Assistance to
Young Readers with Reading Difficulties
Contents
2.0 Unpacking the term, Reading Difficulty
2.0 Things that a Teacher can do to Help a Young Reader with Reading Difficulties
2.1 Selecting Appropriate Reading Materials
2.3 Allocating more time to reading lessons
2.4 Learners allotting more time to private reading practice
1.0 Introduction
The first part of this paper gives an introduction to what reading disability is. Causes of reading disabilities and their effects on learners are further discussed. The second part provides some discussion on the pedagogic strategies that teachers can call to task to put the problems of reading disability under. A conclusion part is given at the end of the paper as an exit discussion of the main theme of the paper. A reference of the literature studied in line with the topic is given at the last part.
2.0 Unpacking the Term Reading Difficulty
Reading disorder is a learning disorder characterized by a significant disparity between an individual's general intelligence and his or her reading skills. Learning disorders, formerly called academic skills disorders, are disorders that account for difficulty learning and poor academic performance when low performance cannot be attributed to mental retardation , low intelligence, lack of learning opportunities, or such specific physical problems as vision or hearing deficits. Common learning disabilities include reading disorder (often called dyslexia), mathematics disorder, disorder of written expression, and some language processing disorders.
Reading disorder can cause severe problems in reading, and consequently in academic work, even in people with normal intelligence, educational opportunities, motivation to learn to read, and emotional self-control. Reading disorder is different from slowness in learning or mental retardation. In reading disorder, there is a significant gap between the expected level of performance and actual achievement. Difficulties in reading can occur on many levels, and reading disorder may have several causes that manifest in different ways. Common problems in people with reading disorder include the following:
· Slow reading speed
· Poor comprehension when reading material either aloud or silently
· Omission of words while reading
· Reversal of words or letters while reading
· Difficulty decoding syllables or single words and associating them with specific sounds (phonics)
· Limited sight word vocabulary
2.0 What a Teacher can do to Help a Young Reader with Reading Difficulties
This section presents five key things that a teacher can do to help a young reader with reading difficulties.
2.1 Selecting Appropriate Reading Materials
As is the case with most learners, slower readers learn most comfortably with materials that are written on their ability level (Clark et al., 1984). The reading level is of primary concern, but parents can help their reader select helpful materials in other ways.
Choose stories or books with a reduced number of difficult words, direct, non-convoluted syntax, short passages that deliver clear messages, subheads that organize the flow of ideas and helpful illustrations
Older problem readers often find that the newspaper is a good choice for improving reading comprehension (Monda, et al., 1988). Slow readers can succeed with the same frequency as faster readers as long as the parent or tutor maintains a positive attitude and selects materials and approaches that accommodate the child's learning speeds.
There is a structural technique that timed-reading instructors employ to aid in the speed of reading. This is known as Phrase Reading. This was developed because of how the eyes move across the page. When an individual reads they move across the text fixating on certain words. When a jerk in motion occurs between fixations, a saccadic motion occurs. This particular motion doesn't pick up information for the brain to process (Klaeser 1977).
2.2 Improving Reader Attitude
There are various factors that influence children's attitudes toward reading: children's personal experiences in reading, children's confidence in reading, parents' attitudes towards reading, and teachers' ways of teaching. In this article, I intend to analyze factors that influence children's attitudes toward reading, and provide suggestions on how to cultivate a positive attitude toward reading. First, children's personal experiences in reading are directly related to children's attitudes toward reading. Can children get access to books? Are the books that children read interesting? Interesting books are that are predictable, have vivid pictures, and are related to children's lives. Do teachers and parents believe that children can read? Do children often fail in reading tests? If children get discouraging answers to these questions, it is impossible that they will like reading in or out of school because reading seems alien to them. They cannot get anything from reading. Gradually, they may form a negative attitude toward reading. As Feitelson & Goldstein (1986) have shown, 61 percent of low-income families have no books at all in their home. On the other hand, the standardized reading tests may make children suffer stress, illness, and long-term test anxiety (Smith, et al, 1991), which greatly frustrate children's interest in reading. Murphy (1998) points out the phenomenon: "`Failure' on one or more of these assessments might be interpreted as being caused by `low ability', `low intelligence', `dyslexia', or some other construct". When teachers come to believe that children do not have the ability to read because of one or more failures on tests, children may doubt their ability in reading, and may never succeed in reading.
A positive attitude on the part of the child is also crucial to the treatment of difficulties in reading and learning. Tutors who have worked consistently with problem learners are very aware of the role of the self in energizing learning, and the potential damage to the sense of self-worth that comes from labeling. Teachers and parents should appreciate children's thinking as the foundation of their language abilities, and maintain some flexibility in their expectations regarding their children's development of decoding skills such as reading. For children to feel successful, they need to become aware of their unique learning strengths, so that they may apply them effectively while working to strengthen the lagging areas (Webb, 1992). The child needs to feel loved and appreciated as an individual, whatever his or her difficulties in school.
2.3 Allocating more time to reading lessons
Like any reading program, increasing reading rate is more than just opening a book and jumping into the text. Timed reading involves the use of various strategies in conjunction with in-class exercises and extensive timed reading. Timed reading isn't reading as-fast-as-you-can over a passage and simply marking the gradual improvement (if there are any). It involves reading strategies via the teacher's instruction.
