18:45
5 Tips to Help Struggling Readers // Help Struggling Readers at Home or in School
Susan Jones Teaching
Overview
This video provides five practical tips for educators and parents to support struggling readers. It emphasizes understanding a student's specific difficulties through diagnostic screeners and using research-based scope and sequences for targeted instruction. The advice includes adopting a patient mindset, recognizing that struggling readers need more time and repetition, and incorporating multi-sensory learning techniques. Finally, it highlights the crucial role of read-alouds in fostering comprehension, vocabulary, and a love for reading, even for students receiving intensive intervention.
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Chapters
- Use diagnostic screeners to pinpoint a student's exact reading challenges, whether in comprehension or word decoding.
- Screeners help identify specific phonics areas of difficulty, such as short vowels, CVC words, silent 'e', or consonant blends.
- Follow a research-based scope and sequence to determine the appropriate starting point for instruction based on screener results.
- Ensure screeners and scope and sequences have clear instructions and a logical progression of skills.
Accurately identifying the root cause of reading difficulties ensures that instructional efforts are focused and effective, preventing wasted time on already mastered skills or concepts the student isn't ready for.
A student struggles with words like 'bake' but not 'bat'. A screener reveals difficulty with the silent 'e' pattern, indicating instruction should start with long vowel sounds and the VCE pattern, rather than re-teaching CVC words.
- Struggling readers require more repetitions and a longer duration of instruction to master skills compared to typical learners.
- This is a factual observation, not a reason for discouragement; it necessitates a shift in instructional approach.
- Ensure that the repeated instruction is research-based and effective, not just more of the same if it's not working.
- For parents and teachers, this means dedicating sufficient time to concepts and lessons until mastery is achieved.
Understanding that progress may be slower helps educators and parents maintain patience and consistency, providing the necessary sustained support without becoming frustrated.
Instead of a 10-minute phonics lesson, a struggling reader might need 20-30 minutes, or even multiple days, to fully grasp a concept like consonant digraphs.
- Effective interventions are built upon a structured scope and sequence that progresses logically through literacy skills.
- Key components of research-based interventions include phonemic awareness, explicit phonics, decoding, encoding, vocabulary, comprehension, and handwriting.
- Programs like UFli Foundations offer a comprehensive scope and sequence with digital resources, while Orton-Gillingham training provides in-depth, multi-sensory instruction.
- Apps like Reading.com can offer parent-guided, daily, 20-minute lessons that cover essential phonics components.
Using interventions grounded in scientific research ensures that the methods employed are proven to be effective for teaching reading, maximizing the chances of student success.
A research-based intervention would include activities for both sounding out words (decoding) and spelling words (encoding), ensuring students can both read and write.
- Engage multiple senses—visual, auditory, kinesthetic (movement), and tactile (touch)—simultaneously to enhance learning.
- True multi-sensory learning involves combining at least two senses, such as saying a sound while tracing a letter.
- Utilize tools like sand trays, gel boards, or even simple poppers to make learning tactile and engaging.
- Activities like skywriting letters while saying their sounds combine kinesthetic and auditory learning.
Multi-sensory approaches cater to different learning styles and strengthen memory pathways by involving the whole body and multiple sensory inputs, making abstract concepts more concrete.
A student learns the letter 'A' by saying the sound 'ah' (auditory) while tracing the letter shape in sand (tactile) and performing a skywriting motion (kinesthetic).
- Read-alouds are essential for developing oral comprehension, even for struggling readers who are not yet reading independently.
- They expose students to a wider vocabulary and complex sentence structures than they might encounter in their own reading.
- Reading aloud fosters a positive association with books and stories, promoting enjoyment and a love for reading.
- This practice introduces themes like perseverance and friendship, offering valuable social-emotional learning opportunities.
Read-alouds provide critical exposure to language, comprehension strategies, and the joy of stories, which are vital for overall literacy development and motivation, even when direct phonics instruction is happening elsewhere.
While a student is working on decoding skills in a small group, the teacher or parent can read a chapter book aloud to them later, discussing new vocabulary and plot points.
Key takeaways
- Effective reading intervention begins with precise diagnosis of a student's specific skill deficits.
- Patience and sustained, intensive instruction are crucial for struggling readers, as they require more time and repetition than their peers.
- Instruction should be guided by research-based interventions that systematically address all core components of literacy.
- Multi-sensory learning strategies enhance memory and understanding by engaging multiple senses simultaneously.
- Read-alouds are indispensable for building comprehension, vocabulary, and a positive relationship with reading, regardless of a student's independent reading level.
- Consistent application of these strategies, tailored to the individual student's needs, is key to fostering reading success.
Key terms
Diagnostic screenerScope and sequencePhonicsDecodingEncodingPhonemic awarenessMulti-sensory learningVisual learningAuditory learningKinesthetic learningTactile learningRead aloudOral comprehension
Test your understanding
- Why is it important to use a diagnostic screener before starting reading intervention?
- How does the need for more time and repetition for struggling readers impact instructional planning?
- What are the essential components that a research-based reading intervention program should include?
- Describe an example of multi-sensory learning that combines at least two different senses.
- What are the key benefits of continuing read-alouds for students who are already receiving intensive reading instruction?