Teaching LD High School students to read - ???

Do you have access to computers? The teen version of the Sound Reading CD from http://www.soundreading.com would be very helpful for those reading at less than a third grade level.

Another great resource is the BRI/RALP “Little Books”. To find out more about them, go to http://groups.yahoo.com and join the group named Beginning-Reading-Instruction. However, I don’t think these books could be used in a group setting. They are designed for one-on-one, or as a supplement to other reading programs. In any case, the teachers on that group may be able to give you some ideas.

They may be too corny for your teens, but the Leap Frog DVDs are good at teaching sound/symbol correlation. Take a look at Leap Frog - Talking Words Factory, Leap Frog - Talking Letters and related Leap Frog products at http://www.amazon.com . That’s probably too far out for you, though. The Sound Reading CD would likely be more useful for teens.

Nancy

There is a teacher who used to be very active on this board, Shay. She teaches high school special ed and has to get non-readers to pass the Virginia SOL’s, which she manages to do successfully. She is now training other teachers in her area to actually teach reading. She uses Phonographix first to teach basioc skills, and then a number of other programs to develop fluency and writing. Use the Search option and see if you can access any of her old posts. I will also send a copy of your post to her and see if she can answer directly.

I also work with high school students occasionally as a private tutor. I’ve posted a lot of how-to suggestions on these boards and to avoid repeating the same thing, I’ve copied down many of these posts and send out the package/ book in progress to anyone who asks. Just email me at [email protected]

:D Hi Everybody,
Well, I guess Victoria brought me out of my cave from a very long hibernation. I’m back at least to help those of you who have a reading class of students suffering from dysteachia, defined as those who have not been taught and it was convenient to toss them in special education due to the fact the powers were not adult enough to realize that we gave them the problem due to whole word brainwashing. This has been substantiated from research.

I have been specializing in reeducating older non-readers for the past nine years in not only classes but also privately. I only teach the necessary skills that are needed to teach reading. I have in the past first used Phono-Graphix but I have tweaked it so much, that I have developed my own process to teaching decoding, which of couse I do first. I than use many methods to teach writing, fluency, spelling, vocabulary, visual strengthening, and study skills– the whole package. I teach at Park View High Sshool which is very diverse-70 languages and is fighting for its life having not made AYP for the past 2 years and won’t pobably before taken over by the state in 2 years. That would be fine for me because maybe, we will get rid of WL that is now being taught under the name of ‘balanced literacy’. A situation that I may be taking care of before the takeover!

This year, I inherited 18 ninth grade boys (14 Hispanics +2 African American + 2 Caucasions = the ‘Gap’ from the middle school. They were all behavior disordered as well with 18 behavior plans and reading between k-3rd. grade. Enough I said, this just can’t continue so I am on a rampage; possibly in need of anger management.

First, I joined a teacher research group and made these two groups my research project. Then, I went to the IDA convention in Philadelphia and spoke to Peggy McArdle, researcher with Reid Lyon, to see if she could help me. As it turns out, I am going to document my study and submit it to NIH for possible publication. You see, what they told me is that they have all kinds of data but nothing from ‘the field’. I am telling you this to give you information about me so you will know where I am coming from..

Now to the good stuff, how to do it. I would suggest that you buy the book, Reading Reflex (RR), because that will help you. Also, I really don’t use Phono-Graphix (PG) any more; I have developed my own procedures to teach reading, but RR is a good book to start with. There is a new program, ABeCeDarian that is a full decoding/spelling/fluency program that is developed by Michael Bend, a former trainer of PG that I highly recommend. He has a “Short” B teacher’s manual and student workbook that is wonderful for the older student because all of the advanced and basic code is in nonsense words! Perfect for the ‘sight word’ learner. One thing that you have to understand and that all of these kids have problems with short vowel sounds, advanced code (more than one letter represents a sound) and MS words. That is it! Forget segmenting and blending, this is addressed while you plow through the different sounds. Another thing that you have to understand is that you have to teach decoding first the entire time without adding any other aspect of reading.

