My daughter is almost 14 and is in the fifth grade. Her school identified her as having a specific learning disability, so she receives services through school, but she still struggles, especially with reading. What technology tools can we use with her to help her improve her reading skills?
One difficulty with older struggling readers is that they can often become hesitant and anxious about reading, avoiding situations where they might read because reading is so challenging. A key strategy for older struggling readers is to find situations that make reading more enjoyable.
Though there’s no replacement for instruction in basic reading skills, frequent opportunities for independent reading can be helpful for struggling readers. A good way to do that is to provide your daughter with high-interest (and lower level) reading material. There are a number of books available(opens in a new window) that are at a lower reading level, but are written with a style and topic selection that are more interesting for teen readers. You could also introduce her to book review Web sites(opens in a new window) by and for teens, to help her find books that she might find interesting and motivating.
Your daughter may also benefit from the use of reading software, or accessible books. Look into the many resources on this site and others (Bookshare(opens in a new window)) for more information about the types of accessible books available for young adults with print disabilities.
Another fun option that has been shown to be effective with kids with LD and struggling readers is watching subtitled or captioned television shows and movies. Find your daughter’s favorite shows and movies, and put the captions on. Because your daughter will be watching something she enjoys, the reading of the captions will be less stressful and may encourage her to read. The captions can also help your daughter recognize words she hears when she seems them written.
Because all TVs made after 1993 have captioning built-in, this is an easy and free option that may help make reading a bit more pleasurable for your daughter. Your daughter can also watch captioned programming online, Web sites such as Hulu(opens in a new window) offer free viewing of most television shows, many of them with closed captioning.