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I want to Help At-Risk Readers
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What At-Risk Readers Need
Many children come to school from homes where there’s too little reading done and few books; some are dyslexic; others speak little English; and still others lack the experiences needed to understand what they read. As the achievement gap widens, many of the older students feel hopeless. They may become withdrawn, angry, frustrated, or act as class clowns. The following strategies are motivating and they make learning to read easy and fun. They can increase reading achievement quickly for at-risk readers.
Research tells us that the predominant reading style of at-risk readers is global, tactile, and kinesthetic. Global learners tend to be emotional, intuitive, and spontaneous. To do their best they must be vitally interested in what they are reading. Tactile and kinesthetic learners need to touch, move, and experience to learn easily. Matching the reading style of the at-risk learner is the key. To receive detailed printouts of a student’s reading style, use the Reading Style Inventory.
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How to help:
• Use colored overlays with dyslexic students.
• Provide good reading models, especially with our Power Reading Program and our recorded books.
• Use brain friendly, multi-sensory programs that fully engage children. See, for example, our Letterville Phonics Program (Prek-1).
• Use hands-on games to teach skill work. We provide these in our Power Reading Program.
• Provide choices of reading materials.
• Provide a comfortable reading area.
• Allow children to read to one another and discuss their favorite books.
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Help Dyslexics
Quickly With
Colored Overlays
Our colored overlays are creating miracles in classrooms across the United States and other parts of the world. Just place our 24 |
colored overlays over a page of print one at a time to discover which color helps the most. The right color for that individual will reduce or eliminate the moving, swirling, and reversing of letters.
More information. Order online. |
Critical Importance of Modeling, Modeling, Modeling
The modeling of good reading is a critical component of a good reading program. At-risk readers need about 30 to 45 minutes of modeling every day. Many at-risk readers need to be read to for 10 to 15 minutes twice daily so that written language becomes familiar and easy to them. And, rather than have children stumble over words as they are reading, model the reading for them first. Read a sentence or a paragraph and then have them read it back (Echo Method), or read together with them (Choral Reading), or take turns reading (Pair Reading). By far, the modeling technique that has achieved extraordinarily high reading gains in fluency and comprehension in short periods of time is the Carbo Method. This method is used in our Power Reading Program and with our recorded books. Students follow along in a story or book as they listen to a recording of the text. What makes the Carbo Method so effective is Dr. Carbo’s slow pace and chunked phrasing which enables the reader to synchronize the spoken and printed word. Only a few minutes of text is recorded on one tape side or CD track, which makes it easy for students to relisten and follow along two or three times. After this activity, they can read the passage easily. Use of the recordings 4x or 5x weekly improves fluency and comprehension quickly.
Follow Up With Hands-On Materials
One of the most powerful strategy combinations for at-risk readers is to have them work with a recorded book or story as described above, and then do skill work related to the story with a hands-on game. Our Power Reading Program has a reproducible skill game for each of the 600 leveled stories for grades K-10. |
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