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Support Retention within Short Texts

Tags

ELA: Reading Elementary School Strategy

Skills

Working Memory Attention

Support Retention within Short Texts

If your student regularly forgets what they just read

Teach It!

  1. Objective: Students who have difficulty remembering as they read within a span of a single sentence or paragraph will learn strategies to support their working memory.
  2. Instruction and Practice: a) Teach students to sub-vocalize, or speak the words, to help them remember. Students practice first by speaking aloud. Over time they can sub-vocalize quietly to themselves. b) Have students highlight keywords as they read. This will reduce the strain of feeling the need to remember while they read. c) Have the student read an amount equivalent to an index card, sticky note, or ruler width. Have the student cover up what he just read and re-state it in his own words. This provides students with a good visual reminder of how long they should read before they stop and check in. If they need to "peek" often, they should stop more frequently. If they remember well, maybe it is time to read for longer spurts.

Why It Works (the Science Of Learning)!

Comprehension requires focus, retention and reasoning. If a student has trouble focusing or remembering on an ongoing basis, it is important to put the appropriate supports in place to help students find ways to be aware of lapses, find strategies to address them, and gradually build stamina for longer reading periods. Using visual aids, speaking or other forms of reinforcement will be important in supporting a student's progress. Note that difficulties with working memory, which affect how you retain what you just read to make sense of a whole sentence or paragraph, are different from difficulties focusing on longer or less interesting texts which is often related to attention challenges. You can find strategies to address longer texts here.