Reading Comprehension

When Kids struggle with comprehension it is interesting that often there is an overlap in “real life,” that is in the way the child interacts in his personal world.  In this era of  quickly labeling and pathologizing behavior automatically  as “ADHD,” this overlap is something rarely considered, but I think it is worth reflecting on its implications.

Here’s an example.

12 year old Liam is a boy who recently got into a lot of trouble when he used inappropriate language (along with other inappropriate behaviors) on the bus.  When the bus driver tried to correct him, Liam doubled down and got mouthy and defensive.

In other words, Liam showed a lot of bad judgment.

Compounding this, when Liam’s parents attempted to discipline him, rather than become low-key and contrite, he became belligerent, melting down while punching walls.

(I know, everyone’s pulling out their, “ADHD  cards” and quickly putting him on medication, but I’m not so sure.  We need to dig a little deeper.)

Upon meeting Liam, he comes across pretty straight-forwardly and readily admits he has a problem managing anger.  Particularly noteworthy, Liam felt bad about what happened.  He regretted his behavior.

So, what’s the connection with reading comprehension?

When I evaluate Liam in different areas, something that jumps out at me is how little time he spends reflecting on questions asked of him and how weak he was at forming an inference while reading.

In other words, he jumped to conclusions based on very little data and he wasn’t oriented toward being reflective or considered in his approach to the reading process, just like he wasn’t being thoughtful on the bus or with his parents.

Liam needs to learn to “read the signals,” to slow down, to consider and evaluate.  I also understand that’s a lot easier said than done.

When reviewing the assessment with Liam and his parents in pretty direct terms (with a hint of a New York accent), this is what I said:

“Look, Liam, here’s the deal.  We need to work on your inferencing skills – that is, we need to help you pay attention to the clues or to ‘read the signals.’  Like on the school bus, you started to act out to try and get everyone thinking you were funny and you didn’t think it through.  You didn’t assess the consequences.”

(Believe it or not, Liam is actually taking it in and nodding.  He gets it, so I continue.)

“Since you didn’t think it through or consider what you were doing, you got in a lot of trouble.  You were furious with your parents even though they were 100% right.  Here’s the funny thing, when I tested your reading skills, you did the same exact thing.  Like when I asked you questions that did not have a straightforward or direct answer, you had no clue.  How come?  Because you weren’t reading the clues, just like on the school bus.  This is stuff we can work on.  You can get better in these skills.  Finally, we can work on helping you manage your anger better, since you readily admit you have problems with it.”

Liam felt good about what was said to him and his personal “battery” was recharged, since he was told these were skills he could improve.  He was determined to start “reading the clues.”

 Takeaway Point

There may be a connection as to how a kid behaves on the school business, manages emotions and reads a book.  Look for common themes.

I’m not exactly sure when it occurred, when we collectively decided to drain the joy out of reading in early childhood, but it happened some time ago perhaps when we weren’t looking.

The expression about the frog being boiled by degrees so he won’t jump out of the pot, applies.

When it comes to reading we’ve been boiled by degrees and we weren’t aware of it.

The evidence for this comes from the dreadful worksheets brought to me by parents on a daily basis that are passed off as sham literature.

This week’s blog was prompted by parents who brought me “reading material’ on their child, young Brody, a second grader.   As I perused the packet of dreadful, there was a two page “story” that Brody was assigned.  The story had no redeeming value that authentic stories or literature would have, but what was even worse was what young Brody had to do after reading the story.  There were 20 multiple choice questions for the poor kid to slog through.  20!!!

The last time I looked, early second grade was not competing with the SAT.  Here’s one of the questions:

“If stir means “mix by moving around with a spoon” then stirred means

1. Not mixing by moving around.
2. Mix by moving around with a spoon
3. Mixed by moving around with a spoon
4. Mixing by moving around with a spoon.

Mind numbed yet?  I can just picture the author of this test congratulating himself for slipping in a way to learn about present and past tense.

