Anaphoric cuing: Asking clarifying questions

By readers1  |  2009/12/01 21:38 Posted in Anaphoric cuing, Hyperlexia  |  Comments (0)

By Richard Finegan

In their book The Mosaic of Thought (1997) Keene and Zimmerman identified six“cueing systems” which they described as the channels or sources through which the brain receives information during reading:

  • jigsaw_green_10grapho-phonic cuing–the identification of letters and
  • lexical or orthographic cuing–the identification of sight words
  • syntactic cuing–the recognition of the form and structure of language
  • schematic cuing–prior knowledge or association
  • pragmatic cuing–the purposes and needs of the reader
  • semantic cuing–the meaning of the text

The authors identify a sample semantic cuing problem:  reading words fluently but experiencing difficulty defining what is meant by a word, sentence, or text. (p. 203)

This is precisely where we often find our kids with autism (and always those with hyperlexia) stuck in their comprehension.  And this is where (with due credit to the study done by O’Connor and Klein, 2004) we find anaphoric cuing (also spelled cueing) as a useful semantic cuing tool to help get them unstuck. 

See Autism and hyperlexia, Part 1, http://readerswithautism.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=256 .

Comprehension problems are not unique to kids on the autism spectrum, and some practical hints on how to use anaphoric cuing can be gleaned from the literature on reading comprehension generally.

As Cris Tovani notes in her book I Read But I Don’t Get It (2000), good readers ask themselves clarifying questions as they read.  Who, what, when, where, and why questions about characters, setting, or events.  (p. 52)  Asking themselves these clarifying questions focuses the reader on meaning, not simply on decoding, word by word.

gold_question_markBut if the child with autism or hyperlexia has lost the meaning of what they’re reading, how do they know what questions to ask themselves? 

There is the beauty of the anaphoric cuing technique.

With a fairly short list of anaphora (words that refer to other words) that can be listed on a bookmark  we can teach them when to stop in their reading and what to ask themselves before they move on.

When we read:

he, she, they, we, I, you

we ask who?

When we read:

hers, his, its, theirs, ours, yours

we ask whose?

When we read:

it, that, this, can, do

we ask what?

When we read:

here, there, come, go

we ask where?

When we read:

then, before, after

we ask when? 

By learning a list of specific words and answering a few related questions, many kids can make significant improvement in their comprehension of text, particularly narrative fiction, which often is the most difficult for a child with autism to comprehend.

Stories they help us write

By readers1  |  2009/11/16 05:41 Posted in Fiction  |  Comments (0)

By Sara Finegan

I’ve written a great deal about the specific interventions I use to help kids learn how to make meaning from text.  Because kids with autism often do not hold on to a story while they read, much of what we must do to support comprehension involves teaching them about how to think while they read.

jigsaw_green_10The other part of the equation that creates comprehension is, of course, the concept of purpose and engagement in the text.  Kids who don’t want to read are not going to understand what they read.  Kids who do not read for a purpose aren’t going to get much out of it.

To that end, I’ve posted about finding books of interest for readers with autism and, more recently, my experiences writing serial stories about my students for them to read.  There’s another technique that works well with younger or more immature readers, and that is writing stories for the kids to complete.

I got the idea when I happened to buy a book about one of my favorite worlds, Pern (author Anne McCaffrey writes sci-fi, which I don’t ordinarily like, but this series has to do with dragons, and I was hooked).  I thought the book was going to be a bunch of short stories about Pern, and it was, but there was a catch.  It was one of those “choose your ending” stories, which I hate, hate, hate.  

There are many such books available for kids, and many children love them.  Readers with autism do not tend to enjoy them, for the simple reason that they don’t feel comfortable using their imaginations in that way.  They are perfectly prepared to enter a world of fantasy, where things exist that don’t exist in the real world; they just aren’t willing to write their own endings. 

I understand that completely.  It occurred, to me, however, that if my readers with autism did like that kind of book, it would be a really great way to get them engaged in a text.  

