Reading Fluency - How To Not Read Like A Robot

I recently received a call from a mother who described her son's reading as a 'robot' talking. She told me that, "When we sit around the dinner table his tone, speed, everything, is great. But then, when he starts to read...it's like a robot has taken over! Can you help him with this?!"


Though she may not have known it, this mother was describing her son's reading fluency. Reading fluency is a combination of a child's speed or rate of reading, as well as the ability to read materials accurately and with expression. This is no easy task for many children, and even adults. The automaticity with which many of us read can be a true struggle for students.

These children may fear reading out loud in school, may not enjoy reading, and may not even understand what they have read. Reading fluency often directly correlates to a student's ability to comprehend what he/she has just read. A student that is reading too slow, or even too fast, can easily miss important elements of a story.

However, there are several great ways to improve reading fluency:

1. Speed drills that require a student to read an allotted amount of words in an allotted amount of time, allow for practice and the opportunity to chart progress to mark student successes.


2. Quickly showing common sight words to students for rapid naming activities.


3. Great Leaps Fluency Program
   This program was designed to help students build their reading speed and accuracy. Each one-minute timings engages a student in phonics, sight phrases, and reading short stories. With just 10 minutes a day, students can easily see their reading speed and accuracy increase through practice and direct teacher instruction. We train some of our tutors in this fluency program. Great Leaps is often used in tandem with a decoding program, or with instruction in active reading strategies.
   
   
4. Reading in tandem with an adult or classmate. Also called 'choral reading'.
   
   
5. Listening to books on tape while reading the same material.
   
   
6. Having a parent/adult model fluent reading by reading orally to a student.

For more information on our assessments to measure a student's oral reading rate, accuracy, and fluency please contact me at laura@ectutoring.com

Happy Reading, and hopefully your child will soon be reaidng like a well-oiled machine! And not a robotic machine!

Getting Ready for Finals

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, the only thing standing between your child and a lengthy winter break is a pesky little period we like to call "finals". While this time is also known as "midterms" for some classes, the situation is the same. Studying, reading, note taking, and stress all cumulate in mid-to-late December as students prepare for one of the biggest, and most important, grades of the year. It is important to realize, however, that just because students are told frequently to study, take notes, or summarize, it does not mean these activities have ever truly been defined for them. Work with your child on these active reading strategies to help them prepare for upcoming finals. You'll see that they earn grades truly reflective of their abilities.

Active Reading Strategies

A whole host of tools is at our disposal for interacting with what we are reading. Together they are known as active reading and they all work to increase comprehension and retention. The time you have and how much information you need to get will guide which and how many of these practices you will use:

Three Color Highlighting: By using different colors to identify main points, supporting details, and terms, color taps right into visual memory.

Bookmarks and Flagging: Identifying important textual locations means that you don’t have to take up space in your gourd remembering page numbers. Bringing a textbook covered in flags and full of bookmarks to class is also the surest way to send a message to your teacher that you are committed enough to the class to interact with the reading.

Marginal Notes: Questions or comments jotted in the margins next to relevant paragraphs provide visual cues when you go back over the book before finals.

Summary Writing: Reiterating and condensing information is time-consuming, but it is the best way to be sure that you understand, can remember, and can apply in writing the information that you have read. Written summaries are most useful for readings that you know will be the focus of a paper.

Reading Notes: Identifying the progression of arguments helps to commit the thesis to memory and provides a reference for future use. This is also very useful to have if you need to write about a specific reading.

If you have any questions about any of these strategies, please feel free to email me at sarah@ectutoring.com. If you feel that your child would benefit from instruction in these strategies as well as other time management, study, and long term planning skills, please contact us or view our webpage for more information. The trademarked Educational Coaching Process will help your child achieve the grades they want by strengthening time management, study, and organizational skills.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is upon us! However, just because school is out doesn't mean that learning has to take a vacation too. Family get-togethers provide enough intellectual stimulation to keep children busy all day. The best part is that they don't even realize it!

