Part of my son’s homework is to read outloud for 20 minutes a day. It occurred to me that we could use this time better. Isn’t there some way to help with fluency - like I read a paragraph and then he reads the same paragraph over again - what would be the most helpful?
Also, he still reverses b & d. What can I do to help him learn these letters?
Thanks for any information you might give us.
P.S. He breezed through the first 5 lessons of Reading Upgrade last night. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Thanks
Thank you so much for these ideas. Jason reversed b & d at the beginning of second grade but toward the end he had stopped - then, the head injury happened and it came back with a vengence. The tricks I had taught him before didn’t work this time so yes, I think you are right it’s going to take much more practice. I appreciate the time you took to go into so much detail. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Here’s a simple yet practical thing to do for the b-d issue. I do it all the time with several students a year of all ages and it WORKS. The thing is, you have to spend a little time and hard work on it.
First, teach him to write b with correct directionality and then the next day, d with correct directionality. Correct directionality is the standard pattern for English reading, left-to-right as first priority, top-to-bottom as second. Following this pattern, b is made by starting at the top line, pulling down to the bottom line, then a “bounce” up to the middle, then a clockwise ball. (Some people teach a b that is like a not-so-curved 6 around here, but this is hard to keep legible). A d is made by starting with the *circle first*; the circle is made like the circle in a, c, g, o, q — all the circle-start letters go *counterclockwise* (which forms the left side first and finishes on the right, correct for a good rhythm and directionality). After you make a circle just like an a, you slide up to the top line and then pull down for a strong vertical stroke; this finishes at the right, correct for good rhythm and later cursive.
Have him spend a day’s session on b’s — first a row or two of individual letters, then make up a list of all the words he (and you) can think of that start with b, then word’s with b in the middle like rabbit, then words that end with b like rib. *Each and every time* he writes/prints the letter b, watch that he is doing it consistently as above, a single motion, no pen lifts.
Then have him spend a day’s session on d’s, doing the same thing. The d is often more of a battle since kids get in the habit of making a stick and looking where to put the ball (that is the problem to start with) so you have to really work to get him to change this ingrained habit.
If you find visual reminders helpful, make up two posters, one with a ball and the letter b four inches high (Marker or huge computer print), and one with a dog and the letter d four inches high; with a red dot, mark a starting point and direction arrows as above. (These direction arrows are the main idea, the most important thing). These can be posted on the wall and/or covered with plastic and taped to his work table for finger tracing.
Now he has a good start, now the hard part for you. As he is writing, watch over him and make sure he forms these two letters each and every time as described above. Each time he backslides to stick and guess where the ball goes, have him re-trace on your memory poster and then re-do in his book. As he is reading, each time he says the wrong sound, stop him, have him trace the shape of the letter in the air oor on the desk, and have him say the correct sound at least twice.
At first this will be frustrating for both of you, but dig in your heels and keep at it. Usually there will be fewer errors after the first hour and a lot fewer errors after the first five hours. But don’t quit! Habits backslide easily. Expect to have to keep up reminders once in a while for several months and an occasional go-over now and then for up to a year.
I work with a lot of students who have severe fluency problems. As a private tutor, this is where I most often get called in, when it’s no longer possible to ignore or brush off the reading problem.
Personally I do *not* go for repeated reading. I find it terribly anti-motivational — the poor kid has struggled so hard to read something, has worked his way through it, and then you tell him that’s not good enough and he has to do it again? And how are you going to convince him that reading is valuable and interesting and informational, when all he gets to do is go over and over the same stuff? Also, a kid with a good verbal memory will remember rather than read, and this becomes counterproductive to teaching real reading.
Three suggestions which I use which I find combine the best of both worlds, sufficient repetition and interesting new material:
(1) Get some old controlled-vocabulary readers. You can find a variety at many used-book stores, on Amazon.com especially the zshops page, and in school book closets. These readers will be based on high-frequency word lists, ie the words most often used in the English language are taught first. New words being taught are usualy repeated several times after introduction. The books are often numbered by grade level, usually something like 3-2 for Grade 3, second semester. You usually find a list of new vocabulary in the back. Good texts after mid-Grade 1 have large full-page masses of print and a moderate number of pictures. Start a level or two *lower* than the student’s instructional level — you are looking for material that he finds fairly easy vocabulary-wise so he can work on fluency.
BUT — a lot of these texts are written with sight memorization as a system. You really do need phonics, work on that separately, and just use the readers as a source of oodles of well-levelled practice material, ignoring the teaching suggestions.
(2) I generally use at least two and often three series at the same time. When we get too far too fast in one series we switch to the other. This provides huge amounts of repetition in common vocabulary, and ten to twenty times as much actual reading practice as reading through kids’ books, which sell on the basis of having more pictures than actual reading.
(3) If you look hard and have some luck, you can also find the workbooks that go with reading series. These are often rare out of print items, so photocopy and don’t write in the original — you or someone else can use it again. (You can also white-out marked ones and copy).
By using series with planned repetition and doubling up, you get much, much more practice than repeated reading. The controlled vocabulary avoids the problem of always having to work on new words rather than develop fluency. As you are always reading something new and fresh, you get good motivation to read for interest and information. The workbooks for good series include even more reading and all sorts of good comprehension practice. Don’t skip over this; it’s what many students are missing in later levels.