PARENT INFORMATION
Things to watch for that may suggest that your child is a struggling reader...
Does your child:
What is Fluency?
Fluency is defined as the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. In order to understand what they read, children must be able to read fluently whether they are reading aloud or silently. When reading aloud, fluent readers read in phrases and add intonation appropriately. Their reading is smooth and has expression.
Children who do not read with fluency sound choppy and awkward. Those students may have difficulty with decoding skills or they may just need more practice with speed and smoothness in reading. Fluency is also important for motivation; children who find reading laborious tend not to want read! As readers head into upper elementary grades, fluency becomes increasingly important. The volume of reading required in the upper elementary years escalates dramatically. Students whose reading is slow or labored will have trouble meeting the reading demands of their grade level. Students will low fluency will also have difficulty comprehending the text that they read.
(Definition taken from Reading Rockets, visit this site for A LOT of information on reading difficulties)
What is Dyslexia?
80% of reading difficulties are a result of dyslexia. As with other learning disabilities, dyslexia is a lifelong challenge that people are born with. This language processing disorder can hinder reading, writing, spelling, and sometimes even speaking. Dyslexia is not a sign of poor intelligence or laziness. It is also not the result of impaired vision. Children and adults with dyslexia simply have a neurological disorder that causes their brains to process and interpret information differently.
Dyslexia occurs among people of all economic and ethnic backgrounds. Often more than one member of a family has dyslexia. According to the National Institute of Child and Human Development, as many as 15 percent of Americans have major troubles with reading.
Much of what happens in a classroom is based on reading and writing. So it's important to identify dyslexia as early as possible. Using alternate learning methods, people with dyslexia can achieve success.
(Definition taken from the NCLD website, please visit this site for more information)
ADD/ADHD and Dyslexia
Many students who have Attention Deficit Disorder with or without Hyperactivity also have Dyslexia (and vice versa).. Students with both ADD/ADHD and Dyslexia co-occur more frequently than is expected by chance,. Unfortunately little research has been done on students with both disorders. It is known however that processing speed is a shared predictor for both reading and attentional difficulties. Students with ADHD and Dyslexia need to be treated for both disorders.
There are three subtypes of ADHD: predominately inattentive, predominately hyperactive-impulsive and combined type. The inattentive type is more strongly associated with reading disorders than the hyperactive-impulsive subtype. In the ADHD-Inattentive type student's speed of information processing is impaired AND they have difficulty with focused and selective attention. Issues with attention affects all learning as it affects the input and/or output of information. Attention is also closely associated with executive functions, so therefore there is often an affect on: goal setting, planning, sequencing, organization, time management, task initiation, task persistence, working memory, impulse control, emotional control, and adaptability.
How attention issues may present themselves in reading:
A note on homework...
Students should be bringing homework home daily. It should not exceed ten minutes for every year that they've been in school (1st grade = 10 minutes, 2nd grade = 20 minutes, 3rd grade = 30 minutes, 4th grade = 40 minutes, 5th grade = 50 minutes). It should also include an additional 20 minutes of reading. If your child is spending a lot more time on their homework or it has become a battle in your home please bring it to the attention of your child's classroom teacher!
Set up an area of your home for your child to study. It may be the kitchen table or a desk. It must however be as free from distraction as possible. This will establish good learning and study habits for your lifelong learner!
Does your child:
- have difficulty remembering lessons?
- hate to read aloud?
- have trouble matching sounds to letters?
- have trouble identifying letters and numbers?
- have challenges pronouncing long words (garage, spaghetti, Mississippi)
- have challenges recalling the right word (uses "thing" or "you know)
- have difficulty remembering the days of the week and months of the year?
- struggle to read everyday, sight words like this, and, of, and where?
- rely on the pictures to determine the words on a page?
- guess at words?
- continue to sound out words on a page?
- struggle as he/she is working to sound out words?
- read slowly with a very choppy sound?
- complain that he/she doesn't understand what he/she's reading?
