Assisting the Reluctant
and Remedial Reader
with Electronic Texts
(eBooks)
Terry Cavanaugh
http://drscavanaugh.org/ebooks/
Understanding Student Readers
• Strategic readers are able to use strategies, such as
prediction, drawing inferences, recognizing cause and effect
relationships, summarizing, questioning, and rereading.
• Reluctant readers usually are able to read any material that
is interesting to them. Reluctant readers are frustrated by text they
find difficult and do not understand how to effectively apply reading
strategies to ease their burden.
• Remedial readers typically reading several grade levels
below their peers. They have a limited vocabulary and few
internalized strategic reading skills. Often, remedial readers have
stalled at or below a fourth-grade reading level and need help
reading and understanding information from high school texts.
Adapted from Glencoe Online’s Teaching Today
http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/educationupclose.phtml/29
Finding Appropriate
Reading Material
• Readability
• Variety
• Interest
Readability
Tools
Web Based
Will also create CBA
reading probes
Readability
Tools
MS Word
Simplified
versions
Word:
Autosummarize
Abridged
Variety
Short stories
Stories by
Children
Graphic Novels
Comics
Techniques for Helping
Struggling Readers
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Offer a Wide Range of Reading Materials
Incorporate Large-Print Materials
Engage Multiple Modalities
Teach Important Vocabulary
Use Pre and Active Reading Techniques
Wide Range of Reading Materials
• One of the ways that electronic books can assist with for
the reluctant and remedial readers is an expansion of the
classroom and school library to include more books than
are currently there.
• In most schools eBook files and programs will run on the
currently available school computers.
• EBooks are available from free online libraries and more
books available for purchase from electronic book
stores.
• Literally tens of thousands of free eBooks available
through the web student can drastically increase the
chances of a finding something of interest to them to
read.
Non-fiction
Modern Science Fiction
Modern Romance
Picture Books
Early Readers
More options
Large Print Materials
• One issue of reading is
the legibility of the
material being read by
the student.
• Students who struggle
with reading, regardless
of the reason, can benefit
from changing to larger
font sizes, i.e., 14 or 16
point as a reading
scaffold.
• Reading miscues,
including misreading
syllables or words;
skipping syllables, words,
or lines; rereading lines;
and ignoring punctuation
cues were found to be
virtually eliminated when
students read large print
Standard publishing font size.
11-pt Times New Roman
Large Print font size.
16-pt Verdana
Large Print
More Large Print
Currently many teachers and librarians already use large
print materials for their students who have:
• Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
• Difficulty with encoding or decoding
• Dyslexia
• Large or small motor deficits
• Amblyopia or "Lazy Eye"
• Light sensitivity
• Short term memory deficits
• Tracking issues
• Visual impairments
(galeschools.com 2004, Reluctant Reader Center)
Digital Big Books
Using a computer
showing an
eBook, a video
projector and a
screen, teachers
can create their
own digital big
books.
Engage Multiple Modalities
Involving multiple or varying modalities of learning,
such as listening, can improve reading. Often an
observation of a reluctant or remedial reader
shows a student who is troubled when reading a
passage, but often the student can also display
good comprehension from listening to the same
passage. It is important to present text
information in more modalities than just print,
such as presenting the material orally to the
student.
Text-to-Speech
Audible output
with
synchronized
highlighting
FLASH eBooks
Video
eBooks
Computer
video
DVD
Captions
Audio
eBooks
MP3
Audio Books
read along with
unabridged
version
Digital Story
Books
read and listen
on a device
CD storybooks
LeapPad
Vocabulary
• Interactive
dictionaries
• Search for terms in
context
Reading Strategies
Pre-Reading
• Cover/Title Concept
• Anticipation & Prediction
• Structure of text
• Word/vocabulary Search
• Executive Summary
Active/Guided Reading
• Selective Highlighting
• Power Highlighting
• Margin/Sticky Notes
• Single Sentence
Summary
• Bookmark/Flag
• Buddy Reading
• Crystal Ball
• QAR
• Literary Elements
Field Dependent
[field sensitive] – Full Screen
Visual
Support