Interactive Activities for Remedial Reading

Students who struggle with reading may benefit from a variety of interactive activities to help them learn. Find some examples here, both classroom-based as well as online.

• Utilizing multiple senses helps students to grasp language skills. Whether using interactive wall lessons or online activities, students will enjoy participating in these activities.

• Interactive Learning Wall

  There are several ways to use an interactive learning wall with students in remedial reading. The Calendar Wall is most familiar in remedial reading rooms. On this wall, students must identify and post the correct day, month, year and weather, along with other information such as holidays and birthdays. However, interactive learning walls can easily turn into game boards.

  This game can be modified for the various levels of the students in the remedial class.

  Materials needed:

  • Word Cards – color code words by parts of speech (i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.).
  • Picture Cards – make sure the pictures are clear and well defined.
  • Sentence Cards – create beginnings of sentences to be built on by the students (i.e., I like to...or, The dog went...).
  • Note books or paper to track word.

  Make one title banner that reads, "The Matching Game" and another that reads, "The Building Game."

  

  The Matching Game

  For low level learners, stick up pictures that students can then match the words to after they have read them with the teacher.

  For remedial readers who are more advanced, display the words. Ask the students to match the pictures, or have duplicate words for them to match.

  Once they match the words/pictures correctly, the students write that word onto their paper or into their notebook. Later, they can read their list back to the teacher.

  Note that the students have listened to, viewed, written (this act is akin to feeling) and spoken the words they are learning.

  The Building Game

  As students advance in remedial reading, they will enjoy the building game where they will learn to build compound words, as well as sentences.

  Under the Building Game banner, place the beginnings of compound words. Have the students read the words on the board. Hand them one new word card, then ask them to "build" a new word by placing it behind one of the words on the wall.

  Once done, they will then write the word in their notebook.

  For sentences, post one sentence on the board. Have students use the words they know to finish the sentence. Allow them to be silly, as long as the sentence is grammatically correct. For instance, "I like to ride stars to the moon," would be correct, but, "I like mashed beans down street home," would not be correct.

• Online Learning

  For older students, Deltora from Scholastic encourages reading while providing students with opportunities to reinforce learning through online games and quizzes. The publisher suggests this site for students ages 9-12.

  Students of any age will enjoy finding the meaning to words with the Simple Photographic Dictionary. Tailored to children, this dictionary provides word searches alphabetically, as well as for rhyme and by the ending consonant.

  Word Bubbles helps scaffold learning by challenging students to build words from the first three letters given. Students accrue points for each correct word they spell. This is an excellent game for older remedial readers.

• Other Resources

  Word games such as Rory's Story Cubes are another way to encourage interactive learning. Each of the story cubes has simple pictures printed on all sides. There are endless ways to use these cubes in the classroom to encourage language development. For remedial reading classes, students first identify the picture, and then write the name of the picture. Later, after they have mastered the pictures, they could use the cubes to tell stories.

  
  

  ref : http://www.brighthubeducation.com/teaching-elementary-school/110442-interactive-activities-for-remedial-readers/

7 Keys to Comprehension in Reading


• Connecting reading to their background knowledge
• Creating sensory images
• Asking questions
• Drawing inferences
• Determining what's important
• Synthesizing ideas
• Solving problems

Teaching Ideas for Remedial Reading

Teaching remedial reading can be a repetitive process, which can be frustrating for both the student and the teacher. Luckily, there are many resources such as free remedial reading activities out that are both effective and provide variety.

• Show That Everything Has a Name

  Make sure that children understand that everything in the classroom has a name, and that they understand what these things do. A good activity is to create labels for everything in the classroom. This will help students to associate the written word with an object, and encourage them to vocalize what it is they are wanting. If you avoid referring to things as "this" or "that," then the students will begin to as well. This can lead to different activities for different age groups and reading levels.

  Younger students will appreciate the alphabet in their classroom, as it increases familiarity and can also be used as a teaching tool. Capital letters work best, as they are easier for students to recognize. Pictures that students create can also be labeled, or students can work on a scrapbook activity. This can also lead to small field trips where any written words are pointed out. For example, the word stop across a stop sign.

  Older students can incorporate this into other activities. For example, in planning to prepare something in the kitchen, students can work to create a grocery list and then read the products to find what they are looking for at the grocery store.