Several weeks later, I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about fill-in-the-blank worksheets.  (I hate it, because when I wake up like that with an idea, I’m too sleepy to flail around looking for a pen to write it down with, even if a shred of paper did exist on my bedside table.)   I had no idea why, but as I let my mind drift, the pick-your-own-ending books straggled around the edges of my thoughts.

 In the morning, the idea seemed to gel in my caffeine-loaded brain, and I began to work on a story for one of my students who had trouble staying with a narrative.  His mind would start to wander and he’d start fake-reading about a paragraph into any text.  What I discovered in my new strategy was a way to keep him hooked to the text and striving for meaning all the way through. 

I call this particular intervention the “stories we write together,” even though I do most of the writing and all the reader has to do is fill in a word or two here and there.  The idea is to write a story for your reader about a topic that interests him or her.  Hope that it is a topic for which there are photos or clip art on the web, because you need to illustrate it. 

Every few sentences, leave a word blank.  When your reader comes to that blank space, he will be asked to fill it in with a word.  You can write it, or the student can write it. 

What happens when our readers with autism get a high-interest story like this that requires them to be paying attention so that they can add a word or phrase here and there is that they tend to stay with the story, hang on to what’s happening, and enjoy the interaction they have with the text.

lightbulb_dramaticTIP:  I’m sure you could use stories that already exist – just retype them onto a text document, add illustrations, and insert your own blanks where you think the student will be able to add meaningful words or phrases.  Not all of us love making up stories at the drop of a hat. 

If you do decide to write your own, don’t worry about the quality.  For God’s sake, don’t sweat about character development or setting; the point is to create a narrative that intrigues the child, and believe me, children don’t get wound up over glitches or parts that don’t make as much sense as they could if we spent hours writing the plot.

Here’s an example: “Teddy Meets The Incredible Hulk”.  My original had cool illustrations (Google Image is a teacher’s best friend), and you can easily add them to any such stories you write.

You should enjoy this as much as the reader with autism!

The child in the IEP: Can we really see him as described?

By readers1  |  2009/11/15 22:03 Posted in IEPs  |  Comments (0)

By Sara Finegan

I’ve got a new student with autism.  He’s a fourth grader, and he moved here from another state last year.  The IEP he came with was quite specific about his mechanical reading skills (working on long and short vowels, etc) and reported minimal progress toward decoding and phonemic awareness over the previous year. 

jigsaw_blue_12He spent the second half of last year in our lower-grades Special Day Class, and now he’s with me.  I took a look at his IEPs for the past several years, and I must say I’m disappointed. 

Allow me to step up to my soap box for a bit and voice some concerns about the IEP process and how we think about our readers with autism.

I do not know how it is possible for anyone to create an IEP that only addresses one part of the reading process.  If I am going to support a child in reading, there are many things I want to know besides the simple decoding skills he or she has or does not have: I want to know about whether the child

  • enjoys being read to,
  • enjoys looking at books,
  • comprehension levels,
  • questions the child might ask,
  • topics of interest,
  • favorite characters in books, and
  • genres. 

A reader is not simply a person who can read words; a reader is a person who has expectations of text, has preferences in text, and has experience in text.

A kid who cannot decode long “O” and “I” sounds can still delight in having Captain Underpants read to him.  A kid who cannot focus on the written word for more than 15 seconds at a whack can bring me a copy of The Indian in the Cupboard  and ask me to read it to him over and over and over.  A child who doesn’t know that a book starts on the left side and not the right can squeal with delight when we read Frog and Toad books.

We need to know as much about what a child can do as what he cannot do.  Yet.

student_in_classWhen we are working with a child on comprehension in reading, we build on the skills that exist now.  I cannot devise a plan of action unless I know what the child already knows, and what he almost knows.

Think about it:  how much does knowing that I cannot use an electric screwdriver without stripping screws, cannot thread the needle on a sewing machine, cannot keep track of socks, and often fail to keep plastic containers together with their lids really tell you about what it would be like to come to my house for dinner?  Not much, I expect.

