How to help your struggling reader

https://www.understood.org

​    In my area, schools have now been closed for a month. This month included a week of official spring break and then a bonus spring break week for the students as teachers worked to get schooling moved over to online. 
      If your child is one of several struggling readers, this time away from school will be most difficult. It is of utmost importance to make sure they don't lose their traction and start their summer slide in March or April. 
      Here are some tips to help your struggling reader maintain on track or even continue advancing in his/her skills:

1. Keep Reading: keep your child engaged in books. Pick up any book and start a family book club where you gather and read together. You can have discussions about characters and plots. You can tap into their creative side and have them create scenery boards via computers or paper and pencil. However, you choose to keep reading just do it. It is beneficial for your child to listen to your inflections as you read. You will be serving as a reading model for them. 
2. Keep phonics on the front line: If your school is not continuing to teach phonics actively while we are on this quarantine, then you are going to need to take the reigns. At the moment many sites are offering free or significantly reduced pricing to help you achieve these goals. Many tutors who specialize in Orton-Gillingham have moved to online tutoring. Seek one out if you don't yet have one. We can, believe it or not, continue with multi-sensory education even though it is through distance learning. 
3. Multi-sensory activities you can do at home: Take shaving cream and spread it on the outdoor table and have your child write the letters for the sounds you give them. Or have them write the words. Your table will get a good cleaning, and your child will enjoy the fun. Roll out letters or words with play-dough. Write words or letters with chalk. Get a spray bottle of water or a cup of water and a paintbrush and let them write words or letters this way. Spread applesauce on a pan and let them trace out letters and words on it as well Don't be surprised if they eat it along the way. One of my favorite activities I recently saw, was a mom who had taped up sounds along her living room wall and gave the kids Nerf guns to shoot the sounds as she said them. 
4. Older students: Focus on root words with prefix and suffix. https://membean.com/treelist or https://www.etymonline.com/ These websites are a great resource to look up meanings of words and to work on vocabulary study. Pick 2-3 roots or affixes per week to study. Have your child start their own dictionary in a notebook or make a matrix to make more words from just the couple they have focused on. 

Head over to my Pinterest page to see some more ideas or catch a few of the resources I wrote about here. https://www.pinterest.com/imazzotti/ You will want to look at the Orton-Gillingham Page and the Distance Learning Page. 


Here are some other resources to help you get started:​
https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/partnering-with-childs-school/instructional-strategies/8-multisensory-techniques-for-teaching-reading


​https://www.ateachableteacher.com/free-phonics-websites-for-kids/
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​https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/family-kids/coronavirus-mum-invents-fun-nerf-21752585


​https://1plus1plus1equals1.net/2014/09/shooting-sight-words-learning-to-read-is-fun/


https://www.theliteracynest.com/2019/09/how-to-help-a-child-with-dyslexia-with-home-reading.html

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