Remedial Reading Lessons: Plans for Parents and Teachers

Teaching Children Remedial Reading

Reasons for Remedial Reading

As a parent, you can find out if your child needs remedial reading instruction by talking to your child's teachers and other reading experts. Sometimes, a student needs to enter remedial reading for a brief period of time to catch up. However, certain learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, can also be addressed by remedial reading lessons. Dyslexia can cause a child to mix up letters and words, and as a result the child may become spatially confused when attempting to read or write.

Comprehension Help

If your child or students are having a hard time understanding and interpreting texts, you can teach them comprehension techniques. Start by taking a 'picture walk' through a book. Before reading, look at the pictures and discuss what might be happening. When your child or students read the story, they will be able to use the pictures as an aid to comprehend the plot.

While reading, stop frequently to make sure your child or student understands what's going on. With remedial readers, it's important to be slow, patient and thorough. Periodically ask your child or students to make predictions about what may happen next in the narrative. This will help them think critically about the text.

Repetition can often be the key. The more times remedial reading students are confronted with the same theme and ideas, the more likely they are to understand a topic on a deeper level.

Phonics

You can help remedial readers by teaching them to decode words by identifying familiar word parts and letter patterns in unknown words. The more letter combinations a child knows, the more he or she is able to decode new words phonetically.

If you have a child or student who struggles with decoding words initially, you can teach him to break words into sounds. Help the child identify different sounds in words and show how each word is made up of different sounds. Start with simple words, like 'happy'. Put the word parts on flash cards and help her place the cards in the correct order.

Working with Disabilities

If your child or a student suffers from a disability, like dyslexia, first determine the severity by referring the child to a child psychologist or special education professional. A comprehensive study of the student needs to be made in order to determine the best course of action.

As a teacher, give special needs students as much extra attention as you can. Perhaps you can give certain students one-on-one reading instruction after class. Alternatively, there may be a trained reading specialist that your school provides for remedial readers. As a parent, you may consider hiring a private tutor and enrolling your child in a reading program for kids with disabilities.