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Disability and Reading Skills

Successful Reading Strategies for Older Kids

Feb 11, 2007 Lynn Moore

Students with disabilities often struggle with reading. How can parents assist older students in developing strong reading strategies?

Put Simple Sentences in Order Sequence is an important skill in understanding what has been read. Understanding the sequence of what was read is a skill that we use often in life. Think about reading directions for making a cake. Obviously, you need a hot oven to bake a cake. It is a good idea to turn the oven on and let it warm up before you get started. The directions say Preheat. Also, all of the ingredients must be added before the cake is put into the oven.

Practice sequence with your child by writing several events from a story he has read on slips of paper. Make two copies of these slips. Have him arrange one set of the sentences in order. Then have him take the second set and find them in the story using the slips as mini bookmarks. Do his findings match up with how he arranged the slips at the start?

Play the Simple Questions Game

WH questions will never go out of style when practicing comprehension. Have your child tell you the Who, What, When, and Where of the story. You may need to start with these verbally. As written skills develop, you may ask your child to write a word or phrase next to each WH word on a paper. Finally, kids should be able to answer each with a full sentence. Remember to expect a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence and end punctuation because your child’s teacher will!

Write a Book Report

Writing a book report does not have to be torture! Using the WH sentences and adding some sequence words (first, next, last or at the beginning of the story, then, at the end of the story) kids have a strong pattern for what to include.

Simple book reports are often used in summer reading programs at libraries, but they can be used anytime. Consider a special reward (ice cream, pizza, a movie rental, a trip to the park) for writing a report. Remember you are looking for three or four sentences, not a full length book.

More Thinking Questions

Take time to really discuss the book with your child. Thinking questions, such as inference and cause and effect, are important for higher level cognitive processes.

Inference refers to things that happened, thoughts, feelings, etc. that are not stated outright. For example, suppose the story is about a child who did not get invited to a birthday party. The story says he waited to see if Sam had one more invitation. Inference would tell you how he felt (hurt, sad, embarrassed).

Cause and effect tells about two actions – one action causes or allows the other to happen. The cause comes first. For example, we made a snowman after the big snow storm. The cause is the storm. The effect is making the snowman.

The copyright of the article Disability and Reading Skills in Special Needs Parenting is owned by Lynn Moore. Permission to republish Disability and Reading Skills in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.