Note toParents:

Parents are part of the IEP team, and if the case manager doesn’t include the skills your child already has, you have not only the right but the obligation to make sure it’s added.  It’s as simple as asking whether the case manager could please add a list of the reading/math/writing/whatever skills the child does have to the description of “present levels.”  If your child is present at the IEP, ask him or her to contribute a list of strengths. 

I’ve had it up to here with IEPs that do not accurately describe a child, or which leave enormous blanks in the picture of the child I am teaching.    We’re talking about a person, not a skill-set, and not a file in a drawer.   Anyone who participates in an IEP meeting must consider how the child is portrayed, and if it is as complete a portrayal as possible in the document.  If you are unsure, consider whether, if the subject of the IEP was you, people would be able to see you as you are.

Irresistible reading: Stories starring our kids as characters

By readers1  |  2009/11/07 08:39 Posted in Fiction  |  Comments (1)

By Sara Finegan

I’m in the process of writing some social stories for an incoming student of mine who is  a boy with medium-functioning autism, and it got me thinking about the power of stories about the kids who are actually reading them.

(Social Stories are a tool for teaching social skills to children with autism and related disabilities.  They provide an individual with accurate information about those situations that he may find difficult or confusing.  The situation is described in detail and focus is given to a few key points: the important social cues, the events and reactions the individual might expect to occur in the situation, the actions and reactions that might be expected of him, and why.  The goal of the story is to increase the individual’s understanding of, make him more comfortable in, and possibly suggest some appropriate responses for the situation in question.  From http://www.polyxo.com/.)

Many of my students on the autism spectrum have been kids who really, really disliked reading, and avoided it whenever possible.  This was partly because they really struggled with the decoding process, and partly because they really struggled with comprehension, and, in some cases, partly because they  struggled with focus issues.

Many years back, I hit on a sure-fire way to get kids like that more engaged in reading.  I started to write serial stories about kids in my class.  

Alien_Space_Alien_151I think the first one I wrote was about “The Day Aliens Kidnapped Eddie and Joey.”  It was set at our school, and all of the students in my class, plus my aide and our principal were characters. As I recall, the narrative began when, while waiting for the school bus, Eddie and Joey were suddenly snatched up by an alien spaceship.  Alien_Space_Alien_-_WritingThe aliens were fascinated by homework, and tried to conduct a cross-examination of Eddie and Joey about their assignments.  In the meantime, the rest of us were trying to figure out how to save them. 

Each of my students had a role in devising a brilliant strategy to get Eddie and Joey back.  Our principal, who happened to have a huge supply of hot air balloons in the library storage room, provided both inspiration and logistical support. 

Every few days, I’d write another installment of the story, and the kids would gather together in pairs to read and respond. Alien_Space_Alien_043 The excitement was palpable.  Students began to submit ideas for scenes, and suggestions as to what we could do with the aliens once we reached their space ship (feed them cupcakes….teach them to moonwalk….).  Kids in other classes began to hear about the story and wanted copies.  It became quite a cool thing to be in my class that month.

Long story short, even kids who hated, hated, hated to sit down with a book waited anxiously for each new installment about Eddie, Joey, and the aliens.  They were perfectly willing to read and re-read the story to answer comprehension questions, identify different uses of language (simile, metaphor, hyperbole, dialogue), etc. 

BobbyBobby, who had a lot of difficulty connecting to text in general, began to ask a lot of questions about the story:  Why did the aliens pick San Diego?  What if Eddie and Joey get thirsty?  Why can’t the principal just call the aliens?  Where is Superman when we need him?  (See my other posts about hyperlexia, anaphoric cuing and helping Bobby read.)

Then, Bobby started a running commentary:  Eddie and Joey should be careful on the spaceship, because some aliens have slimy skin; Mrs. Finegan should stop singing while she makes helmets for the kids who are going up in the hot air balloon, because it might scare them (!); we should probably eat lunch before we launch the rescue mission, because there’s no food in space.