You have to look at the brain research and realize that you are making the area of the brain that sound/symbol relationship is housed-left parietal temporal—work. This has all been substantiated by research. You have to understand why these procedures will work so that you and your students don’t get frustrated working through the decoding process. During the time that you are teaching them the code, you must read the research that I will post at a later time on this board tonight or tomarrow.

Another important aspect, possibly the most important one, is to get your students ready to learn. Remember my behavior disordered students with all the behavior plans? Well, on the very first day, I deflated them. I practice Tough Love daily. Many of my students in English 11 fail the first year because of learned helplessness. I don’t tolerate behaviors in my classroom. I give my students a pep talk the first day of school and tell them that I am the most important person in their life right now and if they don’t go along with the program, they had better buy some really good shoes because they will be walking instead of driving due to the fact that they will not be able to pass the drivers test! I threw away all of their behavior plans and just informed them that I knew why they had behaviors and that was to get out of work due to the fact that they couldn’t do it because they can’t read well.

You must have control over your class or your teaching won’t work. You also have to tell them about the brain research and that they aren’t dumb„ nothing is wrong with them, and that we are the cause of their reading problems because we didn’t teach them right. You must take all of the blame that we put on them and tell them that they are okay, they are normal, we are to blame. This is very necessary. They must know that you care. You also must get very mad with the realization that we did this to them. Your state of mind is very necessary. My anger is very evident when I talk to them. If you want to know why I am angry, read some of my posts about my daughter. As a matter of fact read my posts of the past and they will tell you a lot of information about how I teach.

After you do the pep talk, then you can start teaching. You also tell them that if they go along with the program, they will automatically receive an “A” for the course. I fudge my grades for first semester all of the time. I don’t really care about grades, just so my students learn to read.

I only teach decoding for the first semester of school and you have to understand that what I tell you now is all that I do to teach it, nothing else. I use no worksheets, no reading until I’m done with teaching the advanced code/MS words and then I do error correction the rest of the semester or for as long as it takes for them to be close to grade level decoding. The first thing I do is put the vowels on the board and ask them the sound when they see them (the vowels) in small words. Remember I have Hispanic kids and the sound/symbol relationship is different in English than it is in Spanish. They always give me the Spanish sounds because noone has told them the difference! Spanish doesn’t have digraphs, more than one letter represents a sound, all letters represent the same sound all of the time, no difference. I tell them the difference and at that time the reading levels immediately change for the better, just that knowledge. Then I work with the advanced code; I do at least five sounds a day, if not more. All I do is put all of the digraphs that represents a sound on the board in a list as they discover the digraph in words. I will have to end here until tonight because I have to get reading for school. I will continue this tonight . One other thing, if you email me directly with your phone number (anyone interested) I will help you. Don’t worry about the price of the phone call because I never use all of my minutes. Shay

When I was in a somewhat similar spot, I got a hold of SRA’s Corrective Reading. The stuff Shay talks about is as good — but SRA is what I could get :-) It is totally scripted so I had to sell it to my guys — but we had a pretty good rapport. I did tell ‘em after three weeks if they wanted to we would scrap it. Some of ‘em actually liked it; everybody felt like it was at least tolerable :-)
First I had to convince them that this was somehting they were behind in; that it wasn’t just mean teachers that made them fail tests. I’ve since learned taht you can say “you’re at level 4 and you want to be at level 8” — and leave the word “grade” out entirely, becuase it’s a meaningless word. Reading at a “third” grade level doesn’t mean you belong in third grade. It does mean that you’re not reading as well as the otehr intelligent people in your classes.
What I liked about the scripted thing was that I could turn on my best “broken record” strategy, and once they realized no, we really were going to do this as written… and it would just take longer if you argued about it, and it was really quick if you didn’t, and actually painless because it was appropriate… then the whole structure thing went a *long* way to managing the behavior issues. The class was consistent and predictable, which is something that most fo those folks don’t get a whole lot of.

