LD in Oral Expression student

doesn’t make him a “good reader” Reading without comprehension is just being a word caller. I would try and make things as concrete as possible for him. Also he should be on the SLP’s caseload…maybe she can help you with some ideas…

Go to the Lindamood-Bell site and check out Visualizing and Verbalizing.
Another similar program, I am told, is called IdeaChain by MindPrime.

Janis

From my understanding, Visualizing and Verbalizing (V/V) is lower cost but less user friendly. You can do this without training but it certainly would be helpful! Idea Chain is more expensive but also more user friendly with set curriculum, etc. I think parents tend to like the Idea Chain more for that reason. I think the point, as far as I can gather, is somewhat similar. To understand text to any extent, the individual has to visualize the information. Some people do this somewhat naturally but kids with comprehension difficulties do not. (Even some children who might otherwise be imaginative or artistic.)

—des

From my understanding, Visualizing and Verbalizing (V/V) is lower cost but less user friendly. You can do this without training but it certainly would be helpful! Idea Chain is more expensive but also more user friendly with set curriculum, etc. I think parents tend to like the Idea Chain more for that reason. I think the point, as far as I can gather, is somewhat similar. To understand text to any extent, the individual has to visualize the information. Some people do this somewhat naturally but kids with comprehension difficulties do not. (Even some children who might otherwise be imaginative or artistic.) I have not used Idea Chain, but others here like it.

—des

From the sound of your post, this student might not even be up to the level to start VV or other programs.

Here’s a suggestion that I sometimes use with my more difficult students. As usual no panacea, but I have seen slow gradual improvement in several cases:
First you have to sit down with the student one-to-one for a while.
You ask a question. First simplify the question —“What colour was the new ball” — Hmm, a past tense (was) *and* a modifier (new) — two other things in there besides the main points of the question — better start with “What colour is the ball?”, one question phrase and one object.
When the student gives an inappropriate answer such as “Out the door.”, you give some kind of a clue that this is not it, whatever works with your student, and you repeat the question with the key question words stressed “**What colour** is the ball?”
If that works, OK, on to a new question. If not, repeat just the key word well-stressed “**Colour**”
If that works, OK, on to the next. If not, ask him to name some colours. Help him list nine or ten common colours — he dictates and you write; if he blanks, you point to several things around the room and have him name the colours. If he goes off topic and starts talking about his pet dog or whatever, you say that’s nice, but we are talking about colours right now.
Finally when you have his mind on the colours and you know that he knows the vocabulary, you *show* him the ball again (have to get back to the topic, and there have been too many distractors) and ask again what colour it is.
You may spend ten minutes and more on one question, and you may discover some large and bizarre holes in his vocabulary that he has been covering up by avoidance. He may not even know how much he doesn’t know.

Actually, colour may be too high a level to start with — might be best to start with “What is this?”, re-stress **What** as needed, and have him name common objects in the class and then in pictures.

Then *Where* questions, first objects in view in the class and then later in pictures and then much much later from memory.

After he is getting the idea that the question word is a clue to the kind of answer, what — thing (noun) and where — place, you can try mixed practice.
Then colours, then comparative sizes (big or small? Which is bigger?), much later times (when?) which are very abstract concepts.

I’ve worked with a couple of kids, including one now age 18, who did not have a real grasp on the purpose and system of the question-answer process; they knew they were supposed to say something, but how to choose what to say eluded them. And since people laugh at their weird answers, they get rewarded for being off more than for on, a real problem. Teaching the connections directly as above can help. And don’t smile or laugh or reward in any way cuteness with the off-the-wall stuff.

Thinking about this, you do have to make sure the kid isn’t colour-blind! No joke, my dad was and so was a co-worker; it is fairly common, and when kids simply do not see, are physically unable to see what you are talking about, of course they get difficult.
On the same issue, I had a student once with Kleinfelter’s Syndrome, and one of the characteristics is an inability to order things verbally; he could order physical objects but had no clue about the words before and after. His math — they claimed to have him doing multiplication, which was a joke, couldn’t count accurately past six — was a disaster. If your student has any major syndrome like this, then you may have to back down even more and do even more direct teaching.

Curious if you are teaching in a quiet or noisy environment. My dd has an expressive language deficit. She was tested in 2nd grade by an audiologist trained in CAPD and found that she could only understand 55% of what was being said in a typical noisy classroom (84% was normal) and she understood 100% in soundproof. The phrase ‘A cat in the hat, sat on a bat’ might be understood as ‘A hat in the hat sat on a hat’.