|
|
Providing Free Online Resources to Help Children Succeed in School and Life |
|
|
|
||
|
Resources Random generated worksheets. Each time you load a page, new exercises are generated. Articles Access to feature articles by subject Get free personal answers to questions that you send us by email. Give us your opinion about our site, and information on what else you would like to see here. Would you like to see more worksheets? Learn how to support the development. Become a Friend of Improving Education Inc. for only $25 a year. |
|
Helping Children Learn to Read Download Document LearnToRead.doc for easier printing (Microsoft Word format) By Susan Levene December 15, 1998 Some children learn to read effortlessly, some children struggle to learn to read, and some children need specific intervention and to be taught decoding techniques before being able to read. The goal of this article is to help those involved with teaching young people to read understand how we learn to read and provide techniques to help children who struggle. I have gained this knowledge through working with young children learning to read and reading the research literature on the subjects of learning and reading. I hope this article will be useful for parents, teachers and anyone else in interested in improving children's reading skills. The article contains the following sections: Diagnosing Slow to Learn Readers Intervention Techniques for Children under 7 Intervention Techniques for Children over 7 Suggestions for Reading Difficulties By understanding the stages of reading, we are better able to diagnose the problem a child is having. I have provided guidelines about when children learn to read to help us make informed decisions on the amount of intervention that is needed for a specific child. I've tried to present my strategies for diagnosing reading problems and some solutions to help students overcome their difficulties. Good Luck and Happy Reading J Most people, while learning to read, go through several reading stages. The amount of time spent in each stage and the difficulty in mastering a stage varies greatly between individuals. Below is a summary of the stages we go through while learning to read. Stage 1 - Recognizing letters and the
sounds they make In Stage 1 a child will learn the alphabet and begin to name letters that he sees written. He will be able to recite words that start with a certain letter. For example, he will be able to say, "B sounds like ba and the words ball and boy start with a B." When the concept that letters represent sounds that we say is mastered the child is moving on to the next stage. Stage 2 - Recognizing familiar words in
context The idea that written words can represent spoken words is the concept mastered in this stage. A child will be able to recognize a few familiar words such as STOP on a traffic sign and some favorite words in books she reads often. Once the child understands that words written on a page represent the words we speak, she is ready to start figuring words out herself. Stage 3 - Decoding words phonetically At this stage, the student begins to decode simple words and works toward good comprehension of what he is reading. There is not a fixed ending to this stage. A child might have mastered this ability for simple, familiar stories, but when faced with a more difficult text no longer understands what he has read.
Stage 4 - Mouthing words while reading for
understanding At this stage the child recognizes most of the words she encounters, and deciphers occasional words she does not recognize. However, we can still see her moving her mouth while reading. This is a sign that the child must still translate the written word to spoken word before being able to understand what she is reading. Until she can comprehend the written word directly without translating first to the spoken word she is not yet a fluent reader.
Stage 5 - Fluent Reading for understanding This is the final stage covered by the article. The student can read some books independently and discuss the plot and characters. He is no longer mouthing while reading and the speed of his reading gradually increases. Now that we have a working knowledge of the stages we go through while learning to read, the next section discusses the ages that it is normal to master reading skills.
When do Children
Learn to Read The parents of young children often wonder when should their child be able to read. The question is very valid although the answer is very difficult to summarize quickly or accurately for all children. Every child matures and develops at a different rate. However, reading success is linked to school performance which is linked to career and adult potential. This makes it a topic of concern for all parents. It is generally believed that by the third grade or age nine, developmental differences are no longer much of a factor. That is if a child is still struggling with reading and other academic skills (they are usually linked) at age 9, then it is more likely than not that she will struggle throughout her academic career. This does not mean that all children who are struggling in the third grade are destined for problems. There will still be many late bloomers. However, because of issues such as self-esteem, tracking and school expectations besides falling behind in academic skills, it takes effort to move a child who is struggling in third grade to be an excellent performer in school. Most children will have the developmental skills to learn to read by age seven. If a child is not making good progress through the reading stages by age seven, there is a good possibility that she will need one-on-one attention to identify her reading difficulties and to receive help on building skills and techniques to overcome her issues. Sometimes even before age seven, a parent or a teacher will notice a difficulty that they think is not likely to be caused by a developmental issue (something the child will grow out of). In these cases intervention may also prove useful. Caution is advised. Putting too much pressure on a student who would have easily learned to read in six months can backfire. However, this must be weighed with the knowledge that the quicker a student masters reading the more likely she is to attain academic success. Parents and teachers should discuss the advantages and disadvantages of early intervention and make decisions on a case by case basis.