Given a little thought, it's easy to incorporate academic support throughout the day. Not only will it help children learn and adults get all of the prep work done, but it also provides opportunities for shared experiences and memories that will last more than a lifetime.

Try some of these great Thanksgiving tips out this year. You can also adapt these ideas for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, family reunions, birthdays, or any other special occasion that is celebrated in your household.

• Have younger children count guests and ensure there are enough place-settings, silverware, cups, napkins, etc.


• Children can have a lot of fun actually setting the table, counting aloud as they set places for family. Of course, it might be best to limit this activity to the "kid's table" if buttery fingers and Grandma's fine china don't seem like a good match.


• Younger children can also count the number of spoon stirs, egg beats, and rolling pin rolls. Adjusting the speed keeps it interesting and fun for little chefs.


• Have children help with recipes. Younger children can help count eggs, while older siblings work on fractions by measuring out cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, cutting pies, and other fun activities.


• Even something as simple as waiting for a timer to ring will help students by allowing them to gain a concrete sense of time: how long is one minute, fifteen minutes, one hour?
  
• You can also practice principles of addition and subtraction by combining pans of cookies or muffins and finding out how many are left after you taste test a few!


• Children can also work on reading skills by telling mom and dad what the recipe says--be sure to work on any difficult words or ingredients beforehand so frustration doesn't become an issue.


• Depending on the age of the children, you can have the younger generation write down the family stories told by Great Aunt Sally over the course of the meal (Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally, she's just crazy about Thanksgiving!).


• Thanksgiving even allows for science lessons as children can think of ways to explain why food expands in the oven, boiling food moves around in the pan, and hot water gives off steam.
  
• Finally, allowing students to actually do the measuring, slicing (with a butter knife), and pouring allows them to practice and develop the hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills necessary for successful reading and writing.

As you can see, there's no reason to let kids off the proverbial (learning) hook this year--there are far too many lessons to be learned and far too much time to spend together!

Can You Read This?

I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg. It deosn't mttaer in what oredr the ltteers in a word are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is that the first and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

The paragraph above is a common email forwarding that you mght have already seen! It brings up a very interesting point stating that the human mind reads words as a whole. This might be true for the majority of the population, but approximately 20% of children do not learn to read by the traditional whole language approaches taught at school. Some of these students demonstrate strong reading comprehension, but have a specific glitch in sounding words out (decoding). Because reading is a combination of decoding and comprehension, a student’s decoding skills are vital to the reading process.

To learn to decode a student needs to be able to understand that individual sounds make up words. Thus, a reading disability that is not based in comprehension is occurring at the phonemic level. Simply being able to recite the alphabet isn’t enough. Children need to know that the written letter equates to a sound. Weak readers have difficulty perceiving various sounds and sound blends, and thus have difficulty decoding new words. These students aren’t able to pull apart sounds (segment) and blend them together.

So what can be done if your child has a decoding problem? Twenty years of research demonstrates that we can remediate almost all reading disabilities.

In the 1930s, Dr. Samuel Orton and Anna Gillingham developed an approach to reading, a ‘course of action’ if you will, to provide reading instruction. Instruction can vary from student to student based on particular needs, but ultimately, all Orton-Gillingham lessons:

• build upon the association between the sounds and symbols of the English language (letters and letter combinations).


• start with the smallest unit of sound (phoneme)


• allow for the practice of blending sounds to read individual words and bodies of text


• develop automaticity


• isolate certain sounds for spelling


• read text and focus on comprehension


• are multisensory (instruction taps into the visual, auditory and kintesthetic domains) because this approach aids the processing, retention and application of information.

We're committed to the right type of instruction for students enountering reading difficulties. Please contact us if you have any questions!

Tutor Spotlight

This November, we have the distinct pleasure of introducing our tutor of the month in our blog for the first time! We also thought this would be a great opportunity for parents, students, and other interested parties to see first hand the quality and expertise that can be expected when working with Educational Connections tutors.

I am pleased to introduce Susan Oppenheim, who has been tutoring with Educational Connections for six years. Susan is constantly working to stay up to date on the latest educational methods and theories. While she is a truly skilled tutor, Susan also absolutely loves what she does and is deeply devoted to her students. Susan believes that children are "our future and should be treated with respect, and given structure and discipline."

