Observing reading

Together during your journey you are looking at the learner's:

• Speed
• Comprehension
• Vocabulary
• Word attack skills (decoding, predicting, blending and breaking words into components)

(You may want to review the reading checklist under Practitioner Observations on page 240/290 of this document.)

During casual conversation with the learner you may want to integrate the following questions developed by Dr. Cooper's Information Processing Screening Tool. The questions help to gain a better understanding of the learner's perspective and approach to his or her reading:

• Do you have difficulty paraphrasing, or summarizing in your own words, what you read?
• Do you find yourself reading whole pages without knowing what you read? Are you distracted by some of the words on the page (words move, certain fonts bother you)
• Do you have difficulty identifying the main idea when you read?
• Do you have difficulty finding details when you read?
• Do you have difficulty going back and finding something that you read?
• Are you easily distracted when you read?
• Do you find reading textbooks difficult?
• Do you find that there are many words you don't know the meaning of when you read?
• Do you need to read things more than once?

If you find that the learner has responded "yes" to most of the questions you have discussed, then a potential learning disability may be present. At this point it would be advisable to encourage the learner to read a variety of reading samples so that you both can investigate further what specific challenges are impacting the learner.