We all know that success breeds motivation, but as a high school reading teacher working with kids with learning disabilities I’m interested in finding statistics on the success of literate vs. non-literate people….i.e., are there any hard facts out there that show, especially to those kids not going onto an academic/collegiate path, why it is important to improve their reading level?
Me too
I bargained to get my high schoolers to spend three weeks doing Corrective Reading. First I had, individually, given them the pretest and discovered that most of them were sure that they read JUST FINE, thank you… I gently disabused them of that notion. (“Miss JOnes, let me read the test again, I’ll show you…” and they made the same mistakes that time, too.) I also stressed mightily that no, reading at “third grade level” did NOT mean they belonged in third grade, just that on this test, they had missed words that third graders were expected to know. We all knew they knew tons more about any subject in the world, not ot mention life, than third graders. So the problem to tackle was those words.
By three weeks they could see progress. Even the curmudgeons acknowledged that class seemed to go faster so yea, they’d vote to keep it.
I’m not sure, without that 1:1 discussion, that they’d have acknowledged/believed that they had a problem. THey’ve never known what it’s like to read well - so some of ‘em really don’t think they’re different from others, most of ‘em figure it’s just the way it is. Tangible progress was a huge motivator.
Kirsten,
I can’t really answer your question, but I think successful remediation of reading disorders is the best motivator in the world. What are you using to remediate reading? There is another high school resouce teacher on this board who is having great success using specific methods and programs to get kids on out of special ed. and out into regular classes. Do a search for “Shay” and you’ll get some great info!
Janis