When teachers are asked which roadblocks interfere with effective instruction, challenging student behavior is generally at or near the top of their list. In our evaluation of the Read to Achieve program in Kentucky, teachers rated only time limitations ahead of student misbehavior as their greatest challenge.
Nationally, student behavior has repeatedly been identified as a leading cause of teacher stress and burnout, contributing to a growing number of teachers leaving the profession. This makes it essential to understand not only how behavior affects instruction, but also how it may be connected to students’ academic experiences.
For many students, reading difficulties and challenging behavior do not develop as separate concerns. Repeated difficulty in one area can affect success in the other. A student who expects to fail may withdraw, disrupt instruction, or attempt to avoid the task; and that avoidance reduces opportunities to learn, creates larger skill gaps, and makes future success less likely.
The Reading and Behavior Connection is Stronger Than We Think
When considering effective intervention, it is worth examining the degree to which student behavior and reading achievement are related.
Research shows a strong connection between reading and behavior and includes both students exhibiting withdrawal/depression and those whose behaviors are more obvious and disruptive.
There is even evidence that reading deficits are associated with more severe psychiatric problems. According to the National Institutes of Health and the Council for Exceptional Children, between 50% and 80% of students receiving services for emotional and behavioral disorders score below the 25th percentile on standardized reading measures.
For context, students with emotional and behavioral disorders experience behavioral or emotional needs that significantly interfere with their ability to learn. Their academic performance and behavior should not be treated as unrelated concerns when both affect their access to instruction.
Research has consistently demonstrated the relationship between measures of reading and student behavior.
For example, a 2006 University of Oregon study examined the relationship between office discipline referrals and scores on a literacy assessment. The literacy measure was the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, commonly known as DIBELS. Not surprisingly, the researchers reported that office referrals in first and second grade were significant predictors of referrals in third grade. But reading competence as measured in kindergarten was also a strong predictor of those who later experience behavioral difficulties.
Evidence like this leads to an obvious question. Do reading difficulties cause problem behavior, or does problem behavior cause reading difficulties?
Do Reading Difficulties Cause Problem Behavior?
The answer to this question is both simple and complex.
The Simple answer is: both.
For students with reading and behavior deficits, there is no compelling evidence that solving one problem will significantly affect the other. There is, however, strong evidence that effective intervention for both can produce stronger results than an intervention focused on only one area. Students with both reading and behavior difficulties need instruction and support that directly address both.
Success Builds Confidence and More Success
The more complex explanation involves understanding how a student’s learning history affects the likelihood of future success or failure.
We all like success. It is pleasant and appealing to be good at something. Generally, the better we become at a skill, the more willing we are to continue using it and the more likely we are to enjoy it. When we repeatedly struggle with something, however, the activity can become unpleasant and we may begin looking for ways to avoid it.
Suppose I draw a picture in a style that is new to me. If someone tells me I am a good artist, I feel confident, I enjoy the experience, and I am more likely to try again. But if someone tells me the drawing is not good, I may feel frustrated or angry, and I am less likely to make another attempt.
Now consider this same set of circumstances but instead of a drawing, it’s some skill associated with reading, or a basic behavioral expectation. The type of response I get is a huge predictor for what I do next.
The takeaway is not that students can never experience failure in reading or behavior. That would be impossible. Instead, we should consider how instruction affects the probability of success and failure.
The science of instruction tells us to break complex skills into smaller, teachable parts that give students opportunities for initial success. We can think of early success as building a savings account that students can draw from when learning becomes difficult.
The more success students experience, the more confidence they develop and the more willing they become to continue. When failure occurs repeatedly, that account is quickly drained and the student moves into a deficit.
When School Becomes a Daily Exercise in Failure
Consider what it would feel like to go to work every day and be asked to complete tasks you know you cannot perform. Each attempt results in negative feedback from your supervisor. What incentive would you have not to curse your boss or find another way to escape the situation? You might lose your job, but you would no longer have to face the same experience of failure every day.
For students, school is their job, and reading is one of their most common work tasks. Our ability to create early and continued success strongly influences what happens next.
Students who struggle repeatedly with reading can learn to hate it. In one study, students identified as poor readers reported that they would rather clean their rooms than participate in reading activities.
Simply put, there is little incentive to continue doing something that repeatedly ends in failure.
Instruction is just as important for behavior as it is for reading or any other academic skill. Yet we often make assumptions about what students already know regarding appropriate classroom behavior. Rather than teaching behavior, we may tell students what to do or post a list of rules on the wall, neither of which would be accepted as effective instruction of academics. That is, we would not display a list of words and assume that students had been taught to decode them.
Behavior should receive the same instructional care. Students need clear explanations, modeling, guided practice, feedback, and repeated opportunities to succeed. Without that instruction, students make behavioral errors and begin accumulating another history of failure. As those failures increase, their incentive to participate decreases and their behavior may escalate.
When students avoid instruction or are removed from the classroom, learning continues for everyone else. The student eventually returns with a larger academic gap, making another failure and another attempt to escape even more likely.
How Reading and Behavior Difficulties Reinforce Each Other
Reading and behavior difficulties can form a vicious cycle. Failure leads to avoidance. Avoidance leads to missed instruction. Missed instruction creates greater difficulty and increases the likelihood of another failure.
Fortunately, the solution does not require every student to excel at everything we teach. What matters is the student’s rate of success compared with the rate of failure.
A 2004 University of Washington study found that seventh-grade students could be predicted to have fewer behavioral incidents when their reading scores had steadily improved between third and sixth grade.
It is not about being the best. It is about teachers creating instruction that provides enough success to make students want to continue.
Students with a long history of failure may need an especially high rate of success to begin rebuilding confidence. As students experience repeated success, those experiences can become confidence, persistence, and greater independence.
We Teach Reading and We Need to Teach Behavior, Too
The overriding responsibility of a teacher is to create opportunities for student success.
There is an endless array of possible strategies, but the science of instruction helps identify practices with the highest probability of success. In reading, many of these practices are described in the Kentucky Reading Research Center’s Research Clearinghouse.
When considering reading and behavior together, two instructional priorities stand out.
Design Instruction for High Rates of Success
We must design and implement instruction that provides high rates of success with everything we teach.
This involves breaking complex skills into smaller and more manageable components. It also means arranging the learning environment to support frequent positive interactions between teachers and students.
Students are more likely to participate when they receive meaningful feedback for correct responses, effort, improvement, and appropriate behavior.
This does not mean lowering expectations. It means designing instruction that gives students a realistic path toward meeting those expectations.
Teach Behavioral Expectations Explicitly
Behavioral expectations should be taught using the same instructional logic applied to reading.
Teachers should identify the expected behavior, break it into observable steps, teach those steps explicitly, engage students in practice, and provide guidance and feedback.
Expectations may need to be retaught when the setting, activity, or routine changes. Knowing how to behave during independent work does not necessarily mean a student knows how to participate during group discussion, transitions, or less structured activities.
Student engagement is a major predictor of success across academic and behavioral areas. The goal is to identify those behaviors that help students participate successfully and then provide instruction that makes those behaviors more likely.
In reality, these principles apply to anything we teach. The key is to identify the academic and behavioral skills students need and to develop instruction that creates high rates of success.
Continue Building Conditions for Student Success
Effective reading and behavior support begins with instruction that students can understand, practice, and succeed with.
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