I have a 6th grade boy in my class who is still having much difficulty decoding words. I have noticed that he can read most sight words on index cards, he can decode words from his reading program if they are written in isolation, and he can even decode different vowel patterns and spellings in isolation. However, he has a lot of difficulty reading any of the same in text. Any suggestions? Thanks.
Fluency articles
How well does he read the words on cards? (And… has he done anything weird — but it happens — like recognizing a smudge on a card to cue him as to what word it is?) Are they fast and fluent or is he sounding htem out there, too?
http://www.resourceroom.net/Sharestrats/IDAdrillarticle.asp has ideas from Phyllis Fischer on improving fluency at the word level
http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba/fluency.html has ideas for getting the words to transfer into phrases and sentences.
Probably too much at once for him. Try him out on very much easier text — Grade 3 or even Grade 2 reading vocabulary (NOT a readability level, which will be artificially lowered by making sentences short but with disorganized vocabulary) — try something with a limited vocabulary of 500 words or so. Try to find a book that isn’t too easily identifiable as a baby book for this, of course.
Anyway, if he can read connected text at low vocabulary level, the problem is that when he is concentrating on his decoding skills he is losing the flow of the sentence. The best solution I know for this is to get a sequence of texts of gradually increasing vocabulary — many older basal reader series will do for example — and start where he is OK, then have him read aloud every day. A story a day, or about twenty minutes, is good. It’s best if you can enlist the parents in this, but if they won’t keep up with it consistently or try to jump ahead and frustrate him, you can do it yourself or with a tutor. If you just have him progress gradually and really put in the time reading, he should be up to speed in six months to a year.
Some people do re-reading of the same text over and over and timing for speed; I personallydisrecommend this because it leads all too easily to memorization and an emphasis on speed at the expense of comprehehsion, which is the opposite of what you want.
On the other hand, if he cannot read even a low-vocabulary book reasonably fluently (and that does NOT mean very fast, just consistently and with understanding) or if he stalls at a low level and cannot work up to a higher grade level with steady and intensive practice as above, you may be dealing with something organic. One poster here, Rod, mentions often that he meets a lot of vision problems. Many parents have seen great progress with hearing and cognitive processing training. Look into these, but use judgement.