Successful readers report that they use various strategies such as reading in broad phrases, skipping inessential words, guessing from context, and continuing to read the text even when they encountered a term that they didn't know (Wallace 2001). Training in strategic use is what timed reading promotes and reflects what Devine means by, "...training enhances the metacognitive knowledge base of readers and results in improved reading performance."(Devine 1993)
Another strategy mentioned by Wallace is the ability to make informed predictions as the student progresses through the text (Goodman 1967, Smith 1971, Wallace 2001). Through making predictions, students take an interactive role in the reading process, which Blanton states is "...at the heart of literacy, formal learning, and academic success" (Blanton 1994). This interaction is stimulated by the reader's background knowledge that acts as a catalyst for text comprehension. Afflerbach researched the effects of background knowledge o-n readers and found that those readers who applied background knowledge or had extensive applicable prior knowledge were able to construct the main idea faster than those who didn't (Afflerbach 1990, Zhicheng 1992).
2.4 Learners allotting more time to private reading practice
Extra time allotted to reading can be spent in libraries or to other home/private based printed materials that the learners are exposed to when at home. The idea of practice for perfection in reading is very important since enhances the fluency skills taught in school by the teachers. Some readers devote more time to reading out of the school hours than others and the factor of private extra time for reading is regarded as a great influence on the fluency of readers and a wide exposure to various texts.
Allotting more private time to reading by English learners exposes them to a wide variety of literary environment in which they can perfect their art of reading for semantic purpose. The slower a pupil reads a text the lower their levels of understanding: the considerably higher their fluency levels the higher the levels of understanding. It is worthwhile to admit that while teacher have been overemphatic on the need for students to allot more time to reading texts out of the school hours, it should be noted that most of the textbooks recommended for teaching in many schools do not have interesting stories or passages that are captivating to learners. As such, learners of English language should be encouraged to intercourse with various reading materials besides the normal class work texts.
2.5 Visual image based texts
One effective strategy for slower readers is to generate visual images of what is being read (Carver, 1990). For the reader to generate images, he or she must first be able to recognize the word. Assuming the reader knows how to recognize words, he or she needs concepts to visualize the flow of action represented on the page. The same kind of concept building techniques that work for average readers also work for slower readers. The slower reader, however, gains more from concrete experiences and images than from abstract discussions. It is not enough for the parent to simply tell the slower reader to use visual images--the parent has to describe the images that occur in his or her own mind as he or she reads a particular passage, thus giving the child a concrete sense of what visual imagery means. Pictures, physical action, demonstrations, practice using words in interviews or in an exchange of views among peers are only a few of the ways that parents, tutors, or teachers can make the key vocabulary take root in the reader's mind.
3.0 Conclusion
Reading disorder was first recognized in the late nineteenth century, when it was called pure word blindness, then developmental alexia. Starting in the 1960s, educators commonly referred to reading disorder as dyslexia, from the Greek word ‘dys’, meaning poor or inadequate, and the word lexis meaning words or language. Despite the long history of reading disorder, its cause is not known. Learning to read is a complex task. It requires coordination of the eye muscles to follow a line of print, spatial orientation to interpret letters and words, visual memory to retain the meaning of letters and sight words, sequencing ability, a grasp of sentence structure and grammar, and the ability to categorize and analyze. In addition, the brain must integrate visual cues with memory and associate them with specific sounds. The sounds must then be associated with specific meanings. For comprehension, the meanings must be retained while a sentence or passage is read. Reading disorder occurs when any of these processes are disrupted. For that reason, the roots of reading disorder have proved difficult to isolate, and may be different in different individuals.
Despite the complexity of reading disorder, researchers have found that the condition is at least partially inherited. In 1999, the Centre for Reading Research in Norway studied a large family with reading problems. By evaluating the reading and writing abilities of about 80 family members across four generations, the researchers were able to pinpoint mutations in specific genes that are associated with reading and writing deficits.
It appears that reading disorder
may also have causes other than genetic inheritance, as about half the people
with this learning disability do not come from families with a history of the
problem. Many theories suggest that functional problems in specific areas of
the brain underlie reading disorder. Given the complicated demands on the human
nervous system involved in reading, it is entirely possible that there are
several different problems in brain function related to difficulty in learning
to read. What is known is that 90% of children diagnosed with reading disorder
have other language deficits. Still other research suggests a possible link
with a subtle visual problem that affects the speed with which affected people
can read.
References
Bryant, P. (1985). Children's Reading Problems. London: Basil Blackwell.
Blanton, L. (1994). Discourse, artifacts, and the Ozarks: understanding academic literacy. In Zamel, & Spack, pp. 219-235.
Vellutino, F.R. (1987). "Dyslexia," Scientific American, 256(3), 34-41.
Crowder, R. G. and Richard K. Wagner (1992). The Psychology of Reading: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Afflerbach, P. P. (1990). The influence of prior knowledge on expert readers' main idea construction strategies. Reading Research Quarterly. 25(1), 31-46.
Carver, R. P. (1990). Reading rate: a review of research and theory. San Diego, California: Academic Press, Inc
Zhicheng, Z. (1992). The effects of teaching reading strategies on improving reading comprehension for ESL learners. ED 356643 Conference Paper.
Goodman, K. (1967). Reading: a psycholinguistic guessing game. Journal of the Reading Specialist 6(4), 126-135.
Wallace, C. (1992). Reading. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Klaeser, B. M. (1977). Reading improvement: a complete course for increasing speed and
comprehension. Chicago: Nelson-Hall Inc., Publishers.
Citation
KENPRO (2010). Assistance to Young Readers with Reading Difficulties. KENPRO Online Papers Portal. Available online at www.kenpro.org/papers