reluctant readers

First find out whether their reading l evels are *really* at fifth grade, and what is it that’s keeping them there.

I know this may sound strange, but sometimes focusing on the skills behind reading is what it takes to enable the students to find the joy of reading. (When I started yoga a few months back I didn’t get a whole lot of “joy” out of it — and in a class that was a very whole-to-part class I wasn’t finding it, period. Now that I’m in a class that doesn’t have as much lovely music or jump right into the “Fun” poses… that I can’t do… it’s a lot more fun. Frankly, the “this is really fun, get motivated!” tactics often hammer in the message that “This *should* be really fun!” and the student has to assume that he’s pretty stupid for not being able to have fun doing it.

I had a lot of success in public high school with SRA’s Corrective REading as well as reading aloud to students. Most of them don’t begin to be able to stick to a book through many chapters and invariably the first real book we get all the way through is a”great book” — probably not *really* because the book was so great, but because they heard more of the story.

They also really liked to read the three-four page high-interest materials in books like “Heroes” and “Disasters” from Jamestown Publishers. Get the school to fork over a few bucks and get you some of them :)

If they’re really just reluctant readers — talk to your librarian about picking books they’ll like. Louis Sachar’s HOles has been really popular.

Random thoughts here….

The one thing my 12-yr-old son will work very hard to read
are things having to do with his favorite computer game.

He will puzzle out the manual, go online to find ‘cheats’ and
‘trainers’ and then read what the other online players are typing
in (which isn’t always in English but in cyber-speak).

He is in Honors Math, which he loves.
One day after we went through some of our word family lists,
decoding them very slowly he suggested we read his math book.

So out came the math book. He read two whole pages, with words like ‘analyze’ and ‘determine’
and didn’t make a single mistake. And solved the math problems along the way.
I was floored.

My dyslexic engineer husband is the same. He rarely reads novels (one every five years)
but will read books on science and math.

I think the key for your students is to find their passion.
Maybe you could ask the staff to bring in their used copies of
car magazines, Teen People, hobby, science, computer, whatever
the kids show an interest in.

And I like the idea of reading aloud to them.
We still do that with our 12-yr-old son - he can talk books with
the other kids and be as up to date on Harry Potter with the best of them.

good luck,
Anne

That students with LD in reading ever read for enjoyment is rather remarkable. Are you sure you’re right about that? Some kids with reading LDs struggle so much to read that it never feels enjoyable.

I’d doubt these kids ever found reading that enjoyable to begin with. Would you like running with a cast on your leg?

I’d read outloud to these kids - of course, in an expressive voice. There are some gripping short stories although you need to simplify the vocab a bit. Shirley Jackson’s Lottery usually gets their attention and keeps it. There are many on sites to buy audio tapes where professional readers read these stories. Listen to a few of them.

There’s great excitement in reading but usually their skills don’t allow them to experience that excitement. I suspect if they ever did, they would have kept it up.

I have 3 children who use to be reluctant readers. For the boys it was because they were so far below reading level and had experienced so much failure it just was not fun. My oldest son said why should I read if it don’t make sense it is very boring. In Sept we hired a reading tutor to work with him. Her 1st step was to ask him what kept him from reading and where HE felt the difficulty was. She listened to what he had to say carefully and based on his answers tested areas she felt were weak for him-it was amazing how prespective he was. She concentrated her tutoring on these areas of weakness. Too choose material to keep him interested she started with helping with his homework-by showing how good reading skills made this easier. It was a good motivating factor. Then she told him he needed practice and found out what his interests were. It was easy to find things that interested him on his reading level since he said Star Trek, Star Wars, and Dragon Ball Z. There is a series written on the 4th grade level for Star Wars called The Return of the Jedi Apprentice series and a Star Trek series on the 5th grade level called Star Fleet Academy. Dragon Ball Z is a comic that some teens are currently into. Since allowing my son to read what he wants and not what his dad wants my son has become an avid reader. We have caught him up at night reading by flashlight. I never thought I would see the day. We have also caught him reading other things that have caught his eye such as the newspaper and some magazine articles. When he is done with his Star Wars series he plans on reading the Lord of the Rings series. The best part is with all this practice he worked up to grade level. I quess what I was trying to say is why not see what the kids have to say and get their parents buy in.

Try comic books and my 5th grade son loves Nintendo Power magazine!

Hi Scott,
I’m not a teacher, so I don’t have a great deal of experience with this. Also, all of the comments here so far sound really helpful.

Yet, I think if I were teaching a class like this, I’d try to have a variety of interesting reading material at different levels available to the kids. At my son’s school they have a “drop everything and read” time. I believe it’s the first 15 minutes of each day. The kids are expected to choose their own books and read quietly at their desks. Although it’s “required” reading, the hope is that some kids will get hooked on reading.

One thing I’d want to do if I were a teacher is have a special reading time (most likely at the end of the day). This would be a short time in the afternoon when kids could relax and perhaps sit down on a rug. I would pull up a chair and read a chapter a day. Something really interesting and exciting. Alot of people talk about Harry Potter and that’s a great series, but there are also sooo many other wonderful books! Like Mr. Popper’s Penguins (I’m reading this one to my son right now!). Also, the books by Dick Kingston-Smith (author of “Babe”). There’s one called “The Three Terrible Trins” and it’s an absolute riot!!!! Soooo funny! :-)

I think by associating reading with something pleasureable (like an afternoon “book listening”) that may help encourage some kids to be more interested in books.