• Encourage Daily Reading

  It's very important for children to be interested in reading, but this is often difficult when children's reading levels and interest levels differ. A high-low reading list is a very good resource to help find books that students will be interested in. Reading magazines and newspapers are also great as they have many short articles, but make students feel grown-up. Reading aloud is a great thing to do, though students will usually come across words they don't know. A few tips for dealing with this are:

  • Encourage them to sound the word out completely, rather than guessing after the first letter or syllable.
  • Have them read the entire sentence with the unknown word omitted. Then ask them what word would fit in the blank.
  • Once they have figured out the correct word, have them read the entire sentence again so they finish without struggling.

  If students have particular trouble with sounding words out and resort to guessing, a good activity is to write a list of nonsense words, and have them sound them out. This teaches students to sound the entire word out, without guessing.

• Focus on Comprehension

  Comprehension is a major part of reading, and is an important thing to develop in remedial readers. It is usually easier to start with a TV show or sports program before introducing comprehension exercises to short stories. Comprehension should include how to summarize, predict, context and monitor. Summarizing can be done by asking students to retell a story in just a few sentences, predicting can be started by asking the student what they think might happen next. Context is especially useful for students who often find words they don't know. Teaching students how to use context clues (words and pictures) is a great skill. Monitoring stops the problem of reading a whole story and not knowing what happened. Students can learn to stop reading and check to make sure they understand what they just read. If not, it is a good time to re-read the sentence or passage.

• Fun and Games

  There are quite a few good websites that have free remedial reading activities. The only caution is that some of these games are designed for younger children, so it is important to encourage students who won't feel offended to use these resources.

  Starfall is an excellent website. Their games progress from pre-reading, learning to read, enjoying to read, and becoming confident in reading ability. There is also a teacher's section which includes supplementary printable materials.

  Scholastic has an incredibly comprehensive game section, and even has games extending further into language arts, math, science and social studies. They have games for all age levels, include pre-k to grade 12. I found that these games were designed for a wide range of abilities and ages, which is great!

  PBS Kids has some great games for younger children. Their games progress from learning about letters, to learning about synonyms. All directions are spoken out loud.

  FreeReading.net is a great resource for reading intervention for pre k to grade 6. The website has a number activities, as well as resources for teachers. A further review of freereading.net is also available.

Ref : http://www.orl.bc.ca/assets/files/Booklists/Hi_Interest_Low_Vocabulary.pdf

Recognizing and Managing Student Aggression

By: Mary Bart in EdTech News and Trends

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Consider the following scenario: A student, clearly upset about receiving a failing grade on the midterm, comes up to you after class and says he wants to retake it. You reply that, as stated in the syllabus, there are no make-up exams. You also remind him of his spotty attendance record. He becomes angry, knocks your papers off the front table, and yells “You’re a terrible professor! The whole class hates you!”

How would you handle it?

In the recent online seminar Identifying and Managing Classroom Aggression and Violence, Brian Van Brunt, Ed.D., director of Counseling and Testing at Western Kentucky University and Perry C. Francis, Ed.D., associate professor in Eastern Michigan University’s Department of Leadership and Counseling, discussed the three phases of the aggression continuum – trigger, escalation, and crisis – as well as strategies for recognizing and diffusing potentially violent situations. They also outlined the differences between cognitive aggressors and primal aggressors.

“The Unmagnificent Seven”
As any faculty member knows, aggressive students don’t have to get physical to be a disruptive force in the classroom. In the second portion of the seminar, Van Brunt and Francis outlined the different profile types often seen in a classroom and elsewhere on campus. They call these personality types “The Unmagnificent Seven.” How many do you recognize?

The Sherman Tank – Enjoys confrontation and always needs to be right. This is the student who will argue with you about your syllabus or other class rules, and seeks to dominate the class while pushing around weaker personalities.

The Sniper – Criticizes you behind your back and looks to create chaos. This student will blend in when threatened or challenged but is good at instigating others.

The Exploder – Makes insulting and cutting remarks, and has wide mood swings. This student is happiest when others are passive.

The Complainer – Constantly whines and complains about their situation or rules in the syllabus. This student often wears on others in the class, but can sometimes get fellow students to join him/her in the complaints.

The Negativist – Is never happy and desires others to be just as gloomy. This student is a drain on the entire class and will likely elicit eye-rolls when they talk about the latest “injustice.”

