not stopping for punctuation

Beth,

What about photo copying a pages of text and highligting the periods. Then have him read aloud with a metronme in the background and tell him when he reaches the highlighted periods he is to stop for two beat of the metronme and then contunue. Once he has that mastered fade out the metronme and then the highlighting.

Helen

He’s too old for this, but I was sitting in my daughter’s kindergarten class last week while they had their morning meeting. They all “read” in unison things on the board like the date and what their activities are. They have sound effects for punctuation. So when they hit a comma they all sigh, make a clucking sound at each period, and a zip sound at an exclamation point. I thought it was a clever way to get these pre-readers to notice punctuation.

I don’t know if these suggestions will help, but here’s a couple I thought up.

For the run-on sentences you could try typing up a page of text from a book. Break each sentence following each period so visually it’s easier to get that idea of stopping. At the end of each sentence have him stop and either hold up one hand and count to two (unless he’s holding the book), or have him tap his foot two times. Have him practice this for awhile. Once he’s doing it effortlessly you could try having him read the text directly from the book and try replicate the same thing as before, but without the visual hints. I haven’t tried this so I don’t know if it would be helpful.

As far as monotone reading, I’ve always made a big effort to read very expressively to my son in the hopes that by modeling expressive reading, he’ll learn to do this as well (since he appears to have an expressive language difficulty). I think this has helped somewhat. I’ve even played games with him where we take turns reading with greatly exaggerated expression (which makes us sound very silly, but it’s fun!). To help with my son’s experssive language problems I’ve been thinking of enrolling him in an acting class (although we’re just starting piano and I’m also considering karate — so I have no idea where we’re going to find the time!!!! :-o).

But I think even getting a book of children’s short plays from the libary and working on a play (maybe to perform for other family members?), might be somewhat helpful in giving some expression to monotone reading. Although, I haven’t tried it yet so I don’t know!

I love this idea. I can envision middle schoolers making up their own sounds (and what an assortment that would be…) Middle schoolers love to put sound effects in their Power Point presentations so this might work for them, too, if they have some choices on the sounds. Great tip!

///

Thanks for the ideas!! I was thinking of maybe starting with a bell he could ring!! Once he got the idea, maybe try the metronome.

Beth

My son has a real thing about performing at all in front of people. So while I too have thought of acting classes, I can’t imagine him doing it. I think it is a good idea though. Might be a good summer activity for you (I can’t imagine either where you’d fit it in!!)

Might try reading a play to each other though.

Beth

Also, repeating the reading — go through once for the words, then the next time for expression — can help.

That’s a good idea too. I have wondered if part of the problem is that he is using all his energy decoding and comprehending—he does seem to understand what he is reading.

Beth

When one task is so difficult and the brain’s coating hasn’t “hardened” to the task, it takes more attention to complete the task. (Remember your first time driving? Took a lot more concentration then.) Keep practicing. Rereading for punctuaion and inflection is a classic intervention for poor decoders. A mix is nice, if possible, to make brain pay more attention to novelty.

I tried Laura’s idea of raising his hand because it was less annoying than banging. He resisted. I then suggested a bell or something. That caught his fancy. He told me he knew how to really annoy me–he ran to his brother’s room and brought back a toy drum. He proceeded to beat six times for every period!!! Now what was interesting was that even with the fun of bugging mom, he still skipped a few periods. So I actually think the noise is the perfect intervention because it makes it almost worth paying attention to periods……

Later I asked him if he couldn’t do a better job of reading….he was going very very slow and skipping words and in recent months he had stopped a lot of that. He said OK and proceeded to read smoothly and with expression. So I think it is in there—it is a bit like Susan’s example of learning to drive a car–not easy or automatic yet. But I am encouraged.

Beth

I really love Helen and Karen’s ideas for punctuation too and will try that with one of the kids I tutor. I’m glad to hear your son likes it too, but the noise sure must drive you crazy!

Regarding reading for expression, I practice this with my “monotone” students. I use text that’s very easy for them to read. Keep it below his reading ability level. That’s critical. You want him to be able to concentrate on expression, not decoding.

You then follow repeat reading strategies where you read it once aloud to model expression, then have him try it. Coach him a little, give him praise for what he did do, ask him how he’d feel if he were the person talking, etc. and get his input about how he would say it in “real life”. He can repeat this reading once per session, then wait a day before reading the same passage. Doing this with a couple very short passages (no longer than 120 words) each day really does result in improvement within a fairly short period of time.

I use the Great Leaps stories because they have a wide range from very easy to difficult so I can readily choose easy passages. In fact, I usually let the students choose. The more you can give them the choice, the more willing they are to do the work. They generally really like this work.

It does drive me nuts so I didn’t keep it up for the whole time. But I think it is worth it to get him to learn to be attentive to punctuation. He doesn’t put periods automatically at the end of sentences either so it is part of a more global problem. I think the noise gives him motivation to pay attention!!!

I actually have Great Leaps at home but haven’t used it. The repeated readings I found to not be something Mom could get him to do but he reminded his teacher at school!!! But I will pull it out and try it for expression.

Thanks.

Beth