Four Easy Reading/Writing Tips

Here are some common reading and writing problems and ways to work on them.  The first two have to do with individual words, the last two with longer passages:

1) When a student reads aloud, he misreads words, substituting similar words, such as "medical" for "mechanical."  Note how the words begin and end the same way-- the brain is tempted to fill in the middle with a word it already knows, especially if the actual word on the page is unfamiliar.   The brain must be trained to look at the middle part, too.

The best way to do this is to have the student divide the word into syllables.  This can be done on paper, underlining or drawing lines on the printed word:  me/chan/i/cal.  (Note: this is a good time to remind the student that ch can represent three sounds: Chocolate, Christmas, and Charlotte.) Using 3-D manipulative letters or tiles is especially helpful, because they move freely and the student can put the word together and apart easily.  Even letters written on small squares of paper can be used.  Alternatively, the word can be written whole and cut up into syllables.  The important thing is that the student becomes so adept at breaking up the word physically that he begins to see the words that way, and breaks them up mentally without thinking.

2) When a student has to spell a long or difficult word,  he may put in the wrong letters, or can't remember which letters are correct.  Have him look at the word syllable by syllable. Practice with 3-D letters as explained above.

Careful correct pronunciation, or over-pronunciation, can be helpful in distinguishing which vowels to use.  For example, "ridiculous" is easier to spell if you pronounce it as rid-ih-cu-lus  instead of ree- dic-you-luss."  “Difficult” is easier to spell if you say diff-ih-cult and not diff-uh-cult.

If a word is particularly tricky,  mentally mispronouncing the word (phonetically) on purpose can help her remember how it is spelled.  For instance, say "deter + MINE"  instead of "deter + men."  "Rendezvous" is easy to remember if you say it in your head as "rehn" "dez" "voos"  instead of "ron" "day" "voo."  "Perseverance" is easier to spell "per + sev + er + ance "  but be careful not to say “enss” at the end. 

The preceding tips were for single-word errors; now, let's look at a couple of common problems students have when reading paragraphs or articles:

3) When a student is called upon to determine the main idea, or central idea, of a passage he is reading, he chooses a sub-point from the passage instead.  The task is harder than it sounds, especially while the brain is still developing abstract thought.  Students must not only read and comprehend the information, but they must mentally sort supporting details from over-riding themes.

To practice this, have students start with easy part-whole exercises, such as "Parts of a house"  "roof" "wall" "window" "door" "foundation."  If you have two identical pictures of a house, and cut one up, the student gets the idea quickly.  Put the whole house picture at the top of the desk, and line the parts up below it.  The idea is for the student to see that the "main idea" includes all of the supporting details.  And each supporting detail is a part of the main idea.

Similarly, you could use "parts of an ice cream sundae" "ice cream" "chocolate sauce" "whipped cream" "nuts" "cherry,"  or "animals on the farm" "cow" "horse" "pig" "goat" "chicken."  Then move on to words instead of pictures.

Finally,  give your student a set of several entire sentences instead of words-- cut them into sentence strips and have your child find the one which works best as the main idea.  Can you pick the main idea from this set?

• Tortoises and lizards, spiders and scorpions are desert inhabitants.
• Many animals make their home in the desert.
• The javelina, or peccary, enjoys the cactus fruit in late summer.
• Jack rabbits hide among the prickly pear.
• Snakes of many kinds roam the desert floor and sun themselves on rocks.
• Coyotes roam the desert in search of prey.

(You picked the second one, right?)  

If your student has trouble sorting the sentences, have her underline 3-4 key words from each sentence.  This will help her focus on what each sentence is about.  In this way, she can see that of the sentences above, most are about individual desert animals.  Only one has the general "many animals" as its topic; this is the main idea that all the other more specific sentences fall into.  Some students will need a lot of practice with this skill.

If the student is supposed to come up with the main idea on his own, or choose between a few given possibilities,  have him write facts from the passage on sticky notes.  Write possible "main idea" choices on a white board.  See which main idea choice can have all facts fit underneath it.

Writing a cohesive paragraph requires the same understanding of main idea and supporting details. The only difference is that the student has to decide what details to include in order to support his main idea.  So when your child can easily distinguish between main idea and supporting details, try giving him a set of main idea and supporting details with an added red herring-- an off-topic detail for him to identify and discard.  For example, in the list above,  an off-topic detail would be, "Dolphins prefer the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean."  When he can find one, try giving him a set with more than one discardable detail.  This will help him when he looks at his own writing.  At that point, writing his thoughts on a graphic organizer such as one of these might help him develop his paragraph(s).

4) A student comprehends what he reads, but can't skim for information that he needs quickly.  He doesn't change his reading speed whether he is reading for pleasure or for information.  While most students have been taught to read through the questions on an assignment so they'll know what to look for in the text, they often don't realize that reading every word of the text is not always the best means of then finding that information. Sometimes they just need to know a certain fact.  So they need to be able to focus their search logically.  For example, if a student is looking through a passage for the answer to "How far is the earth from the sun?" ask her what are the most important words in the question.  How far, earth, sun.  What words might be in the answer?  Earth, sun, and some number. 

When the student understands that she is looking for a number and the words "earth" and "sun," she must then be able to skim efficiently through the passage, ignoring everything that isn't a number or those two words.  Just as importantly, having found the words and/or a number,  the student should be able to read the sentence they appear in to verify that it does indeed answer the question.

Skimming is an eye+brain discrimination skill, and takes practice.  It is one of the skills honed in word searches and those 'hidden pictures' games we enjoyed as children.  But there are ways to build proficiency; when the student knows she is looking for numbers, for example, she can try to underline all the numbers. That will help the brain focus.  Also, when looking for a particular word,  she can get a picture in her mind of what that word will look like.  A good way to practice is to pick a page of a book at random and ask the child to find a specific word.  Make it a word that is at least half-way down the page at first; then try other words that may be nearer the top or bottom of the page.  The student should try to find it as fast as possible.

These four tips are not overnight game-changers, but with practice, can make a difference in how well your child reads and performs in school.