Diagnosing Slow
to Learn Readers The first step in deciding what to do about a slow to learn student is to identify the problem he is having. I have grouped the typical problems into four areas. The areas are letter recognition, short term memory, long term memory and motivation. Letter recognition difficulties have to do with the ability of distinguishing one letter from another. Short term memory difficulties usually become most apparent during the decoding stage. By the time he has gotten to the end of a sentence, he has difficulty remembering the beginning. Long term memory problems are usually seen earlier. The child just can't seem to remember his letters, and has a tough time remembering high frequency words. Motivation can appear at any time. The student is usually unwilling to practice reading, or unwilling to move to more difficult materials. The symptoms of each problem overlap, and sometimes it is tricky to know just what the problem is, but I have tried to point out how to recognize each difficulty. Often a child will have difficulty in more than one area. It may be useful to try intervention techniques for each area the student is having difficulty.
Letter Recognition A typical sign that a student is having difficulty recognizing letters is confusing letters that look alike, such as a lowercase b and d. However, early on in the learning to read process it is easy to confuse a memory problem with a letter recognition problem. Sometimes a student has not yet learned what each letter looks like and what it represents. Typical letter recognition early in young students include : - Students will confidently give the wrong answer instead of an "I don't know" answer. - When asked about a letter that he is having difficulty with , he will give the correct answer about half the time. - Often copies letters incorrectly when writing. As a reader progresses towards fluent reading, the symptoms more closely align themselves with motivation issues. We find ourselves telling the student to pay more attention, or that they make many careless mistakes. A student who can achieve good overall comprehension but is often wrong about details may also have a letter recognition problem, and may benefit from some of the intervention strategies suggested in following sections. Short Term Memory Short term memory is the ability to remember things soon after they have been read or heard. If you were asked to look at a page filled with twenty words, then close the page and recite the words in order, your performance would be related to the ability of your short term memory. Typically people have a short term memory of seven to nine items. Early on in the reading process the symptoms of a short term memory problem will be similar to the lack of motivation. The student will seem to have lost interest in the task at hand, before we have finished the instructions. An older student who is having difficulty because of a short term memory problem, will have problems reading for comprehension. She might be able to decode parts of a word very well, but have difficulty determining the whole word. She might be able to read words, but has difficulty understanding the sentence being read. Long Term Memory Long term memory is the ability to store and recall information that we have collected for a long time. If a student seems to make progress during a session, but doesn't progress well over time, he may have a long term memory problem. Typical symptoms may include learning letters slowly, and not recognizing as many words as one might expect. Long term memory problems can also be confused with motivation problems. A typical feeling is that the student just doesn't care whether he learns or not. Motivation Motivation problems are easy to spot. A child will balk at practicing at all, or will start to daydream, the moment you turn away. She can be disruptive in class, and might look for attention in inappropriate ways. Typically the work that is supposed to get done in class will not get completed, and the teacher will complain of an attitude problem. The difficulty with motivation problems is that the root cause of the lack of motivation is not usually clear. Motivation problems may or may not be related to the student's difficulty learning to read. Successful intervention is much more likely when we are able to understand the underlying cause of poor motivation.
Intervention
Techniques for Children under 7 Not all children in this age group benefit from intervention techniques. Some are just not developmentally ready to learn to read yet. It is important that whatever technique is chosen will do no harm to the children we are supposed to be helping. In my opinion, the moment that any one has conveyed to a child under seven that he is not a good reader, we are doing more harm than good. This is the main reason that I often focus on self esteem building while exposing the child to many forms of print material. Some guidelines that I follow are: No testing - A student under seven should be praised for trying, and not only for getting a question right. One method of doing this is to encourage participation in a reading or letter event, rather than utilize a flash card drilling technique. For example, we might read a story together, and during the story, I would give him the opportunity to identify letters and words depending on his current reading level. This gives me the opportunity to give subtle instructions and suggestions without putting the child on the defensive. Give ample opportunity to experience books and words and letters - Use books as toys. Books without words are good too. So are comic books or books with his favorite TV characters. Use letters as toys. Point out letters in whatever activity he is doing. If identifying letters is difficult, don't pressure him for identification, but just let him experience the fact that letters are there and they give you information. The more experience a child has with print, the more likely it is that learning to read will be easy. Use exercises that have nothing to do with reading to build skills as well as reading exercises - Reading is a highly charged issue. Most of us believe that future life success is linked to an individuals ability to read. When a child is perceived to have a difficulty reading, reading exercises often become very stressful. All reading difficulties and techniques to solve them can be addressed in other subjects. I will give some examples, but your imagination is the limit. Intervention
