Need a kick in the pants on immersion reading

[Pen]

Can he draw or act out a little skit related to material?  He may be more visually or kinesthetic .   I think Critical Thinking Company has some comprehension material with pictures. Some of the HighNoon workbooks that go with hi/lo readers do too.  

[Lecka]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892026/

We have talked about this study before.  I see more every time I go back to it.  

[kbutton]

1 hour ago, Lecka said:

The thing is -- if he is not independently able to give an expressive language answer to comprehension questions (especially broader ones), then ------ there is probably some breakdown.  There is probably some breakdown in "putting it into words," getting a clear thought.  Okay -- there are tons of ways to support this.  

But what is the structure of this entire thought process we want kids to have as they read, in which *they are acting as their own comprehension worksheet.*  It isn't enough to be able to answer questions.  You have to be able to ask your own questions and then answer your own questions.  To the extent that -- this is needed to be comprehending what is read. 

It is a pretty big thing but it is possible to support it and support it.  

Every time you state something in a different way, I see more parts that are applicable. My to do list goes up. Thanks, lol! 😉 

Seriously, I have thought about the asking questions internally and monitoring for understanding internally, but I hadn't really gone so far as to think, "acting as their own comprehension worksheet." I like that even though I'm not sure we're there yet.

On the other hand, all that monitoring goes back to not only reading, but lots of things in life. I think it's a great life skill--being in conversations where things don't add up and recognizing that something is "off" is basically this skill also. I've recently spent time with people who don't do this (and they are not on the spectrum--just ADHD), and it makes for some frustrating conversations, particularly when important information needs to be exchanged both directions! I just had a conversation where I asked a clear question (that I didn't know the answer to), and the person who answered it looked at the store of facts they had in their head and chose to offer five-ish obliquely relevant facts that didn't answer the question, while leaving out the actual concrete, quantifiable, clear-cut, direct answer as if it was not relevant at all. It was not a pleasant conversation! So many words and so much time down the drain instead of just...answering. It's like they just toss out the information, and the receiver (who doesn't know the answer) has to figure out what parts and pieces are relevant and figure out if the answer is accurate, not accurate, or somewhere in-between. 

 

 

[kbutton]

2 hours ago, PeterPan said:

I heard/read somewhere the Mosdos is really emotional, which is why I was shying away from it.

That is probably true. I hadn't thought about that. 

2 hours ago, PeterPan said:

And my *assumption* has been these pieces would go together, the narrative comprehension and the reading comprehension. Like they sound the same when you think about it. That was my idea, that they'll go up together.

I think they do, though I'll be honest in that I don't think it's obvious they do. I find much of it counterintuitive, lol! I can see it better now that we're getting some traction in those things crossing over and because it's been discussed so much among all of us.

I do understand about subtle too, though the areas where you have subtle issues may or may not be the same as ours. But it's weird what works and what doesn't sometimes! Or what you think works, and then you find out otherwise, lol! 

That's great news about the expression! 

2 hours ago, PeterPan said:

He was reading aloud last night to dh a book about the Green Berets, and his expression actually blew my mind. Maybe music therapy has been really good for that? The monotone is gone and his voice was going up and down and actually sounded really nice! I was flabbergasted. He does stumble some, but he got through one book and was willing to keep going to another with popcorn reading that way.

[PeterPan]

1 hour ago, kbutton said:

I think they do, though I'll be honest in that I don't think it's obvious they do.

I think there's a weakness in how the people being the narrative interventions are explaining the necessity for them. They're saying it, but what they're saying sounds so vague and like it's promising the moon (sorta like the Social Thinking is the key for all academics stuff) that you don't really get it. But yeah, after a while, you realize it's tight, that they were intertwined.

Well this is hilarious. So ds is reading a Let's Read and Find Out level 2 book today about snakes, and he gets really upset saying that poison is not venom. I dig in, and turns out he had stumbled on two sentences in a row that both used appositives! So I thought that was fabulous and so much better than textbook reading, because we're getting more complex syntax. Love it. So we had this chat about appositives and I complimented him for monitoring his comprehension and realizing that what he had read and the way he had understood it DIDN'T MAKE SENSE! 

And, just as a total aside, audiobooks and the relentless push can turn off maybe some of that comprehension monitoring. He's naturally pausing, talking to the book out loud, interacting, asking questions, saying no that doesn't work, etc. So it might almost be that using audio would undermine that, hmm. And he's plenty fast. He read that entire book in maybe 3 minutes, nothing noticeably long or uncomfortable. He was tired afterwards, needing a little break, but he was fine.

