I was just wondering if there are any teachers out there with LD’s themselves? How do you teach reading…how do you read to the kids…how do you correct thier work? I did a practicum in a grade 6 classroom a few months ago and I read them a book (one chapter a day) and they had some questions to answer about the story each day. Well when I had to mark the answers I never knew if they were correct or not…I either had to go back to the book and reread it all, or just go by the most common answer (pretty bad I know!)…what do you do???
Re: Taching reading when reading is hard for the teacher!
There are quite a few teachers with ld teaching ld kids. We didn’t get into this field by accident. But while it is quite possible to improve math skills by oneself thru reading how to teach it, it is not so easy with reading. I am a much better math tutor than I might have been had I not had a ld in math. However, IF you really can’t hear sounds yourself it is hard to teach reading. Not sure that you *should* work with kids with severe reading disabilities. The thing that kids with dyslexia lack is phonemic awareness— the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words. If you don’t have it you might be able to run the exercises but not sure if you could catch the errors.
OTOH, some kids do not have severe reading disabilities. You might also think about working with other kinds of special needs kids who do not need this kind of thing. You’ll find your niche and be very good at it, no doubt.
I don’t think there is an easy answer to your question!!
—des
Re: Taching reading when reading is hard for the teacher!
Krista,
What you’ve described sounds like a possible comprehension difficulty to me. You might want to consider getting Lindamood Bell’s Visualizing and Verbalizing manual. I’ve read that teachers who use it with their students also strengthen their own visualization skills. And strengthening visualization should help you with memory and recall of facts.
I can’t tell if you have LD or if you just feel like you do. But don’t be so hard on yourself! I always have to go back to the book if I’ve only read it once and the students’ answers aren’t immediately obvious. Also, you probably didn’t make up the questions; generating questions is one way to check whether you’ve understood what you’ve read. Using another teacher’s questions, even published stuff, isn’t always easy if you don’t know the book really well. And reading a book out loud to a class won’t ensure that you comprehend it well, as you’re focusing on being clear and watching for behavioral stuff. Pre read the chapters, or listen to it on tape, and make up your own questions, and it will be a lot easier. Of course, if you have LD then you’ll have to do much more prep work before you ask your students to read something, and you need to understand your disability well enough to know what you might miss.