Corrective Reading is used for those students who read without understanding. Corrective reading programs develop vocabulary, information, and comprehension strategies needed for academic success. Corrective reading helps underachieving readers develop higher order thinking and reasoning tactics used by successful readers – applying prior knowledge, making inferences (conclusions or deductions), and analyzing evidence.
Corrective reading programs in secondary schools are likely to take the form of classes, grouped homogeneously according to ability or reading laboratories which often are essentially classes where students work at learning stations according to individually prescribed reading movement programs. In either case, the teachers in these classes are likely to be reading specialists.
Content area teachers can do a great deal to help corrective readers understand their assignments and as a byproduct improve their basic reading skills. The following suggestions will be helpful to secondary school content area teachers who want to help corrective readers.
- Know the reading abilities of the students to whom reading assignments are made. Make realistic assignments in terms of how materials is assigned and the difficulty level.
- Prepare and motivate students for the assigned reading materials,
- Try to interest students in reading the assigned sections,
- Have the students read the selection in chunks, pausing at specified transitional spots to answer assigned questions.
- Have students write two or three sentences immediately after finishing a reading assignment that summarize the selection, raise questions about the ideas in the selection. Use these sentences for post reading discussion.
- Organize small (3 to 5 students) discussion groups for post reading discussion of questions or issues that require more divergent than convergent thinking. Providing instruction and reading assistance for corrective readers is an important responsibility for administrators, teachers and reading specialists in elementary and secondary schools. The special help these mildly disabled readers received may enable them to avoid the need for remedial reading instruction which is more costly in terms of the school’s resources and the students’ personal resources.
Reading is a fundamental concept that needs to be taught and reinforced at all times.
Roberto Olboc
Teacher II
CNNHS-Daet, Camarines Norte