high school reading help



This gorilla is tough but he can be ambushed.  

Smart students get ambushed everyday. The method below took two of my struggling 7th Graders and a 5th Grader to the Honor Roll at their schools. A 3rd Grade struggler got the highest score of his entire class on a social studies test.

Tip: quit stopping to sound out. Stopping causes the brain to drop collected meaning; it is self-defeating. Everyone's brain works this way. It is better to tell your child the word and try this method: 

1) Use a few pages of a story your child can write on and has not read before. (Used books are great, or download and print a mystery or adventure short story your child might like.)

Tell your child to look through the 1st paragraph putting a quick dot under words he knows, slide over the words he does not know.

Next he should read his dotted words to himself, sliding over unknown words. You may hear him, do not interrupt, do not fix mistakes, do not tell him to sound out incorrect words.

 

Now ask your child, "What is happening so far in the story?  Now ask him to read to you the paragraph he has been working on. If he has not figured out his unknown words, tell him the words as he comes to them. (Example: canoe means boat - your child will get the meaning but not a word that cannot be sounded out, like canoe, or chaos, etc. Over time, both getting the meaning and getting the word will improve. Be patient.)

Move onto the next paragraph.  Same steps: look through and dot the known words, slide over unknown words - read the known words to himself - tell you what is happening so far in the story.  Ask your child to reread this paragraph to you and you help with any words necessary.   Work through one or two more pages of the story using these steps.  At first, it will be bumpy. Ten minutes a day, for a month will reap big rewards. 

Dealing with weak letter skills: find my blog's top left corner search box. Search: ce, ci, cy  and ge, gi, gy,  and working memory, and adding ed, ing and tion and tious and compound word story.

Also, I use eBay as my website, search: Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up.   All are brand new, do not have grade-levels marked on them, and include my contact info; email or call for help.     Have a great day, Mary Maisner