Education Friday - Vanderbilt Reading Clinic Part One

In January my son started at the Vanderbilt Reading Clinic.
He starts High School this Fall, so he really needs to improve
his reading comprehension.
His tutor agreed that I could post how they work
together here (thank you!)

1. Visualize and Verbalize (workbook 4a) – 

In this activity we break activities down sentence 

by sentence to create visual images and talk about 

how as we read we use the author’s words to change our picture.  

We answer comprehension questions and talk about how we tell 

the difference between what the reader thinks and knows versus 

what the author tells us in the text.

2.Reading strategies (History text) – 

Before reading, during reading, 

and after reading strategies to help us make sense of the text.  

We’ve also started working on summarizing the paragraphs in order to gain meaning as we read.  

- Before Reading:  

Scan the text (Title, Pictures, Headings – ask ourselves what they mean?), 

See if we can identify the author’s purpose (Persuade, Inform, Entertain), 

Set a Purpose for Reading 

(Ask Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How questions regarding the text), 

Tap our Background Knowledge (what do we know about the topic?)

- During Reading: Look for new information 

(that answers our questions, that is something we didn’t know, the describes the main idea/details of the passage), 

Ask Clarifying Questions, 

Make Connections between sentences and paragraphs, 

Make Predictions, 

Create mental images, 

Summarize as we go to ensure we understand what we’re reading.

- After Reading – Summarize the reading 

(Who/What, Did What, Where, When, Why, How, and What), 

Check to see if we answered all of our questions, 

Answer the questions using what you know and what the text tells us.

Progress – The reader has shown improvements in identifying when his answer is his thoughts or the author’s.  

He is able to complete the pre-reading strategies and can independently look for information during reading.  

We will continue working on the other strategies as we go.  

When answering questions that require inferences, 

I encourage the reader to think about what he would do 

and why he would do it in order to try and connect to the text.  

Reader really enjoys describing mental images of the text and 

has shown improvements in changing his image as he reads.  

We have focused mostly on Before Reading and have just started 

practicing During Reading 

(looking for information, making connections, and summarizing).  

We will continue to work towards the rest of the During Reading strategies and After Reading.