Weird But Wonderful (Success story in upgrading reading)

I’ve posted several times about my present success story. I have to give the background here or people will not get the point:

A little over a year ago this student was entering Grade 8 with a Grade 2 reading level and Grade 1 writing. Worse he’s left-handed so a lot of teachers just write him off for teaching writing.

He is a pleasant boy with good manners, has never once shown a sign of temper with me (pretty amazing with the pressure of reading correction), has a nice stable family and pleasant house and caring parents who will pay for me to help him — just hadn’t learned to read. He is also artistically talented and doe “doodles” that look like the decor used on motorbikes etc. No signs of any real dyslexia, just total, total confusion. Also (and this does matter later in the story) he is exceptionally mature physically as well as socially, taller than me beginning Grade 8, now at six feet age fourteen entering Grade 9.

So we started out over a year ago and we had to go all the way back to the bunnies and duckies. I apologized for this and promised to move him up as soon as we got a few things cleared up. We started on Book 3 of the phonics becasue he apparently was reading; I soon saw that this was a mistake and backed up and reviewed almost all of Book 2 with special stress on vowels and syllables. I worked with him on handwriting a bit and did some AVKO spelling, had to drop it under time pressure but even twenty lists gave him an idea to run with.

He caught on to at least the basics of reading and we moved up to a Boxcar Children book. He really enjoyed it — first chapter book he had ever read, and he was interested in the cultural/historical background. After school started we started trying to straighten out pre-algebra/elementary algebra and made some progress. Then he got into the regular Grade 8 World History (Neanderthals to Renaissance) and *loved* it. So we were working on reading “Neanderthal” and Cro-Magnon” and “flint-knapping” and he was getting it!

Middle of the year, we moved into reading Hatchet and back to phonics Book 3 with multisyllables, and doing some simple equations, and not only reading but spelling “feudal” and “suzerain”. I was very worried that things seemed to slip out of his memory, but found that after using my favourite phonics books with twenty repetitions of each and every topic it does stick, so I hung in with it. By early summer we were doing Brian’s Winter (alternate ending to Hatchet ) and some old nicely repetetive algebra books. He passed the regular history class and we were all very proud.

OK, now starting Grade 9 after a few weeks’ break. His mother told me they had picked up a new book at the bookstore, and he wanted to read it in order to use it for a book report. Fine by me, as long as we keep practicing and correcting his reading. I asked if he had bought it in the youth section; he’s not exactly a bookstore sophisticate (yet) and had no idea. So, I dive in, reading alternate pages as usual. The book is called “Caught Stealing”.
First page I see we are not in Kansas any more. The first-person narrator uses quite a bit of … er … interesting language, *quite* graphic, describing his own physical state in the morning after being beaten up. Then he breakfasts on a beer in his shower. OK, I say to my student, I’ve heard all these words before (although I choose not to use them) and no doubt you have too, so don’t let’s worry about it. Luckily they are short so I don’t have to sound them out; that would have me in a bad state. After the first session I mention to the mom that we have definitely moved up in reading, that this book is quite definitely adult; she said yes, she thought it was pretty funny, so OK, if Mom is happy to see him reading grownup stuff, I am just as happy to see him reading and we can discuss appropriateness in context. He is definitely a young man, no little kid, and it soes seem appropriate to introduce him to adult material, but this is quite the introduction!
The next session, the narrator discusses his friend being killed when he crashed a car, then about having his marijuana delivered and talks about the delivery guy who is a former heroin addict who traded that addiction for alcohol. Well, certainly a topical issue or two for comprehension discussion!
After the first session, we did a summary and I asked the student what happened next and next, and he *remembered* 80 percent of it! First time! Second session, we spent the *entire hour* reading — we started being able to do two pages in twenty minutes and were up to six pages in half an hour, so this is a huge jump. I have to go back and see how he does for the summary, but even fifty percent after five days would be outstanding.
And I sure do have material for further discussion.