3 hours ago, Pen said:

Can he draw or act out a little skit related to material?  He may be more visually or kinesthetic .   I think Critical Thinking Company has some comprehension material with pictures. Some of the HighNoon workbooks that go with hi/lo readers do too.  

Interesting question! When we were doing the expository work this week he definitely was acting it out. It was just very natural to do that, using gestures to remind us of the details and actually acting out the sequence of the steps. We were reading about ostriches, haha, so you can just imagine how that looked, lol. I went to a session at OCALI on using legos for academics but I haven't really done anything with it yet. I have stuff, just haven't done it. I think it would be better for digging in on a fiction book where you build each chapter as you go. I haven't been doing that for our Little House, but it would be good for a book that he's actually reading, yes. 

Hmm, I'll have to go look for those CTC books. Yeah, I got some of the workbooks to go with the High Noon stuff. It wasn't clicking and I don't remember why. We did some. I think just in generally probably his comprehension or engagement or both are higher with picture books rather than chapter style books. So even if the decoding level is higher and the syntax is more complex, he's just doing better with pictures. I have him describing things as a game (Telepaths) and he's doing better starting from pictures than print words. Oh, you know what that means... That means he's visualizing it when he gets it as auditory input but he's NOT necessarily visualizing when he's reading the words. Hello. Occasionally I'm dumb.

I mean, maybe not, but that's sure what it sounds like. That's ok. We're working on it daily now and we can work through the pictures and move into words. I can have him pause and make a mental picture and try to get there. Yeah that's a total oversight on my part that I've developed visualization with listening but possibly not with eye reading. Oops.

2 hours ago, Lecka said:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892026/

We have talked about this study before.  I see more every time I go back to it.  

There's an interesting little comment about getting the comprehension of written to be as high as oral.

[PeterPan]

3 hours ago, Lecka said:

 

I think -- right now, you looked at the tpt book companions, and thought, "he can do this independently."  I have looked at a lot of her book companions, and she has a mix of direct questions, critical thinking questions, and story structure questions.  It does have things with sequencing.  It does have things with talking about setting and character.  

I think it might let you gain some insight into where he might be having a breakdown in comprehension.  You can see if there are breakdowns in comprehension along these lines.

It is pretty opaque when you see a child and all you know is "he isn't choosing to read indepedently."  

One possibility is definitely that there could be a breakdown in comprehension.  Where?  Well that is hard to magically know, because it's not like kids are aware and can point it out, because that is part of the problem with a comprehension breakdown, that they aren't even sure what the breakdown is.  They just know it is frustrating or boring, they aren't getting a lot out of it, it's not engaging, etc.  

So my thought process for Magic Tree House is:  if you have done story structure kinds of things with story books, have you done them with MTH?  Do you know the skills are applying to the longer books that have more complexity?  This is something that might need to be scaffolded.  

And then, are you scaffolding trying to get HIM to GENERATE QUESTIONS when you are working with him?  This is a big thing to work on.  If you are saying, YOU are acting as the comprehension worksheet, it part of that because he is not generating questions?  Or, he is generating observations (like -- "I think this will happen next") without you prompting him to ask/answer that question?

I am seeing this as a huge need.  There are a lot of ideas for how to prompt kids to generate their own questions.  Yes this is still prompted so they aren't generating their own questions lololol.  But if they are needing to be taught to pause and generate questions/thoughts as they read, then this can be its own process.  

The story companions are also a prompt to think and answer questions.  

Now ------ for many kids, they will have this as a support and gradually they will see this MODELED and then they will ADOPT this process INDEPENDENTLY.  

But if you have a child who needs direct instruction to adopt any thinking process, then one that has to be *MORE THAN MODELED BECAUSE MODELING ISN'T GOING TO BE ENOUGH" is generating questions.  

These are how kids tie things together, think of how the plot is going, think about how the characters are getting along, is something expected or unexpected, etc.  

And ------ if your son is reading quickly, he may not be used to stopping to generate and self-answer those questions.  

Well I think the most important thing to come of this thread/conversation is the idea that working on comprehension is likely to do more for helping him continue to read and to improve engagement with reading than simply requiring bulk. I definitely agree with that.

