Causes and Suggested Actions for Reading

Causes and suggested actions for reading

Reading behaviour / Refer below to:
Short attention span: easily distracted, tires easily, loses interest / 1,2,8,9
Reads the pictures but ignores the words / 1,2
Reads through punctuation / 1,4,6,
Little apparent fluency, phrasing or expression / 1,5,6,9
Appeals or waits for help without trying first / 1,6,8,9
Tells rather than reads the story / 1,7,8,9
Demonstrates limited self-correction strategies / 1,4,6,7,8,9
Little apparent demand for sense from the text / 1,4,5,6,8,9
Has difficulty with prediction – guesses randomly / 1,4,5,6,7,9
Over-emphasis on phonic attach (sounding out) / 6,9
Known reading vocabulary seems limited / 8
Predicts but does not cross-check consistently against visual information. Errors make sense:
boat said
ship shouted / 4,7,8
Inserts or omits words / 3
Possible causes / Refer below to:
1.  Inappropriate material: too hard, too easy, beyond experience, uninteresting / a,b,c,d
2.  Restricted choice of material: too familiar, interest level inappropriate / a,b
3.  1 to 1 matching not consistently established / e,I,h
4.  Reading too fast / d,e,j
5.  Reading too slowly / c,e,f,g,I,j
6.  Reading the words, not attending to the meaning / b,c,d,f,I
7.  Reading for meaning, but not attending to visual information / a,f,g,I,j,
8.  Limited phonemic awareness / g,h,i
9.  Limited word analysis strategies / f,g
Suggested action
a. Provide a variety of shared reading: OHP, big books, journals, tapes at appropriate levels of text and interest
b. Provide a variety of reading opportunities: poems, signs, letters, charts
c. Periodic reading conference to monitor progress, interests, strategies
d. Diagnose strengths, weaknesses, interests and levels – teach to these aspects
e. Teacher models: expression, matching, phrasisng, fluency
f. Prediction during guided reading, cloze
g. Elkonin analysis: sound to letter, letter to sound, letter clusters, chunking
h. Partially scribed stories: wall stories, published books
i. Cut-up stories for reassembly. Spot the mistake. Summarising.
j. Listening post with poems and stories.
Teaching for Strategic Activity (Also see pp.127 – 130 Effective Literacy Practice Y1-4)
Behaviours / Questions/Prompts
MONITORING
(checking whether you have a problem) / ·  stopping
·  repeating
·  one-to-one
-  finger pointing
-  voice pointing
·  look at the picture
·  reading correctly
·  slowing down
·  appealing
·  demand for meaning
·  attending to punctuation
·  checking on predictions
·  attending to structure / ·  Point to each word
·  Look at the picture
·  Why did you stop?
·  What did you notice?
·  I like the way you did that. Where was the hard bit?
·  I like the way you tried to work that out.
·  What did you expect to see at the beginning/middle/end?
·  How did you know?
·  You said “… “ was that right?
·  You made a mistake, can you find it?
·  Were you right?

SEARCHING

(looking for more information to confirm, to correct, or to work out a new word) / ·  Repeating
·  Re-reading text
·  looking back
·  self-correcting/attempting
·  looking at the picture
·  subsequent attempt at difficulty
·  Reading on
·  Using context to predict / ·  You said “…”
Does it look right?
Can we say it that way?
Does that make sense?
·  What’s wrong with this? [teacher repeats}
·  Try that again and think
What would make sense?
What would sound right?
What would look right?
·  There is something wrong… see if you can find it
·  Is there any other way we could know?
CROSS
CHECKING
(clever searching) / ·  stopping
·  repeating
·  self-correcting
·  reading on (older child)
·  scanning ahead / ·  It could be, but look at…
·  [teacher inserts possible words]
·  What did you expect to see?
·  What was the new word you read?
·  Check to see if what you said looks/sounds right
·  What else could you check?
·  Try that again
VISUAL ANALYSIS / ·  substitution with word that looks similar
·  noticing endings
-  inflections
-  final sounds/letters
·  attending to letters
-  initial sounds/letters/blends
-  medial sounds/letters/blends
·  linking to known word
·  recognising part of the word
·  chunking
·  Attending to punctuation / ·  How did you know?
·  What did you expect to see?
·  What could you see?
·  Do you know a word like that?
·  What do you think it could be?
·  Do you know a work that starts with those letters?
·  Do you know what might help?
·  Is the end right?
·  Can you say more than that?
·  Yes, you found two parts to that word
OTHER / ·  Fluency
·  Attempts unknown words, risk taking. / ·  Read to the full stop
·  You try
·  Read so that it sounds like talking.

Heather Barrar, Team Solutions, 2007