Techniques for Children over 7 The stakes get higher when a child over seven is still struggling to learn to read. I will almost always recommend intervention with one-on-one instruction at this time. Motivation issues usually become much larger, and will mask underlying issues. It becomes even more important to use materials that the child is interested in. If all she wants to talk about is horses, then I use print about horses to practice the skills. The guidelines I use for this age group are slightly modified. I do not believe any material is out of bounds. I have used comic books and horror stories to successfully aid the learning process. Give ample opportunities with all kinds of print media - I still try to provide for ample experience with print. This is still the focus of my tutoring sessions. I include magazines, menus, newspapers, toy ads and game instructions as different types of print media. Some drilling exercises can be helpful - I will include drilling exercises when appropriate, and usually focus more on reading exercises with a few non-reading exercises interspersed. By this age testing has already occurred in the child life, and it has not been a pleasant experience. I often use in-class assignments and help the student perform better with these materials. I also use practice tests which help the student predict how well she will perform on in class tests. Use reading exercises and non-reading exercises - Although the ratio of reading exercises increases for this age group, I still include non-reading exercises regularly. I find that analogous learning is helpful for many of my students. Suggestions for
Reading Difficulties Below are some exercises for each difficulty that have been useful in my work. No child is the same, and it seems that every child I meet needs their own individual solutions, so use these as a starting point. I hope this information helps you to solve the issues for the children you are trying to help. Letter Recognition Persistent problems can be an eyesight problem. Signs of an eyesight problem include squinting and moving his head a lot. The first thing I do with someone who is having difficulty recognizing letters is recommend an eye test. Glasses can have a immediate positive impact on reading ability. Another cause of letter recognition problems is dyslexia. The remedies suggested here are consistent with treatments for dyslexia, and would probably help those who would be classified as dyslexic as well as those who would not be considered dyslexic. I am not an expert on dyslexia and if you suspect a child has dyslexia, guidance from an expert is recommended. These are two of the methods I find useful in helping someone with a letter recognition problem. Study the Details - One method is to help them to study the visual details of a scene. Write two letters that a student is confusing and study the differences carefully. See how many differences the student can find. Other objects can easily be substituted for letters. Pictures, leaves and toys are just a few examples. Utilize Context Clues - Another method is to help them to use context to identify a letter. For example, the word can't start with a "q" , because the next letter is not a "u". Pointing out context clues in non-reading situations can be helpful too. Using artwork to show how an artist uses context tricks is a lot of fun. Another good exercise is to start with two pieces paper with an identical partial drawing on it, and finish them in different ways. Discuss how different things can be, even if they are made from the same thing.
Short Term Memory Research has shown that we can't readily improve our absolute short term memory. However, we can increase its effectiveness by learning how to organize the items we are trying to remember into meaningful groups. When I am helping someone who seems to have short term memory issues I usually take a two-pronged approach. First, I try to teach reading skills without taxing there short term memory. I use short words and short sentences as well as only one or two main ideas for a session. Second, I try to help them obtain organizing skills that they can use with reading and other activities. One of my favorite exercises for young children is the game "Concentration". You have cards with identical pairs of items. They are shuffled and placed face down. Each player takes turns turning over two cards. If you find a pair, you get to keep the cards, or else you turn them over again. I spend a lot of time talking about how I remember where each card is, and encourage my student to experiment with different techniques for remembering where a card is located. I often start with six or eight cards so that the game is easy and fun.
Long Term Memory Two skills are necessary in long term memory. Acquiring knowledge and accessing knowledge. We know from medical research on amnesia patients that these skills are located in different parts of the brain, and people will have different abilities in each area. The first thing I try to do is identify a topic where the student has very good retention skills. Some students will remember whole conversations from three weeks ago, others will remember what happened on a TV show, and another might know the baseball statistics of every player on her favorite team. Once I find the appropriate topic, I always praise her ability to remember so well. Then I usually start to suggest how much better school would be if only remembering letters were so easy. I discuss the differences between letters and her topic of choice. Then I proceed with reading skills very slowly, and review often. A game I sometimes play is a word of the day. The student chooses a word that she will remember for the next week. I write it down, and put it in an envelope that we will open the next week. At the beginning of the next session, we see if we remember the word from last time.
