Struggling Readers
by ReadingIsFun.me
Introduction
Adolescent struggling readers are often referred to as “kids who cannot read”. While reasons for the lack of their reading skills may be many, struggling readers are weak in two areas, reading fluency and comprehension. Fortunately, reading research has found a variety of strategies and interventions that when implemented offer promising results. In addition to improving fluency and reading comprehension, struggling readers need to be provided with the right books in order to read voluminously and become better readers.
Fluency
Fluency is the ability to read text accurately and automatically with proper prosody and intonation. The main idea being that when students read fluently, they are able to shift their focus away from decoding words toward comprehending text. Struggling readers often need to improve their fluency. Their reading is frequently slow and choppy, and they do not have sufficient sight and high-frequency word knowledge.
The first effective strategy that helps students increase their fluency is having them learn sight and high-frequency words. Students need to be able to automatically recognize these two groups of words as they show up frequently in text and do not follow standard English decoding rules.
The Second effective strategy that increases fluency is modeling reading by either read-aloud or paired readings. In each instance, struggling reader is able to hear text being read to them by a teacher or a peer, which increases their comfort level and text familiarity.
The third successful fluency strategy is rereading of text, which provides practice and increases text comprehension. According to Rasinski and Padak (2005) “Research has demonstrated that when students engage in repeated reading, they improve on the passage they have practiced, which might be expected. However, they also improve on passages they have never previously encountered (38).” The value of repeated readings is enormous, but teachers face resistance from struggling readers when they are asked to read let alone reread text. Allington (2006) recommended involving struggling readers in performances that require repeated readings in order to prepare for it (104). Another great way to implement re readings is to engage students in repeated readings by having them focus on specific elements/characters of the story in each separate reading (Beers, 2003).
Perhaps the most important point in reading fluency is that fluency building does not stop with the end of primary grades. Clausen-Grace and Kelley (2007) noted that only five precent of students arrive in middle school with decoding problems, while by the ninth grade nearly seventy percent are reading below grade level (38).” Students need to build reading fluency throughout schooling as they encounter new text structures and topics.
In addition to learning high-frequency and sight words, being exposed to modeled reading, and rereading of text, readers who lack fluency are more likely to read text that is above their reading level, and they are more likely to be interrupted when they make a mistake. Struggling readers are more likely to be told to sound out words when interrupted and to wait for a teacher to prompt them (Allington, 2006). Allington’s (2006) observations described an overall attitude of struggling readers and their teachers. On some level, struggling readers are playing a part in a self-fulfilling prophesy. They know that they struggle with reading and that their teachers expect them to struggle, so they continue the patterns that are typical of struggling readers. Research shows improvements on overall reading fluency once students are allowed to self-correct and do not feel like their teachers are waiting for them to make a mistake.
Comprehension
Struggling readers have trouble in the area of comprehension. Allington (2006) noted that it is wrong of educators to conclude that students comprehend text just because they know how to read the words. For students to comprehend text they need to become engaged in it. According to Beers (2003), “Comprehension is both a product and a process, something that requires purposeful strategic effort on the reader’s part – anticipating the direction of the text (predicting), seeing the action of the text (visualizing), contemplating and then directing whatever confusions we encounter (clarifying), connecting what is in the text to what is in our mind to make an educated guess about what is going on (inferencing) (46).” Reading comprehension is a process, and if students are to become readers who are skilled at comprehending text, they need to be taught comprehension strategies. Allington (2006) called this thoughtful literacy. Instead of giving students answers and explaining text, thoughtful literacy teaches critical thinking and making connections between present text to other texts and conversations (119).”
Beers ( 2003) and Allington (2006) stressed the importance of connecting text with student’s own background knowledge, other readings, and the world. These connections are inferences made by a reader. Teaching students to infer, which could be described as reading “between the lines”, is teaching them to go past the literal understanding, to think about the text, to make learning theirs, and to draw their own conclusions. Therefore, inferencing skills that are taught through think -aloud and talk-aloud greatly enhance student’s reading comprehension. Other highly effective comprehension strategies are pre, during, and post-reading activities, such as Anticipation Guides, K-W-L charts, Tea Party (pre-reading), Say Something, Think-Aloud, Re-readings (during reading), and Scales, It Says – I Say -And So (post reading).