The Bulldozer – Values only their own opinion and has little regard for the knowledge or viewpoints of others. This is the student who tries to overwhelm others with facts and figures, and is often difficult to get along with.

The Clam – Disengaged, silent, and unresponsive. Non-verbal cues tell you this student is upset or frustrated but they will not communicate what’s troubling them.

“All seven of these types of students can damage the sense of community in a classroom, but keep ‘the Clam’ on top of your list,” says Francis, noting that quiet, growing frustration can be a precursor to violence. “It’s important to engage that student, help him to express his frustrations, and become connected to the community.”

ref: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/edtech-news-and-trends/recognizing-and-managing-student-aggression/

How To Handle An Angry, Verbally Aggressive Student

Emotional outbursts, temper tantrums, yelling, lashing out.

Severe misbehavior like this needs to be dealt with differently than typical rule breaking.

How you respond goes a long way toward gaining control of the incident, keeping it from affecting other students, and lessening the chances of it happening again.

An Ineffective Response

Like parents who rush wide-eyed whenever a child falls and scrapes his knee, it’s a mistake to be in a hurry to intervene when students lose their cool.

The inclination to jump in and fix the problem can make matters worse. In response to an angry, verbally aggressive student, here is what you should never do:

Enforce a consequence.

You must hold students who act out in anger accountable—without a doubt—but not right away. You risk escalating the problem if you immediately try to pull them aside or put them in time-out.

Get angry.

Aggression on aggression is an explosive mix. Never yell, scold, or attempt to use the power of your authority to stop emotionally charged students.

Touch the student.

It’s common for teachers to place a hand on a student’s shoulder in an attempt to calm. But you don’t know what students are thinking in any given moment or what they’re capable of. It’s best to keep your distance.

Talk with the student.

Angry students are not open to conversation. So during and up to a couple of hours after the outburst, leave them alone.

An Effective Response

When a student acts out in anger in the classroom, here is what you should do:

Stay calm.

Keeping your emotions in check is the first step to gaining control of any situation.

Observe.

Stand firmly where you can observe the student in question and show the class you’re in control, but far enough away to keep an eye on all of your students.

Shield.

Your other students must not talk to or otherwise involve themselves with the angry student. Your first priority is to keep them safe, calm, and uninvolved.

Nothing.

Often, it’s best not to say or do anything. If the angry student stops the behavior, simply continue on with what you were doing—for now—allowing the student time to cool off.

Calm the student.

Rarely, you might have to use calming language and reassurance to settle the student down. Say, “Take it easy… I know you’re frustrated… We’ll talk about it later…” or words to that effect.

Wait.

Don’t speak to the angry student until he or she is in a calm emotional state. Continue with your day until you know the student is ready to listen.

Document.

As soon as you are able, document the student’s behavior. Write down everything said or done and interview all students near or involved in the incident. Make a copy for your records—muy importante.

Contact parents.

Severe misbehavior must be reported to parents. However, resist the urge to offer opinions or conclusions. Just give the facts. You do your job and let parents do—or not do—theirs.

Hold accountable.

After the student returns to a calm frame of mind, which could take a couple of hours, briefly explain how he or she will be held accountable.

Provide a stiff consequence.

Acting out in anger should result in an immediate escalation of consequences. A full day, in-class separation from the rest of the students is a good place to start.

Take care of it yourself.

Unless the behavior is physically aggressive, I’m not in favor of getting the principal involved. Involving administration weakens your authority and your ability to manage your classroom.

Take Your Time

You can’t go wrong taking your time in response to verbal aggression, tantrums, acting out in anger, and the like.

Waiting and observing allows you to accurately assess the behavior, keeps you from losing your cool, and clearly establishes you as the leader in control of the classroom

ref: http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2010/05/08/how-to-handle-an-angry-verbally-aggressive-student/

Dr. Ken Shore's
Classroom Problem Solver

Preventing
Student Aggression

Aggressive students present a significant challenge for teachers. An aggressive child can engender a climate of fear in the classroom, creating anxiety among other students and distracting them from their schoolwork. The student who is the cause of that fear also warrants your concern. Her aggressive behavior might signal that she is a troubled child and/or cause her to be shunned by her peers; it also might be a harbinger of problems she will display as an adolescent and adult.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Make it clear to students that aggressive behavior is unacceptable. When discussing class rules at the beginning of the year, inform students that they are not allowed to hit or push under any circumstances. You also might let them know the consequences for aggressive behavior in your classroom. Review and reinforce the rule as necessary throughout the year. Encourage students to tell you immediately if they observe physical conflicts. When you become aware of such physical conflict, take immediate action to stop it. That sends a message to students that you will do whatever is necessary to ensure that your classroom is a safe haven.

