Why is Failure Free Reading so effective with LD students?
The program provides the high levels of structure and repetition that many LD children need. As Hargis (1982) stated in his book Teaching Reading to Handicapped Children, Teachers often complain about inconsistent responses from students who have severe reading problems. ‘They seem to know the words one day but not the next.’ This observation reflects a problem of children not introduced to words in meaningful context with sufficient repetition and who have not as yet been able to do any meaningful reading – often after years in school… They fall into this predicament because there are no published materials with sufficient controls to permit meaningful activities.” Gates found that as the IQ drops, the need for repetition proportionately increases. Students with IQs in the fifties and sixties need to see words hundreds of times before they can independently recognize them. This is why Failure Free Reading stresses multiple exposures in multiple contexts. They cant succeed without it
