Nick loved to bring high level fiction books to school, and eagerly showed them to me each time he walked into the classroom. He proudly informed classroom visitors that he brought his own independent reading from home.  Sherlock Holmes and Indiana Jones were two of his favorite characters, though when pressed, he couldn’t tell me much about them.

Nick, diagnosed in the second grade with Asperger’s Syndrome, habitually practiced “fake reading,” and did so without any apparent inkling that reading could be more than just staring at a page and thinking about a movie he’d seen.

During independent reading, when he wasn’t fake reading fiction books he’d brought from home, Nick would lie on the floor and read the same book about dinosaurs over and over again.   He didn’t actually read the text; he enjoyed looking at the pictures and identifying each species of the great lizards.

“Tell me what is happening…”

At the beginning of his fourth grade year, Nick stood in front of a bookcase holding baskets of all sorts of stories for more than 10 minutes, unable to decide on a choice.  I spoke with him briefly and helped him to select a novel about dragonfighters.  The next day, I pulled up a chair next to him and began a conversation about what was happening in the story.

Nick immediately began to tell me about the setting of the book, and that the main character was attending dragon-fighting school.   But other than a physical description of the school and the boy in the story, he couldn’t tell me anything.   It was clear that he was basing our conversation on the cover of the book and one illustration several pages into the first chapter.

Further observations led me to the conclusion that he was honing in on certain words in each paragraph, and inventing a plot around his perception of the meaning of those words.  For example, if he saw the word “dim” in a description of a heavily-forested glen, he would think about the time his mom complained that the porch light was dim, and decide that the events in the text were taking place on a porch!

A series of unrelated events

Additionally, even when Nick did read all of a paragraph as one unit, he was not able to identify which of the characters was speaking or acting.  This made following the plot even more difficult.   If he didn’t know who did what, he wouldn’t be able to understand the story at all. To him, the book would simply be a series of unrelated events.

I needed to help Nick find a way to keep track of the plot as it happened, and to connect characters to the events in the book.  First I had to make sure that he had a reasonable expectation of what the text would do.  Nick inspired me to customize an instructional strategy that has since been used to great effect with almost all of my students.  I’m not saying they like it.  But I am saying that if they do it for a month, they’ll start to read better.

Who….did what?

The plot of a story in a kids’ book is, of course, all about the action, and the action is supposed to be the really interesting part of a book.   A kid who cannot understand what is going on is not going to think that reading is very much fun and is not likely to have any expectations of text, which leads to all sorts of other problems in establishing meaning. For Nick, it all boiled down to understanding who was doing what in the story.

You can start this activity as a whole group, or pull a smaller group together for a mini-lesson and some guided practice, or you can use it from the get-go with an individual reader.  There are some key concepts that kids need to be instructed in, but complete mastery is not necessary as long as you are there to guide them and have discussions during share-outs.

What constitutes “doing”?

The first concept is about what constitutes “doing” in a text. Kids may or may not know what verbs are, and if they have had any instruction in grammar they’ve probably been told that verbs are “action words”, which is, in my mind, one of the most idiotic definitions we’ve ever used, and I include myself in the “we” part.

Consider this:

“Sara was tired of writing her blog entry. She felt hungry and wanted a nectarine.”

How is being an action? How is feeling an action? How is wanting an action?

But I digress.   My point is that we need to model for kids how the kind of verb we are looking for is one where someone is actually doing something, not being or feeling or wanting or having.  Make a list of “not doing” verbs and post it in the classroom for kids to refer to.  Our list includes “does, do, was, is, were, wasn’t, isn’t, weren’t, have, had, haven’t, hadn’t, want, wanted, wanting, can.…”

Find yourself a short-ish text to read with the kids in which there’s a fun plot.   Give a copy to each child and/or put it under a document camera for everyone to follow.  You will need an easel pad and markers, or, if you are working with an individual student, a worksheet or lined paper to use.  I put my considerable brain to work and came up with a highly-complex and brilliant worksheet that looks like this:

I am donating it to the entire world, so feel free to copy it.  Though making your own is also allowed.  (Grin)

Now, the deal is that you and the readers are going to proceed very slowly through the text, focusing on what is going on in the plot.   (Did I mention that the kids will not particularly enjoy it? Well, they do in groups, but they often aren’t particularly enthralled by the activity when they are asked to do it in independent work. But ask them to give it the old college try for a period of time, and it will change their reading lives.)

Draw a line down the center of the easel pad. On the left column, write the word “Who…” On the right, write the words “Did what?”  Now, as you read, you are going to stop every 2-3 sentences and identify who….did what?  This is not an exercise in which you will write a summary of the characters’ actions; you are going to list who.…did what? for every single action in a paragraph, at the beginning. 

This is important.  Emergent readers and people who struggle with comprehension, and epecially readers with autism tend to fragment the text and to fail to pull all of the pieces together in order to get a good visualization of what is going on. Only when you capture every movement and act in a paragraph can your reader with autism start to experience what it’s like to see the story happening, like in a movie. (I will write about learning to visualize in another entry, never fear).

Feelings are not actions: What do you see?

As you work with your students, you’ll encounter many opportunities to discuss the difference between what a character is feeling and what a character is doing. They are related, but one is not the same as the other.  Talk with the kids about how this would be shown in a movie.  Would you be able to show someone walking to the window?  Sure.  How about showing “he felt bored”?  Notsomuch.  Well, how would we know he was bored if it was in a movie?  The expression on his face. Ahah!

So, if someone smiles, that is something to put in our Who…..did what? chart, and from that action we can make an inference about how the character feels.  This may be over your readers’ heads, but give it a shot.  Don’t dumb it down.  Maintain a high level of vocabulary, punctuated by lots of real-life examples they can relate to.  And push the boundaries of their understanding.

As you proceed in listing the “Who ….did what” information, pause periodically and ask the kids to summarize what’s happened so far.   Model it the first few times, until they understand that you are not supposed to read each “Who ….does what?” in order, but rather to give a general description of what’s happened. We do this orally without writing it down in my class, though I introduce it as a written exercise later when the kids are working independently.

Proceed slowly

I tend to use the small-group forum for ongoing activities identifying Who….did what? for a few weeks.  Initially, we use picture books but before I send the kids out for more independent work we begin to use short pieces of text without many illustrations.   As the kids move in to greater independence in following the plot sequences, be prepared for some backsliding, periodic refresher mini-lessons, and perhaps even the need to work as a group for the first 5-10 minutes of your reading period for up to six weeks.

In my experience, incorporating this activity into a reading unit 2 or 3 times per year is an excellent way to teach and re-enforce the attention to detail and action that is required for good reading comprehension.   It can be done at any reading level.

Related posts:

1. When a reader with autism needs to respond to literature…
2. Autism and hyperlexia, part 1: Anaphoric cuing?
3. Role of the classroom aide: To help the child toward independence