Try to identify when and where a student is aggressive. Look for a pattern in the incidents so you can anticipate their occurrence and take steps to avoid them. When aggressive incidents occur, you might want to make a note of when they occurred, what was going on at the time, who was the target of the aggression, what happened right before and right after the incident, and how others responded. That kind of behavioral assessment might help you determine what triggers the behavior, what reinforces it, and most importantly, what to do about it.

Teach students conflict-resolution skills. Children might resort to aggression because they lack the words or skills to solve problems non-physically. Help them learn to resolve conflicts without acting aggressively by teaching them the basics of talking things out: staying calm; allowing each person to have his or her say without being interrupted, blamed or put-down; using "I messages" to convey feelings; and considering another's point of view. Designate an area of your classroom as a "peace corner," a place where students can go to settle conflicts and decide on a resolution. After they have spent time in the peace corner, students should inform you of their decisions.

Have a student who is prone to aggression engage in activities that make aggressive behavior less likely. When she appears tense, suggest such tasks as drawing a picture, working with clay, taking a walk, writing in a journal or squeezing a ball to help her release her frustration. You might want to give the student an item to carry or suggest that she put her hands in her pockets at those times when she seems prone to using her hands inappropriately or seems to be on the verge of an outburst.

Connect with the aggressive student. An aggressive student might distrust teachers and view them as adversaries. Try to gain the student's trust by listening attentively to what she says and showing respect for her thoughts and concerns. Find a few minutes every so often to talk with her about her interests and hobbies. Help her start the day out on a positive note by giving her a high five or making an upbeat comment when she walks in the door. She might make better choices if she feels supported and accepted by you.

Obtain in-school counseling for an aggressive student. You might ask the guidance counselor or school psychologist to counsel her. She might need guidance about resolving peer conflicts and finding alternative ways of behaving. She also might need help interpreting the behavior of her peers if she tends to perceive hostile intent when none is intended.

ref: http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/shore/shore039.shtml

About Ken Shore Dr. Kenneth Shore is a psychologist and chair of a child study team for the Hamilton, New Jersey Public Schools. He has written five books, including Special Kids Problem Solver and Elementary Teacher's Discipline Problem Solver.

Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim Profile

Anwar Ibrahim, Dato Seri

Born: 1947 AD
Currently alive, at 65 years of age.

Nationality: Malaysian

ANWAR IBRAHIM, DATO SERI

1947 - Born on the 10th of August in Cherok Tok Kun, Malaysia.

1968-1971 - As a student, he was the president of a Muslim students organisation, Persatuan Kebangsaan Pelajar Islam Malaysia (PKPIM).

1971 - He was one of the protem committee of "Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM)" or Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia which was founded.

       - He was also elected President of the Malaysian Youth Council or Majlis Belia Malaysia (MBM).

1974 - He was arrested during student protests against rural poverty and hunger.

       - He was imprisoned under the Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial, and spent twenty months in the Kamunting detention camp for political prisoners.

1981 - He was the founding leader and second president of a youth Islamic organisation called Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM), shocked his liberal supporters by joining the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), led by Mahathir who became prime minister.

1983 - He moved up the political ranks quickly: his first ministerial office was that of Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports.

1984 - He headed the agriculture ministry.

1986 - Becoming Minister of Education.

1991 - He was appointed Minister of Finance.

1993 - He became Mahathir's Deputy Prime Minister after winning the Deputy Presidency of UMNO against Ghafar Baba.

1997 - His capacity as finance minister, supported the International Monetary Fund (IMF) plan for recovery which meant a restructuring of the economy involving opening up to greater foreign investment and competition.

1998 - Newsweek magazine named him the "Asian of the Year".

       - He was fired from the Cabinet on September 2nd, amid police reports that he was under investigation.

1999 - He was sentenced in a highly controversial trial to six years.

2002 - He lost his final appeal against the corruption conviction in the Federal Court.

2006 - He was appointed as Honorary President of the London based organization AccountAbility.