I have supplemental material that clearly provides an outline and sructure for what I want them to learn. It "directs" them to read and learn what is most important and puts the student in charge of learning the material in a way that work for them.
Bill,
this is a great strategy & a wonderful opportunity.
Dr. Ryan Meers
The tech school I teach in has about half Spanish-speaking students, but their range of English skills is huge: some are nearly native-speaker proficient, others are fresh out of the box. It's been very helpful for those with better skills to work with those who are newer to English. This also helps to build comfortable student-to-student bonds and an atmosphere of cooperation and caring. But for me, the biggest payback has been American-born students who have serious reading and comprehension issues. Seeing the progress made through peer cooperation among their Latin classmates has made it easier for them to come forward to ask for help with their own language assimilation problems. Love that win-win stuff!
By Eddy Mojena
Having students with reading deficiencies I usually have them read in class out loud with other students and to themselves as an assignment for home work and write what they've read to help overcome their obstacle.
Tara ,
these are great ideas to help those readers who may be struggling.
Dr. Ryan Meers
James,
yes, it is very important to see if anything has been documented & accomodations called for.
Dr. Ryan Meers
I teach medical classes, and I have seen many students that either have difficulty reading text or struggle with writing-- whether it is a "charting" example or short answer on a test. They will completely leave the question blank. Reading these posts, I think that especially for those that reading/writing are difficult, I need to show "examples" and use repetition from day one of the course so by the end of the class the students have more confidence in their own abilities.
I found it important to see if there is a documented learning issue. Certain accommodations can be made. If it is english as a secondary language, I work with the real life experience and word decoding. Unfortunately, my classes are 5 weeks long and it is hard to get students up to speed. The school I am working at is changing to some general education courses to aid some of these issues. Most work through it. You must tape there motivation. I will work with anyone but I can't care more about thier grade than they do.
Leon,
this is great advice & one of the best things we can do is to direct the students to the resources that are available.
Dr. Ryan Meers
Having many international students in my physics class, when I prepare an exam I try to use words which are relatively common, those that I would expect everyone is familiar with.
I had a student with ADHD. He came to me for help because it takes him a while to process what I am saying in lecture and he does not want the whole class to know about his condition. I now have him come in half an hour earlier for tutoring and I go over what it is I am going to be discussing about so he have a better understanding.
I model reading for them by handing out a passage and demonstrating the steps in reading which include:
1.) Stop after two sentences and put the information in your own words
2.) Circle new vocabulary and underline key terms
3.) Use the text and reference materials to define new words, then use them in a new way
4.) Write a paraphrase of the entire passage
5.) Take visual notes which express the information in a way where each new term has an associated picture
To help those with reading difficulties it helps to break the content down into very basic terminology that hopefully they can understand and use as a foundation to build on as the course progresses. Also, their comprehension can be increased by providing many examples of application of concepts in terms that they can understand and relate to. The difficulty I see when you have a class with just one or two students with reading deficiencies is that there really is not enough class time to adequately address the difficulties these students face and teach the rest of the class at reasonable pace.
Usually the college will have a reading and writing center. Have the student use these services as much as possible, especially with assignments.
Give short assignments between major assignments that involve comprehension of cases and interpretation. Evaluate and give feedback.
Buid vocabulary in every class session and take a few minutes to give examples of how to use the words. Use word codes if necessary.
Leon Guendoo
I have a class of students learning technical materials, but lacking the capability or desire to read the materials before class. After the first chapter, I began to give a chapter pre-test, instruction, and a chapter post-test. This allows me to hone in on the chapter content that needs the most attention. I am still having only limited success, I could use more ideas.
Michael,
I agree that repetition really is a vital aspect in assisting the learning.
Dr. Ryan Meers
Lori,
this is a great strategy as it helps them be exposed to the information several times.
Dr. Ryan Meers
I find that repetition is helpful, particularly with key words. Using examples of how that word is applied in the subject matter can help. I also will do a short summary of the key concepts from the previous class at the beginning of the next class. I agree, however, with many of the other comments that I have seen-in the few short classes we have together, there is a limited amount that can be accomplished.
Practice words. To prepare a student for the next day's lecture, I often will have them go through the chapter for the vocabulary words, write out their definitions, and then lecture the next day we use the words that they just defined. The laboratory exercises then integrate the vocabulary words, and lecture into practical applications. Feedback from students is they like the process, and they feel they understand the material better than without the integration of vocabulary words.
Thank you,
Lori
SO many students are deficient in reading/comprehension - not sure whether it's a statewide or a national problem. The really bad ones I try and help by reading, reading, reading with them in separate sessions out of class, also trying to guage their comprehension at the same time. I only have students for 5 weeks at a time so not sure that anything is being achieved. Unfortunately a lot of the students don't seem to realize they are deficient in this area. As I read through this comment, it seems very negative and I'm not really sure what the long term solution is. Maybe it's just time to retire!
