Teaching Reading

How to Teach Reading Comprehension

Teachers struggle with how to teach reading comprehension. The implicit-instruction teachers hope that reading a lot really will teach comprehension through some form of reading osmosis. The die-hard implicit-instruction teachers want to believe that reading comprehension is something caught, and not taught. The appetizers of discreet reading skills are easily diagnosed and are frequently easy to teach. Teachers accomplish this by helping all students "catch up" in their areas of reading skill deficits, while they concurrently "keep up" with challenging reading comprehension strategies instruction and practice. Read about the value and purpose of reading assessments that will inform your instruction.

Use shared reading to model the synthesized process of reading. Shared reading means that the teacher reads stories, articles, poetry, songs, etc. out loud to students to model the whole reading process.

Students need to see and hear modeled reading that integrates all of the reading skills with a focus on meaning-making. Without this "whole to part" modeling, isolated reading skills instruction will fail to develop readers who read well on their own. The teacher shares the reading strategies as she reads that help her understand, interpret, and enjoy the text. 3. Use guided reading to teach discreet reading comprehension strategies. Guided reading means that the teacher reads or plays a CD and stops to help students practice a pre-selected reading comprehension strategy. Students do not read out loud as they are generally poor models. Learn how to teach the following reading comprehension strategies: Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict.

4. Teach independent reading by getting students to practice guided reading strategies on their own. Teach students to make personal connections with the text. 5. Teach the reading and writing connection. Wide experience across many reading genres will help build comprehension and writing ability. Learn the reading-writing strategies that "kill two birds with one stone" and learn how to teach an effective read-study method for expository text.

Vocabulary acquisition is essential to reading comprehension. 7. Teach content. Teaching content is teaching reading comprehension. Remedial readers often practice reading skills ad nauseum, but grow more deficient in content. Both content and reading strategies are critical for reading development.

Need a remedial reading program that allows the teacher to differentiate instruction? Reading comprehension development with both the appetizers and the main course? Check out Teaching Reading Strategies.

Reading Help For Children - Teaching Reading Strategies For a Child With Learning Disabilities

Reading help for children with learning disabilities can be a time absorbing and costly task. For the child with learning disabilities teaching reading strategies of different kinds may help in their reading. Some children are auditory based, some are visually based, the reading help for children needs to reflect the various styles of learning.

I consider that all the right teaching reading strategies available will still not allow a child with learning disabilities to attain their full potential if their visual skill development is lacking.

Reading help for children does not only mean making the child with learning disabilities to read more and more. This is not real reading help for children, it is torture for both the child with learning disabilities and the poor parents who are teaching these reading strategies! To offer real and essential reading help for children, whether a child with learning disabilities or even a normal reader, we are far better to educate them the underlying visual skills they need rather than teaching reading strategies that help them to cope with the lack of visual skills they are grappling with!

With the right skills developed, and the correct teaching reading strategies in place, there is hope for the child with learning disabilities to reach their complete potential in school.