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Showing posts with the label Reading Comprehension

100 Powerful Learning Specialist and Educational Therapy Materials

This week I wanted to tell you about my online store, Good Sensory Learning. I’m Dr. Erica Warren, and I established this site so I could share all the materials that I have created over the last 20+ years as a learning specialist and educational therapist. When I first began my private practice, Learning to Learn, I had great difficulty finding fun and multisensory materials for my students that were effective and engaging. So back in 2005, I made it my mission to design and distribute high-end, remedial products as well as memorable, motivating lessons that bring delight to learning. If you would like to try a free sampling of my activities , CLICK HERE . How Are the Products Organized at Good Sensory Learning? You can download my Free Printable Catalog or you can browse the site using the grey “search all products” bar in the top right of any page with keywords such as dyslexia, working memory, and executive functioning. What’s more, drop down menus in the red banner allow you t...
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How to Develop Reading Stamina for Struggling Readers

Building reading stamina for struggling readers can be a tricky endeavor.  After a few pages of text, many lose interest because reading is a difficult and cognitively taxing chore.  So what can be done to increase endurance and help learners find joy in reading. What is Reading Stamina? Reading stamina is a learner's ability to sustain attention and effort when reading independently. Why Do Some Students Struggle with Poor Reading Stamina? Poor reading stamina is often associated with other areas of cognitive-based weaknesses.  If readers, for example, are placing too much attention and energy on decoding words, there is little mental space left - if any - to comprehend the material.  Perhaps they can decode words, but their tracking, visualization skills, or working memory are lacking.  Again, they may not have the cognitive room to make sense of what they are reading.  Here are a few possible processing areas that could get in the way: Weak visual proces...
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12 Free Ways to Strengthen Visual Tracking

Tracking is the ability to move one's eyes smoothly across the page from one word to another as well as from one line of text to another.  For some learners, however, this is a challenging task.  Instead, their eyes jump back and forth and struggle to stay on a single line of text.  This can result in problems such as word omissions, reversals, eye fatigue, losing one's place while reading, and most importantly it can undermine reading comprehension. Can Tracking be Improved? Yes, one can improve tracking by strengthening eye muscles and getting one's eyes and brain to work together. There are three types of eye movements that need to be addressed: Fixations : The ability to hold one's eyes steady without moving off a target. Saccades : The ability to jump to new targets that randomly disappear and reappear in a different location. Pursuits : The ability to follow a moving target with one's eyes. 12 Free Ways to Improve Tracking: Use color overl...
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How to Make Color Overlays for Struggling Readers - FREE DIY

Many struggling readers have difficulties tracking text across and down the page. Their eyes get lost in a maze of words and keeping their place takes up most of their attention - leaving little stamina for decoding and comprehension. Did you know that there is a simple and fun fix for this problem?  You can make your own color overlays! What are Color Overlays? Colored overlays are plastic sheets that allow students to change the background color of the text.  This can make the stark contrast of black text on white paper less intense, and many kids enjoy the colors.  Most importantly, by placing the line of text that is being read at the bottom of the plastic lens, it can be a wonderful way for students to keep their place while reading. Would You Like to Create Your Own Color Overlays? You can make your own overlays by using transparent, colored report covers, dividers, or overhead projector film.  They can be used as whole sheets, but I prefer to cut stri...
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What Can You Do When Your Child Hates to Read

For many young learners, reading is a tantalizing adventure into the imagination of an author and a fun way to increase knowledge. However, for other learners, reading can be a tedious chore that can result in avoidance and even tantrums.  So, what can you do when a child hates to read?  It is a two-step process.  First, one must reveal the specific difficulty.  Then, one must pick among a number of solutions. Uncover the Problem or Problems There are a number of learning difficulties that can make the process of reading a dull and laborious grind, and uncovering the core cause(s) can help to untangle the turmoil.  This can be done qualitatively by observing a student, or preferably one can pursue comprehensive psychoeducational testing. Visual processing deficits : Visual processing is a cognitive skill that allows us to process and interpret meaning from information that we see through our eyes, and it plays an important role in academic subjects such ...
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The Best Way to Improve Reading Comprehension

