Tag Archives: autism

Reader with autism and figurative language, part 1

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.

Is decoding overrated?

If you spend any time at all thinking about how you read, you are undoubtedly going to realize that you actually use your phonemic skills to decode words less than 10% of the time. Maybe less than 5%. What do readers do, really, at all but the primer stage? We recognize words.

When a reader with autism needs to respond to literature…

By Sara Finegan What happens when a reader with autism needs to respond to literature? My focus in reading comprehension instruction this fall is all about responses to literature, and by this I mean writing in depth about what we read.   An essential component to the basic reading response is the way we connect to [...]

Hearing the story in your head: The role of expressive reading

By Sara Finegan If you ask a child with autism to read a story to you, chances are that she or he will read with an almost robotic voice, word for word, with no expression.  Even an accomplished decoder will focus on getting the words right rather than the phrasing.  Good readers actually “hear” the story in [...]

Autism and hyperlexia, part 1: Anaphoric cuing?

By Sara Finegan Bobby approached my kidney-shaped conference table hesitantly, walking on tiptoe around the nearby rocking chair.  He was carrying a copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  I greeted him; he did not meet my eyes.  This was the first day of the second week of school, and we had fashioned name [...]

Autism and hyperlexia, part 2: Helping Bobby read

By Sara Finegan When I met him, Bobby was a fourth grader with autism, struggling to make meaning of the words he so easily read aloud (decoded).  He had hyperlexia, a common condition with children on the autism spectrum, in which they seem to read well but comprehend little.  Research suggested to me that something [...]