Supporting Secondary Students with Reading

Pupils with Dyslexia can become fluent readers but may need to read a little slower in order recognise the many different word patterns particularly when reading complex text. They may need to read a text several times to reach a full understanding.

  • Talk to your child about books – ones you like and don’t like, the characters
  • Support your child to use the text to speech software that is available with ‘Word’ software.
  • Use audio books when appropriate.
  • Limit the quantity of reading they have to do by guiding your child to relevant strategies and when to use them. such as
  • Skimming when you read through text very quickly to get the gist of it
  • Scanning, when you look through  very quickly in search of a specific piece of information
  • or close reading, when you are trying to absorb the full detail of the text
  • Encourage your child to condense and make sense of what they read, for example by making mind maps and drawing diagrams and flow charts.
  • Encourage them to underline, circle, highlight important information in text (Some photocopying might be necessary).
  • Help them to scan for words they might find difficult before starting to read the whole text.
  • Remind them of what strategies to used when they get stuck
    • Think about what word would make sense in the story or sentence
    • Sound the word out.
    • Think of a word that looks and sounds similar.
    • Look for parts of the word that are familiar.
    • Think about what word would sound right in the sentence.
    • Check the pictures and the punctuation marks for clues.
    • Go back and read again.
    • Ask for help with the word.
  • Encourage your child to think about the text to ask him/herself  questions such as about  the writer’s intentions, their own views, before and after reading; what have they leant and how it relates to other learning.
  • Find books, other literature that is of interest: hobby magazines, books about computer games and bands
  • Encourage them to read newspapers, magazines, the internet
  • Remember that reading menus, recipes, instructions, film reviews and TV guides, train timetables, holiday brochures is all good practice – especially if they have the opportunity to exercise their choice …
  • Ensure that books are at the right level of difficulty for pupils and that books of high interest and low challenge are available.
  • Barrington Stoke books
  • Rapid Reads
  • Lower Secondary Oxford Owls
  • Support them to learn to ‘read between the line’
  • Use paired reading approaches.
  • Find out which text they need to read for English
  • Source an abridged version

Don’t forget about reading for pleasure

Don’t force your child to read something they are not interested. Talk to them to find one that is of interest

Frequently Asked Questions