The Spectrum of
Learning Disabilities
Reading
Comprehension
Exceptionality
Awareness
Lets take a deeper look into the
struggles students have when it comes
to reading comprehension, studying,
and learning. You will learn about
some of the common causes, struggles,
and learning needs that these students
are faced with.
Lets Now Further
Explore Reading
Let’s begin with the basics. There are
many different learning disabilities in
which students struggle with in their
lives. The Learning Disabilities
Association of Canada describes
learning disabilities as disorders that
affect the acquisition, organization,
retention, understanding or use of
verbal or nonverbal information
(Learning Disabilities Association of
Canada, 2002). From here, we can
narrow down a reading disability to
three different forms: an inability to
decode, an inability to comprehend, or
both (Gough & Turner, pg. 7).
Reading comprehension relies on a
mastery of decoding so children who
struggle to decode also find it difficult
to understand and remember what has
been read (PBS, 2017). Because their
efforts to grasp individual words are so
exhausting, they have very little mental
energy left for understanding (PBS,
2017).
Comprehension
Disabilities
A reading comprehension learning disability
affects the learner's ability to understand the
meaning of words and passages. Many students
have the ability to read aloud with little or no
difficulty pronouncing words, but they do not
understand or remember what they've read.
(Logsdon, 2017).
Reading comprehension may be a “hidden
disability”, according to a growing body of new
research. Reading comprehension may go
undetected in the classroom because people
don’t often ask fluent readers if they know the
meaning of what they just read (Association for
Psychological Science, 2011). It is important to
understand that just because students are good
at recognizing and saying words out loud,
doesn’t mean they’re accomplished readers.
It is important to recognize that these difficulties
can also co-exist with other difficulties such as
reading and decoding problems. This creates
heterogeneity within this specific diagnosis
because two people with similar diagnoses will
not have the same strengths or areas of need.
For more information on the ambiguity of
reading comprehension disabilities, visit
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/ful
l-frontal-psychology/is-reading-comprehension-
the-hidden-disability.html
What are the causes?
As with most learning disabilities, the exact cause of
reading comprehension disabilities is unknown.
Often we can attribute this disability to have been
caused by environmental and/or organic risk factors
(Hamilton & Glascoe, 2006). It is common to think
vision or hearing problems may play a role in this
disability, but it is not solely due to vision problems,
difficulty with hearing or speech, or lack of
appropriate instruction (Logsdon, 2017). Difficulty
with language processing and visual reasoning centers
of the brain is another likely cause of a learning
disability in reading comprehension (Logsdon, 2017).
Recent studies suggest that structural and/or
functional brain problems may cause people with
reading disorders have a harder time making
associations within the context of what they read
because they identify and sequence phonemes less
efficiently (PBS, 2017). Another reason may be an
inherited condition or developmental difference in
the brain which results in the lack of ability for a
person to comprehend what they are reading.
Common symptoms
 Frequently avoid reading and become
frustrated with reading tasks in school
(Logsdon, 2017).
 Struggles with word problems in math
because students are unable to comprehend
the questions (Emlgren, 56)
 Omission of or glossing over details when
reading (PBS, 2017)
 Lack of concentration when reading (PBS,
2017)
Common Symptoms
cont’d…
 Struggles with navigating research articles,
therefore unable to make notes or
summarize (Elmgren, 56)
 Responses to science articles may be terse
and lacked complexity (Elmgren, 56)
 Difficulty differentiating the important ideas
and minor details in reading passages (PBS,
2017).
 Difficulty with basic reading skills such as
word recognition (Logsdon, 2017).
 In some cases, may read aloud with little
difficulty but do not understand or
remember what they've read (Logsdon,
2017).
 Inability to connect ideas to passage (PBS,
2017)
Learning Needs and
Strategies
It is common for students who struggle with
reading comprehension, to also have other
courses work suffer as well (Elmgren, 57). It is
very important that when students are given
opportunities to work on their reading
comprehension skills that are monitored closely
and given assistance when needed. Students may
only scan readings to find the answers they need
but not do the whole reading, which will not
help them address or support their
complications (Elmgren, 56). One good way to
help these students would be to give them a
reading and have them create their own reading
comprehension questions and answers.
Learning Needs and
Strategies cont’d…
Another problem with these students is that
they are not engaged in the readings because,
as mentioned earlier, their efforts to grasp the
readings are so exhausted that they have very
little mental energy to understand (PBS, 2017).
This, in turn, drives students to cheat and cut
corners (Elmgren, 57).