When students love to read they have an enormous advantage over those who don't. Research shows that reading exercises attention, exposes readers to new ideas, and improves knowledge, vocabulary, imagination, writing abilities, attention and memory. So why is reading loved by some and hated by others? Why do Some Children Love to Read While Others Don't? Imagine going to the movies with your eyes closed.  Would that be fun?  Would it be easy to get distracted by your thoughts, because you have no visuals to pull you into the story?  Would it be boring? How about comprehending the plot?  Would you confuse the characters or miss other important details? What watching a movie and reading have in common is imagery.  While a movie provides the images that the audience passively views, good readers actively create mental imagery that engages their imagination, drives their attention, and pulls them into the virtual reality of the story. While g...
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How Can I Improve My Reading Speed and Comprehension?

There are all sorts of companies that are trying to sell “speed reading” programs and a “quick comprehension fix.” I often evaluate these products, and I continually find them, too good to be true. What I do know, as a seasoned reading specialist, and educational therapist, is there is not a single solution that serves every struggling reader. So why is this and what can you do? Why Does the Solution to Improved Reading Differ Across Individuals? The secret to improving both reading speed and comprehension depends on each individual’s learning profile and preferences. What are the cognitive weaknesses that are causing the reading difficulties? These deficits need to be remediated through individualized support and accommodated with assistive technology tools. In addition, what are the cognitive strengths of the learner? Tapping into these abilities can help struggling readers develop compensatory strategies or workarounds. Finally, looking at individual preferences can also help. Thi...
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Boost Reading Comprehension By Exercising Visualization Skills

One of the most common questions I get asked is how to help students improve reading comprehension. There are many books on this topic, and the vast majority of strategies involve a structured and mindful approach to teaching this skill. While this can serve many students, I have found that the best possible tool to nurture voracious readers is to teach students how to apply visualization skills while reading. Although this is not a strategy that is taught often, the  research behind this approach is robust and has been used for centuries . Why is Visualization Important in the Reading Process? Can you imagine what it would be like to go to the movies with your eyes closed?  Who would want to do that?  It would be hard to maintain attention.  In addition, it would be difficult to comprehend and remember the plot, because images help to support the storyline and develop the characters. Similarly, reading without visualizing can cause comparable difficu...
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Awesome, New Fun Online Tool that Builds Vocabulary - Infercabulary

I am so pleased to announce my 12th Go Dyslexia video podcast: Dyslexia: Building Vocabulary and Semantic Skills with Infercabulary, featuring Guest Beth Lawrence and Host Dr. Erica Warren. URL:  https://youtu.be/WVZkHFXPKo8   This blog shares my most recent video podcast, featuring dyslexia expert Beth Lawrence, MA, CCC-SLP. Beth is an Orton Gillingham trained, certified speech-language pathologist, and CEO of Communication Apptitude (dba InferCabulary and WordQuations).  This is the 12th of many free video podcasts for Go Dyslexia! During the video podcast, Beth and I talk about Infercabulary , a fun and multisensory online site that offers vocabulary and semantic reasoning development exercises and assessments. Beth talks about the importance of developing language skills and also provides a quick description of her app, WordQuations and assessment, Test of Semantic Reasoning .   What is Infercabulary? Infercabulary is a fun online site that deve...
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Reading Comprehension Problems: 4 Causes and 12 Solutions

I'm sure most you have experienced the act of reading a book, while your mind was wandering elsewhere. So, you can probably appreciate how easy it is for youngsters to miss meaning while reading. Although teachers, reading specialists and even parents spend an enormous amount of time instructing young learners how to decode the written word, they often neglect to fully teach the metacognitive skills required to comprehend text. What are the Common Causes of Reading Comprehension Problems? There are a number of indicators that can be used to flag students who will likely require explicit instruction in reading comprehension. Learners that have or had weak oral language skills when they were in preschool.  Students that have underdeveloped word decoding skills.  Learners with weak executive functioning skills, especially in working memory which involves the use of one’s “inner eye” and “inner voice.”  Learners with poor language processing abilities. They may...
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