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Ask the Expert
Expert: Cherie Takemoto
During the month of April, Cherie Takemoto answered your questions about helping readers with special needs.
Read her response to question 1 below.
Question 1:
I'm a second grade teacher. I recently had a child transfer to my class who is still struggling to learn the alphabet. Do you have some suggestions of activities to include him in our regular reading lessons?
Response from Cherie Takemoto:
This is a great question because it shows that you are interested in welcoming and including all students as learners in your classroom. It is critical that teachers who have children with reading difficulties obtain information about the specific reasons that the child is having difficulties and utilize instructional practices that will remediate the reading problems as early and intensively as possible.
Within your school there should be a reading specialist who is trained in reading assessment and intervention. If you believe that the child may have a learning disability or other disability, then it might make sense to refer for a special education evaluation. Reading remediation, however, does not necessarily mean that the child would not be included in some of your other reading lessons.
To determine appropriate activities that incorporate the strengths and needs of all learners in your classroom and pay particular attention to making sure that this student is not being left behind, here are some thoughts to consider:
- What are some of the interests that this child has? Does he or she love nature, sports or sports figures, transportation, animals, cartoon characters, history, or music?
- What makes it difficult for this child to learn? Read aloud activities, seatwork, study sheets, or independent activities?
- How do you know when things are difficult? Behavior problems, acting distracted, withdrawn?
- What are the child's learning strengths? What motivates him or her to learn? Listening to stories, physical activities, music, rhythm or rhyming, or telling stories?
Answering some of these questions about this student can help you think through activities that will be engaging for him, as well as the rest of the class.
For students and others who are having reading difficulties, it is important to note that activities sometimes used in classroom instruction such as sustained silent reading and student read-aloud activities (that involved the whole class) do not have research-based efficacy.
Note that reading aloud by individual students to a reading instructor or volunteer (vs. to the whole class) is an effective strategy when supported correctly.
Try a few of these ideas:
- Listening to a story read by a teacher or other adult and responding orally to the questions that other students may be able to answer with written answers.
- Having students who are not proficient in writing, dictate their stories or assignments as an alternative to the writing assignment.
- Grouping the students into activities by interest and including the student in a group of others who share the same interests
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