Expert: Norm Bishop - 2/16/2009

Question
My 12 yr old granddaughter has always scored low in reading comprehension, hence, she does poorly in subjects that require reading, such as math word problems, history, reading,etc.  I've reacently read something about ADHD-I and I don't know what that is.  Could you offer suggestions on how we can help her to learn and comprehend?  She is an extremely intelligent child, but always scores low on her report card, which gets her in trouble at home.  She seems to be grounded more than not.  Thank you for any help or advice you can offer.


Answer
Attention Deficit disorder has two types, one is Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, which shows very active children, easily distracted, misbehavior, and so on.  The second type is Attention Deficit Disorder, no H.  In this case it is difficult for the student to concentrate, is easily distracted, very impulsive, but not in miss behaving, rather just distraction.  That may be what they are referring to as ADHD-1.  

However, poor reading comprehension doesn't always go hand in hand with attention deficit disorder.  Reading is not a single process, there are five areas of instruction that are critical to reading.  Reading Comprehension is one of those, actually the most important part of reading.  It is dependent upon the student's word attack skills, phonemic awareness skills, which relate to reading fluency.  If you were a reading teacher you would know what I just described...so, in simpler form, the more fluidly you can read out loud, the better you will remember what you have read.  When you read silently, you should be reading out loud to yourself within your brain...that is how the brain understands what it gets as input.  I would suggest that you do two things.  The first depends upon your financial resources, the second is easily done.  Your best route is to hire a reading tutor that understands how to scientific teach reading.  Unfortunately, this type of tutoring costs around $30 to $40 per hour and twice a week will gain the best results.  If this is a possibility, then it should really help your daughter.  Don't go to Sylvan or the other large tutoring companies, they provide a generic approach to a complex problem, measure progress with their own tests that don't correlate to actual improvement, hire young, inexperienced tutors and keep their teacher to student ratios at around 7 students to one teacher.  They also charge MORE money for less service.

The second thing you can do is to set up a daily reading time with your granddaughter.  That needs to be a time that won't be interrupted by other kids, just you and your daughter with an understanding that it is your time.  During that time you should pick out a good book or magazine that you both enjoy.  Take turns reading out loud...when your daughter reads point out her errors, help her with words that are difficult (write them down, put them on flash cards to play games with (like concentration).  Encourage her to become more comfortable with fluid reading.  Ask her questions about what you are reading, to get her to mentally visualize what she is reading.  

It would also be beneficial to get a Text to Speech software package for her computer.  That tool will read anything that is scanned or typed into the computer out loud to your granddaughter.  She should read along with it, as it will help with her fluency.  Her mother or teacher can also read things outloud and give her some information finding strategies.  

I would encourage the removal of the negative punishment for something she probably doesn't have control over...rather, I would provide incentives for her improving her grades...

this is a lot, I wish you luck...