Reading out loud = NO comprehension, any ideas?

[KinderSafari]

I have a friend who is struggling to find a good diagnosis or just HELP for her daughter (5th grade). She just pulled her out of school to homeschool her because she's falling further behind. She currently is at a 3rd grade reading level.

 

Spelling - aces it

When read to - understands

 

When she reads to herself - not very good comprehension

When she reads out loud - vague comprehension

 

Running out the door right now, I can give more details later, but just thought I'd see if anyone has some good ideas!!

 

Seems to be the processing her brain uses to focus on the reading/putting the letters together takes up so much effort, she doesn't get the comprehension.

[kaylk in tx]

sounds like her brain is focusing so much on what the words are that she can't focus on what the words mean... it's called "word calling" in educationalese. she probably needs to go back to basics with phonics. hopefully elizabeth b will post on this as her website has some outstanding ideas for helping older readers become more fluent.

[Kim in Appalachia]

she could try is McCall-Crabbs. It's short stories/paragraphs with questions at the end. It is divided by levels. It's a great resource for reading comprehension.

 

I also think she should go back and work on phonics. It would seem like she missed a stage in her reading development.

[ElizabethB]

She is most likely guessing and skipping words when she reads to herself, many of my remedial students do that. Sight words and other whole language (currently renamed balanced literacy) practices lead to that for a percentage of students, generally around 30 to 40 percent.

 

The key to fixing the problem is nonsense words and spelling, I find a mix of oral and written spelling works best.

 

I have my remedial students watch my free online lessons (linked below) while taking them through the Program on my how to tutor page.

 

There are nonsense words in my lessons and in my concentration game.

 

I follow that up with Webster's Speller, which teaches phonics to the 12th grade level.

[KinderSafari]

I will be forwarding them the info!

 

They have researched this for YEARS and it has been so hard to narrow down what the problem is, especially when she is SOOOO good with spelling. There just seem to be missing holes.

 

Her mom realized she just couldn't continue on because reading is absolutely foundational for every subject and she's getting further and further behind and thinking she's very dumb.

 

She has probably been tested for different reading and learning problems 10x in the last 5 years and they've never given them any answer other than "she's definitely struggling with something". How UNHELPFUL is that??

 

Then they'll give her some general ideas of things to do which they've tried, but nothing seems to be the "golden answer".

 

Thankfully, they are willing to keep trying and persevere!

 

I don't know why I didn't think of posting here before, I know you guys have excellent resources! Keep responding if you have any more!

 

Thanks!

Jennifer

[choirfarm]

Has she had a vision test... where they hook up electrodes and show where her eyes go and other tests like that. My daughter could spell the word cat or hat or whatever. If I flased a word at her she could read it, but give her a sentence and she would get completely lost. It turns out she would start in the middle of a word, her left to right skills were terrible as well as some other processing issues. So yes, it took all of her skills to figure out each word and by the time she reached the end of the sentence, she had no idea what the sentences said!!! She loved for me to read to her, but couldn't read herself. After a year and a half of vision therapy she is a totally different child!!

 

She would lose her place easily. With violin I had to point to the notes or she couldn't follow them at all. She would reread the same sentence and things like that. It was probably the end of 2nd grade before she quit reversing certain letters and numbers.

 

Christine

Edited September 29, 2010 by choirfarm

[wapiti]

My dd is like this. She has trouble with comprehension, yet her spelling (and her word attack skills, when she stops long enough to use them!) are excellent. She is very bright, but, she has a language processing disorder, and sees a language therapist. (She also has a history of speech delay, sensory issues and vision therapy for eye tracking issues. She is very much a visual learner.)

 

They work on comprehension - primarily visualizing and making inferences. (I can't overemphasize that.) That is what I would work on, as well as learning vocabulary.

 

A couple of books:

 

Reading is Seeing, by Wilhelm http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Seeing-Jeffrey-D-Wilhelm/dp/0439303095/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285778579&sr=1-1 **this is the better book of these two** so if they only look at one, this would be the book. It might be available at the library.

 

Strategies That Work, by Harvey http://www.amazon.com/Strategies-That-Work-Comprehension-Understanding/dp/157110481X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285778605&sr=1-1 (I bought the older version of this book)

 

We found out about this problem after doing IQ testing, etc. If they are interested in looking at outside help, the person to see would be a speech and language therapist. It seems like many speech and language therapists do only the speech part, or focus on younger kids. Look for one who deals with school-age kids and works on reading comprehension.

 

ETA:

Seems to be the processing her brain uses to focus on the reading/putting the letters together takes up so much effort, she doesn't get the comprehension.

Yes, this is my dd!

 

My dd also has slow-ish processing speed (around 25th percentile), so if she's being read to, by the time she figures out what the first half of the sentence/paragraph/passage said, she missed hearing the second half. (Trust me, as her mother, this can be very annoying, and I often forget about this issue. She is not the only child in the family with that problem :glare:.)

Edited September 29, 2010 by wapiti