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Reading Difficulty and Reading Education
Reading difficulties can make educators, schools, parents
and students frustrated. It is estimated, from a national study, that more than
seventeen percent of young children will encounter a problem learning to read (NCITE
1996). Additionally a National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) report
of 1994 indicated that all schools in the US have a number of children who are
failing the task of learning to read. In the report it was found that 42% of
fourth-graders, 31% of eighth-graders and 30% of twelfth-graders were reading at
a "below basic" level (NAEP 1998). To help students with reading fluency,
teachers need to provide and monitor oral reading. To achieve this goal for
reading, teachers can assist students by increasing practice though audiotapes
and other technologies (NIFL 2002), of which eBooks would be an excellent
application. It has also been found that availability of books is a key factor
in reading achievement. Higher scoring countries, for reading, have students who
have greater access to books (Elley 1992). There is additional data that
supports indicates this need for book access by students, Krashen (1995) found a
positive correlation between reading comprehension scores and number of books
per student in school libraries.
Reading Strategies
Global Reading Strategies (Mokhtari & Sheorey)
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Read with a purpose in mind |
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Think about what I know to help me understand what I
read (pre-information) |
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Over all view of the text to see what it’s about before
reading |
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Decide whether the content of the text fits the reading
purpose |
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Review the text first by noting characteristics
including length and organization |
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When reading decide what to read closely and what to
ignore. |
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Use tables, figures, and pictures in the text to
increase understanding |
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Use context clues to help better understand the reading |
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Use typographical features like bold face and italics
to identify key features |
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Critically analyze and evaluate the information
presented in the text |
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Check understanding when coming across new information |
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Guess what the content of the text is about when
reading |
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Check to see if guesses about the text are correct |
Problem Solving Strategies
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Read slowly and carefully to make sure I understand
what I’m reading |
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Try to get back on track when distracted or lose
concentration |
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Adjust reading speed according to the reading material |
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When text becomes difficult, pay closer attention to
the material |
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Stop from time to time and think about the reading |
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Try to picture or visualize information to assist in
remembering |
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When text becomes difficult, re-read to increase
understanding |
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When reading, guess the meaning of unknown words or
phrases |
Support Reading Strategies
The terms in [brackets] indicate an eBook support
format
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Take notes while reading to assist in understanding [Note/text box] |
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When text becomes difficult, read aloud to assist in
understanding [Text-to-Speech] |
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Underline or mark-up information in the text to assist
in remembering [Highlighting] |
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Use
reference materials (dictionaries, etc.)
[Interactive
dictionaries/Hyperlinks] |
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Paraphrase/restate to better understand |
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Go back and forth in the text to find relationships
among ideas [Bookmark] |
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Ask self questions to find answers in the text |
Additional Reading Supports for digital text and eBooks
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Copy and paste out notes |
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Have text read aloud to you |
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Interactive
dictionary for just-in-time word look-up |
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Hypertext to web sites for additional information |
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Adjusting size of text for readability |
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Auto
summarize text |
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Printing of marked selections |
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Auto indexing |
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Searching within a document for specific text
(find-find next) |
eBooks in
Education
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