Meet Josh, a Non-Reader

My favorite series of books for non-readers are called “Brand New Readers” published by Candlewick Press.  Each story is only 8 pages long with one sentence per page.  The stories are humorous and easily memorized…becoming the perfect tool to use with non-readers.

During my first lesson with Josh, a first grader with a language learning challenges, I read to him “Mouse Camps” from the Brand New Readers series.  After reading the story multiple times to Josh, I asked him to help me read the story.  I discovered that he had some memory challenges and did not understand the concept of a word.

My attention was drawn to Josh’s lack of memory, a critical skill for reading.  I recommended that Josh’s mother begin searching for memory game apps to improve his memory skills.  “Simon” is a good one.

To work on left to right orientation (the way we read from left to right) and to understand the concept of a word, I placed one sentence from the story on a sentence strip (purchased at teacher supplies stores) and had Josh practice reading the sentence while pointing to each word.

Then I cut up the sentence (one word for each card) and had him read it.  Once he was proficient at reading the sentence, I had him mix up the cards and put them in the correct order and read the sentence.

This is activity practices:

·       Memory development

·       Left to right orientation

·       One-to-one matching of a vocalized word to a written word

·       Word recognition

Coming…More ideas to help Non-Readers