That was my post without having logged in… I have a bunch of stuff I used teaching reading on my website, too.

I am responding way back to Shay’s post. I, too, teach H.S. My second year, formerly I taught elementary resource. I teach two periods of H.S. literacy.

I do not find necessarily the same things Shay has found. Firstly, many of my students are accomplished word readers, they know the code, they just don’t know what any of the words and sentences mean. They lack the comprehension skills to pass the exams to make the AYP. I do have a sprinkling of decoding issues and I do agree with Shay for these particular students, though they are not a majority of the students placed in my class.

Of the behavior plan students. The students I teach who manifest the most difficult behaviors to manage and have behavior plans are not frequentlly the lowest readers. Again, many of this population read words much closer to grade level, decode words well, but bear diagnoses of ADHD and often show oppositional-defiance issues, too. Occasionally they are really low level readers, but the two in my 6th period literacy class who have been expelled to community school (county school for expelled students) were quite good decoders and oral readers. They were not expelled due to behavior in my classroom. Another really difficult boy in 5th period is a very good reader, but he is very ODD and balks at having to take any time to finish anything with any care or thought. But, read orally, he can read almost any word I can find.

I, too, teach a mix of white, black and hispanic students, a few of whom are English language learners, though they have been learning English since Kindergarten.

Of course my district has used strong decoding instruction for about 10 years now, so we are not seeing dysteachia anymore.

I do get a few who are classic dyslexics and struggle to read words and usually these are pretty well-behaved kiddoes (for some fortuitious reason) and Shay’s teaching methods are appropriate. Sadly, these two types of readers, of which the poor comprehenders are more numerously represented in my classes, are mixed, so my job is made a bit harder.

Many of the classic dyslexic-like kiddoes have been well-enough taught that they do not need my class in high school and they can comprehend, since they often never suffered a comprehension deficit, just a word reading deficit.

I agree with Shay that we do need to explain what is happening to them and I am careful to do so. I emphasize to the poor decoders that their deficit is not an issue related to intelligence, but that they were never taught the way they need to be taught.

I think it varies depending on location — my experience has been more like Shay’s in high school, but here in the college setting I see the huge comprehension issues, too, in the Midwest.
I would love to know, though, just how well these guys are decoding too. The handful we *did* test turned out to be a lot lower than they or we had thought in the decoding category. It’s amazing how quickly your comprehension skills erode if you think “crucial” is “cruel,” and even if you think “malevolence” is “male violence,” and these are *common* patterns.

Sue,
Since you are at the college level, how often are your students using text-to-speech to override the decoding issues and comprehend the text? I’m curious to know if this type of accommodation is being used.

I am working in middle school and I have 4 kids on my speech caseload who can’t read very well. I catch flak from other SLP’s because of my passion for literacy and wanting to help these kids. I only see them once a week and I cram in as much as I can in regards to literacy/speech/reading comprehension and we make progress slowly but surely. They need to be able to read in order to drive, fill out a job application, etc. Yeah, I have seen the behaviors subside too, once they trust and realilze we are there to help them it empowers them to work harder. But it is just mindboggling to see how these kids got as far as they did with the poor skills they have.

I agree with Sue. A lot of students have “done” phonics, but it often turns out to be kindergarten level repeated; and they may think they can decode, but faced with a real test they bomb out.
I have one student right now, may have mentioned him before, who has been pushed through to Grade 5 as a non-reader. Well, we worked up to struggling through the Boxcar Children, although it is a struggle. So I gave him the lists from the back of Why Johnny Can’t Read, figuring we would skim over the short vowel lists and then work on the long vowel patterns. Well! He has a very, very hard time with man, cat, tap, ran, etc. He reads many words backwards, inserts sounds, and often just blanks and has to re-start. Yet according to both school and mon he has been taught decoding, and he thought he could read. Even I, skeptic that I am, expected him to be able to do the short vowels. So yes, do test the decoding with a non-fakable test (like reading absolutely cold from a list without context, NO help or hints) and you will more often than not be unpleasantly surprised.

