What Older Struggling Readers Need

posted in: Dyslexia, Post-16 & Adult Literacy, Secondary literacy, Thoughts on Education |

 Older struggling readers need: 1. to change their minds about reading Reading includes speech and sounds so they learn to use their ears as well as their eyes. English is a code which can be decoded for reading and encoded for spelling. 2. new strategies for attacking unfamiliar words – to replace guessing badly Discover the complete English code Say the sounds and listen for a word Check for meaning in context. 3. confidence All learning needs to be both … Read More

Books for Struggling Readers: 3 – least confident

posted in: Post-16 & Adult Literacy, Resources and Lesson Ideas, Secondary literacy |

It can be quite difficult to find “real reading” material for those who are working hard through the Foundation Levels of TRT. They can read the decodable sentences but, if they’re not flying towards the Advanced Levels, it’s important that they have something to read that is all of: possible, challenging and age-appropriate. Here are my two favourite solutions for two very different age groups. Star Quest Several years ago, the local youth offending team asked me to work with … Read More

Books for Struggling Readers 2 – mid level strugglers

posted in: Post-16 & Adult Literacy, Resources and Lesson Ideas, Secondary literacy |

Here’s the second in a series of posts about a few books I’ve loved working with over the years – starting at those for readers with the highest ability and working down. The first post is here. Older struggling readers have very low expectations of what they can achieve and I’ve generally found those same low expectations are echoed by their teachers and support workers. When I was volunteering in a small school for boys with behavioural and emotional difficulties, … Read More

Books for Struggling Readers 1 – most able strugglers

posted in: Post-16 & Adult Literacy, Resources and Lesson Ideas, Secondary literacy |

When I read Dr Bethan Marshall’s comment that: many teenagers will think that being made to read Dickens aged 16 is just tedious… I felt incredibly deflated by the thought that we’ve created a world where people will miss out on the colour, characters, truths and entertainment of reading Dickens. John Walker writes more about the whys of the matter on his blog and comments: Too often the velleities of secondary school expectation are to blame. After looking up “valleity” … Read More

3 Misconceptions of Struggling Readers

posted in: Post-16 & Adult Literacy, Secondary literacy |

Lacking an MRI scanner, I have to depend on intuition (ie mind reading) when trying to figure out what’s going on inside the brain of a struggling reader. Following are a few of the more common misconceptions that struggling readers live with but never vocalise unless asked. When my son was four, someone asked him is he was going to go ice-skating. He replied, “First I’m going to get my balance, then I’m going to start skating.” He didn’t understand … Read More

Ghoti = Fish (Not Really)

posted in: Post-16 & Adult Literacy |

I know this is the definition of ‘old chestnut’ but could we bury this one for good? Especially people working with older struggling readers? Better explain myself. If we’re being honest about the English language, we have to admit that it comes with a complex written code. There are an awful lot of ways to represent the sounds that we say. However – and this is a big big deal in my world – the code is limited and learnable … Read More

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