Susan's educational philosophy dictates that students should receive instruction based on their individual needs and abilities. "It is up to us to find out how their brain works in order to help them achieve the knowledge they crave." As a result, Susan says "I do not teach all my children the same way" and even differentiates how she interacts with parents to match their personal styles as well.

Susan has her degree in elementary education and has served in several school districts over the past 20 years. She also has exemplary volunteer experience. While Susan is an integral part of the tutoring team, the best feedback comes from her students and their parents, who all say the same thing: "We love her!"

Relationship Woes: Educational Coaching, Part 2

“Do not sacrifice your parent-child relationship and emotional bonds on the altar of academic performance.”
(Russell Barkley,2000).

Students who have ADHD, executive functioning issues, or learning disabilities often struggle with the skills necessary to be successful in school. Organziation, time management, homework completion, and study skills are often elusive talents to students who deal with such difficulties on a day to day basis, regardless of whether their learning differences are diagnosed or not. As a result of the trouble faced at school, a student's self esteem and confidence may suffer.

Students, especially with undiagnosed learning differences, are often misinterpreted by their families and/or teachers as "lazy," "unmotivated," or "indifferent." While parents know their children are smart enough to succeed in school, they are confused as to why their children are struggling with basic educational tasks, such as turning in assignments, writing in their agenda, or studying for tests. As a result, the only explanation seems to be a lack of willingness on the part of the student to participate in academia and a rift is inadvertantly created in the relationship. This doesn't always need to be the case, however.

Parents may want to consider Educational Coaching when:
1. Having a neutral third party may reduce the tension surrounding school in the household
2. There is constant arguing about grades, assignments, or school in general
3. The student frequently talks about hating school
4. They or their children's teachers are concerned by discrepencies between potential and actual performance
5. A student lacks confidence in his or her school performance and would benefit from the moral and academic support a coach can provide

After Educational Coaching, students will gradually:
1. Be more confident at school
2. Have higher self-esteem
3. Experience higher grades at school
4. Be more effective and self-efficient academically
5. Enjoy school more on a day to day basis
6. Experience improvements in familial relationships
7. Feel more comfortable participating in class

Feel free to contact us if you would like more information on the Educational Coaching Process or how it can help students of all ages transform the way they work at school and live at home.

Ann's Adventure in Crystal City

I was incredibly fortunate this past week to attend the CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder) national conference in Crystal City. My favorite breakout session was titled “Classroom Interventions for AD/HD” and was presented by Sydney Zentall, Ph.D. I specifically enjoyed this session because many of the methods that help narrow and sustain attention in students with difficulties are relevant for all students. Below you will find just a few of the tips that I feel will be very useful to parents, teachers, and tutors.

• Kids with AD/HD need more stimulation in the classroom. Research shows that if we provide more stimulation, they’re less active.
  1. Lectures should include thought producing questions.
  
  2. Use signs, bells, clapping, and any kind of noise or visual cue that will get attention.
  
  3. Don’t repeat--instead ask student to repeat directions, assignment, etc. to you. Every time you repeat something it gets less stimulating and the person is less likely to follow through.
  
  4. Before you give verbal information, preface an important point by saying “Listen to three main points for two minutes”.
  
  5. Consider giving a white board and marker to each child. Ask a question, have students write the answer, and hold up white board. Comments from the teacher like“The majority of you have it right” don’t single out struggling students.
  
  6. Use choral responding to activate attention instead of always asking questions to individual students.
  
  7. Bright colors get attention. Teachers should write assignments on the board at the beginning of the class in red chalk and tutors can list objectives or goals in red for the student at the beginning of a session.
  
  


• Use colors to help study for spelling:
  knife
  dense
  sugar
  
  


• Provide stimulation later in a task. Don’t start a lesson with a game or hands-on activity. Putting stimulation later in a task has been proven to increase attention and provides students with a built in reward. Tutors should end a session with a game or engaging activity.
  