I've got a lot of leads now, because those TPT guides are good, the new LitWits guides are good, etc. So lots of different things at different levels. And I've got good things going with what I'm already doing with him (narrative language work, reading aloud 3-6 chapters a day of Little House and discussing, language work, etc.).

Oh this is hilarious. I just searched for the lexile on the book he read today, and I popped it into the Lexile Find a Book thing, limiting to books about animals, and got TONS of great recs, oh my. 

[Pen]

37 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

mprehension or engagement or both are higher with picture books rather than chapter style books. So even if the decoding level is higher

 

We had some great illustrated books — Not immersion, but where the pictures and text worked well together.  Can you remind me your son’s age/interests and if any I can recall that I think might be a fit, I can let you know.  

One that we still have is The Weather POP-up Book by Francis Wilson Illustrated by Philip Jacobs   Little Simon  1987 — (it went through several dc and may do more in future), has survived all book purges and sparks joy a la Konmari.  

There was another favorite we may also still have that was about simple machines and had gears and inclined planes etc built in to the book...

There was a big book, illustrated, of science perhaps Random House ? that I don’t see, but which had lots of pictures and some text that ds like from around age 6-12 ish.  

Another long time keeper illustrated book for us  is: 

In the Beginning...The nearly complete history of almost everything   by Brian Delf and Richard Platt.   DK  c 1995

Edited March 1, 2019 by Pen

[PeterPan]

Pen, thanks! I just put so many on hold my library card is groaning. I think this is a good plan. If I bulk him up with a basket of books that are all the right lexile level, it should give me the effect I wanted. I think he's finally there. And I limited the lexile search to animals, because that was working with what I handed him. But for his books that he picks out at the library, he'll probably go with military, that kind of thing, lol. Reading about other topics is just a concession, lol.

[Pen]

Military related there was a Smithsonian book ds had from library for awhile and loved,  showing all sorts of weapons etc, from olden time’s to high tech modern, with limited text...  Boy stuff ! 

[Lecka]

The comprehension monitoring he is doing sounds great.  Definitely encourage it.  

[Lecka]

Also — on the with a picture/without a picture issue..... I have had it explained to me that when they look at a picture (or any visual) then they don’t have to hold that information in their mind, they are describing what they see.  

Then without a picture, you are adding the task of thinking of the thing, and remembering it, while adding the task of expressive language.

It is a higher demand.  

We have done a lot with describing a place we have been.  It’s much easier to describe a place while you are there, and harder to remember it and describe it when you are not there.  

It is just a higher demand.  

Using a visual is almost always going to be a prompt, and a picture prompt may be easier than a written prompt (I think this could depend on the situation).  

So I think this can be another thing to think of as a level of support or a level of prompting.  

With Verbal Behavior anything you can see or anything with any kind of a visual prompt is considered a tact because you can see it and it makes it easier.  

For my son we expect him to be at a higher level with any kind of visual or environmental prompt, because it requires less from him.  

But that means he can work/practice at a higher level, too, which is good.  But it’s good to be aware that it is a significant support for him and he will have more difficulty without those kinds of support.  

[PeterPan]

On February 26, 2019 at 7:55 PM, FairProspects said:

My oldest speeds up the audio significantly; my youngest does not yet. However, simply using immersion reading and making the sight/sound connection with grade level or above grade level text has dramatically increased my youngest's reading level.

Remind me, what tech are you using for this? You're using audible? Something else?

On February 27, 2019 at 9:39 AM, Heathermomster said:

When DS was 5th grade, he was using TTS and LearningAlly with the following books: Phantom Tollbooth, The Indian in the Cupboard, the Alex Rider series, The Hobbit, Bridge to Terabithia, Hank the Cowdog,  Mark Twain, and Alice in Wonderland.

So with TTS that's computer voice. I've got VoiceDream, but that really messes up ds, makes him zone out, leaves him a mess. I need a nice human. So can Learning Ally do immersion? I had somehow forgotten that. 

The IS we had out for our portfolio review was saying to try immersion reading again. Thought I'd give it a whirl again, see what happens. You never know, lol. If I were really smart I'd just get some interesting textbook.

[Heathermomster]

1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

Remind me, what tech are you using for this? You're using audible? Something else?

So with TTS that's computer voice. I've got VoiceDream, but that really messes up ds, makes him zone out, leaves him a mess. I need a nice human. So can Learning Ally do immersion? I had somehow forgotten that. 

