I am a tutor (also certified English, French teacher, former college counselor and academic vice principal) who specializes in teaching study skills. I have a new student who is going to be attending college next year. She came to me to improve her study skills, but from a brief interview, it is clear that she has great difficulty in reading. She works hard at it, but has difficulty remembering what she has read. She seems to have some problems with decoding and never was taught much phonics, but the recall seems to be the biggest problem. Where should I begin—right now I’m designing a diagnostic based on my many years of general experience, but I’d love some input here. Thanks. (P.S. We live in a rural area and her family doesn’t have much money, so experts and specialists are not the first route for me to take.)
Sandy
Re: College freshman w/comprehension problems
This may be a situation where a ‘quick fix’ is in order. If you only have a summer with this student, it may not be possible in that short time to impact upon her reading ability very much. An important study skill for her then would be to learn how to listen to books on tape perhaps. Her textbooks for college may exist on tape and she may be better able to absorb the material through listening. Another college level study skill for weak readers is the understanding and ability to pay great attention in class. Often much of the reading is gone over in class and what she hasn’t read and/or remembered, she could get from the class. Yet another is to avoid taking heavy reading courses when possible and choosing the classes of professors sympathetic to the presence of weaker readers. Finding her way to the learning support office - preferable with testing in hand - is also very important for her.
My own son is a very weak reader even after years of tutuoring and he has had to learn to learn the material without reading it. He listens to books on tape when available and he’s learned that class time is of utmost importance to his ability to be successful in class. He has to be in every class and he needs to stay on top with his best attention to the class. He has to ask for help - even to have someone help him with some reading that does not exist on tape. He has learned he has to be comfortable turning to a neighbor in class and asking “what’s this word?”
Conventional wisdom would say to offer your student reading instruction and if time were not of the essence, I’d agree. If she is going to go off to college a weak reader, however, skills to help her contend with that difficulty become of greater importance.
Re: College freshman w/comprehension problems
I think a key question would be how good her recall skills are when she isn’t reading. Has she compensated for the weak reading skills by becoming a g reat listener? Or is she a much stronger visual learner?
LIke Victoria, I have known many students who couldn’t recall what they read essentially because they had to work too hard to figure out what the words were. Somethign like “The Word WOrkshop” might help her (http://www.thewordworkshop.com) — it specifically teaches how to decode longer words. If she’s “just” not been taught it, as opposed to not picking it up because of a processing problem, a little show & tell can go a long way.
If she’s really that weak a reader, then it may be worth finding a way to get accommodations in college - it would also be worth checking the college computer labs to find text-to-speech options (it’s common enough now that she shouldn’t have to have any special designation — just be willing to take the extra time to learn to use the stuff… our developmental studies lab has all that stuff).
In my personal experience, over 90% of students in this situation have their memory banks and concentration so filled up with trying to guess at words that there is no room left to think about the meaning of the passage. If you actually teach her phonics and effective methods of decoding, then afterwards you can talk about what the passage means. Since she has lost several years of learning while trying to work with both hands tied behind her back, she will take time to catch up, but this is the only really effective method.
See Shay’s old posts on the things she does — this is exactly the clientele she works with.