Teaching Comprehension - Part 2

In the previous post I discussed the challenges of teaching reading comprehension to a child with a mixed receptive/expressive language disorder. Today I want to give you some examples of what we are doing in homeschool to help facilitate Hannah's comprehension of the written word. Basically, I am teaching her critical thinking and how to be aware of the "who, what, where, when, why and how" as she reads (and as she communicates verbally with others as well).

First, some reminders: my daughter turned 7 years old in December, so we are in first grade. With the severity of her language disorder, I try to balance her work with what challenges her but still allows a level of success. She is reaching a point where she knows she should understand and gets very frustrated when she doesn't understand. Mostly I am using materials that are grade appropriate (first grade), but I am utilizing workbooks that are kindergarten level as well to help improve certain skills (such as penmanship and of course comprehension).

Word Webs

Using word webs is proving very helpful for us in improving comprehension, because Hannah is a visual learner. Following are two photos to demonstrate what we do:


For now, we are building word webs that are based on very simple text and in which it is easy to find descriptors and answers to the wh- questions. In this first picture, I have put Biscuit at the center of the web (Biscuit is the puppy in the book). Then I asked Hannah what does she know about Biscuit after reading the short text on that page. She learned that Biscuit is yellow and he is small, so the words "yellow" and "small" were added to the web.

In this picture, you can see that many words were added to the word web by the end of the story. She identified words that described Biscuit, words about what Biscuit wanted and what he wanted to do.

For word webs, we are using a small whiteboard with special whiteboard crayons (dry erase markers are too smelly and too messy for me). I found them at my favorite "non-chain" office supply store, Miller Pads and Papers.

Workbooks

Not every child enjoys workbooks, but I have found that Hannah likes them very much. One benefit of workbooks is that they give plenty of opportunity for repeated practice of various skills. They also give her practice in following directions, along with penmanship and other fine motor skills.

As she reads the text, the directions, and then has to answer questions on the page with her pencil or crayon, the workbooks serve as a quick assessment tool for me to determine where her understanding is solid and where we still need work. After trying some sample pages from various companies, I settled on the spectrum workbook series from School Specialty Publishing. You don't have to purchase them online though, I actually picked up our first ones at the local Staples store (you'll find them in the section with the crayons and other school-type supplies.

On the left page there is a short story with four pictures. On the facing page there are questions to answer. She filled in the blanks on some, circled pictures and completed a sequencing exercise at the bottom of the page (which happened first, second, last). Sequencing is another useful tool in helping Hannah to learn to think critically.

Here are some of the workbooks we are using.

I hope this information is useful. As always, if you have questions or need more details, please leave a comment and I'll share more with you about what is working for us, especially in the area of comprehension. I will have more on reading in the coming days, along with details on what we are using for math studies.

OneMom

Teaching Language vs Teaching Comprehension

I have spent a fair amount of my life singing with community choruses and oratorio societies. Many of the pieces I sang were in Latin, Italian and German. I was able to learn and sing these selections with great ability and emotion, without having a clue what the words meant. The conductor would give us guidance to emotions and general themes of each work, but the meaning of each word was non-existent for most of us singing in the chorus.

So, I can sing in Latin, Italian and German, but if I were to travel to Italy or Germany, I would not be able to communicate in these languages at any level. This is a good picture of what it is like working with a child with a severe mixed receptive/expressive language disorder.

When Hannah was small, our early language work focused on building vocabulary - spoken and understood. Nouns were the emphasis in those days, and while it was time consuming, we made good progress. Nouns are easy to teach (relatively speaking) because there is a concrete object to attach the word to. Moving into verbs was a little more challenging, but through demonstration (sit/stand; walk/run), progress was made there as well.

Our language is much more than concrete images and thoughts, it is filled with subtle nuances and inferences. When a child has a language disorder that includes difficulty with receptive language, the challenge becomes more profound as the child gets older and is dealing with more complex language environments, be they social or written.

Comprehension has always been our greatest challenge with Hannah, and though we make progress everyday, even at the age of 7, it is comprehension that remains the biggest wall we are trying to scale. Presently we are focusing a lot of our school time on reading comprehension and critical thinking. We are using various tasks to help with this, such as visual word webs and sequencing exercises, but it is slow going right now.

As mom and teacher, I continue to hope each day that we're going to break through whatever snag is in Hannah's brain that makes this part of language so difficult. Until that day, I must help her to build on the foundation we have already laid. I also find that there is a very fine line between challenging her to learn and grow in language, and frustrating her to tears. I shed a few tears in frustration some days as well.

Will keep you posted. Also, anyone with tips and suggestions for how you've worked on comprehension, please share them! We need to help each other through this journey.

OneMom

Growing Through Reading

Over the last year, Hannah has moved from being a pre-reader to a voracious reader. When the Camaratas diagnosed her with the mixed expressive/receptive language disorder, they confirmed for me something I suspected - that phonics would be a very difficult way for her to learn to read. Fortunately I was already against the phonics only method anyway.

I have been reading to Hannah since the day she was born, and she quickly grew to love books, and even when very young I would find her with a stack of books going over every page. During our kindergarten year of homeschool, most of our work was focused still on spoken and understood language development, and books remained an important tool in this process. In January 2008, I greatly increased our focus on written words.

This may sound strange, but one very important tool in building her reading foundation was actually a phonics based program known as Reading Rods. We have used (and continue to use) a variety of the Reading Rods sets, and if anyone is interested I'll be glad to give you more specifics). The great thing about this tool is that it is not only visual, but tactile as well. So, I removed the phonics aspect and adapted to Hannah's learning style - she very quickly learned to build (literally) words; the success and fun the Reading Rods offered her was a great kick-off to her wanting to learn to read.

I'm going to be putting up more posts over the next few days about teaching a child with a mixed expressive/receptive language disorder how to read, but I'll close for now and wish you a good night.

OneMom