Strategies for Teaching Students with Reading Problems

Being able to read with decoding, fluency, and comprehension is essential to a student's success in school across the curriculum. The ability to read text that is on grade level is an area of weakness for students who have learning disabilities but many students without disabilities also have trouble in this area. This article will give teachers some ideas of ways to help struggling readers in the classroom or suggest accommodations for a student's IEP.

Many students become overwhelmed by the amount of information assigned in a particular textbook. These students have probably not developed the ability to locate the main idea of a passage or can't figure out how the text is organized. If you're going to be using the textbook a great deal in your class, take some time at the beginning of the school year to help students become familiar with the book's format. Point out the importance of looking at highlighted words, illustrations, graphs, headings, and sub-headings. Students often overlook these important parts of the text and therefore are unable to locate information to answer questions or understand data. Often it is beneficial to create a study guide or skeleton notes to go along with the text that is organized in a similar format when there are going to be lengthy reading assignments. By pairing or grouping students for reading assignments, you can assign weaker readers with stronger readers. If possible, give students who have difficulty reading text that is written at a lower grade level using vocabulary that may be easier for the student to decode and understand. Make sure that the lower level text that you provide doesn't change what the student needs to know, that it only makes the information more accessible for the student. It is important to remember that standardized tests given by school districts or states have strict guidelines for testing accommodations so you want to ensure that the student hasn't missed any key information. Allowing the student to have material read aloud or listening to books on audiotape is another accommodation that is commonly used for students with reading weaknesses.

Students who have trouble reading and who learn better through the use of visual or hands-on methods will benefit from watching educational programs or engaging in multi-sensory activities to go along with the instructional material. While watching videos constantly does not follow best practices, they can be used to supplement material. Many videos or streaming educational content come with worksheets for students to complete either during or after the video. I have found that by reading the questions on the worksheet aloud before watching the video helps students to listen for important information.