LETTERS

SLPs as Reading Specialists?

I am an SLP in the schools. I am concerned about stepping into the role of reading specialist/resource teacher when our plate is so full with working within the traditional role of an SLP in oral comprehension, oral expression, articulation, voice, and stuttering. Oral comprehension and oral expression support are foundational to the skills of a good reader and writer. But to take on the job of a reading specialist or a resource teacher, as they are called in California, is a stretch. We already cannot do all we are supposed to do, much less add more to our plates with "reading" in the responsiveness-to-intervention (RTI) model with caseloads of 55 or more. No one addresses these concerns in The ASHA Leader. Yes, RTI is addressed in a recent Leader, but it is not related to what I was taught 10 years ago when I got my master's degree. Nor does it address how we, SLPs, step on the toes of the reading specialist or resource specialist when extending ourselves into the RTI model. There should be a well-defined line between the specialists in the schools, one that does not overlap. I appreciate the collaborative approach to workload rather than caseload approach. Even this change to the workload approach does not allow room for taking over the resource/reading specialist's job. This is the pink elephant in the room.

Cynthia Sudduth Feeney
Vallecito, CA
cynthiaf@sudduth.org

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