Read the following paragraph and answer question 5-7.
Paragraph reading is a reading comprehension/visual memory exercise to help individuals who can decode words adequately enough, but do not remember what they read. In some cases it can give a child reading comprehension in just 30 days. It is a powerful intervention. It does not work well if there are other more basic skills related to reading that need to be developed first (e.g., developmental vision, word attack skills). It is an easy skill to remediate, but can be very frustrating to the individual with poor reading comprehension. The exercise involves having the participant read one paragraph of grade level or skill level reading ability. The participant is to tell what she/he read without looking back at the paragraph. The participant reads the paragraph again and again until she/he are able to tell in sequential order the main points of the paragraph. Most paragraphs have about five main points. At first participants are usually frustrated with their low ability to comprehend. They may balk at re-reading the paragraph. If this happens, be patient and encouraging. After the participants finally obtain the ability of putting in sequential order the main points of the paragraph, give them much praise and let them know, they now have reading comprehension for that paragraph. Let them know that they will continue to read one paragraph a day this way until they can consistently read a paragraph just one time and be able to put in sequential order the five main points of the paragraph.
This exercise may sound so easy, but to individuals with poor visual memory and/or poor reading comprehension, this exercise is very important. It is easy to assess if your child has this problem. Just have them read a paragraph from a text at their grade level and have them tell the main concepts in sequential order. They will be able to do it or they will not. If not and they can decode words and do not have any developmental vision problems, then this exercise should help. Most children will see significant progress within the first month of doing this exercise everyday (5 or 6 times per week). Some children may need to continue this exercise for 6 months.
With children who have reading comprehension problems, many teachers and parents are tempted to have the child develop comprehensions over a complete story or book. We feel this is a waste of time and energy. After the child has mastered the ability to comprehend one paragraph, then they are likely to be able to comprehend whole stories or books. Spend the time mastering comprehension over one paragraph before attempting visual comprehension of a whole book or story.
