Hmmmmmmmm........

Hmmmmmmm.......

I know you think you understand what you thought I said,

but I'm not sure that what you heard is what I actually meant!

Have you ever been on either end of this scenario? It is frustrating for both parties. Language comprehension is essential for one to communicate effectively with others. A person must be able to not only receptively understand language, but to also be able to use his or her expressive vocabulary to effectively convey that information to others.

Surprisingly, one can be highly intelligent and still have difficulty with language comprehension. At Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers, our experience in teaching reading over the last 19 years has been that many who are struggling to comprehend are simply lacking the foundational skills necessary for good comprehension.

Research indicates that people with good comprehension utilize concept imagery to facilitate understanding. Simply put, they make mental movies in their head when reading or listening.

Have you ever tried to put together a bookcase or a child's bicycle? Did you find the diagrams that accompanied the directions to be of more help than the written directions? That's because the diagrams helped your brain to see the relationships between the pieces and how they would work together as a whole. Concept imagery is very much like this.

Clients who we tutor in comprehension at Langsford do systematic work to develop their imaging skills, starting with a simple sentence and building up to multi-page units of material. Once they have the information pictured in their minds, they practice recalling and verbalizing it in a clear and concise manner. Emphasis is also placed on determining the main idea and important details, as well as on developing higher order thinking skills (such as making inferences, drawing conclusions, or making evaluations of material).

Many people make mental movies in their minds naturally and without prompting. For those that don't or those who do not do it efficiently, structured practice to develop their concept imagery and verbalizing skills can make both school and interaction with others easier and less frustrating.

In conclusion,

I hope that what you read and what you think I said

matches what I actually said and what I meant to say!

Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers

2520 Bardstown Road

Louisville, Kentucky

(502) 473-7000

We teach reading and learning skills for life. Spread the word!

Reading Problem or Comprehension Problem??

"Why Can't I get this?"

Oftentimes there is some confusion about the underlying cause of a student's academic problems. They are often associated with reading, but reading is not a single process and, when we talk about reading, we could be meaning different things. The end goal of reading is, of course, comprehension of the material. But poor reading comprehension is not necessarily the result of a weakness in one's language comprehension skills.

Reading comprehension can only occur when other factors related to the reading process are in place. It is dependent on a student's phonemic awareness skills, knowledge of phonics, word attack skills, and the fluency of their reading being efficient and automatic.

When a reader is struggling or unable to decode words in a text, or he or she is just inefficient in doing so, the result is that they are putting most of their energy into the process of decoding and are not as focused on determining what the text is actually saying.

It is also hard to understand what you are reading when you are not a fluent reader. When your reading is slow and choppy, perhaps lacking in expression, it is more difficult to glean meaning from what you have read.

Parents frequently think or are told by their child's teacher or tutor that they have a comprehension problem, when, in fact, it is actually a problem within the mechanics of their reading. This is related to people erroneously believing that if a student cannot answer questions about what he or she has read that it must be due to a weakness in their basic comprehension skills.

Conversely, some students are perceived to be poor readers because they are unable to answer questions about what they read. In this instance, the false assumption is that if a student is a good reader they will be able to answer questions about a text, and precludes the possibility that the incorrect responses were due to under-developed or inefficient language comprehension strategies.

The confusion around these areas is why we, at Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers, do a comprehensive evaluation of all areas of the reading process to determine the precise needs of any given student. We want the family to have clarity on what underpinnings are not in place and what area or areas need to be addressed for their child to perform optimally academically.

So remember: Reading and reading comprehension are two different, but related, entities. Both areas should be evaluated and considered when looking into whether a student has a "reading problem."

Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers

2520 Bardstown Road

Louisville, Kentucky

(502) 473-7000

We teach reading and learning skills for life. Spread the word!

Vocabulary and Reading

Just read a fascinating article printed in the Atlantic on the connection between vocabulary, reading skills, and comprehension!

Here's an excerpt:

It's when we drill down to the individual family level that we see why higher-income families have such a substantial advantage in giving their kids the sorts of opportunities that really make a difference for learning. Poorer families devote the vast majority of their incomes (and, in many cases, their time) to meeting basic human needs of food and shelter. Richer families are in the fortunate position to use disposable income and time to expose their children to reading materials, conversation, and life experiences that enrich their vocabularies and teach them about the world that surrounds them.

That matters a lot. Not only does a weak vocabulary lead to poor reading comprehension, so does a lack of knowledge about basic social, economic, political, and scientific realities -- in short, "real-world" knowledge. This is different from "street smarts," which can be enormously advantageous, but which don't translate into learning advantages in school.

With respect to that general knowledge base, Daniel Willingham has explained that after young students have developed the decoding skills associated with learning to read, the difference between good readers and poor readers largely has to do with "differences in the knowledge that kids bring to the reading. It's easy to read something when you already know something about the topic. And if you don't know about the topic, it's utterly opaque to you." 

To read this article in it's entirety, click here.

Exciting new research study on Brain Scans and Reading

Did you know that...?  New research can identify the neural structures associated with poor reading skills in young children, and could lead to an early warning system for struggling students.

New research from Stanford University shows that brain scans can identify neural differences in the brain that are indicative of whether a child will likely become a strong reader or not.   At an early age the brain is still plastic, and genes, environment and experiences can affect the rate of development in the white matter regions of the brain which are associated with learning to read.  Early identification of children at risk for having reading problems could allow for early interventions designed to maximize development of reading skills while the brain is still malleable. 

To view the Stanford Report article detailing this information, click here.