Alien_purple_invaderI managed to stretch out the alien story for about 6 weeks.  When we finally finished, the kids continued to read independently for longer periods of time; their stamina had increased by between 4 and 10 minutes.   They were more willing to work their way through stories at their instructional reading level, and their interest in setting and characters improved.

Since then, I’ve tried to write short stories featuring my students or, several times a year, another longer tale in installments. 

For readers with autism, being a part of the story is a terrific introduction to the concept of “jumping into” a book.

Reader with autism and figurative language, part 1

By readers1  |  2009/11/02 20:06 Posted in Figurative language  |  Comments (0)

By Sara Finegan

My class is in the throes of what our District  calls a “Unit of Inquiry,” which essentially is a unit of literature study.  Someone has devoted a great deal of time to developing entire courses of study for up to six units per year for each grade level.  The Units of Inquiry focus on different genres of writing and different plot elements, among other things. 

 I’m not  utterly wild about them as a whole, because I think that even for children without learning disabilities, they are pretty advanced and don’t actually match kids’ developmental stages. 

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy

When I went to school, (and I attended a very good public school in a University town) we didn’t even think about things like “theme” until maybe the 8th grade.   A precocious reader, I was reading at the college level in the 8th grade, and I don’t think I would have been able to describe in detail the motivations of the characters as they apply to the author’s theme in most of the texts I made my way through.

 So here we are, in Unit 2 of the fifth grade curriculum, talking about theme, which is an amorphous sort of thing if you are in the fifth grade and a really incomprehensible thing if you are a concrete thinker like a reader with autism.  To top it off, this particular unit is full of figurative language:  metaphor, simile, hyperbole….I read the unit description and immediately reached for Mylanta.

The text was overflowing with figurative language

 The first story we were supposed to read was a short piece by Sandra Cisneros, who is a brilliant and evocative author (The House on Mango Street, Woman Hollering Creek) whose work is just so amazing I could read it over and over without getting bored.    The thing is, though, that the first piece, entitled “My Name,” wasn’t a story if by “story” you mean a narrative with an actual plot and a beginning, middle and end. 

 It was a reflection, I guess, about the name of the character in the book (Esperanza).  And it is, like most of Cisneros’s writing, riddled, frothing, overflowing with figurative language – sometimes multiple similes or metaphors in the same sentence.

 I was not convinced that this would appeal to any reader with autism and pretty sure that my readers with autism were going to be absolutely untouched by the piece. 

sun_happy_sun It must have been the sunny weather that made me refrain from kvetching and take a dive into this unit without floaties.  We started reading “My Name” last Wednesday, slowly, line by line, as a whole group (my class is 15-strong).

 I will be writing more about our experiences in the coming days.  For now, I’ll just say this:  On Thursday, we abandoned all of the other texts in the Unit of Inquiry and decided to focus exclusively on Sandra Cisneros stories. They cannot get enough of her!

And, more to the point, I’m learning a lot about how readers with autism can deal with figurative language and deeper meaning in text.

The Demanding Classroom: No dumbing down for special education

By readers1  |  2009/10/28 20:12 Posted in General, rigor  |  Comments (2)

We’ve started another blog to promote rigorous instruction and high standards in the special education classroom– www.thedemandingclassroom.com.

Here’s an excerpt from our first post:

There’s a misconception among many in the field of education about special education.  To many, “learning disabled” means “unable to learn,” or “limited learning capacity.”  The focus is on the “dis” part of “disabled” instead of the ability part.  They ask the wrong questions:  “how smart is he?” rather than “how is he smart?”   

We’re all guilty of this to some extent, and the result is that in more cases than not, the special education classroom is one where the learning is “dumbed down” and expectations are too low to inspire growth.

When this happens, our students become dependent on us for learning and information rather than independent thinkers.  When we lower our expectations because of assumptions about learning capacity or processing strengths, the kids learn not to think hard, think deeply, or use their strengths. 

Parents and teachers who are interested in more than teaching reading are invited to take a look.  We welcome your comments.