- have a family history of learning disabilities or dyslexia?
What is Fluency?
Fluency is defined as the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. In order to understand what they read, children must be able to read fluently whether they are reading aloud or silently. When reading aloud, fluent readers read in phrases and add intonation appropriately. Their reading is smooth and has expression.
Children who do not read with fluency sound choppy and awkward. Those students may have difficulty with decoding skills or they may just need more practice with speed and smoothness in reading. Fluency is also important for motivation; children who find reading laborious tend not to want read! As readers head into upper elementary grades, fluency becomes increasingly important. The volume of reading required in the upper elementary years escalates dramatically. Students whose reading is slow or labored will have trouble meeting the reading demands of their grade level. Students will low fluency will also have difficulty comprehending the text that they read.
(Definition taken from Reading Rockets, visit this site for A LOT of information on reading difficulties)
What is Dyslexia?
80% of reading difficulties are a result of dyslexia. As with other learning disabilities, dyslexia is a lifelong challenge that people are born with. This language processing disorder can hinder reading, writing, spelling, and sometimes even speaking. Dyslexia is not a sign of poor intelligence or laziness. It is also not the result of impaired vision. Children and adults with dyslexia simply have a neurological disorder that causes their brains to process and interpret information differently.
Dyslexia occurs among people of all economic and ethnic backgrounds. Often more than one member of a family has dyslexia. According to the National Institute of Child and Human Development, as many as 15 percent of Americans have major troubles with reading.
Much of what happens in a classroom is based on reading and writing. So it's important to identify dyslexia as early as possible. Using alternate learning methods, people with dyslexia can achieve success.
(Definition taken from the NCLD website, please visit this site for more information)
ADD/ADHD and Dyslexia
Many students who have Attention Deficit Disorder with or without Hyperactivity also have Dyslexia (and vice versa).. Students with both ADD/ADHD and Dyslexia co-occur more frequently than is expected by chance,. Unfortunately little research has been done on students with both disorders. It is known however that processing speed is a shared predictor for both reading and attentional difficulties. Students with ADHD and Dyslexia need to be treated for both disorders.
There are three subtypes of ADHD: predominately inattentive, predominately hyperactive-impulsive and combined type. The inattentive type is more strongly associated with reading disorders than the hyperactive-impulsive subtype. In the ADHD-Inattentive type student's speed of information processing is impaired AND they have difficulty with focused and selective attention. Issues with attention affects all learning as it affects the input and/or output of information. Attention is also closely associated with executive functions, so therefore there is often an affect on: goal setting, planning, sequencing, organization, time management, task initiation, task persistence, working memory, impulse control, emotional control, and adaptability.
How attention issues may present themselves in reading:
- Student may have difficulty sustaining attention to a book
- Student may be easily distracted by internal stimuli (straying thoughts, daydreams, etc.) and/or external stimuli (noise, movement in classroom, etc.)
- Student may not have issue with single-word decoding
- Student may remember important details from a text but may have difficulty organizing/sequencing them
- Student's oral reading may be characterized by insertions, deletions, changes, and the tendency to skip whole lines of text without noticing.
- Student may guess impulsively at words based on the first letter and have the tendency to insert words that are not in the text.
- Student may struggle with recalling more complex details, making predictions, and drawing inferences.
- Student may spell words reasonably in isolation, but make spelling errors in narrative writing.
A note on homework...
Students should be bringing homework home daily. It should not exceed ten minutes for every year that they've been in school (1st grade = 10 minutes, 2nd grade = 20 minutes, 3rd grade = 30 minutes, 4th grade = 40 minutes, 5th grade = 50 minutes). It should also include an additional 20 minutes of reading. If your child is spending a lot more time on their homework or it has become a battle in your home please bring it to the attention of your child's classroom teacher!
Set up an area of your home for your child to study. It may be the kitchen table or a desk. It must however be as free from distraction as possible. This will establish good learning and study habits for your lifelong learner!