READING COMPREHSION

How is her vocabulary? Has she ever had speech and language therapy? If its is just comprehension you need someone who can do Visualizing and Verbalizing with her. How is her decoding the other problem could be that her reading skills are so low that she doesn’t get the comprehension because of misreading I would also suggest testing done in regards to her reading decoding and phonemic awareness.

If she is able to anwer the questions, and understand the text when it is read aloud, you should consider scanning her work into the computer. The computer can read it back to her, and she can work independent of the teacher.
Kristin

You can request a complete speech and language evaluation from the school. ***You need to make the request in writing***, as then it is legally binding on the school. There’s some good information about this at the “LD in Depth” section of this website, in the section entitled “assessment”. There’s additional information in the “IEP” section. This assessment is free.

Comprehension issues can be addressed. Since your daughter has no problem when the story is read to her, she probably has decoding difficulties that have gone unrecognized. A speech and language pathologist should be able to assess her and make recommendations. When making the request for assessment, I would specifically ask for a speech and language pathologist.

Mary

That’s interesting.

I’m intrigued by the idea that she is able to understand what is read to her. How is her reading? Do we know that this child does, in fact, read well but simply does not understand what she is reading? My guess would be that either she has trouble “decoding” and so can’t really understand the reading or has trouble concentrating on what she is reading.

When she reads outloud to you, does she read well? Is her reading smooth when she reads outloud or does she seem to be struggling to decide what the words are?

Another question would be why are they simply holding her back and not offering her any services or tutoring? Holding a child back is not the only answer by any means to helping a child.

There are so many answers to your single question. Let me offer what could be the simplest and cheapest of all possible solutions. It appears the problem may be with reading fluency. What does it sound like when she reads? If it does not sound like it is making sense - voila! it isn’t. Fluent reading demands 3 things: (1) a knowledge of the vocabulary and subject _ for example - I can read nicely about physics - I won’t comprehend it at all - the experience isn’t there. From what you have described, this is not the problem. (2) Oral reading rate. The reading speed must approximate the speed of spoken language. You gave no data on this. A low error rate must be maintained. I would venture an error rate of less than five percent. (3) Inflection. The reading must sound like it is making sense. Punctuation must be observed, etc.
If problems are observed in any of the areas, comprehension is severely impacted. A variety of simple reading interventions (which vary in cost from everything thing you own or ever hope to own to under one hundred dollars. It sounds like you have a commitment. good luck, god bless you

Has she had a full evaluation? Unless this happens, we are all just guessing at the problem.

Any child who is not successful after being held back needs a full evaluation.
Make you request in writing.

Also here a site with an article VISUALIZING AND VERBALIZING for LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION by Nanci Bell
http://www.connect.ab.ca/~cent4lit/Nanci.htm

This is another site for more information:

http://www.lblp.com/conceptimagery.html

V/V claims to remediate the problem you daughter has.

Helen

Visualizing and Verbalizing by Nanci Bell is great program. Also teach her context clues - has she had a CAPD evaluation.

Have you tried getting your child an eye examination. There might be visual motor problems, tracking or saccadic problems.

To comprehend material, we must bridge the gap between the written text and the knowledge we posses. It sounds simple, but we know that it is really complex. I thought that I would give you several strategies for improving reading comprehension. I hope that this will be helpful for your daughter.

First, basal readers are a set of books that provide the basic material for the development of fundamental reading skills. They gradually increase in difficulty in areas such as vocabulary, story content, and skill development. Basal readers for low reading abilities and high interest levels are as follows:

Challenger – New Readers Press – Reading level 1-6

High Action Reading Series – Modern Curriculum Press – Reading level 2-6

High Noon Books – High Noon Publishers – Reading level 1-6

New Directions in Reading – Houghton Mifflin – Reading level 2-7

Rally – Harcourt Brace Jovanovich – Reading level 2-7

The Reading Connection – Open Court – Reading level 2-11

Sprint Library – Scholastic – Reading level 3-7

Second, it is important to activate background knowledge and build on experiences.

Third, readers need to have the knowledge of word meanings and concepts. The more your daughter reads, the more word meanings she will acquire. Activities for expanding vocabulary include highlighting multiple word meanings, providing concrete experiences, and classifying words.

Next, try a thinking strategy such as the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA). This is a process of thinking, predicting, and confirming while reading. While reading the story, stop and make predictions about what will happen next. Stop throughout the story to see if your predictions are right and to make new predictions.

Finally, it is important to look at learning strategies for reading. The paraphrasing strategy helps students put passages into their own words. You read the passage, think about the main idea and supportive details, and put the text into your own words.

Misty Kitchens

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