Reading difficulties
"the acquisition of reading is an extremely complex subject, which is influenced by factors outside a school’s control, such as socio-economic background, neurological development, the language of instruction and the experiences and stimuli a child encounters at a very early age, as well as many others" House of Commons Select Committee, April 2005
The importance of the individual child’s experience
An excellent introduction to the complexities of reading difficulties is provided in Tony Martin’s Book, The Strugglers: Working With Children Who Fail to Learn to Read. The chapter, ‘Leslie a reading failure talks about reading’ takes the form of an interview between the teacher (Tony Martin) and Leslie, looking back on Leslie’s history of reading failure. Teachers and teaching assistants on courses at CLPE have discovered the value of such interviews in getting to the heart of children’s learning needs. Leonie Wallace, a teaching assistant on a CLPE course, carried out an interview with E., a 9 year old boy who stated that:
“I hate reading, trying to really concentrate and remember the words I know. In reading time I only pretend to read my library book, though some of it I can read. He’s mixed race, a black man like me. He raps (poetry by Benjamin Zephaniah). My school reading book is Chip and Kipper. No way am I reading that. It has easy words like ‘a’, ‘what’, ‘them’ but I ain’t reading that in class. I can’t believe they gave me that!”
See below for a short extract from Tony Martin’s interview with Leslie. Ask students to read it and discuss some of the issues under the following headings:
Activity
The child as a reader
- How did the child feel about himself as a reader?
- What do we know about his view of reading?
- What does he think about the books he reads?
- What do we find out about his strategies as a reader?
Classroom practices eg
- Nature of texts read
- Contexts for reading
- Evidence of teaching
Support for reading
Ask students what they think would be appropriate to support Leslie’s progress under the following headings
- Texts
- Contexts for reading
- Teaching approaches
QWhat do you remember about reading?
LThey kept giving you books over – like when you went onto a book, right and then you finish it and then you go onto another one the teacher would say if you can't read that one go back onto the other one – well I've read it again, so that's a bit boring - she never gave, you know, a different book, smaller one but a different story - she's just giving you the same books.
QThese books over and over?
LYeah, till you got it right.
QHow long did it take you sometimes to get it right?
L Half a term! [laughs] Yeah because some of the words are hard - see - she
never gave me no easy ones. Like the pirate, the blue pirate and the red
pirate, books like that - that's how it was really scary.
QWhy was it really scary?
L Well the teacher - and you come into school [laughs] ...
Q But the pirate books are quite hard. What were you reading before them?
L I weren't reading anything - just words - on cards - only letters and words -
she used to put them up and you had to say it - and you had to say your
alphabet and that.
Q So you can remember what the first book was you ever had?
L [Pause] Peter and Jane. That was the first one I ever had. Peter and Jane
and then I went on to the pirate ones.
Q How many Peter and Jane books did you read?
L [Pause] Twenty? About twenty. And this kid right, some kids had thick
books and there's me with the book this thin [laughs] - really shy and
everything - it's funny - and then I started to pick up and then I lost it again.
Q What happened
L I stopped reading - like you say 'don't stop reading' - well I stopped reading.
Q Why?
L Because I liked, I liked, I'd rather do drawing - because I do that lots at
home - and I stopped reading.
Q So you stopped reading at school and you just did drawing at school?
L Not just - we did have to do a bit of reading.
Q To yourself, to another child, to the teacher?
L To the teacher most of the time - never by yourself - they never let you have a chance - they think, oh no, let's listen to him.
Q Did you ever read on your own?
L I did at home. We took the books home.
Extract from Martin, T. (1988) ‘Leslie a reading failure talks about reading’,
The Strugglers: Working With Children Who Fail to Learn to Read Open University Press
References
House of Commons Select Committee Report Teaching Children to Read,
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmeduski/121/12103.htm
Further reading
Martin, T. (1988) The Strugglers: Working With Children Who Fail to Learn to Read Open University Press
 
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