Less Reading, Less Comprehension
Difficulty reading leads to less reading, which in turn can lead to reading comprehension trouble. This is one reason comprehension may suffer for dyslexic readers.
This makes a lot of sense. When reading is hard it becomes a chore. When reading is a chore, reading for pleasure doesn’t happen. The more a student experiences difficulty reading, the less they are motivated to read. This cycle only gets worse if the student is not given reading instruction that works to improve reading. Dyslexic readers are weak in phonological processing skills, which are necessary for sounding out unknown words. Without being taught the right skills to sound out words, students will not become better readers, they will read less and this can affect comprehension.
On the flip side, it’s important to note that more reading does not always beget better reading. Just like more phonics instruction does not help a dyslexic reader become better readers if they don’t have phonemic awareness skills and the auditory discrimination necessary to make sense of phonics. Current neurological research is very prescriptive when it comes to reading methodology for dyslexic students. A structured literacy or Orton Gillingham approach is the best approach and will improve student progress the quickest. When decoding and fluency improves, often so does comprehension.
There are three main areas that are negatively impacted by a lack of reading. These areas are background knowledge, vocabulary, and reading fluency.
Difficulty Reading Can Lead to Difficulty Comprehending
This statement may seem like common sense, but is often something that is misunderstood. It’s always important to consider why someone is having difficulty with comprehension. There are students who can read beautifully with very smooth fluency, yet not comprehend anything they’ve read. This is often the case with someone who has autism. This is not a characteristic of dyslexia.
Recently, I’ve received more questions about reading comprehension. I work with children and adults who have dyslexia. The three main characteristics of dyslexia are difficulty when reading words in isolation, poor spelling ability and poor reading fluency. There are many other signs and symptoms of dyslexia, but these are the big three. If you would like a more comprehensive list of the characteristics of dyslexia, please request the, “Characteristics of Dyslexia Resource Guide” through my website.
If you look at a list of dyslexic characteristics, you will notice reading comprehension further down the list. Characteristics are generally grouped by age/grade level, so further down the list would mean the symptom is more likely to show up during later elementary, middle, or high school years as opposed to early elementary years. Why is this?
Dyslexia doesn’t inherently cause reading comprehension problems. In fact, one way to tease out a true comprehension problem versus a decoding problem, with a young child, is to test the student’s listening comprehension and compare this to their silent reading comprehension. Parents and educators are often surprised at the discrepancy between these two skills when working with dyslexic students. Listening comprehension is typically very strong because, at this point, there is nothing wrong with a child’s understanding of language. Silent reading comprehension is often below grade level because the student is struggling to read words accurately and fluently enough to understand what they have read. As you can see, what appears to be a reading comprehension issue is not always a true reading comprehension issue. Instead, it is a decoding problem – the inability to read words on the page with enough fluency to comprehend what was read. Reading fluency is an important indicator of comprehension. This is important to know because text can’t be understood if a child takes too long to read the words on the page. This is compounded if the words read are mostly inaccurate. As a child matures and reaches upper elementary grades and beyond, a true comprehension problem may develop as a secondary issue because of the effect of the dyslexia on their inability to read at the same pace as their peers. Let’s take a look at what this means.
This is an excerpt form an article posted in HERD publications. Check back next Friday for more!
Why is my child struggling with reading comprehension and what will help?
Here’s a scenario. Kim is an 8th grade student who has just been diagnosed with dyslexia. Kim has always been very bright and curious. She asks great questions and has always really excelled in science because of the hands on projects and experiments. Kim is a natural leader and enjoys being actively engaged in many activities. Though Kim loves learning, she has never enjoyed reading for pleasure because it takes her a long time to read. Kim spends a lot of time on schoolwork and tries her best but can’t help feeling frustrated at how long it takes her to complete tasks. She often has to read things two or three times over again just to remember and make sense of what she’s read. Kim doesn’t remember having this problem in elementary school. Why is she having this problem now?
Recently, it seems I’m receiving more questions about reading comprehension. I work with children and young adults who have dyslexia. The three main characteristics of dyslexia are having difficulty reading words in isolation, poor spelling ability and poor reading fluency. There are many other signs and symptoms of dyslexia, but these are the big three. If you look at a more comprehensive list of dyslexic characteristics, you may see reading comprehension further down the list. If the characteristics are grouped by age/grade level, then further down the list would be later elementary, middle, high school and beyond. What does this mean?
Dyslexia makes it difficult to read fluently which can make reading a chore. Often when this is the case, dyslexics decide they are only going to read what they absolutely have to read. This can present problems with reading comprehension, as a child gets older for several reasons. The first reason being limited vocabulary and lack of background knowledge...
To be continued next Friday.
Here are a few ideas to make learning more accessible and less frustrating. Check next week's post for ideas to accommodate writing. You can also email for a complete accommodations guide that you can download.
Reading & Presenting
When I started my journey in the field of learning disabilities and dyslexia, I was reading the book, Why Kids Can’t Read and came across this statement.
“I am sad to think that so many struggling readers have been classified as learning disabled instead of being given the most effective instruction. Most of these children don’t have a learning disability. They have an instructional problem.” Why Kids Can’t Read by P. Blaunstein and R. Lyon
At the time I was a special education teacher for students with learning disabilities. This statement brought tears to my eyes because I had seen this firsthand. For my first few years as a teacher, I used whatever programming was given to me in whatever school district I was teaching at. I truly didn’t know how to teach struggling readers, (outside of traditional methods teachers learn in college) and no one taught me.
My goal for every one of my special education students was to close the gap between their ability and achievement. My heart went out to kids who never seemed to get it and never made it to grade level. After years of watching my students not make enough progress in reading, I sought out answers and found what I was looking for. Here I am, over 15 years later, serving those affected by dyslexia and learning disabilities. My mission is … Giving hope and transforming lives through teaching, training, and providing supports for those affected by dyslexia and other learning disabilities. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or are in need of supports for learning disabilities.