Tips from a Tutor About Reading

Reading

When we think about educating our children, special needs children included, there is no more important skill than being able to read. Reading helps us understand the world around us and is one of the most necessary tasks to accomplish independence. And, although it appears to be simple and achieved naturally, for most, it is actually one of the more complicated skills we develop over our lifetime. Because reading is not just about being able to join sounds together to make words. Being a reader means you can speak (verbalize), hear (listen), write (spell, grammar) and understand (comprehend) language.

The following are some tips you can follow to help your children ~ and maybe yourself ~ improve this big skill called reading:

Identify reachable reading goals based on current level of achievement and strengths

This is always needed when putting effort toward “” learning any skill. You have to know what the skill level is and what you wish to accomplish. Your efforts will be significantly different for a new reader, an emerging reader, a non-reader, a child, a teen or an adult. Just as someone who is blind needs braille to read words, some of our special needs children will need pictures instead of words. Identify what will help your child understand their world and be independent.

Practice makes perfect

Again, this is a necessity for learning or bettering any skill. Whatever you are working on, there must be practice involved in a variety of settings and with a myriad of presentations. Help your child learn letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, books…by seeing, reading, writing, explaining or describing, and hearing them.as well as playing with them using computers/smartphones, educational materials, and even games.

Fluency does not equal comprehension

Oftentimes, a great amount of time is spent developing the ability to read fluently. Of course, this is important for many reasons, however, when a reader is struggling to read fluently, they are so focused on the verbalizing that they are not able to pay attention to what they are reading. In school settings, teachers are required to work on reading fluency. At home, parents can spend more time on developing comprehension by sharing the reading then asking questions or discussing what has been read. Develop their skill in hearing – and then seeing in their mind’s eye what they heard – can also be accomplished by listening to audiobooks.

You must take care of your Brain

Our brains are responsible for helping us achieve all our skills. In the case of reading, think of all the skills that need to occur: visual and auditory discrimination, memory, visualization, attention, etc. Your child needs good brain food, a good amount of sleep, and plenty of water every day for his/her brain to function well. And then, practice these skills with play as described above.

Make reading a fun and positive experience

If your reader is struggling, they are definitely not having fun and they are surely not feeling too positive. Without self-confidence, learning is so much harder! Get playful and creative! Give a treasure when their treasure word box is filled with a chosen number of words they can read. Watch the movie of the book you’ll read together and compare and contrast it with them. Get them their own Kindle to read/listen to books. Help them see how very exciting it is to read!!!

Lynda Sloan Allen, is the owner of Make Your Mark in Life Learning Center in Vero Beach, FL. Lynda is the leader of a team of extraordinary tutors who focus on the whole development of the child by developing cognitive/ brain and social/emotional skills along with academics in every tutoring session. Her website is filled with great information: www.makeyourmarklearningcenter.com

More Reading Help

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• Reading and Writing Strategies for Struggling Students
• Optimize Reading Posture {Tip 1 of 31}
• Want to Help Your Child with Reading? Ask These Two Questions!
• Reading Success
• ASK Angie ASL – Reading Tips

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This post originally appeared on our September/October 2016 Magazine