Even though my son (who struggles greatly with reading) can’t read and would not pick up a book on his own (yet!), he LOVES having them read to him and looks forward to hearing a nightly chapter or two.

But until you can get a child reading easily (no simple feat with an LD reader!), it’s not likely they’ll choose to pick up a book and read it. However, they can still learn to love books and hopefully, eventually, learn to read them.

I will probably get flamed for saying this but although I think it is fine to read to students as a model. I think the most important thing is to discover what skills they need to become better readers. Our job is to not only try to make them lifelong learners but to provide them skills for the future. I would do some assessment on phonics skills and comprehension. Do a running record of various levels of reading material. Find out exactly what they need to learn and then teach those skills. They will begin to read more when it is not so difficult.
Nan

Hi Scott, If the reading level of your class of 7-12 truly read on a 5th grade level, why would they read for pleasure? What books of interest could they find at that reading level for those age groups. You have to give them the skills of reading first. I agree that there are good programs out there but if you want speed, try Phono-Graphix. It is fast and really just teaches the skills that is needed to read, nothing else. I had kids in 9-12 who read on a 5th grade level because they didn’t have the skills and now they are reading out of their grade literature books with fluency with only 1 hour a week teaching after school. You don’t even need PG, just teach them to segment and blend sounds and how to decode multi-syllable words. If the reason for the fifth grade level is because they don’t read, take them to the library and let them read anything that they are interested in including magazines and sport books. Then go from there.Scott wrote:
>
> I teach a LD special education classroom in a public school
> in Iowa, USA.
> Most of my students in grades 7-12 never willingly read
> something that isn’t required. Their reading skills have
> leveled off at approx. the 5th grade level- about the same
> time that they quit reading for their own enjoyment. Any
> ideas to reignite the flame? Have tried everything I can
> think of, but want to see them recapture the joy of reading
> for reading’s sake.
> Thanks

There *are* things people have gotten flamed for — but saying teaching the skills is important, and yes, more important than feeling good about language experiences, has not been one of them :)

Scott,
Your letter struck a cord - I’ll apologize for brevity because I could write a book on this. I must leave quite early for NY to present at NY’s IDA.
At North Marion Middle School in North Central Florida I encountered about fifty LD students who could not read. They weren’t at 5th grade level (which your group scores may be inflated) but mine were more at preprimer. Try the STAR tests from Accelerated Reader or find a reliable test you can administer. If you can’t find one, make up one ….. get gradated materials and have them read to you. If they are at fifth grade level, they can read fifth grade books - at approximately 120+ words per minute with fewer than five errors. If not, they’re lower and hate reading because they’re failures.

So, figure a way for them to win. Read GREAT stories to them and with them. Talk to me on the phone if you can’t figure out how - 877-475-3277 (I’ll be home Late Sunday - if you call then I’ll hate you - call Monday) You won’t save all the children in a school year - in fact - YOU won’t save any of them - but you will begin inspiring several of them to greatness - and by teaming with them, by coaching them, by reinforcing them, by inspiring them - by showing them what a story can do - what a story can do and tv can’t - WATCH …. you’ll find miracles.

I’d give anything to be young and have your class. Really. You have the potential to save so many young lives. It’s exciting!! Go for it. Ken

Ditto to Sue, Nan, and Shay. Every single reluctant reader I’ve tutored or taught in my class was really a weak and *inaccurate* reader. If you commonly get two or three words wrong in every sentence, then the sentence is meaningless, and how can you possibly enjoy reading a book full of gabble?

The problem with inaccuracy is that it is hidden by “objective” multiple-choice tests and reporting by grade level or percentiles. A kid who is a pretty good guesser from other words and pictures (and nagging and manipulating the teacher or parent for “help”) can get a quite high score without actually being able to *read* in the sense of getting any meaning off a page.
The most extreme case I ever saw was a boy who had good marks in Grade 1 to 3 and started getting D’s in Grade 4 — when I actually had him *read* to me, as opposed to the previous four years of circling answers and guessing from pictures and so on, he could not read even the primer! No, not even “Come withme, said Jane to Peter.” In Grade 4, with good Grade 3 marks, we had to re-start with the seventeen-word pre-primer. That’s extreme, but it is just the extreme of the usual pattern.
Another last year was a girl in Grade 6 who could memorize words like “intelligent” by sight but made a total hash of shorter words that didn’t look different enough by whatever guessing clues she was using — read hand for head or vice versa at random; there, this, that, them fairly randomly mixed; and so on. End result was “She — no he — no she — put in - no out her head and then the sword at - no into that” — obviously the content was totally mushed (Actual sentence “She put out her hand and took the sword in it.”) But her “reading level” on a standardized test was over Grade 4, because she did fairly well on words like “sword” and there was no check on whether she was actually reading a sentence. Someone finally noticed a reading weakness in Grade 6 because finally the tests gave longer paragraphs to read and questions that involved some reasoning, and her guessing skills would not cover it any more. But that was clearly five years too late — most of her errors were on the first two hundred common words.

To deal with this you need (1) phonics to read independently and differentiate all those similar words, (2) oral reading to both give instant feedback and correction and to make linguistic sense out of the affair (The Grade 4 total non-reader was the product of a totally silent reading system — he did exactly what he was taught, which was to *not* say the words), and (3) discussion of words, sentences, and implications for comprehension, from factual to inferential. All three are part of a good reading program, but I generally start with phonics because that is 99% of the time the weakest link in the chain. Once the student can pronounce the words with some degree of accuracy, then I work more on comprehension, and speed comes as a by-product.