Imagine 20 of these to sort out?

Keep in mind that I have not yet met or evaluated Brody, but the odds are pretty good that he has a reading problem.  Even if Brody turns out to be an adequate reader upon evaluation, the story and the 20 questions would have been stultifying to the best of students.

Somewhere along the line we got the notion that worksheets passing off as literature with their   accompanying tests were the answer, that each question somehow would bring the child to the next level of reading development.

I’m not buying it.

Twenty multiple choice questions following a faux story leads to turned-off kids, shutting them down.

Real literature ignites the imagination and gets the conversation going.  There’s meat on the bones.  Great stories motivate kids to read more great stories.

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For a free 15 Minute Consultation, contact Dr. Selznick: email – contact@shutdownlearner.com.

To receive free Dyslexia Infographics and updates, go to: www.shutdownlearner.com.

As part of an assessment I recently asked 17- year-old near senior, Bethany, “Who wrote Hamlet?”  Looking bewildered, she said, “I have no idea.”

Then, when asked to define the word “tranquil,” she could not further no guess.  Bethany had no association to the word.

By the end of the assessment, it turned out that Bethany scored in the 16^th percentile for word knowledge and the 9^th percentile for fund of information and general knowledge.

In contrast, Bethany functioned somewhat above average on tasks that were nonverbal, like putting blocks together to make spatial patterns and while analyzing a series of visual patterns.

“I think I have ADD,” Bethany said to me.

“What tells you that,” I asked her.

“When I read my mind wanders.  I have no idea what I am reading.  In class I can’t follow what the teacher is saying and have no clue what they are discussing. It has to be ADD – I think I should be on meds. Most of my friends are on meds.”

“I should be on meds” – The Drive towards ADHD Medication for Children

I get that kind of thing a lot – kids thinking they should “be on meds.”

Even though Bethany may benefit from stimulant medication, what I do know is that one of the primary reasons Bethany does not pay attention in class or while reading is that she lacks what I call “hooks in the mental closet.”

Background Knowledge and Reading Comprehension

We used to think of reading as a fundamentally one-direction process.  In this model words would go from the page to the brain.  Researchers in the 1980s and 1990s enlightened us that  reading (and listening to class lectures) was more of a two-way, interactive process.

The fact is the more “hooks we have in our mental closet” (the researchers used different terminology, mind you), the better we comprehend what we are reading or understand what we are listening to.

These “hooks” also help us to pay attention.  While medication may help Bethany focus, she still needs to be building in background knowledge and word awareness to try and overcome her sense of feeling lost.

In short, Bethany needs to build in more hooks.

There are plenty of books on the market that may be helpful such as, “Words You Should Know In High School: 1000 Essential Words To Build Vocabulary, Improve Standardized Test Scores, And Write Successful Papers.”

Building Background Knowledge Strategies – 720 New Hooks

I can tell you with pretty good assurance that Bethany knew about 15% of the essential 1000 words.

Even if Bethany practiced two words per day for a year, she would be in much better shape with the 720 new words (365 words X 2) for the year that she could learn.

There would be 720 new hooks in her mental closet!!!

Takeaway Point

Hooks in the mental closet matter and may explain some of the reason your child is not paying attention or adequately comprehending. Try and build them in any way you can.

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For a free 15 Minute Consultation, contact Dr. Selznick: email – contact@shutdownlearner.com.

To receive free Dyslexia Infographics and updates, go to: www.shutdownlearner.com.

This week we move a bit away from “Dyslexia Land,” and go the other side of the continuum to “Comprehension Land.”

A few observations about comprehension:

• It’s really hard to assess properly.
• What we accept as a “comprehension,” may well be a poorly written story or a test that the kid does not easily connect to or understand. In other words it’s the test or story construction that is the issue.  (Try reading some of the worksheets or tests that get passed off as good stories.)
• Comprehension is not taught by worksheets.
• It takes a lot of work to teach comprehension.

