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What interventions have helped the most with Reading Comprehension?


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I would like to take an informal poll of what interventions that you have tried that have helped your learning challenged child with reading comprehesnion.  It would be helpful to know the sex and age of the child, the diagnosis of the child, the name of the intervention, the type of intervention, how long you did the intervention, and the overall effect (none//mild/moderate/high), including any grade level changes in comprehension.

 

So for an example:

 

Boy, age 11, moderate autism, Lindamoodbell Visualizing and Verbalizing, intensive one on one in a center, 6 months, moderate gains, i.e. 1 year grade level improvement in comprehension.

 

Then feel free to give a brief description of the changes you saw, if any.

 

With so many of us struggling with this issue, it would be helpful to see if anyone has hit upon some effective interventions.

 

Thanks!

 

Beth

 

 

P.S.

 

(I have not done Lindamood Bell, so this is just for example purposes only)

 

Feel free to include curricula, therapeutic interventions, behavioral interventions, specific teaching strategies; software, basically any intervention you have used to specifically target reading comprehension in learning disabled students.

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My dtr received help from a  reading specialist in  public school. They used V&V and exercises based on Bloom's Taxonomy. My daughter is now 1 grade level below in total reading. Her goals for next year is to work more on inferences.

 

 

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For my ds who is 9 and has ASD we have found visualize and verbalize very helpful along with the hyperlexia kit level 2 from linguisystems. Ds doesn't have hyperlexia, but the scaffolding provided in the hyperlexia kit and the way the program is structured allowed me to see where he was breaking down in his understanding and which strategy helped him

 

For us, I think the biggest help has been helping ds with his social thinking, the gains he has made with that have allowed for some of his biggest gains in reading comprehension. We have done lots of work on inferencing with his slp and with various things I bought from super duper and linguisystems.

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Thanks to those that responded.  There are a lot of hits on this thread but few responses.....hmmmm......says there is a lot of interest but few solutions.

 

Has anyone used SRA Corrective Reading Comprehension series?   It seems to have some research behind it in autism. 

 

http://www.daddcec.org/Portals/0/CEC/Autism_Disabilities/Research/Publications/Education_Training_Development_Disabilities/ETADD_48%281%29_41-48.pdf

 

 

 

What about anaphoric curing?  Another research based strategy.

http://monkeyreader.com/article_autism_comp.html

 

 

Has anyone read and implemented the strategies int he book by Emily Iland Drawing a Blank: Improving Comprehension for Readers on the Autism Spectrum

http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Blank-Improving-Comprehension-Spectrum/dp/1934575771

 

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Two kids diagnosed with dyslexia.  DD is 13 and we are using Barton Reading and Spelling to remediate her poor fluency and decoding skills.  She was in a brick and mortar with no accomodations and no assessment until 5th grade.  She was maintaining an A/B average but only because I bought every single textbook and retaught nearly everything at home after school, on weekends and during the summers.  She was barely reading at a 2nd grade level at the end of 5th grade and only with great difficulty.  Books like Magic Tree House were just beyond her because of length and the effort it would take her to decode.  When being read to, she would frequently forget or not fully understand what was happening in the story unless I explained things to her.  Comprehension tests were hit or miss.  

 

After starting her on Barton and my realizing she needed me to read to her slowly, comprehension started to improve.  Barton really swung things around for her with spelling, reading and writing, which gave her more confidence to read more on her own, which in turn gave her more exposure to vocabulary and concepts which improved her reading comprehension skills.    Being read TO, I still have to slow down my reading speed and reemphasize certain words and phrases or she just doesn't catch everything.  No hearing issues, but low working memory, poor word retrieval, low processing speed etc.  Also, because she was so far behind in reading skills for so many years and we didn't realize she wasn't understanding a lot of spoken words she missed out on a lot of vocabulary and concept exposure that we are trying to make up for now by doing a lot more reading together, a lot more independent reading, some Wordly Wise activities and watching videos with closed captioning turned on.   Audio books do not work well for her without a text component that includes highlighting of the words being read.  Now that she is able to read more independently, though, reading comprehension is really improving.  I guess just being able to SEE the words as she reads silently is giving her a better connection to what is happening on the page.  

