Word Retrieval Problems

"Gosh....it's on the tip of my tongue....."

The term "word retrieval" refers to the processes involved in mentally identifying and then producing the word or words necessary to express a thought or name an object.

Word retrieval difficulties sometimes occur in isolation, but they are often accompanied by problems in other areas of language function. Students with a wide variety of learning issues frequently are found to have word retrieval problems. These include students with learning and/or language disabilities, reading disability, ADHD, fluency disorders, or brain injuries. Word retrieval problems are particularly associated with the "language zones" of the left hemisphere of the brain and parts of the frontal lobes.

Parents are often confused about what to do to help a child that has word retrieval difficulties. It's important to realize that this is not a vocabulary issue that will be fixed by exposing your child to new vocabulary words. Rather, it is that the student knows and understands the word or words, and has correctly used the words before. Their brain is just slow to pull up those words. Like many other brain functions, regular practice can improve the brain's ability to retrieve words quickly and accurately.

Some activities you can do with your child to help with word retrieval include:

Read riddle books or other books that play with words.

Play word classification games.

Play synonym and antonym games.

Tell how things are the same and different.

A psychologist or speech-language pathologist can help to identify or remediate word retrieval problems. At Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers, we have found that our work to develop visualizing and verbalizing skills can also prove useful in the development of language skills in general.

Summer Suggestions

Wondering what you should do to keep your child's skills sharp or to better prepare him or her for school next fall? There are 5 key areas you should think about.

Each will take only minutes a day. Why not set aside an hour a day this summer to keep your child's academic momentum going?

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING AND WRITING PRACTICE

1) Read! 20 to 30 minutes daily. Sometimes challenging material (to further their decoding skills), and sometimes easier material (to work on fluency).

2) Build a sight word base for reading! Use a word list from school or other list with common words. Print words on 3 by 5 index cards and review daily. As words are mastered, review less often and add new words to cards for daily practice.

3) Build a sight word base for spelling! Use the same word lists as for the reading sight word base. Practice spelling the words daily. When a word is correctly spelled for a week, replace with a new word. Work on about 10 words a day.

4) Vocabulary! Learn the meanings of words discovered in reading or spelling tasks. Improving vocabulary skills can lead to improved comprehension! Put new words on 3 by 5 index cards with short definitions on the back to practice. Use the words in sentences or use as part of the daily writing activity.

5) Write! Write 2-3 sentences or a short paragraph describing what was just read, or anything of interest! Be sure to proof for spelling and punctuation.

Now go out and have some summer fun!

Teddy's Reading Novels

When Teddy first came to work with us, his Learning Coordinator, Mary, created a customized plan of action that developed his reading and spelling up to the simple multi-syllable level. Upon finishing that phase of work, he stopped attending daily sessions and then returned the following summer for 2 weeks to work at the complex multi-syllable level. This is often done with our younger clients so we can give them time to stabilize their new skills and then work on the more complex levels at the same time this type of work is increasing in school, usually after the third grade year.

This past summer, Teddy returned for a one week review. Teddy is now at the level where he is beginning to read novels so we also did some work on Novel Noting. Our Novel Noting sessions help with organizing and planning this type of school reading to gain a deeper understanding of the book. Our work includes ways to organize the setting and characters, develop main ideas of each chapter, and also learn new vocabulary words.