Struggling Readers and Recommendations

Struggling Readers and Recommendations

            When I started to read the first of the two chapters for this week the question popped right up in my mind, “how am I going to handle a student that can’t read the content even though the student is in high school?”  The thought really scared me.  Even though we have been reading about how to make reading more interesting or make a student life long readers it really hit me in this chapter that I will probably at some point in my future career have a few students that will not be able or have trouble reading the content that I am teaching.  The chapter goes onto explain that much of the issues for the readers is that they just can’t put words into images and that the student just does not have the prior knowledge that could help them with the content.  (p233-234).  This reminded me of the earlier passage in this book about Columbus.  Once the authors told me the subject was Columbus I could decipher the paragraph.  However, even if the student head Columbus, but didn’t have the background knowledge of Columbus the paragraph, though it could be read, would not be understood.  The idea of teaching reading, which I admit is not easy, still scares me a bit, but at least I now have a few ideas that will help.

            The one idea that I think will help struggling readers, as well as other students, is the one about “building supportive relationships.” (p. 236).  It goes such a long way when a person shows another person that they are there for them, that they are willing to help, that they understand when something is going on.  This is in everyday life, in work, in class and even within families.  I saw it every day in my last career.  As a manager I sought to know about the team members outside of work.  Did they have kids?  Were they in college? Were they in the process of choosing a college?  I got to know my team members that way I could understand where they were coming from especially if I saw something just wasn’t right.  Since I knew something about them I was able to ask and find out what was wrong.  Knowing that went a long way.  It also went a long way when you just asked an associate how are classes, how is the family.  Building the relationships here helped the associate grow in the position.  I didn’t expect less as the job had to still get done but the associate knew that I did care about them on a level beyond manager/associate.  This led them to work harder to get the job done.  It is the same in the readers that are having trouble.  Let them know you will get to know them, support them, help them and be there for them as much as possible.  Also let the student know that you will still expect the work to be done but at times things can happen and you will understand. 

The other one that I found strategy that I found really useful is to use other activities to help with the reading.  (p. 239).  The one the really hits home for me is drawing what you read.  One of my kids loves to draw and color.  When she first starting to read she was having a little difficulty.  I knew she liked to draw so, not even thinking this was a strategy, I told her to draw what she thought she was reading.  It worked out great for her.  Her reading has improved to a point where she is reading books at and just above her grade level and she even uses the drawing to help out in her math word problems.  Reading about it now I can see I can use that even in a high school setting, for I know it really does work.

The last chapter mainly dealt with what recommendations the authors have from the research that has been done on reading.  For me the key recommendation came is to expose the students to a lot of different materials to read in class beyond the textbook.  Use primary source documents, non-fiction books, biographies, even fiction books.  When I saw this I thought of one of my favorite science-fiction writers, Harry Turtledove.  He writes many alternate history novels.  One series deals with what would have happened if the South had won the Civil War.  It goes though how there are two countries, how they end up on opposite sides of an alternate World War I and how after World War I with the south losing, it starts to shape up like the Nazi Germany we know in our history.  It really is a great series of books that I think will get students to think, what would life be like if the Civil War ended differently?  It is a great way to get them thinking, critically and giving their opinions as there is no right answer.  Until reading this I would have never of thought to even use that type of material in a class, now however I can see there are many possibilities.   


Below is a link to one of the books in the Turtledove series.  It is set in 1924 after the South was on the losing side of World War I.  A really interesting and though provoking "what if..."

http://www.amazon.com/Center-Cannot-American-Southern-Victory-ebook/dp/B000FBFM6Q/ref=sr_1_62?ie=UTF8&qid=1416562534&sr=8-62&keywords=harry+turtledove