Let’s take young Jeremy, a fifth grader who shows some signs of a “comprehension problem.”

When assessed Jeremy was given three reading formats that assessed comprehension under entirely different conditions.

On a multiple choice test where he read the passage and answered the questions, he bombed out on an easy second grade level selection, but scored adequately on a much harder sixth grade story.  His struggling at the second grade level affected his overall score, but was that a comprehension problem?

With an informal reading inventory where Jeremy read the story both out loud and silently and was then asked questions of the stories, he missed many of the concepts at the third and fourth grade levels, but then was pretty capable at the sixth.

Again, that may not be a comprehension problem, but represent difficulty with certain passages.

Additionally, many children have not had sufficient practice or feedback on how to tackle reading selections.  With comprehension there needs to be a  back and forth dialogue that takes place between the teacher/tutor who acts a facilitator who can help guide kids to find answers or to respond when the information may not be all that explicit or clear.

A simple text example would be the following:

“When the people got on the train to go to work they had to make room for those carrying their coats and umbrellas.”

If a child was asked, something like “What do you think the weather was like in the story,” he might say something like, “I don’t know.  It didn’t say anything about the weather.”

That is because the child who answers like that is not tuned into to making inferences.

A child more tuned in might say, “Well, it mentioned coats and umbrellas, so I am guessing it was chilly and rainy.”

Such a response would be a perfectly plausible inference based on the text.

My guess would be that about 50% of the population of fifth graders are pretty capable of managing the processes involved with comprehending.

That leaves a hefty 50% who show what I refer to as, “Swiss cheese holes” in their understanding of what they read, especially with forming inferences.

Takeaway Point

What is called “comprehension” is complex and multifaceted.  It is very hard to make blanket statements about comprehension.

Ultimately, for kids struggling in this domain they need a lot of guided, back and forth practice conducted over  time to help them become more “tuned in.”

Let’s go once again into the “Way Back Machine.”  This time we will go to the mid 1980’s.  What was the red hot topic in the field of reading and cognitive psychology?

I will give you a hint.  It wasn’t decoding or reading fluency.

The topic of the decade, the one receiving millions of dollars of grant money across the country to major university centers (especially in the Midwest region), was not dyslexia.

The central topic was reading comprehension, with a particular emphasis on higher-order thinking, inferential reasoning and that funky term that almost no one understands –  “metacognition.”

Sadly, like most of these hot topic initiatives and movements (anyone out there remember Reading First), over time they are largely forgotten and put into the educational/psychological dust bin, sort of like an education  psychology version of Toy Story.  (“Hey, remember me, I was the toy you  played with all of the time  and now you’ve forgotten me.”)

Interactive Nature of Reading Process

Even though we are squarely in the Decade of Dyslexia (Is everyone “dyslexic” these days), there were important research findings from that era that are important to remember.   (Sadly, our version of “evidence based” practice seems to be based on about a five year window of research, so good research conducted in a time such as the 1980’s would not make the cut.)

One of the biggest take away points from that time is the interactive nature of the reading/learning process.

We used to think about reading in more one-directional terms.  That is, there was text on the page that somehow went up through the eyeballs and into the brain for comprehension.

The cognitive psychologists studying this stuff in the 1980s told us that was erroneous.  Reading was not a one-directional process. Instead, we have “schema,” (i.e.,  prior knowledge or the stuff in our head) that gets activated while reading.

The more “stuff” (schema) we have in our head, the better will be our understanding of the material on the page.

Another big takeaway that is now in the dust bin is that in order to improve comprehension we need to interact with different types of questions that stimulate a child to seek information and find justifications in the text.    In other words, just answering questions on a worksheet was not how to teach comprehension.

Inferential thinking is a skill that does not come naturally to many kids, but can be taught with good facilitated instructional practice and questions that guide this type of thought process.

Comprehension is not an easy skill to teach, but if the research findings were followed, comprehension could be improved.

Takeaway Point

Some of the toys forgotten in the toy chest may still have some value.