The IS we had out for our portfolio review was saying to try immersion reading again. Thought I'd give it a whirl again, see what happens. You never know, lol. If I were really smart I'd just get some interesting textbook.

We built up to immersion reading.  In 5th grade, DS was listening to LA and holding an actual book and reading along with the audio.  After that step and around 7th, DS used to enable the TTS function for his kindle ebooks with his Kindle Touch.  The VoiceDream app usage started in high school when I applied for the free Bookshare account and quit paying  $120 a year for Learning Ally subscription.

[PeterPan]

1 hour ago, Heathermomster said:

We built up to immersion reading.  

Ok I hadn't thought through it this way. So to your ds reading with the audio + physical book was easier or lower stress than audio + highlighted etext? Interesting. Makes sense, because he could choose not to read along if he wants, sorta lower pressure. And that would be easier to manage right now. I'm sort of overwhelmed by the thought of trying to make happen a lot of paired (audio + ebook) right now. Audio plus physical book is much easier, because the things I already have access to work for that. 

I do think I want to get him a science book with reading. That could be really interesting if it were the right one.

[PeterPan]

Ok, things are clicking for me. I think Heathermomster is right to start with physical books plus audio, and I think I should start SHORT and with NON-FICTION. So I was snooping on audible and turns out there is a Sibert Informational Book award 

http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/sibertmedal  this year's

http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/sibertmedal/sibertpast/sibertmedalpast  pas winners

And some of these have audio options. Basically I'm just taking what we're already doing as picture books and making it more independent with audio. It's an even slide, not a lot of big steps.

BARD is down tonight, so I can't confirm this will work. But if they have the audiobooks, then this could work out very well. And the Sibert has both winners and honor books, so I should be able to find plenty. Now I'm kinda psyched! That site (american library association) has other awards too, hmm. I haven't heard of them, but i've been trying to figure out how teachers keep in the loop on new, great stuff. I'm on a picture book a day group and they come up with all kinds of books I had never heard of...

[PeterPan]

Just as an aside, this looks promising as another way to find books http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/notalists/ncb  It's a Children's Notable books list.

[Heathermomster]

1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

Ok I hadn't thought through it this way. So to your ds reading with the audio + physical book was easier or lower stress than audio + highlighted etext? Interesting. Makes sense, because he could choose not to read along if he wants, sorta lower pressure. And that would be easier to manage right now. I'm sort of overwhelmed by the thought of trying to make happen a lot of paired (audio + ebook) right now. Audio plus physical book is much easier, because the things I already have access to work for that. 

I do think I want to get him a science book with reading. That could be really interesting if it were the right one.

I’d like to say that we had our act together 8+ years ago, but that would be untrue.  DS initially used LA with text books because he was sitting in a classroom and required to answer questions for history and science.  Immersion tech with Amazon Kindle and Voice Dream technology was developed after DS was already using audio with text books.  I don’t know whether using text with audio was lower stress.  We were simply doing the best with what we had.  Ultimately, I suggest you play around and do what is best for your situation.

[PeterPan]

1 hour ago, Heathermomster said:

We were simply doing the best with what we had.

Oh duh, you're right! See what a difference just a few years makes, that I've lost all perspective about the newness of this tech!! But you're right, makes sense.

Well I think I'm on track now, because I think I need to take what we were already doing successfully and do it with just a little change. I can't go from doing picture books as read alouds to handing him a chapter book with audio and immersion. That's what my silly brain was thinking, lol. But I think a lateral slide will get us there.

Also I was reading more today from this book that I REALLY LIKE,                                             What Really Matters for Struggling Readers: Designing Research-Based Programs (3rd Edition) (What Really Matters Series)                                       Actually I'm reading the 2nd edition from the library. But really, this book is SO inspiring. He talks about having whole day plans and the idea that we need to give them the EXPERIENCE of reading the book, not just snippets. And he's so right, like if ds is going to do this with audios he needs it to be a satisfying, complete process and needs large chunks. So I was realizing I need to look at the lengths of the audiobooks to make sure he's getting enough time to have the experience we want, not just ticking a box in a perfunctory way. And that's when I realized we can work up to it, duh. 

See, I'm a slow learner, lol. 

[1shortmomto4]

I was doing a search for something else on the big www and this thread came up - and I meant to respond earlier - look at Readers in Residence.