Spectrum Reading help

[TracyP]

My ds (10yo/MERLD) is using Spectrum Reading to work on comprehension. Overall it is a good fit. He can do it independently which is great for his confidence.

 

But when the question is: Why does Carly's face turn red the second time?

 

He copies directly from the story: "Kittens!" said Carly so loudly that her face turned red again.

 

How can I work on this skill? Is there any book/program that works specifically on rephrasing? Is rephrasing even the right term?  I know he would be able to pick 'she was embarrassed about speaking too loudly" out of a multiple choice list. But he doesn't know how to get there on his own.

 

[Lecka]

I think this sounds like why/because.  Can your son answer why questions? 

 

Or cause/effect relationships?

 

I think google "why questions" or "cause/effect" and "speech therapy" and you may find stuff, if either of those seems good.

 

Or if he happens to be in speech therapy, ask his speech therapist. 

 

It's hard and a lot of kids work on this in speech, good luck!

Edited November 20, 2017 by Lecka

[TracyP]

Thanks. I'll try those, although he is good at why questions. I'll definitely bring this up at our next speech appt.

[Lecka]

Maybe underline the why ahead of time and see if that helps?

[PeterPan]

You're saying he can answer WH-questions, but here he's clearly not. And I agree, there are components to it. He has to be able to summarize and put it into his own words. He has to be able to make the inference and get what was implied. He needs the social thinking to take the character's perspective and realize how she felt. 

 

You may need to back up and break down the steps with some more workbooks. I agree with talking with the SLP. For my ds, I'm using the Spotlight on Reading series, which has workbooks on inferences, cause/effect, compare/contrast, and summarizing. The series builds, very carefully, the language skills and thinking skills necessary to do those tasks, and at least three of those 4 are in that one, more overall "reading comprehension" question, kwim? 

 

And then, if doing breakout workbooks for summarizing, inferencing, cause/effect, etc. shows holes, then you can slow it down further and get into more specific intervention material. Right now, for my ds, these have been enough. There are tiers of intervention though (1-3), so it's something where you can always step up the level of explicitness and breakdown.

 

As far as the social thinking, yes that is there too. You can make thought bubbles and talk about the question from different perspectives. It will help him get the idea of putting it in his own words too. So maybe the story had a picture, and you look at the picture. You hold up your speech bubble and say "Wow, I can see you feel embarrassed that blah blah blah because your face is turning red!" and he can hold up his speech bubble to be that person and say "Yes, I feel embarrassed about the a;sldj and so my face is turning red."

 

The IS (intervention specialist) who we consulted with said the next step for ds was to answer questions with a really formulaic response. So to answer the question "Why does her face turn red?" he could be taught to respond "Her face turns red because..." So using the formula as a framework can guide him also, if the task is within reach. To have an original reply, a complete sentence, that doesn't use that framework would be a more advanced construction. But if you're not yet able to get the construction, then obvious back up and support it and get it there.

 

I do pages with my ds that have multiple choice answers too. When he has to generate his own answers, then you're really seeing how it all comes together and where the glitches are.

[PeterPan]

How is he with sequencing? Retelling narratives? That's another place this shows up, being able to put things in your own words. We'll retell the sequences for our sequencing worksheets, and we'll do a retelling from a different perspective (changing the time, the narrator, etc.). It really forces him to take perspectives, summarize, get it into his own words. So there might be other places you can bring it in like that. I try to have a couple sequencing worksheets every day because it's been such a rich activity for us. You can find paragraph sequencing, etc. if he's more advanced.

[TracyP]

That's helpful, OhE. When I say he is good at why questions, I'm thinking of the kind in Think, Talk, Laugh - why do pencils have erasers? why do we turn off the faucet when we don't need it? Also his therapist just commented last appt. that he breezed through the goal for "wh" questions.

 

I'm struggling to put my finger on the difference between these and the original "why" question? It could be the social thinking/emotion part. I think I'll try tomorrow to prompt him with "Carly's face turned red because ______" and see how he responds. I appreciate that break down of skills. I'll look into the SoR stuff.

 

Retelling narratives is another therapy goal that he just met, I'm not sure what the therapist plans to work on next. He does great with sequencing at the sentence level, but I like your ideas to use them to work on the expressive language. What do you use for sequencing?

 

 

[PeterPan]

You might try a google site search with ohelizabeth sequencing and see what pops up. I know I've posted links in some threads in the past. Sorry to be so lazy tonight, sigh. I just found some new goodies too. As you say, it's easy to find materials at the most obvious level. Then you have to go ok how do I take this to the NEXT level and the next and the next. 

 

For my ds, nothing seems to just come. So I've assumed everything we need to do for composition will need to be done this way. I literally assume that every single type of thing we want to compose I'm going to need to turn into a sequencing project, chop up, pair write, do together, until it's obvious to him. That's what I'm assuming. So that's a long gap from sequence 4 pictures to write a 5 paragraph essay, when you're assuming it's ALL going to need that level of support. That's my assumption. Because his brain is that glitchy. 

 

I've got a number of workbooks. I usually search through amazon and my publisher haunts (Carson Delossa, Evan Moor, Teacher Created, Scholastic, etc.) trying to find things. TPT has stuff, but the quality varies. I really like the continuity of hitting a publisher and working through their books. Lakeshore Learning has some $$ kits that I finally broke down and bought. Haven't tried them yet. We've got a simpler book we're working through now. We finished a couple others, and this one was the next in the progression of difficulty. Before we were sequencing pictures. Now we're sequencing strips for a paragraph to go with a picture. 

 

The Lakeshore Learning kits give you keyword ideas to go with each picture, so you're working on going from pictures with keywords to sentences to paragraphs. So you see what I'm saying, that all these layers of composition and expression can be supported. I've been thinking we should do this with thank you notes and things.

 

Fwiw, my ds is also diagnosed SLD writing. 

 

Well foo, I tried that google search and what I was thinking of didn't pop up. Well I'm still too tired. I got a bug, ended up on an antibiotic, and I'm not my most spectacular self right now. Amazon.com: Short Story Sequencing (9781557990297): Evan Moor: Books  This is the simpler stuff. If you know he can blast through all these things, then there are books that are a step up. 

It looks like I got Carson-Delossa's sequencing cut up paragraphs. And the workbook we're doing right now is, like I said, a single picture with the sentences. 

 

There's a workbook I used with dd on the types of paragraphs. I figured we'd take something like that and chop them up to sequence. So it's really the sky as the limit. It's just backing up till he can actually DO it. I always try to use materials both ways, sort of receptively and expressively. Once he's doing the task with their model, then do an original one. Or we'll use pictures, and we'll each make our stories. It really pushes him out of his box. 

 

Does he use wh-questions in his everyday speech to make conversation? That's really the litmus test. When we really, really get things clicking, they should up in his speech. And of course wh-questions are the thing that drives reciprocal conversation, so that's why we put so much effort into it. When we really, really, really got to nailing these, ds' ability to have a conversation took off. 

 

Gotta scat. If you find neat things, definitely share. :)

[MistyMountain]

My did does something very similar. I was going to ask for suggestions to work on it. It is similar to how you describe in that a simple wh question is not a problem but she will not read it correctly in a question like that and just copy directly from the book.