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
