Reading Comprehension

I am repeatedly amazed at the way students are asked to read in class.

Secondary school students are presented with a text and are expected to be able to read. This goes back to primary school; students are taught to decode and get practice at reading aloud. They are asked questions to ascertain their level of comprehension. In my experience they are rarely taught how to 'attack' a text. They are rarely taught how to understand what they are reading.

I work with mainstream secondary school teachers to help them enable their students to access written work, encouraging them to teach the following four main strategies:

1. Identifying unknown words.
2. Working out what the unknown word means.
3. Inferencing.
4. Answering questions about the text.

These strategies are collated onto a bookmark made by each student. The student has therefore invested time and effort into writing the strategies down, and the bookmark serves as a reminder of the strategies which helps embed the strategies into everyday life.

Strategy 1 - identifying unknown words
I think this is the most important strategy that a student can employ. If you are not aware that you don't know what a word means, you will not work out what it means and you will probably not understand the text. Many teachers I work with are surprised by how many students are not able to underline or highlight or circle a word that they do not understand. If a student finds identifying an unknown word difficult, then the next strategy is less likely to be effective. So identifying a difficult word needs to be worked upon until a student can successfully find a word he doesn't know before moving to working out what it might mean.

Strategy 2 - working out what the unknown word means
Clearly this strategy is extremely important if a student is going to understand a text. There are several levels to the strategy:
i.) WORD LEVEL

• Read the word, say it 5 times
• Break it into parts (syllables)
• Look at the beginnings (pre-, dis-, un-, etc) and endings (-est, -less, -ful, etc)

ii.) SENTENCE LEVEL

• Read the whole sentence
• What type of word is it? - noun, adjective, verb etc
• Think of another word that means the same thing

iii.) WHOLE TEXT LEVEL

• Think about the whole text. Do the possible meanings you have thought of make sense?

iv.) LOOK IT UP AND LEARN IT

• Ask someone
• Look the word up in a dictionary or thesaurus or use www.dictionary.com

Strategy 3 - inferencing
This strategy helps students to read 'between the lines' It encourages students to read the text again and think about the literal meaning as well as the implied meanings. Like Strategy 2 there is a mnemonic covering the steps - KWL:

i.) what do I Know?

• Look at headlines
• Look at pictures
• What's the source?
• What world knowledge do I bring?

ii.) what do I Want to know?

• What is the text about?
• Who are the characters?
• Why has the text been written?

iii.) what have I Learned?

• What do I know now that I didn't know before?

Inferencing is a difficult thing to teach as it requires students to have some level of world knowledge as well as some detailed vocabulary, e.g. knowledge that 'bill' has more than one meaning. It is worth teaching students that things are not always as they seem; even if they don't understand what is implied, as long as they can grasp that not all texts should be taken literally, it will stand them in good stead for future and may provide additional motivation to improve their vocabulary.

Strategy 4 - answering questions about the text
This strategy uses a mnemonic to help students to 'attack' a text: C.H.U.C.K.
C - circle the question number with a coloured pen.
H - highlight the important words in the sentence e.g. the wh- question (what/why etc) and any other main words
U - underline relevant words in the text in the same colour used to circle the question number. Some of the words may match the important question words; they'll probably be in order of the questions, e.g. relevant words for question 1 will be near the start of the text, then the relevant words for question 2 etc.
C - create your answer. Students can use the words they have highlighted in the question, and underlined in the text to 'build' their answer. The idea is that the students, by studying the text in more detail than they would normally due to carrying out these steps, will understand the text better, so are more likely to be able to answer questions.
K - now you know. This one is a bit of a cheat, and is just to finish the word!

Once the students have invested the time and effort into making their own bookmarks detailing these strategies, I find they are familiar with them and are willing to use them. I ensure that teachers keep hold of the bookmarks and give them out when they are required as in my experience students consistently lose them! I know of students who have left my sessions and have taught their peers how to use these strategies: surely the best endorsement I could hope for.

