What is the best way to develop reading comprehension

[Hikin' Mama]

for a dyslexic student?

 

Thank you!

[merry gardens]

There can are a few sources of reading comprehension problems in dyslexic students. They can exist alone or in combination with each other.

 

1) Inaccurate de-coding. (Misreading words.)

 

2) Very slow de-coding that disrupts the fluency of the story. If they child has to sound out e v er y s i n g l e l e tt e r in every single w or d, and especially if it includes a lot of trial and error, that disrupts the comprehension process.

 

3) Problem with vocabulary. Failure to understand the meaning behind the words read.

 

4) Integrating all of this together in the brain to grasp the main points and ideas.

 

Comprehension requires that the child be able to de-code the words, understand the words and form an accurate picture in the mind of what those words mean when put altogether. De-coding usually presents the greatest challenge to a dyslexic child. Once de-coding is resolved, there may still be other problems with reading comprehension.

[merry gardens]

Silly me. I didn't answer your question. Talk about reading comprehension problems....:lol:

 

Make sure the child knows how to de-code words accurately. I've tried other methods unsuccessfuly and now use an Orton-Gillingham based program. (Before even that comes sound. The child needs to accurately hear and detect the difference in the different phonic sounds. If phonemic processing is a problem, that also needs to be addressed. That's often an underlying problem for people with dyslexia.)

 

Once the child can de-code, build fluency. That comes with exposure to reading, but some programs like Seeing Stars, works to build fluency through repeated exposure to them. The old Dolche "sight" words list teach towards fluency, but I certainly don't recommend using only sight words with a dyslexic child who does not know how to accurately decode.

 

Along with all of that, build the child's vocabulary. That might even require teaching some basic words that you expect the child to know. It might not. But if the child is having a problem with reading comprehension, make sure they know what the words they are reading mean.

 

Last of all, help them grasp and build the "big picture". There are programs developed specifically to help a child build mental pictures while they read.

[rafiki]

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[ElizabethB]

Most of my students do fine once they improved their decoding accuracy. The Dad of one of my students read so slow he had to take notes while reading or he would forget what was going on.

 

I like Parker's readers for improving reading skills while building vocabulary, the stories get progressively harder and the difficult words are defined and diacritically marked.

 

For combined spelling and vocab work, I like Marcia Henry's Words.

 

You can pick up the actual original Parker Readers through abe books or Alibris, I have them linked free online at Google at the end of my Webster page. (Webster Speller link below.)

[merry gardens]

See this is what I'm currently pondering. I want to use Idea Chain, but think ds would benefit from Vanilla Vocabulary first. Or could they be used together?

 

It's confusing because he tells me he sees in pictures, even when spelling, he'll look up and picture the word, then try to write each shape. So you would think that would help with comprehension. However, he tells me when he doesn't know what a word means, is, or can't pronounce it, he makes up a new word in it's place - which is likely why his story line comes out a bit different from the original. He often will also say he has trouble coming up with the right word, but can "see it". It sounds like it's in there, but more of a rapid retrieval issue?

Vanilla Vocabulary can be used along with IdeaChain. Vanilla Vocabulary is a thick book and it takes a long time to go through the whole thing, and there are two volumes. You'd probably be finished with IdeaChain long before finishing Vanilla Vocabulary.

 

The next bolded part sounds like your son forms a mental picture but forms the wrong mental picture. Guessing at words is fairly common for people with dyslexia. It usually stems from problems with de-coding. They guess at a word by saying another word that might start with (or end with or somewhere contain) the same letters. A vocabulary that's below the level of the reading material can cause it too. Often it can be both vocabulary and de-coding problems. It sounds like your son has developed the habit of not understanding what he reads, and that might be a tough habit to break.

 

I suggest starting by double checking his de-coding skills and remediating that first. It likely means having to go back to the beginning to find exactly what little bits and pieces of de-coding give him problems and teach him those.

 

If you want, you can do IdeaChain and Vanilla Vocabulary while also doing separate de-coding lessons at different times of the day. I do Bartons daily to build de-coding, then later in the day we do IdeaChain for comprehension with my children together as a group. For my severely dyslexic son, I supplement in Lindamood-Bell materials too. Right now for he's doing their "Catch a Star workbooks", (explains and uses small, high frequency words and as we go through the word he's done previously, it builds fluency.) Last winter we went through part of Vanilla Vocabulary together as a group. (We did it outloud instead of writing in the book.) Whenever my severely dyslexic son reads to me, as he reads I make sure he's clear about the meaning of the words. I clarify any word that I think may cause confussion, and I always ask him to summarize what he's read. That's what I'm doing. I'm not an expert---I'm just a homeschooling mom whose trying to teach my severely dyslexic son to read.

[rafiki]

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[Paisley Hedgehog]

nm

[rafiki]

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[Hikin' Mama]

We continue to work through Barton to help with decoding. She still struggles with some multisyllable words. (We also went through REWARDS last year, which helped some).

 

I will look into the resources you all have listed above.

 

I so appreciate the help I receive here!

[Laurie4b]

The one I would add to this is problems with working memory . A child with dyslexia doesn't necessarily have working memory problems; however, working memory problems are the primary cause of difficulty with reading comprehension. Dyslexia does tax working memory because of the decoding/fluency problems. Once a dyslexic reader is fluent, however, s/he shouldn't have problems with comprehension unless there is something else going on as well (like working memory deficits.)

[wapiti]

I'm not sure how much this suggestion will apply to a dyslexic, but my dd has trouble with reading comprehension. She has a language processing problem and sees a language therapist (as in, a speech and language therapist who works on comprehension). Strategies include teaching her to visualize as she's reading, and teaching her how to make inferences.

 

I liked a book called Reading is Seeing, by Wilhelm. http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Seeing-Jeffrey-D-Wilhelm/dp/0439303095/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1285959262&sr=8-1

[merry gardens]

We continue to work through Barton to help with decoding. She still struggles with some multisyllable words. (We also went through REWARDS last year' date=' which helped some).

 

I will look into the resources you all have listed above.

 

I so appreciate the help I receive here![/quote']

Have you seen the fluency drills on the Barton's website tutor support? I'm doing those with my son at the recommendation of the Bartons staff when I called to discuss a problem my son was having. They're helpful. The tutor support gives suggestions on various ways to do those drills. It's not "drill and kill". His reading time on words that fit in with the previous lessons is very slowly improving. (So slow that if I wasn't recording his reading time, I'd be discouraged at the lack of progress.) But slow progress is still progress!