Reading Fluency in high school student

There are two good programs that seem to be getting results in this area.One is Read Naturally (www.readnaturally.com) and the other is Great Leaps. (www.greatleaps.com). They work for most age levels.

Until that part of her reading improves however, you might want to consider books on tape as an accommodation. That way she can do content without being compromisd by lack of reading efficiency. This accommodation can carry over to college with no problem either as I understand it.

Robin

Robin, I have a student who is NOT responding to Great Leaps at all. Her speed does not change from day to day and gets worse. I am pulling my hair out. I have one who is responding to the program and I just started him on Read Naturally, too. I started a really, really LD third grader on Great Leaps several weeks ago and he is not showing much response either. I don’t know what else to do, except to try the old Neurological Impress. I hate to throw in a towel and give up, plus I have IEP goals.

I wouldn’t think of going back to neurological impress as throwing in the towel- and please don’t pull out all your hair:) Unless your IEP is written so GL is unmistakeably the program to be used it should’nt mess it up too much?

In fact, that sounds like a pretty reasonable alternative to me- clearly there is something getting in the way and Great Leaps isn’t addressing the problem.Have you tried Read Naturally with her? I remember you writing about this child before- I am wondering if she might need to have her fluency be almost as individualized as it would be in a OG lesson. If I am remembering this correctly- wasn’t her decoding sort of okay? It is hard to know what the hang up is without watching her read-and even then…Neurological impress might just get her over whatever hump is getting in the way. Is she reading phrases, letters? or sentences?

Robin

She is so, so low, I have not. I cannot really afford Read Naturally on my $450 per year (buys test protocols and classroom supplies from my district warehouse), so I bought 3-5th grade levels because (believe it or not) last year I had a chunk of upper graders who were reading 4-5 grade level. I should probably buy the lowest levels (at $100 a crack) if I can find the money. Last year I got the school leadership committee to chip in money, of course I need a new computer, too. Thank heavens most of us buy our own materials, or where would the students be?

Does the student have small motor delays? My son’s fluency problem seems to have been mostly motor in origin. We have done Neuronet privately and the therapist told me that motor issues were behind his fluency issues. (now he also has AP problems). In the mean time I did some Great Leaps like approaches and got some gains last year when I pulled him out of school last year. I don’t know if they were consistent because I stopped timing. (he got too upset) My son certainly goes up and down too. But over time his fluency improved. I saw huge leaps though when he was able to coordinate his motor skills (hitting a ball on a rope finger by finger alternating hands, for example) and his mouth (counting).

I can’t help wonder if you don’t have a child who has problems with the sensory motor system. My son had a very hard time learning anything until we went through NN. Just last week he got an A on a test on the continents for social studies. And he read the test himself!!!! Now he had a really hard time with the reading comprehension part of the test so we’re not there yet but next to last year, we have come a long ways.

I don’t know if this suggests much to you in terms of what you can do, even if I am right because this is more OT/speech like in origin. But I hate to see you beating yourself up. Seems like a recipe for burnout to me and I sure know that we need dedicated sp. ed teachers.

I changed the title to see if Ken Campbell might be lurking around:)

Then I would definately think about doing neurological impress. Maybe you can use some of the Great Leaps material and just increase the number of practices she has before you start the mastery run with the stop watch. Make sure her accuracy is solid and that she really has it cold before you start to work for speed. Then- instead of working to the standard- establish her baseline time for whatever she is reading and start there and work up. Maybe you will get to the standard and maybe you won’t on the first few- you have good judgement about when to move on. Eventually you will get there though. I don’t know how this sits with the procedures of the program- I don’t have a manual to check- but backing up to where the student is falling apart just makes sense to me. Think about other things you have done that have worked with this child- what do they have in common that you can replicate and apply here?

Robin

I just returned from what seems to be a Southern tour (Miama, Atlanta, Rocky Mount, Alexandria (LA), Greenville, Paris (KY) and am beat.

I read the line but after having been in bumpy planes all day still feel a bit seasick.

I high schooler not responding at all to the Great Leaps tactics seems strange indeed. Obviously, we do not know enough from the posts to adequately recommend. My gut reaction from my precision teaching background is to slide all the way back to where problems first begin appearing and remediate from there. It is also my gut feeling that an ABC (antecedent/behavior/consequent) type analysis may be beneficial in getting a clear picture as to why there isn’t significant movement.

Great Leaps is merely an advanced measurement system in reading using immediate correction and modeling as its most effective interventions.

I apologize for rambling, I’m too tired to think….I’ll try to get back tomorrow. I’ll throw a prayer your way. Ken Campbell

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