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How to Tutor a Remedial Reading Student | ||
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Remedial reading tutoring is a much needed service that is easy to do. It is also very rewarding, I love watching students’ whole demeanor change as they learn to read. It’s easy to do, I’ll show you how to quickly and easily find students and teach a remedial student (there are a few differences for a remedial vs. a beginning student.) Teaching remedial reading as a volunteer gives back to the local community, helps by being a positive force in the lives of your students, and is one of the most rewarding things you’ll ever do. More than a third of all Americans, 43%, read at the lowest 2 literacy levels according to the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). In 2005 nationwide, 62% of 4th graders were not reading at a proficient level. For 8th graders, 71% were not proficient readers according to the National Center for Education Statistics, or NCES. 70% of those in prison and 70% of those on welfare read at the lowest 2 literacy levels according to the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey. Literacy is more highly correlated with earnings than IQ. You can see a graph showing the relationship between literacy level and earnings here. Adults are hard to find and teach unless you work with prisoners. However, there are children everywhere struggling because of poor reading teaching methods and too many sight words. These children are easy to find, just give out the NRRF reading grade level test to every parent you know with school aged children. Offer to give it to the child if the parents wish. (This lets the parent off the hook if they are a struggling reader, you can just say you’ve given a ton of them, and they’re a bit complicated. However, many parents can give the test and prefer to give it themselves, I always offer that first.) In all the states I’ve lived in, I’ve never had a problem finding students. One school we lived near taught an excellent phonics program with few sight words, supplemented by phonetic spelling in higher grades. However, the rest of the schools in the district, like most schools, taught sight words and random lists of spelling words, so there were plenty of children there to teach, too. Also, there were always a few transfers in from schools that taught sight words. I like to teach my students at least once a week, twice a week is better. The faster you can get them through the basics, the faster they will learn. They are overcoming bad habit patterns from the way they currently read, so the total time to teach is longer the less often you meet with them. I would recommend having your students watch my online phonics lessons on the days you do not teach them. If they do not have a computer, they can watch them at their local library. The local libraries in all the cities and states we’ve lived in have had computers with headphones available for patron use. Here are the basics of teaching remedial reading. Your number one task is to get them to stop guessing and start sounding out each and every word from left to right. Nonsense words are key, they help prevent guessing. Here is a free website that generates nonsense words. Syllables are also helpful, I would use the Blend Phonics Reader (it helps show how guessing is a bad strategy by showing words with similar configuration together) followed by Webster’s Speller. Here is a step by step guide to using Blend Phonics that also adds in syllables, spelling and phonics rules, syllable division rules, and syllable division exercises. There are also readings from Hebrews 12 that can be added to show progress through the program. While Webster is especially helpful for ESL students and anyone with any speech or language processing issues, it is very beneficial for all remedial students, and helps them gain practice in sounding out multi-syllable words. You can start off for free, using only the Blend Phonics Reader and Webster’s Speller and the phonics concentration game, but eventually you’ll want to get the following books: The ABCs and All Their Tricks by Margaret Bishop Prescription for Reading: Teach Them Phonics by Ernest Christman And, if your student needs more nonsense words, We All Can Read by James Williams (3rd grade to adult) Usually, nonsense words are enough to break the guessing habit. My concentration game makes nonsense words and is a fun way to practice the basics. I recently taught a 3rd grade student who would even try to guess a nonsense word, even when he knew it was not a real word up front! I made him sound out every sound for every word before he said the word for a while, that worked. (I made him say /c/ /a/ /t/ cat, etc.) Nonsense words are faster, and work for 99.9% of remedial students. It still boggles my mind that he would try to guess a nonsense word, he is a bright child, I guess he just had an almost unstoppable guessing habit from too many sight words. When finished with the basic phonics in the Blend Phonics Reader, use Webster’s Speller, starting with the syllabary, and them move on to the words of 2 or more syllables. After they have a few lessons of 3+ syllable words, have them read from books at different grade levels, having them read a paragraph from each until they get to the point where they are missing a few words. Write down the words they missed and the portion they are having trouble with. The next lesson, or later that lesson (give them a 5 or 10 minute break while you look up similar words), look up more words with that pattern in Blend Phonics and another phonics book that you own and work on the sounds they were having trouble with. I would then alternate my teaching between Webster’s Speller multi-syllable words and this type of assessment reading and follow on teaching to identify and teach the sound-spelling patterns the student needs more work learning. You can use any good phonics book, I have some cheap and free phonics resources here, and Don Potter also has an excellent collection of resources on his website. For assessment purposes, I give both of the grade level tests (the Wide Range Test and the NRRF test combined with my test for grads 8, 10, and 12) and the MWIA at the beginning and after 10 to 20 hours of tutoring when they have learned all the sound spelling correspondences. (Give the MWIA I to students reading 2nd grade level or below on the NRRF test. Give the MWIA II to students reading 3rd grade level or higher on the NRRF test.) I give the tests again when they work through a fair amount of multi-syllable words in Webster, and when the student’s parents or you have decided that they may be finished with tutoring. Do not teach to these tests, they are for diagnostic purposes. The MWIA shows how damaged they are from sight words, when they read the phonics words within 15 to 20% of the speed of the holistic words, they have mastered what they need to know well enough that their phonetic reading skills are automated. An older student may never get to that point, stop when they are reading several grade levels above grade level and have mastered all phonics sounds and rules. There may be an initial slowdown in reading speed as they start to learn phonics, it will speed up with practice as the process of phonetic reading becomes automated. The Wide Range test will give a bit of a higher grade level, and includes many sight words, so is a few grade levels above their actual ability to read a normal book. (It is a true measure, however, of their ability to read a Dick and Jane type book with 70+ percent sight words.) The NRRF reading grade level test will give a better assessment of ability to read normal books, they have mostly phonetic words. The tests are here. To tutor a group of students, use the instructions in the step by step guide to using Blend Phonics that also adds in syllables, spelling and phonics rules, syllable division rules, and syllable division exercises. There are also readings from Hebrews 12 that can be added to show progress through the program. I used these instructions to teach a group of students. Then, volunteers from my church worked with the students in groups of 2 or sometimes 3, having each student read a line from Blend Phonics or Webster's Speller in turn during small group work. A sample schedule of how we worked the hours and lessons is shown here. If you want to share your tutoring experiences or read more about tutoring with Blend Phonics and Webster's Speller, Don Potter and I have a joint blog called "Phonics First, Syllables Always," where you can read, learn more, and comment. If your financial situation changes and you need to tutor to earn money, it is easy to make the switch. At reasonable rates, you’re still doing your students a great service by teaching them to read. As a summary, here are all the things needed to teach a single student or a group of students: 1. Before and after tests--the NRRF and the MWIA. | |
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