Student disengagement can be easily detected
when students produce weak and superficial
work. Explicit teaching of reading strategies
can encourage and increase learner
engagement which can result in less
temptation to cheat and thus increase the
quality of students’ assignments (Elmgren,
57).
Another issue is when students cut and paste
whole paragraphs and turn them into jot notes
(Elmgren, 57). Students that lack the reading
comprehension skills necessary to pick out
key ideas, have issues summarizing whole
readings. They will usually also struggle in
classes with large vocabulary because of this.
It is important to take the time to teach these
students vocabulary reading strategies in order
for students to properly comprehend course
readings (Elmgren, 57)
Helpful Strategies
What are some common
misconceptions?
One of the most common misconceptions
Learning Strategies
within a classroom
Problems can arise with word problems in a
class such as math. If struggling readers can’t
navigate the word problem, they will also be
unable to show evidence of their thinking and
their learning (Elmgren, 58). A helpful trick for
students who struggle with reading
comprehension questions in math is to draw out
a picture of what it is they are solving for. To
challenge them, you could also ask them to try
and draw out a picture before attempting to
solve the question.
A teacher-directed approach towards reading
comprehension skills can be initiated using the
“K-W-L graphic organizer” (Elmgren, 60). This
begins with students brainstorming everything
they know about the topic or subject (K), then
they come up with questions that they want to
look for in the text, or what they want to know
(W); and lastly, they record new information that
they learned (L) from the reading (Elmgren, 60).
These three headers should be set up as a chart
so when students find their answers they then
write in them in the L column. The directed
approach of filling in the chart maintains focus,
provides a purpose, and increases engagement in
the reading (Elmgren, 60).
Learning Needs and
Strategies cont’d…
Student disengagement can be easily detected
when students produce weak and superficial
Lets discuss!
1) What are some common
misconceptions with this learning
disability?
One of the most common misconceptions with
any learning disability is that they are at-risk for
being underestimated in their abilities. People
with a disability in reading comprehension have
general learning ability that is as high as, or
higher than, those without learning disabilities;
they simply have a skill deficit in this single area
(Logsdon, 2017). Another misunderstanding
people make is that people with this disability
must work harder to get their work done. It may
seem as though they are not getting their work
done but instead they are just so overwhelmed.
These children know they are behind their peers,
which can affect their self-esteem and
motivation (Logsdon, 2017).
2) Is this a life long learning disability?
Generally if a child is diagnosed with this
learning disability, it is going to cause them
problems their whole life. Although the way in
which it is expressed may vary over their
lifetime, depending on the demands of the
environment and the individual’s strengths and
needs (Walcot-Gayda, 38). Throughout school,
students must acknowledge their learning
disability and have educators that can
accommodate and support learning and task
completion of these students. But “without this
self-awareness and ability to appropriately self-
advocate, persons with learning disabilities are
less likely to participate in successful post-
secondary studies” (Walcod-Gayda, 38).
Further information on the life long effects of
learning disabilities this can be found at
https://www.edcan.ca/wp-
content/uploads/EdCan-2004-v44-n1-Walcot-
Gayda.pdf
Lets discuss!
3) To what extent does this affect a
students ability to learn?
Elementary students have the capacity to learn
to the same levels as their peers and make
relatively smooth transitions to middle or
secondary school, if given both remediation
and a solid general education (Walcot-Gayda,
36). Educators can foster students’
engagement and willingness to take
responsibility for their learning by addressing
students’ specific learning needs. However,
there are many children with reading
comprehension disabilities that will have
lifelong difficulties despite adequate
intervention.
More information on a study regarding the
connection between reluctant and struggling
readers’ assignment proficiency and their
struggle with reading can be found in Hilary
Elmgren’s article A Responsive Approach:
Providing Instructional Strategies to Improve Literacy
in the Content Areas. She also goes into further
detail about other techniques and strategies
that can be used to engage struggling readers.
Lets discuss!
Lets discuss!
5) To what extent does this
6) To what
affect extent does
a students thisto
ability
affect
learn? a students ability to
Lets discuss! Personal Experience References
References
4) How do they test and assess this? I have struggled with reading comprehension my Association for Association
Psychological forScience.
Psychological
(2011).Science.
Is (2011). Is
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reading comprehension
a hidden disability?a hidden disability?
Reading difficulties can be recognized by the
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frontal-psychology/is-reading-comprehension-the-
with standardized screening tests (Hamilton & crazy as I am now in my fourth year of university, it hidden-disability.html
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reading tests can be used to determine the think. With the society we live in now and having Elmgren, H. (2014).
Elmgren,
A Responsive
H. (2014).Approach:
A Responsive Approach:
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ProvidingStrategies
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Strategies to Improve
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