Teaching comprehension instead of giving students answers and explaining text is more time consuming than the scripted lecture, and it is less predictable, as noted by Beers (2003). Teaching students how to think critically and infer from text is not a quick process. It takes time, but once it develops, students are better equipped to analyze and comprehend text across various text structures. In effort to accommodate enough time for thoughtful literacy to develop, Allington (2006) recommended one and one-half hours daily of time spent actually reading, and restructuring the school day to accommodate for uninterrupted reading times.
Reading A Lot of Right Books
Finally, if struggling readers are to become better readers they need to read a lot, and they need to be provided with books that interest them and that they can read. Since adolescents have a wide range of sophisticated world knowledge that greatly surpasses their reading abilities, they need to be provided books that have interesting topics and are on their reading level (Ivey & Fisher, 2006). Furthermore, struggling readers need to be taught selection strategies, such as, Bookmatch, by Linda Wedwick & Jessica Qutz (2006), which has students answer a number of questions in order to adequately select the right book and teach book selection skills.
In addition to knowing that teachers need to provide struggling readers with the right books and teach them book selection skills, struggling readers benefit the most from teacher’s guidance during structured independent reading. The reading process is continuous and evolving, and struggling readers need reliable guidance throughout. It is not enough to just tell students to read or to give them a list of required readings. If independent readings are to be successful, students need have books that they want and can read. According to Clausen-Grace and Kelley (2007), “Worthy found that infrequent reading by reluctant middle school readers did not stem from a dislike for reading, but from lack of interesting books at home (39).” This is very true even for good readers, plus students today have many other interesting things to spend time doing, such as, playing video games, texting, internet, etc. In order to continuously supply struggling readers with interesting books that they can read, teachers should not only partner up with students but with parents as well, which would provide additional support in effort to have struggling readers read voluminously and become better readers.
Conclusion
A portrait of a struggling reader is a multidimensional. Every struggling reader has his or her own unique reading stage, weaknesses, and strengths. And unfortunately there is no magic formula that can be applied to help all struggling readers get to the desired reading level. However, research shows promising signs of wide range of effective and successful instructions. Three major areas in which struggling readers struggle are reading fluency, reading comprehension, and interesting and leveled reading material for voluminous reading. In the past decade, researchers have produced an abundance of effective strategies, and now it is on teachers to become trained in reading instruction and application and to transfer research into reality.
I am hopeful despite all obstacles that struggling readers are facing. With adequate reading instruction in fluency and comprehension, struggling readers can greatly improve their reading levels. But that is only half of the battle. Perhaps, the most important element of creating readers who read a lot is helping them find their interest and the right books, and then structuring independent reading time in school and at home. This is where dedicated and effective teachers have the greatest part, to motivate and engage students, be it a junk read of series books, magazines, comic books, or any other reading material of student’s choice. After all if students are to become better at reading, they need to read a lot (Allington, 2006).
References
Allington, R. (2006). What really matters for struggling readers (2nd ed.). NY: Addison
Wesley Longman.
Beers, K. (2003). When kids canʼt read. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Clausen-Grace, N. & Kelley, M. (2007). You Can’t Hide in R5: Restructuring Independent Reading to Be More Strategic and Engaging. Voices from the Middle, Volume (14), 38-49.
Ivey, G. & Fisher, D. (2006). When Thinking Trump. Educational Leadership.
16-21.
Rasinksi, T. & Padak, N. (2005), Fluency beyond the primary grades:
helping adolescent struggling readers. Voices from the Middle, Volume (13), 34-41.
Wedwick, L. & Wutz, J. (2006 ). Thinking Outside the Book Box: Using
Bookmatch to Develop Independent Book Selection. Voices from the Middle,
Volume (14), 20-29.
building reading fluency, education, english, free lesson plan, homeschool, lesson, primary teacher, reading fluency, teacher resources, teachers | Helena | 
January 15, 2010 9:00 am | 
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