I hope that readers of this blog use these strategies: they work and help students to access texts that they have not been able to read. The most important thing is to provide a framework whereby students can 'attack' a text rather than taking a quick look and rejecting it immediately.

If you need further guidance, tweet me: @johncaneslt

Training courses: '8 causes of reading difficulty' & 'Elklan'

Part 2 of 2

I was thoroughly looking forward to 'the 8 causes of reading difficulty' training session that I attended recently.

Unfortunately it didn't add to my knowledgebase much, and will not significantly alter my practice.

That said, the 'Easyread' system, whereby each phoneme in English is represented with a memorable picture, is good and I have little doubt that it would be effective in helping children decode. The other 7 'causes of reading difficulty' were simply a run through of 'ADHD', 'stress', 'visual tracking difficulties' and 'language difficulties', plus a few difficulties and symptoms that I have not encountered before, but could be targeted by such approaches as 'anagram games' and 'finger tracking exercises'.

In my experience, there are other products / approaches which help children to decode words on the page which work well. I attended hoping that difficulties with comprehending what is being read would be covered. Sadly this area was not touched upon.

I did not have the same feeling of disappointment after the Elklan training that I attended this week. I attended for two (very intensive) days in London and thought it was excellent.

Liz Elks, one of the two therapists who set up Elklan carried out the training. She is clearly very knowledgeable and passionate about speech and language therapy, and was keen to pass on her experience. I completed the 'Speech and Language Support for 11-16s' course enabling me to train those working with all young people but especially those with speech, language and communication needs.

Areas covered included 'promoting vocabulary development', 'understanding and using sentences' and 'promoting effective communication and social skills', plus several others. The course materials were designed to help speech and language therapists roll out training to TAs, teachers, etc without using technical terminology. Indeed it was emphasised that some of the terminology we use, such as 'receptive language' and 'expressive language', is not easily understood by everyone.

I came away from the training not feeling that I had sat through a sales pitch for a company's product as so many training courses are, but that my skills had been enhanced. I now feel better equipped to help others work with students with language and communication difficulties, not because I learned something that I did not already know, but because it confirmed that my current practice is correct. It also provided me with plenty of examples of activities to use with teachers in order to help them see things from the point of view of a student with communication difficulties. The most effective of these was reading a poem aloud whilst playing a recording of somebody reciting a recipe for a fruit cake and then asking questions about quantities of sugar etc used in the recipe. This really hammered home how difficult it is for students with attention difficulties to listen out for information in a noisy classroom.

If any readers of this blog are wondering whether or not to attend the '8 causes of reading difficulty' course, I would recommend that you ask yourself what you wish to gain from it before signing up, and how much you already know. If you have some prior knowledge of working with children with literacy difficulties, it may be that this course is too basic for you. If you wish to investigate further, the site is www.helpingeverychildtoread.com

However if you are wondering whether or not you should attend an Elklan training course, I would recommend that you do so. Courses catering for all levels of prior knowledge and experience are available. The course materials are very accessible and will provide a useful reference for years to come, and the course I attended was delivered in such a way as to empower those present. The website address is www.elklan.co.uk. I promise that I am not affiliated to the company in any way and that my recommendation is based not on bias but on experience!!

One further thing, I got talking to several speech and language therapists on the Elklan course about the difficulties so many students face when trying to comprehend what they are reading. I summarised some of the approaches that I use with the students I work with and they were impressed: I am now in contact with them so that they can embed these strategies in the schools in which they work.

So my next blog will cover strategies that I use to encourage and enable students to access what they are reading.

My working life...

This blog is about me and the work I do.

I am an independent speech and language therapist working in mainstream primary and secondary schools.

I love my job.

