness for people with Autism.
I suppose the breakdown, for me, had to do with my more recent focus on reading instruction. In the past, my experience with ABA had been teaching life-skills or self-care skills, mainly. Also, perhaps I saw ABA and Discrete Trial Training as a method for students with Autism only. I had forgotten that this method can be used with people with various developmental disabilities. I had learned of its use with people other than those with Autism, at a workshop at the Council for Exceptional Children conference in 2017, where Discrete Trail Training was the focus.
As my career has taken me towards supporting students with a large variety of abilities, in becoming readers, my repertoire of strategies has broadened, and I have moved toward other teaching methods. However, as I said in my blog post about fluency yesterday, the method I used as an ABA tutor, is always my “go – to”, when other methods are not proving successful for the students I work with, as a resource teacher.
My pursuit, through this blog, has been to research reading interventions that work for students with SCD and ID. With this as my focus, I suppose I have not put enough stock in the “tried and true”. After reading about the Oelwein method, I am grateful to have had the experience of working as an ABA tutor.
Essentially what is described in the book Literacy Skill Development for Students with Special Learning Needs: A Strength Based Approach, Brown & Oelwein (2007) is very structured, intensive method. The method, what I know as Discrete Trial Training, is applied to the task of teaching “whole words” to students (p.40). Students are taught to read the full word, on sight, without breaking down the word into its sounds.
Important to the Oelwein method is the “selection of vocabulary words that are immediately useful to the learner. It is critical to show students that words have a purpose and can be manipulated to have meaning” (2007, p. 78).
The Oelwein method involves engaging the learners through using their strengths (Brown & Oelwein, 2007, p. i, preface). As you are likely aware, people with ASD are strong visual learners, and so are many people with DS. The authors describe how important it is to use this visual strength to support these students in reading: “Research has found that individuals with ASD process visuospatial information more easily than transient auditory information” (Quill, as cited in Brown & Oelwein, 2007, p. 12).
Students begin by learning whole words, through a three step approach. The reasoning behind starting with whole words is that students with significant learning needs often are not successful with the phonics approach.
The authors argue that “the learning style of students with a variety of special learning needs…makes it difficult for them to read with a phonics-based approach. For these students the letter-by letter decoding of words is a labour-intensive process that can be both frustrating and discouraging (p. 12). However, the authors explain that phonics is not dismissed entirely in the Oelwein method. It is taught later that it would be for “neurotypical” learners, but it is still taught (Brown & Oelwein, 2007, p. 27).
Brown & Oelwein describe two approaches for teaching reading: the “bottom-up” approach, and the “top-down” approach (pp. 3-4). Bottom-up is beginning with letters and sounds, and advancing to whole words. Top-down is the approach used in the Oelwein method, where students are first taught whole words, and later are shown that words are made up of individual sounds.
The Oelwein method involves taking students through a three-step sequence, called the “match, select and name” sequence:
“1) Matching: the student matches word to word (or word to a word printed under a picture);
2. Selecting: the student selects a word upon request;
3. Naming: the student names the word on request, either verbally or by hand sign” (p. 14).
Essential to this method are the following points:
• The words that are used must be important and personal to the child. Teaching might begin with the child’s name, parent’s names, and a sibling or pet’s name. Later words that are connected to the child’s interests are used.
• Sight words are taught to allow the child to begin to form sentences with the words that they begin to read. I number of sentences can be formed with the student’s first four personal words, and the sight words “I” and “see”: “I see Mom. I see (name).”
• These short sentences are then transferred into books that are personalized for the child.
• Students then are supported in learning to read these books, through modelling and repeated reading, until the child achieves fluency. Before long the student has the rewarding feeling of being able to read a book!
• The method is visual and systematic (there is a sequence chart that is used to determine how many words are taught, how they are maintained, and which sight words are incorporated, and when. New books are taught as the student becomes fluent with previous books.
Most importantly, to me, the method described by Brown & Oelwein is very similar to Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), which, as I said earlier, is an empirically proven method for teaching students with ASD. In the Oelwein method, the adults use very clear instruction, immediate prompts, and verbal praise following correct responses, just as is the case for ABA and Discrete Trial Teaching (DTT). Here is a snapshot, in case you are not familiar with those acronyms:
“With the picture card on the table, show Abby the Abby flashcard and say, “This word says ___.” Wait for her to say or sign her name.
If she does not sign or say it, cue her by pointing to the picture; if she does not respond, tell her, “It says, Abby.”
Give her the flashcard and tell her to put Abby (flashcard) on Abby (picture card).
Provide feedback for each response (Brown & Oelwein, 2007, p. 40)
Alas! The tried and true! I feel satisfied knowing that my experiences with Applied Behavior Analysis are further substantiated here. It gives me confidence to carry on with what I know works, while at the same time continuing to expand my repertoire of evidence-based reading strategies.
It is also very valuable to see how the basics I had been familiar with, can be applied in teaching reading to students with special needs.
The method supports learners with SCD, ASD and DS in developing new literacy skills quickly, and allows students to feel the joy in reading books very early on in the process.
After reading the book by Oelwein & Brown (2007), I now have some answers to the numerous questions that I was left with, in my post about fluency yesterday. I am confident that building automaticity of whole words must come before repeated readings of passages. Also, I am convinced that applying the “top-down” method, which leaves phonics to later in the learning process, is a very smart idea, for students with severe developmental disabilities, ASD and SCD.
That being said, considering the needs of individual learners, and what is currently working for them or not working, would impact my decision on how to approach teaching them, but this is good information to have at the ready!
What is left, for me, is to try this out on my own, with students I work with each day. I might have to wait a bit to try it out, considering schools are still closed here, due to the pandemic.
I encourage you to give it a try yourself, once we get back to school, and let me know what you find.
I will end with a quote that sums up the philosophy of this approach perfectly, and I feel is an apt statement about teaching students of all abilities:
“Do not persist with a longer, harder and louder approach if the student is not meeting with success in a reasonable time frame ” (Brown & Oelwein, 2007, p. 12).
I am grateful for having been referred to this book, and would love to share it with you. You can read part of this book yourself for free, by going to the link below, and clicking on “Preview this book”.
Thanks Ailsa, for the advice to check out the Oelwein method!
References
Brown, L. T. & Oelwein, P. (2007). Literacy Skill Development for Students with Special Learning Needs: A Strength Based Approach. National Professional Resources Inc./Dude Publishing.
Martin, G. & Pear, J. (2003). Behavior Modification: What it is and how to do it. 7th Ed. Prentice Hall.
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