Blocks to reading and writing

Question

I have a freshman in high school whose writing and reading abilities may be classified as on a third grade level. The child is bright but when approached about their skills and abilities they have this blank stare. What can be done to make this engaging for them?

Answer 1

Please forgive me, but answering this is more complex than a few short paragraphs. Here are some names of techniques that you could consider trying:

As far as writing and reading I would suggest some of the following approaches:

Sentence Combining

Sentence Diagramming

Pre-Writing

1. listing questions the about the written and topic
2. listing opinions and perspectives for an argumentative piece or pieces with multiple characters
3. using plot diagrams
4. Outlines

Phonology

Sound and Symbols

Morphology

Synonyms, Synonyms, Similes, Metaphors

Semantics

As far as instructions try different things such as

1. explicit, clear straightforward directions with several models and multiple examples
2. Systematic and Sequential - logical order, break it down and build up, smaller manageable goals to big picture goals
3. Evidence Based literacy instruction

My favorites are emphasize connections between reading and writing, use cognitive-strategy sentence starters to help students understand what an author is doing, use mentor texts and teach the student to communicate more effectively what they need, misunderstand or need help with.

For example, I love Singapore math strategies. I believe many of those can be used in this case as well. Although I only listed some things here, please feel free to contact me with additional questions, website/book suggestions, more information and details or anything else I can do to help.

At the very least, always stay positive. Congratulate for the improvements no matter how big or small and make the difficulties challenges rather than defeats.