Helping struggling readers

Purpose

Reading should be an active involvement with a text which results in comprehension. Struggling readers often spend so much time decoding the text that they don’t recognise when comprehension is lost. They can be taught strategies that help them to restore meaning when the text that they are reading is not making sense. These strategies can be applied before reading; while reading; after reading; at the word level. They are best introduced with narratives and in an authentic context, at a point where the student clearly no longer comprehends the text.

Teaching points

Before reading, students can:

  • Activate prior relevant knowledge by looking at the title, cover and pictures. Predict what the story might be about, and what words / characters / places might be in it.
  • Set a purpose for reading – what do they want to know from this text?
  • Ask questions that they would like answered by this text.
  • Plan how to read the text – look through the book to see what’s in it.

While reading, students can:

  • See whether their predictions were right.
  • Answer the questions they had asked, and ask more questions.
  • Check whether the story is making sense.
  • Silently retell the main points of the story so far and think about what they already know through pictures and title.
  • Reread or read ahead to gather meaning.
  • Visualise what the story describes.

After reading, students can:

  • Check to see if their questions have been answered.
  • Silently retell the whole story and ask: did it make sense?
  • Think about the difference between their predictions and the story.
  • Think about how the story connected with prior knowledge.
  • Think how they would have reacted if they had been in the story.

If they come to an unknown word, students can:

  • Guess a word that does make sense. Check if it’s correct.
  • Reread or read ahead and guess the word.
  • Check if they can find words within the word that they do understand (eg word is a compound word, or has a prefix or suffix that they can remove).
  • See if the word looks like a word that they already know. Check if it’s correct.

More information

PEN 112: Gee, H. Metacomprehension strategies: Help for struggling readers. Primary English Teaching Association, Newtown.

Chambers, A.  (1993)  Tell me.  Primary English Teaching Association, Newtown.