Text to speech is used a lot by a few students. I really wish it were used by more of them; computerized voices are still a little stilted, though, and the technology has its own learning curve.
I have a couple of folks starting to recognize the advantages of using text-to-speech for their own writing, too.
There’s still a major defensiveness issue — anything perceived as “special” or being “needed” activates an Insecurity Alarm (but generally, if they *were* strong readers, they wouldn’t be feeling so insecure …)

Books/programs have been mentioned on here.

I am just trying to get some misconceptions cleared up for me (I spoke about this a bit on my thread too), but how do you know what is best? Isn’t it individualized per students?

Right now I am a learning disabled student going into special education and I learned how to read (in 7th grade…btw from my own mother who took the Orton Gillingham program). I just want to say that THAT program saved me. Reading really seems to be the key. I know this is kind of a ‘daugh’ (sp??? sorry) moment but if a kid can’t read, he/she can’t do anything! That was my biggest problem…and I used the multisensory approach (thank you Victoria!) and it worked best for me.

My plan is at the moment going for training for that after college (I am in my 3rd year). I’ve heard other wonderful programs mentioned on here…I know there isn’t one single approach that works best for everyone but how do you choose?

I see you saying it depends on your situation…so do most of you have a lot of programs and books handy for each ‘group’ situation … or ‘student’ situation? Does that make any sense? Or, do you normally just focus on one? Do you just work on the on that seems to be helping most students?

I keep a couple of general programs that I find effective ready on hand: materials that are inexpensive, very complete, and flexible to use.

Then I find the student’s achievement by having him actually perform the task, read aloud or solve the math problem , or whatever, and then I fit him into the programs at a level where he has 90% mastered but needs to learn the next step.

Then we follow the program through step by step; if he can do a task easily we just run through it, and if he has trouble we slow down, discuss, and if necessary dig up some extra practice from a third or fourth program.

The consistency and built-in review of this approach is part of what makes it effective. I find that any “efficiency” gained by selecting materials and concepts from all over the place is completely lost in the confusion and constant changing of approach.

If I ever found a student who really could do all the phonics work I would skip it, but I have never encountered anything close to that; in most cases, they need the phonics most of all. I sometimes skip Book 1 (single consonants and short vowels) but find that just about every student needs Book 2 (basic consonant and vowel pairs), and all need Book 3 (multisyllables and spelling variants). This phonics series shares a lot of ideas with Orton-Gillingham.
I use very limited very repetitive structured readers for levels K to 1.6 - 1.8 or so, controlled-vocabulary basal readers up to level 2.5 or 3, and good children’s novels at an appropriate reading level above that. The amount of freedom of choice increases as the student’s skill increases.

So many have educated responses that it seems like it would be relatively easy to get your way out of this mess. It isn’t. I’ve been there. First, there is no way you’re going to be able to do most of what was recommended because of the MOB you’ve got. There is no program in the world that will work, if there were, the author would be a guaranteed billionaire.
Do you have a classroom aid? If so, you can use him/her to teach reading one on one. These are very low students, but I guarantee, you have a mix in your group - or they’re not LD.
The first step to reading is motivation. The second step to reading is the ability to listen and comprehend. Begin with a great short story. Derive a small (10-15 word) vocabulary list. On Monday review the list with them, in a large group activity getting the definitions of each word orally. Have the definition in short easy to read answers - example: interrogate - to ask things from someone OR to ask questions from someone to find something out - I don’t care so much about “Proper” grammar, but about readabilty. Have the students write the definition (or copy from the board) for each word. Walk the class to make sure each student is writing. Introduce and pump up the short story.
On Tuesday, go through each word, then get students to orally make up sentences. Begin the story. You do the reading. If you know of a student who can take over successfully for a paragraph, call on them. They can decline. Use elements of the story to initiate classroom discussion.
Wednesday. Quickly review the words. See if anyone can come up with a sentence with two or three of the words in it. Continue the story.
Thursday. Review the words. You could have team races to see who can find which page each is in a dictionary. Do not have them write dictionary definitions. Play with the ideas of antonyms and synonyms. Finish the story or add a poem of similar theme. Show them how to “plot” the story. Resume any relevent discussions.
Friday. Test day. Matching vocab test. Draw a picture from the story. Ask for main idea. Introduce next week’s story.

