adolescents with reading difficulties

I am a first year school psychologist at the high school level. I’ve seen and heard of some great interventions for helping younger students with reading difficulties but there is not much out there for olders students. I know that research shows that in order to be most effective students should receive extra instruction in phonemic awareness/decoding b4 third grade but what about teens that still don’t have these skills mastered? You can’t use some of that cutsey. rhyming stuff with adolescents. Any ideas, suggestions, resources??
Thanks, Marisa Miller

Try This

Try this. Take any word that the student is having problems decoding. Teach that word to the student using a multi-sensory method. You will be surprised how quickly the students pick the words up! Go to http://www.1stbooks.com/ and read about THE SOUNDS OF WORDS. Contact me if you need more info. [email protected] Anla

well . . .

No miracles, no easy answers. But I have had good results in a few cases by just working step by step through a good phonics program and having students read *orally* regularly and steadily so they don’t keep practicing their bad habits. The phonics needs to be taught directly orally to do any good, especially as these kids are past masters of faking through worksheets.
The particular phonics books I use are not horribly childish especially from Book 2 up — Scholar’s Choice Check and Double Check series. Also very inexpensive. Book 1 is single letters and phonemic discrimination, Book 2 is two and three letter patterns especially vowels, Book 3 is review and multisyllables and variant patterns, and Book 4 is more multisyllables and consolidation. Most weak students need Book 2 and almost everyone needs Book 3.

Re: adolescents with reading difficulties

Marisa,

Some of the very best known and respected programs were designed with older children in mind. They may have developed some lower level materials, but both Wilson Language and the Language! reading program by Sopris West are specifically for older elementary through high school age. Wilson actually has two sets of readers for the older and younger interest levels. The Language! readers are geared for older kids as well. Both of these programs are Orton Gillingham based.

Take a look at the web-sites:

http://www.language-usa.net/

http://www.wilsonlanguage.com/w_about.htm

Janis

Re: adolescents with reading difficulties

There are lots of resources — not as many as for little kids, but many. WIlson Language, Language! , the LExia Learning software, Ann Tuley’s _Never Too Late To REad_… those are off the top of my head. Alice Ansara wrote a neat little article for the IDA about “salvaging the potential” of adolescents with reading problems that’s worth tracking down (they have reprints of it, I believe, from their website at http://www.interdys.org).
I worked for several yhears teaching reading to middle and high school studetns at a college preparatory school for students with learning disabilities (http://www.tncs.org). Not quick, easy or cheap… but effective. I’ve put a lot of what I’ve used up on my website at http://www.resourceroom.net.