READING & The SLP
Reading intervention is an important part of an SLP's job in an educational setting. There are many available resources online for targeting reading goals from Grades 1-3. However, before selecting an intervention approach, you need to understand the source of your client's reading difficulties.
There are two reasons a child may be experiencing reading difficulties:
Difficulties decoding may stem from problems with phonological processing. This can be observed in word-level reading and spelling tasks. Difficulties with reading comprehension may stem from problems with semantics and grammar - these children have normal decoding skills, but struggle with grammar, figurative language, comprehension monitoring, and inferencing skills. So the first step in your intervention is determining which of these two possible explanations best describes your client’s reading difficulties (or both), which will help you determine which goals to target in intervention:
Keep reading to find some sample activities for each intervention approach, and for a handout you can give to teachers to breakdown the possible underlying reasons for students' reading difficulties.
There are two reasons a child may be experiencing reading difficulties:
- Poor decoding skills (dyslexia)
- Poor reading comprehension skills
Difficulties decoding may stem from problems with phonological processing. This can be observed in word-level reading and spelling tasks. Difficulties with reading comprehension may stem from problems with semantics and grammar - these children have normal decoding skills, but struggle with grammar, figurative language, comprehension monitoring, and inferencing skills. So the first step in your intervention is determining which of these two possible explanations best describes your client’s reading difficulties (or both), which will help you determine which goals to target in intervention:
- Phonics, phonemic awareness, and sight word knowledge for decoding difficulties
- Semantics and grammatical skills for reading comprehension difficulties
Keep reading to find some sample activities for each intervention approach, and for a handout you can give to teachers to breakdown the possible underlying reasons for students' reading difficulties.