Take a moment to consider this fact: Nearly two-thirds of the student population in the juvenile justice system has a disability. These students typically have unmet learning needs, which impact not only their education, but can also impact their entire future. This shocking connection should force us to reexamine our instructional practices in the area of literacy.
In 2023, the number of students receiving special education services reached an all-time high, with approximately 7.5 million students being served. That's 15% of the U.S. school population. An additional staggering fact is that about 65-70% of the student population in the juvenile justice system has a disability.
While it's difficult to discern a clear relationship between the juvenile justice system and disabilities, reports indicate that students with a learning disability make up the majority of the system. Given these staggering statistics, educators must ensure they are providing engaging instruction with high expectations for all learners, including those with disabilities.
The gold standard for meeting this challenge is clear. We must deepen teacher knowledge about the Science of Reading (SOR) and provide the tools for structured literacy instruction. The Science of Reading refers to the body of research that supports instruction being explicit and systematic in the foundational skills of phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Structured Literacy is the approach that puts the SOR research into action and offers a blueprint to close the gap for all students.
Challenging Previous Instructional Approaches
Students with reading disabilities don't just benefit from structured literacy instruction; they require it. These students benefit most from explicit and systematic instruction that is code-based, and they must experience multiple exposures to the content. The gradual release of responsibility is beneficial for all students, but students with disabilities require more time in the "I do" and "We do" phase. Students struggling to learn to read don't necessarily need something different; sometimes, they need more repetition to support orthographic mapping in the brain.
This also includes our students with intellectual disabilities. For a long time, it was thought that instruction should involve teaching functional words through memorization. Recent research has found that:
"Children with Down Syndrome were given a structured literacy intervention and made significant progress. If children are taught to decode rather than memorize sight words, they can progress much further beyond the limit of the number words they can memorize" (Cull, 2025, para. 11).
How SOR Unlocks the Code for All Students
Understanding Orthographic Mapping
When the brain is learning to read, it is engaging in a mental process called orthographic mapping. This is the process that occurs in the brain that matches phonemes (sounds) to the graphemes (letters) in a word that is already known. Through this process, the sound, spelling, and meaning become available for automatic retrieval.
To achieve this level of automaticity, the brain must undergo numerous repetitions of matching phonemes and graphemes. It is believed that the process of orthographic mapping is the same for all readers; however, readers with learning or intellectual disabilities require more repetition and benefit from the principles of structured literacy.
Implications for Instruction
So, how do we close the gap for our students with disabilities? We make sure that we are planning with the gradual release of responsibility and increasing the time we spend in the "I Do" and "We Do" phase. We provide lots of explicit modeling and opportunities for students to practice.
Key Instructional Strategies
- We provide explicit and systematic phonemic awareness and phonics instruction.
- We provide numerous opportunities for students to connect graphemes to phonemes with word meanings so the brain can engage in the orthographic mapping process.
- We provide immediate corrective feedback. We are supporting the students and correcting errors in the moment so that students are not practicing incorrectly.
As educators, we can continuously audit ourselves to ensure we are up-to-date on the most current research and using resources that align with the Science of Reading and structured literacy. We need to equip our special education teachers, who are not always provided the necessary preparation, with the knowledge and resources to provide engaging instruction and hold high expectations.
Transform Instruction for Struggling Readers
That's why at CESA 6, we designed the Structured Literacy Special Education Academy for this very reason. Our academy is dedicated to deepening the literacy knowledge of special education teachers and empowering them with the resources to transform instruction for their struggling readers.
Our students deserve the best, and their access to opportunity hinges on it. Learn more about the Structured Literacy Special Education Academy today.
References
Cull, K. F. (2025, June 18). Teaching reading to children with Down Syndrome. Undivided. https://undivided.io/resources/teaching-reading-to-children-with-down-syndrome-3093
Keys to Literacy. (n.d.). The role of orthographic mapping in learning to read. Retrieved from [Full URL of the article]
National Center for Learning Disabilities. (2023). Unlocking futures: Youth with learning disabilities & the juvenile justice system. https://ncld.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/NCLD-Unlocking-Futures-Final-7th-Dec-Updated-.pdf
Schaeffer, K. (2023, July 24). What federal education data shows about students with disabilities in the U.S. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/24/what-federal-education-data-shows-about-students-with-disabilities-in-the-us/