Background:
My client, D, is a nine year old male. He is diagnosed as delayed speech and language(DSL). D has been receiving speech and language therapy from West Virginia University Speech and Hearing Center since the summer of 2004. Before he came to WVU, D received treatment at his elementary school. The client has trouble with velopharyngeal closure, syntax, word finding and reading.
Treatment:
D is still presenting a lot of trouble with reading. This seems to be one of his mothers main concerns. Along with continuing to read we have moved on to more simplistic methods. His inconsistency and frustration shows that he may be having trouble with the groupings of words and word families. It was suggested on several education sites to work on word families. There also several articles in which it is stated that working on word families particularly helps out struggling readers. Ones such article is Helping Low Readers in Grades 2 and 3: An After-School Volunteer Tutoring Program Darrell Morris; Beverly Shaw; Jan Perney
The Elementary School Journal, Vol. 91, No. 2. (Nov., 1990), pp. 132-150.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0013-5984%28199011%2991%3A2%3C132%3AHLRIG2%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y . We take word family cards and separate them into beginning and ending of words. Then we take turns moving the cards around to try and form words. I also take one or two endings and go over them thoroughly.
Effectiveness: D seems to be catching on to this theory. He still guesses at times and has some trouble remembering the sounds of the words. He does however get a spark every now and again and he takes off. He understands that the words all have the same ending. He needs more practice but I really could see this making a difference.
3 comments:
This semester I worked on reading with my client too. She was a very poor reader when we started out but she has made much improvement. She was very inconsistent at times too and would get frustrated if she had to read alot.
I never used working on word families with her but it sounds like a really good idea. It really sounds like it helped your client. In the article The Timing and Teaching of Word Families by Francine Johnston, she talks about why it is important to study word families and how studying them helps raise phonological awareness. It is beneficial because it helps children learning how to read recognize words and it can help them develop the strategy of analogy to help decode and learn new words.
My client might have benefited from learning word families. I'm sure if your client keeps it up, he will become a great reader.
Johnston, F. (1999). The timing and teaching of word families. Reading Teacher, 53(1), 64-75.
Hi Desiree,
I've tutored first graders in reading before, so I know how hard it is to find something that works for each individual child. I found this article on teaching phonics to children in grades K-6, and thought it was an interesting study. It also has a lot of useful links at the bottom for anything you might find interesting.
National Reading Panel. Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction. Chapter 2. 2000
http://research.nichcy.org/MetaAnalysisFull.asp?ID=90
Oh Desiree!
I know exactly what you mean... When I got to work with D last semester as an assistant, my clinician began incorporating D's reading assignments into the therapy session. It was so hard to watch him struggle through 5 pages of a book that was definitely on his level, so I know it must be painful for he and his mom. I know from working with some summer programs and teaching kids how to read, that it is so hard. Every child is different, and it's very hard to find that one technique that works for each child.
This article caught my eye last year, so I was a nerd and bookmarked it since I'm such a childhood literacy advocate. :-) It's a really interesting concept that some kids who have trouble reading may not just simply have problems figuring out the structure of the words, but that receptive and expressive language, and the actual understanding of what the word means could actually play a role in their reading difficulties. Give it a read; I think it will be a lot of good information to supplement what you have already learned so far with D. :-)
Wise, Sevcik, Morris, Lovett & Wolf.(2007). The relationship among receptive and expressive vocabulary, listening comprehension, pre-reading skills, word identification skills, and reading comprehension by children with reading disabilities. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 50, 1093-1109.
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