  


• If handwriting is poor, encourage printing and shorthand as it is faster. Encourage typing.
  
  


• Music actually helps many kids to be productive learners. However, the music must be familiar. A student should not listen to a song that he or she has never heard before as that stimulates outside focus.
  
  


• Have your students stand up and move around. Allow standing when reading.
  
  


• Giving students choice improves attention four-fold. Simply allowing a student to choose 8 out of 10 math problems to do will make a huge difference.
  
  


• Perhaps the most interesting finding I learned about was the use of MIRRORS to improve on-task behavior. Yes, that’s right, kids that had a mirror directly in front of them throughout the homework process completed three times as much homework three times more accurately! Mirrors allow the student to self-monitor.
  
  


• AD/HD students almost always have working memory problems. Working memory is the ability to hold short-term information in your mind and manipulate it. Examples of working memory include playing chess, following multi-step directions, mental math, and written language.
  
  


• Students that were allowed to use calculators, especially during multi-step problems increased sustained attention by 50%.

If you would like further explanation on any of these tips, please feel free to email me at Ann@ectutoring.com.

SSAT - Test Day Jitters

Private school applications are right around the corner! In addition to the school interview, application, transcript, and recommendation letters, most private schools in our area also require a standardized test be taken. The SSAT, or Secondary School Admission Test, is the most commonly accepted admission test. Separated into two versions – the Lower Level, and Upper Level, students in 5th-11th grade often benefit from some type of test preparation. A review of test taking strategies, format and scoring of the test, along with some content review, gives students the necessary background to walk in on test day feeling confident. Here are three great test day tips to avoid the jitters:

1. As simple as it sounds, make sure to eat a good breakfast the day of the test, and get a good night sleep before. Also, bring a snack. You get two breaks during the SSAT, and a quick bite of food can recharge your batteries!

2. Learn and know the directions for each section before test day. Since the directions are always exactly the same, there's no reason to waste your time on the day of the test reading them. Get them straight in your head before the test, and you'll be able to skip them all together during the test – a few seconds saved can mean an extra question you had time to answer!

3. Don’t cram for the test! It is a bad strategy because chances are you won’t end up remembering what you "learned" while cramming. Prepare a little bit each day/week at least 2 months before the test.

Learn more about Educational Connections and the SSAT

Report Card Woes! Educational Coaching, Part 1

"I can't show you my report card. It's still in litigation."

-Cartoon by Johnny Hawkins

The end of a marking period is upon us!

While many parents know in advance what lies within the envelope, other parents are suprised that their intelligent, articulate children are failing (or underperforming in) all of their major subjects. The reason for this can be a variety of things, and it's not always as simple as it appears. The student may not be completing assignments, may be losing asignments, or may just not bother turning in completed assignments. Students also may not know how to break down long term assignments, study effectively for tests, or organize their materials to ensure that they are able to maintain their academic progress.

In cases such as these, parents are often at a loss because there isn't a specific subject to target to help the students improve their overall GPA. Most students actually don't have any trouble at all with the actual content of the course...just the skills that allow students to be successful in school. Additionally, many students who fit this profile have ADHD or other executive functioning differences that make these tasks that much harder for them in the long run.

There is a solution, though. Educational Coaching, like tutoring, can help a student improve his or her ability to suceed academically. Educational Coaching targets three main areas of student development:

1. Organization

2. Time management

3. Study skills

When working with an Educational Coach, students can expect to

1. organize materials

2. set short and long term goals

3. learn active reading strategies

4. practice different note taking methods

5. create daily, weekly and monthly do-to lists and calendars -and-

6. prioritize assignments

Educational Coaches are able to provide students with the instruction, resources, and tools to change the way they function at school. If started soon, Educational Coaching will allow the student to see improvements in his or her grades by the time the next report card arrives. If you are interested in learning more about Educational Coaching or beginning the search for an Educational Coach, please contact us.

Please stay tuned for next week's entry Relationship Woes: Educational Coaching, Part 2, when we will talk more about the negative impact that executive functioning differences can have on familial relationships and how to alleviate the resulting stress and pressure.