Structured literacy intervention is designed for learners encountering challenges in acquiring literacy skills. It particularly supports individuals with dyslexia or those behind their peers by providing explicit, direct, and systematic instruction in both spoken and written language. This evidence-based approach, known as Structured Literacy, is supported by: The National Reading Panel, Australian Dyslexia Working Party document, National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy, and the Australian Dyslexia Association.
Research highlighted by the National Reading Panel illustrates the effectiveness of structured literacy, emphasizing key components such as phonemic awareness, systematic phonics instruction, accuracy and fluency, vocabulary development, comprehension, and writing and spelling skills. Structured literacy interventions prioritize highly explicit, systematic teaching of foundational skills like decoding and spelling, along with other critical literacy components such as vocabulary, comprehension, and writing.
Structured literacy uniquely caters to the needs of children with dyslexia and struggling learners by explicitly addressing foundational literacy skills and employing clear, systematic, and unambiguous teaching methods across all aspects of literacy. This comprehensive approach ensures that learners receive the support and instruction they need to develop strong literacy skills and overcome difficulties they may encounter.
Multisensory Structured Language (MSL) builds upon scientific reading research and structured literacy by incorporating a multisensory approach. Unlike rigid programs, MSL is evidence-based and adaptable, offering direct and explicit instruction in a structured and systematic manner. It caters to individuals with dyslexia or related differences and emphasizes early intervention while remaining effective at any age. When implemented by knowledgeable educators, MSL can significantly alleviate language processing issues associated with dyslexia, and with early intervention, it may prevent significant reading and writing difficulties from emerging.
The MSL Approach prioritizes language-based techniques, featuring direct and explicit instruction that is structured, sequential, cumulative, diagnostic, cognitively sound, and flexible. Its comprehensive nature and adaptability warrant the term "approach" rather than "method." Importantly, this approach fosters emotional well-being by ensuring students experience consistent success and gain confidence, making learning a fulfilling and enjoyable endeavour.
Students who experience difficulties with reading may struggle to accurately decode words, read at a slow and laboured pace, skip or add words when reading, and/or have difficulty adequately comprehending what they have read. They often use inefficient visual strategies, such as guessing using the first letter, overall appearance of the word, or use picture cues. For children with learning difficulties (such as dyslexia), their reading skills do not improve automatically through maturation or repeated exposure to print. They need to be explicitly taught decoding and encoding skills using a phonics-based program that is intensive, structured, systematic, and multisensory, in order to achieve an adequate level of reading fluency (DSF, 2024).
Dyslexia is a difficulty in the use and processing of linguistic and symbolic codes, alphabetic letters representing speech sounds or numeric symbols representing numbers or quantities.
Such difficulty is reflected in the language continuum that includes spoken language, written language and language comprehension. Dyslexia is not the result of neurological damage; it is the product of neurological development. Dyslexia often runs in families and varies from mild to severe (ADA, 2024).