How to Help Students Who Struggle with Reading

Chances are good that you work with students who struggle with reading. It can be challenging, but there are some easy, tried and true strategies that effectively help students to comprehend what they read. Better yet, these strategies help all readers, even students who don’t struggle with reading, to read with better comprehension and fluency.

Imagine that a teacher gives students a very common task, to “read chapter seven,” and follow up by answering a series of comprehension questions. This is a typical assignment, given thousands of times a day by teachers everywhere.

Teachers make many assumptions in giving this type of assignment. First, they assume students can read the words and know all the vocabulary in the chapter. Second, they presume that students will be able to connect the material that they read to other topics and content they have already learned. Third, they believe that students will be able to pick out the main ideas and details, understand a sequence of events and synthesize the material.

Being able to read and understand a large piece of content is a sophisticated reading task. Many students won’t read the material. They will skim and scan, looking for the answers to the questions. Some students try, but struggle to put the pieces together in order to fully comprehend the material. Others quickly become overwhelmed and stop trying. These students, who are off task, often create distractions and disruptions that hinder everyone.

Fortunately, the solution is not difficult, and doesn’t have to take a long time. When assigning a reading task, these simple strategies will help insure success for students:

Preteach vocabulary.

A quick discussion or review of the key words in the selection will greatly increase the chances that students will comprehend the material and will help them read the material more fluently. Write a list of important words on the board and have a quick discussion. What is the word and what does it mean? How might this word be important in the reading?

Connect the new reading to previous learning.

Take a minute or two to ask a couple of simple questions. Have students look at the headings or titles. Ask them what they think the reading will be about and how they think it will connect to their previous learning.

It also helps to give students a bridge to help them connect previous and new learning. Ask students to give a few key points from recent learning, then give them a connection.

We learned about the characteristics of rainforests. Today we are going to read about the characteristics of deserts.

Another idea is to have students make predictions.

Given what you have learned about plant cells, how do you think animal cells might be different?

Give students a purpose for reading.

This is your chance to help students identify main ideas and important details. It is even better if you can entice them or give them a hint of something fun or interesting to look for as they read. If you know what you are looking for, it is much easier to find it. Give students a purpose with statements such as:

As you read this story, look for ways that bats and birds are alike and different.

In this chapter you are going to find out some smart things that Brian does to stay alive in the wilderness. Think about yourself in this situation. How you would have handled being stranded with no one to help you?

While reading this selection, look for the reasons the colonists were upset with the British and what they did because of their anger.

Help students summarize.

Many students struggle with summarizing. Graphic organizers will help give students a framework to help them summarize. There are different graphic organizers available to help students summarize different types of reading material such as fiction, selections that focus on comparing and contrasting or selections that emphasize sequence of events. There are graphic organizers for different content areas and for all grade levels. Do a quick search for the type of graphic organizer you need and you will find many to choose from. Here are some sites with good graphic organizers:

Graphic Organizers K-12 organized by TeacherVision

Teachnology’s graphic organizers

Graphic organizers selected by Education Oasis

In his Zone of Proximal Development theory, Vygotsky taught us that there is a difference between what a learner can do without help and with help. Students can do more and learn more when they are given a scaffold. These strategies provide students who struggle with reading a helping hand, a scaffold, to increase their comprehension.

These strategies are not new, but they are effective. Spending even just five extra minutes helping students to prepare for a reading task will result in better comprehension. We think that is time well spent.

Happy reading,