With this, you can eventually move from short stories to novels. You will get better behavior. YOU WILL TEACH. You will not teach them all to read. For that, you will need a way to get one on one with them.

When in your position exactly. I did this. I also wrote Great Leaps Reading so my aid could teach my adolescents to read. I hope this helps.
Ken Campbell

Ken’s advice is all good — *if* the students can already read and write. If they are on the *pre-primer* level as described in the first post, then they cannot write sentences, and asking them to do this is just going to repeat the things that have failed before.
They may or may not be able to learn vocabulary, depending on their other language issues and on how confused they are already. I have one student right now who loses his memory when he gets swamped by yet another vocabulary list — his reading has gone up from about Grade 2 to about Grade 5, but he hasn’t learned to tackle these things in a lump yet. But he does remember more things if they are presented one by one in context without stress. I wouldn’t worry so much about advanced vocabulary until some more urgent needs are covered.
Reading and discussing short stories is great. Meanwhile, these kids desperately need the most basic reading skills so they can find which bus to take and which space to put their address in — not literary and not so much fun, but really necessary for life skills.

In my very short response on lessons, I did not infer that kids who cannot write should be writing sentences - even those these very same students have been required to write sentences forever in a district that obviously has no real intent in teaching them to read. They are in high school and it’s getting late. There is NO program that I know of that can take 16 varying leveled high schoolers with obvious high levels of misbehavior and teach them to read. NONE. Given the nature of adolosence, there is not going to be one in the near future. You cannot plug them into a machine and teach them to read. You cannot begin at the beginning with phonics with so many of them and have learning happen.
This young teacher’s first goal should be to survive the year while teaching something important. She should also know that there is no way she is going to teach them all to read. She may be able to use a program and get to some of them one on one and teach them to read. She can teach one in the morning, one during lunch, and one during planning - if she has a program that can do this in five to ten minutes. (I’m trying hard not to plug my life work while trying to help rescue.)
It is not her fault that she has been put into a very unprofessional and very un-special ed predicament. If her supervisors think these kids could be taught to read in such a zoo, I want to see the data of who has been successful and what program was used.
These students can copy PRIMER level definitions from the board. After working with words orally all week while also seeing this short list on the board - they should (even with their learning disabilities) be able to match the vocabulary with the definitions (which have been purposely written at a very low reading level.) They should be able to draw a picture of an important part of the story.
Even with low level reading, they should be able to put some ideas down on paper. I have a history of having had dysfunctional readers who become behaviorally motivated to try and write their ideas. Being a caring adult, I can deciper their ideas without punishing. I reward performance (effort) and work from their to achieve growth.
The saddest piece in reading this is that the district is achieving federal funds for special education - and this model is not special ed at all. I would bet each of those students has an IEP that meets the letter of the law with services that have given up on them.
It is a national shame and disgrace. Love to you all - this HOLY WEEK - I hope my ardor for students does not rub any of you wrong - the responders on this line are fantastic professionals.

Ken CAmpbell

Amen :-)

Trying to teach the basic sound-symbol stuff in that setting tends to blow up in one’s face. First you need to get some control & trust & structure, and it can be difficult and sometimes impossible depending on adminstration.

Yes, we need to give that young teacher all the help she needs so she can grow and impact kids for another generation. You do that by doing the best you can achieve under the circumstances (often impossible) and by continuing to do all you can to grow. We cannot ask her to do the impossible - she will frustrate and quit - like so many others. Yet, if she can achieve a modicum of success - certainly not meeting the reading needs of so many - perhaps she will be the one to bring the district to its senses. Happy Easter to all, Ken Campbell (who went through all of this some 25 years ago - and was able to help a few kids grow.)