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| Date: From: Subject: | 3/19/2009 11:44:36 AM Home School Legal Defense Association HSLDA's Homeschooling Your Struggling Learner Newsletter |
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---------------------------------------------------------------- HSLDA's Homeschooling Your Struggling Learner Newsletter March 2009--Reading Comprehension: "I Read It, but I Don't Get It" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Give Your Child the Keys to Unlock Meaning By Faith Berens, M.Ed./Reading Specialist In this newsletter, I will share the "Keys to Comprehension" and some teaching ideas that will help to unlock meaning for your children who are struggling with reading comprehension. What Is Reading? Reading is a complex process of making meaning from print and includes processing strategies, problem-solving, and thinking. Decoding or applying phonics rules in order to "sound out" words is but one small piece of the big reading puzzle. Phonics is one cueing system that good readers use in order to make sense of print. However, if children do not understand what they read, then they are not truly reading. Merely solving words on the page, but not thinking about the writer's message, is what one literacy specialist termed "barking at print". I have spoken to many parents who tell me their child is doing fine with "figuring out the words" or decoding, but is struggling with understanding what he reads. Often times, children with special needs or struggling learners have difficulty with comprehension because they do not interact with the text by creating mental pictures, reflecting about what they have read, asking questions, rereading to clarify, or drawing conclusions and making inferences. Also, children with language-based processing problems, such as autism and Asperger's, frequently experience trouble with reading comprehension. Modeling Good Reading Strategies In our home, it has become part of our bedtime routine to curl up in our 6-year- old daughter's bed for family read aloud time. Sometimes, we all take turns reading parts of the story and at other times, just mom or dad do the reading aloud. When we read aloud to her, we model proper phrasing and expression (voice inflections) which are helping to convey the meaning of the passage, and we also stop to ask each other, "What do you think is going to happen now?" (That is what making predictions means, so we read to find out if our predictions were correct.) By "thinking aloud" and modeling our thought processes while reading, we are giving our daughter a window into our strategic reading processes as proficient readers. Recently, our family was enjoying the book The Tanglewoods' Secret, by Patricia St. John. At the sad climax of the book, my daughter burst into tears and asked sorrowfully, "Mommy, why did that have to happen?" Judging from her emotional reaction to the story, it was safe to say that my daughter was "getting it". Good readers have a constant internal dialogue with the text, like the dialogue my daughter was initiating about the story we were reading together. In the 1980s, some leading researchers in the field of reading indentified specific thinking strategies that proficient readers utilize. They discovered that reading is definitely an interactive process! Proficient readers use the following Keys to "Unlock Meaning" on texts: > Create mental images--create visual, auditory, and other sensory images as they read to "make a movie in their mind" and to become emotionally engaged with what they are reading. > Make connections--draw on relevant background knowledge and personal experiences before, during, and after reading to enhance their comprehension of what they are reading > Ask questions--generate questions before, during, and after reading to make predictions, clarify meaning, and focus their attention on what is important. > Make inferences--use their background knowledge and information read to make predictions, search out answers to questions, make interpretations and draw conclusions that deepen their understanding of what they are reading. > Determine the most important themes and ideas--identify themes and key ideas, as well as distinguish between unimportant and important details or information. > Synthesize information--get overall meaning by piecing together information and tracking their thinking as it evolves or changes during reading. > Apply "fix-up" strategies--be aware of when they are understanding or not, go back and reread, clarify, and ask questions. Do You Feel Locked Into One Method of Comprehension Instruction? If your "teaching" for comprehension simply involves assigning pages or texts to be read by your child and then having him either orally or in writing answer the curriculum's comprehension questions, chances are your struggling learner or child with special needs is feeling "trapped" and will not benefit from that type of "instruction". They will, however, benefit greatly from you, as parent-teacher, coming alongside them and coaching them through modeling for them the good reading strategies you want them to implement. After the selected comprehension strategy or skill has been taught and modeled, lots of guided practice must be given prior to having your child apply the strategy freely and independently. Just like when he is learning to drive a car, a gradual release of responsibility is necessary before your child is ready to take possession of the keys! Teaching Ideas to Unlock Meaning for your Child Pick one strategy at a time to work on, such as making predictions, and model it repeatedly in the context of good quality literature/texts or what Charlotte Mason called "living books". > Have your child keep a journal or reader's response notebook. For instance, if you are focusing on having him make predictions, after reading to a certain, pre-determined part of a book or passage, have him stop and make a prediction. For a younger child, allow him to draw and narrate his predictions. > Have your child do an oral retelling of the story or text; a strategy Charlotte Mason termed "narration". > Teach your child how to "code" text using different color highlighters, symbols, or sticky notes to signify parts that need to clarified, most exciting, or most important details, etc. > Use graphic organizers to have a visual map of what was read, such as a flow chart, story map with story elements, facts learned, etc. > Have your child use the "mind mapping" strategy before, during, and after reading. > Use the "sketch to stretch" strategy to help the child learn how to create mental images--student sketches what he is imagining in the "movie in his mind" as you read aloud. > When having your child do silent reading, particularly with content area texts (such as science, history, social studies), use a guided directed reading thinking activity format. There is no single best method for teaching reading, nor is there a "one-size fits all" curriculum that will be the magic bullet. Indeed, our children and the reading process are far too complex for any single instructional practice or singular set of materials to meet every child's needs, but I know some of these teaching ideas will help unlock meaning for your child. What truly helps children the most is an insightful and caring parent-teacher who will come alongside during the development of the amazing skill of reading. By explicitly, systematically teaching and modeling these keys to unlocking comprehension, in the context of real texts, a whole new world of reading will open up for your child! To access the downloadable handouts with directions for how to do the Guided Directed Thinking Activity, Sketch to Stretch, and other comprehension strategies go to http://www.hslda.org/strugglinglearner/ Teaching Resources: "Making Connections" series published by EPS books (http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=6279) "Specific Skills" series available at http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=6280 Visualizing and Verbalizing for Language Comprehension and Thinking by Nanci Bell available at http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=6281 Reading Comprehension Graphic Organizers (Grades 1-6) available Creative Teaching Press Reading Rockets http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=6282 Sources: 7 Keys to Comprehension by Susan Zimmermann and Chryse Hutchins Reading with Meaning by Debbie Miller Improving Comprehension with Think Aloud Strategies by Jeffery D. Wilhelm, PH.D. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -> You can get a little latte or a lotta legal. 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