In primary schools I work as a general SaLT: I work with teachers to help them differentiate for individual SEN pupils in their class, as well as ensuring that their lessons are accessible to all children. I heard an interesting analogy the other day: a while ago travelling by bus in London was incredibly difficult for people with a visual impairment. So Transport for London brought in a system that ensured that the name of a stop is announced as the bus reached it. It is now easier for people with a visual impairment to get off at the correct stop. A side effect of this is that travelling by bus is easier for everyone now, not only for those with visual difficulties: everyone can get off at the correct stop without having to look outside and try to recognise familiar landmarks. So by differentiating for those in need, bus travel has been made more accessible for all. I like to think that the help that I provide to teachers in ensuring that their lessons are accessible to children with speech and language needs benefits all students in the class.

In addition to working with teachers, I train TAs to run language groups concentrating on the basics such as sequencing, recalling and relating recent events, describing unusual objects from a 'feely bag', following and giving instructions, etc.

I also work 1:1 with students, targeting the difficulties that have been brought to light by assessment.

In secondary schools I mainly run group sessions for those with language and literacy difficulties.

I screen students for language difficulties and literacy difficulties. If I find any difficulties I then delve deeper to see if there are any underlying causes for their difficulties, e.g. phonological awareness, processing speed, phonological memory.

Once I have built up a language and literacy profile of the student I then put him / her (usually him!) into a group with others with a similar profile. For example, if a student exhibits poor spelling and reading comprehension difficulties with processing speed and phonological awareness difficulties, he would go into a group with others exhibiting similar struggles. I then carry out intervention to improve phonological awareness and processing speed, whilst demonstrating how these improved skills should be utilised to improve spelling and reading comprehension. I also provide strategies to help students with poor reading comprehension, e.g. how to identify an unknown word, how to work out what it means, how to 'attack' a text, how to use prior knowledge and inference and how to answer questions using clues in the text.

The results I achieve are excellent even if I do say so myself! Many students move from 'below average' or significantly below average' to 'within the average range'.

This practice has been called 'innovative' by Ofsted, and when observed by an Ofsted inspector my lesson was rated 'outstanding'. Needless to say I am proud of this accolade.

I also work with teachers in the English department to help them ensure that their lessons are accessible to all.

I have written all of this to provide some background before I talk about the training I attended recently titled 'The 8 Causes of Reading Difficulty'.

When I heard about the training I was very excited as I always feel that I can do more to help students: there is always more to learn. Whilst I specialise in literacy and language problems, it would be naive of me to think that there is nothing else I could do to enable students to achieve their full potential.

I will provide a critique of the training soon, in my next post.

Access To Therapy

So, this is my first ever blog. How exciting! For me, that is. Not necessarily for you.

The subject for my first blog is something that is close to my heart. Has been for many years now. It's so close to my heart that I have, with my partner, recently set up a company tackling what I think is a huge issue.

As the title suggests, I am passionate about how people access therapy. That is, how do people find the right therapist for their needs?

Of course, there is the NHS. I think that the NHS is excellent for many things, but ease of access to therapy and therapists is not one of them.

I experienced NHS therapy in 2004 but was fortunate enough to work for a company which included private medical cover as an employee perk. I saw a private therapist within a week or two and got better. I was already on the road to recovery by the time that my NHS waiting time had elapsed and I got to see a therapist.

I imagine that my experience was not vastly different from that of others.

There should be a way of democratising the way that people gain access to therapy. And I mean Speech and Language Therapy (SLT), Occupational Therapy (OT), Physiotherapy, Drama Therapy and so on. It should not be difficult to find and see a therapist. Everybody should be able to do it, and do it easily.

Unless one knows a therapist personally, or receives a word-of-mouth recommendation, the most common way of finding a therapist is to google the relevant words, find the discipline's governing body (e.g. Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists), and locate a nearby private therapist from there. This can take quite a while, as well as maybe 5 - 10 phone calls, and one still may not have found the most appropriate therapist for the client's needs.

If this is how people want to find someone who may be the best person to help them/their loved one, then fine. But I believe that there must be a better way. And I should know because I've found a better way.

And it's better for therapists too. That's a win - win.