Motivation Motivation issues for young children are usually fairly easy to solve if you keep an open mind. Below are some solutions I use for young children who do not seem motivated to participate in my tutoring sessions. The Active Child - If I have a child who won't settle down, I try to conduct the session while active. We go outside and play letter hopscotch or just use energetic activity as a reward for participation. For example, "Let's identify the letters on this page and then we'll do ten jumping jacks or run around the building." After helping them expend some excess energy, they often settle down. The Discouraged Child - Another type of child I often see is a discouraged child. I work on raising his self-esteem, and creating many successes. I often start with exercises I am sure the child can do well and do not move to challenging material until the child has gained some confidence in himself. The Uninterested Child - Another issue that comes up is a child that does not want to engage. This rarely occurs with young children, but if it does, I spend time finding topics of interest to the child. I try to use the interesting subject in many of our skill building exercises. As the child gets older, the motivation issues become more complex. I spend more time getting to know the student, and identifying potential root causes to the motivation issues. I often need to spend time creating a safe place for the child and gaining his trust. Many of the unmotivated students I have worked with seem to acting out of fear. For an older child, I often take on the role of a mentor rather than a teacher, and let the child determine how to best use our time. Motivation issues in older children are hardly ever fixed quickly. Patience, honesty and sensitivity are required. My best suggestion is to do something different. If what we are doing is not improving a child's motivation, then it is not working. Maybe something else will.
I hope this article has been helpful to you, and has provided information that you can use with children struggling to read. Below are some additional resources that may also help you solve a child's reading difficulty On-line Resources The Internet seems full of links that point to more links, which then point back to the first links. I have tried to combat this here by providing on-line links that directly lead to useful, on-line, free information. I am sure there is more good information out there. If you know of a link that would belong here, please e-mail me, and I will personally review it and add it if appropriate. Improving Education Inc.'s resources Match the letters worksheet - A worksheet that has a column of lowercase letters and a column of uppercase letters. The student draws a line between the letters that match. Level 1 has four letters to match. Level 2 has five letters to match. The following URL's will display a worksheet with it's examples generated randomly. Select print from your browser to print the worksheet out for your student. If you want more practice, select reload and new exercises will appear. Level 1 URL: http://www.shearwater-boats.com/improvingeducation.org/abc_match_l1.htm
Level 2 URL: http://www.shearwater-boats.com/improvingeducation.org/abc_match_l2.htm Find the word worksheet - A worksheet that contains sentences to read, and one of the words in each sentence is picked to be the target word. The student finds and circles the target word in the sentence below. The following URL will display a worksheet with it's examples generated randomly. Select print from your browser to print the worksheet out for your student. If you want more practice, select reload and new exercises will appear. URL: http://www.shearwater-boats.com/improvingeducation.org/sentences_l1.htm Answers by email - We want to combine Internet technology with personal service to provide the information you need efficiently and effectively. Are you confused about the material or would like to share your experiences or opinions? Have a question while trying to implement some of these ideas? Please send us your questions or comments. We don't promise to have all the answers, but we'll try to help you find the answers you need. URL: http://www.shearwater-boats.com//improvingeducation.org/question.htm Other Internet Resources I have provided the organization's home page and direct links to their articles. Happy Surfing J
A few book suggestions for young children http://www.earlychildhood.com/articles/artcblbb.html
This article describes what to do if you think your child might have dyslexia. http://www.earlychildhood.com/articles/dyslexia.html
A short article on why TV is not a good substitute for reading to children http://www.earlychildhood.com/articles/read.html
A short article on what parents can do to enhance their young children's thinking skills. http://www.earlychildhood.com/articles/thinkskl.html
A short article with suggestions to help very young children learn about reading http://readyweb.crc.uiuc.edu/library/1997/learnabo.html
An online book with more details and activities to help young children learn to read. http://readyweb.crc.uiuc.edu/library/1993/read/helpread.html
Print Resources Straight Talk about Reading - by Susan Hall and Louisa Moats, Contemporary Books - 1999 ISBN: 0-8092-2857-2 Library call number: 372.41 LB1139.5.R43H35 An excellent resource going into tremendous detail on the learning to read process, and what parents can do to better work with their children and their children's teachers to make learning to read as smooth as possible. Teaching Young Children to Read at Home - by Wood Smethurst, McGraw Hill Book Company - 1975 ISBN: 0 - 07-058443-5 Library call number: 372.4'1 LB1140.5.R4S42 An excellent resource for exercises to help young people master the important task of reading. Children Learning to Read - by Seymour W. Itzkoff Praeger Westport, CT 1996 ISBN: 0-275-95436-6 Library call number: 372.4-dc20 LB1050.I885 A good discussion of the learning to read process. Includes a scholarly discussion of learning to read and teaching reading, as well as practical information on developmental and educational danger signals that identify potential difficulties.
Susan Levene is a co-founder of Improving Education Inc., dedicated to improving the quality of education for all young people. With 15 years of volunteering with disadvantaged youth, I am expanding my effort to try to improve the academic success of all young people in our public schools. Look for more information on our home page: http://www.shearwater-boats.com/improvingeducation.org, email me at susan_levene@yahoo.com or write me at 22 Soundview Drive, Stamford, CT 06902 |
Improving Education Inc.
|
||