 

DS never had issues with reading comprehension when being read TO (made perfect scores on most of his reading comprehension tests in school but he was good at getting people to read things to him so he wasn't actually reading independently), but is still behind DD on reading independently from a fluency and decoding standpoint so it is hard to judge what comprehension issues there may be for independent silent reading.  He just isn't doing much of that yet.  I am not pushing it while he is doing Vision Therapy and has other issues we are working through.

 

Not sure I covered all that you asked about, but I am out of time.  Best wishes...

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My DS is a 2e dyslexic and not Aspie.  We used a Wilson tutor from 2nd to 6th grade.   For reading comp, he used to take picture notes.  As he read a story, he would stop and draw pictures in the margins.  The notes enabled him to narrate back what he read. He's studied roots/affixes and vocab since about 3rd grade.  He reads very well now but prefers to listen and read at the same time using his kindle or books on tape.  He's also made dioramas and poster type projects for story elements.  In 6th grade, I taught how to textmap and write full sentence and topical outlines.  He is currently in 8th grade.  For notes and reading assignments, we also use story charts and create them with Inspiration software.  I've used no formal program to increase reading comprehension.  

 

ETA:  The SRA Correcting and Thinking materials look good, but I have no experience with it.  The very nature of our kids reading comprehension difficulties are opposite one another.  

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The Hyperlexia kit did use anaphoric cuing/pronoun referent strategy that was extermely helpful for ds.

 

I didn't really find the Drawing a Blank book that helpful, although I am now drawing a blank as to why, lol. It was a few years ago that I read it, but I don't recall really changing anything I was doing based on my reading of that book.

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My 5-year-old is using SRA Reading Mastery.  It seems good for him.  It is not the only reading or pre-reading thing he is doing, but it is one of them.  Right now he is at "say it fast" where he is just starting to blend, and he can say two syllables together -- he is a little past that, into sounds.

 

So --- he is a very beginner.  But it is going well for him. 

 

I think it includes comprehension but really basic.... like describe a very easy picture, or answer a question about a sentence. 

 

So -- a lot lower level than I think you are looking for -- but it is an SRA program. 

 

The good thing about it for him -- it is very explicit and direct instruction, that is good for him right now.  He is doing well.  But most of it is like --- point at "m" and he says "mmmmm." 

 

So maybe not that helpful, lol.

 

I have appreciated seeing the other materials mentioned, thanks. 

 

(I think he has a goal right now to read a story with a picture, with 8 sentences, and be able to answer questions about it ---- just factual questions, or inferring at the level of ---- there is a fire, and it is not spelled out "the problem is that there is a fire," but wanting him to say "the problem is there was a fire."  That is difficult for him right now but he is making progress.  He is also doing "what's wrong with this picture" type things where the problem is "the boy got dirty" or "the cup is broken."  He is getting better at those -- but that is hard -- but I am told that is a building block for comprehension for him, too. )

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Can one be autistic and dyslexic? Are the teaching methods similar for an autistic and dyslexic? 

 

Just curious....

 

My 19yrs old was diagnosed both on the spectrum and dyslexic...all I know it was really hard to educate him and he fought me tooth and nail. I ended up sending him to school thinking the professionals would do better...well he is flunking out of high school right now. So much for the professionals ....plus they won;t give him any services. 

 

Now I wonder if my daughter might have the same issue but since she is girl it might be harder to dx spectrum behavior. 

 

 

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My son with autism tends to be more hyperlexic. He can decode and read well above his comprehension level.

One of the researched methods proven effective for remediating comprehension isdues in autism is anaphoric cueing. My son can figure out the easier levels of pronoun referents but sentences like: "Father gave his car to his friend whose had lost his job" really throws him. That is why fictional narratives are so much more difficult for my son than fact based literature. They use so many more pronouns. Even in a sentence like: 'Bobby said to me "You are my best friend"', really throw him. The pronoun "you" when referring to the object can be really confusing.

Here is a link that explains anaphoric cueing a bit more. I like the teachers nice slow pace with the visual cues. It is an easier level than my son needs, but her method is perfect.

http://healthy-family.org/improve-reading-comprehension-problems-autism-kids/

Beth

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