22: Reading Support with Sydney Bassard
Guest Sydney Bassard and I discuss strategies for supporting reading.
Sydney is an SLP and Director of Education for Bjorem Speech Publications.
Resources Mentioned:
Phonemic Awareness Sound Puzzles
This podcast is brought to you by:
transcript episode 22: Reading Support with Sydney Bassard
[MUSIC]
D: Hello and welcome to the TOD POD, a podcast to support itinerant teachers to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, SLPs, and other Deaf education professionals. I'm Deanna Barlow from Listening Fun and today we're talking about reading strategies with our special guest Sydney Bassard, also known as The Listening SLP on Instagram. Thanks so much for being here Sydney.
S: Yeah, thank you so much for having me I'm excited to be here today.
D: Could you tell everyone a little about yourself and what you specialize in?
S: Sure so I'm a speech language pathologist and I specialize in working with children, but really all individuals that are deaf and hard of hearing. I also specialize in literacy and reading outcomes. So the majority of the people that I work with either have hearing loss or they have dyslexia or some other tip of reading challenge.
D: Yeah, that was part of the reason I reached out to you is because a lot of TODs are supporting kids with hearing loss in reading specifically. So I was really happy to have someone who had both of those expertises to share about reading specifically. So if you know you've been following like reading at all lately, you've probably heard about like the science of reading. But I was hoping maybe you could give a brief explainer of what that is for teachers who want to be like up to date on what's going on, want to make sure they're doing the best like research supported strategies.
S: Absolutely so I think the biggest thing to know about the science of reading is that it's not new. It may feel like it's new because we've been seeing a lot of conversation amongst professionals ah particularly in online forums. But what it's based on is research that has expanded over 20 years and so what came out um in like the 80s I want to say is a theoretical model for how we learn how to read, which is the simple view of reading. And so what was found is that you need word recognition, and you need language comprehension, both of those skills need to be equally strong in order to get us to reading comprehension. How I like to explain that when like talking to parents or people who maybe aren't as familiar is think about like keys and then think about a car. So in order to drive anywhere you need your keys and you also need a car in order to get to the places you're trying to go. If you don't have keys but you have a car, well, that's not doing you much good [laugh] and the reverse is true if you have the keys but you have no car, you may not be going anywhere fast driving yourself right. So it's the same thing is true when we think about reading, we need word recognition so being able to understand like phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, decoding, how we are going to read the words and also language comprehension You have to have the language structures, be able to have background knowledge, understanding of how sentences are going to be combined together in order to fully access and comprehend the things that you're reading.
D: Speaking of that could you speak a little on the difference between phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, phonics... I feel like these get thrown a lot around a lot and I feel like I know what they are but I don't know if I could articulate it very clearly. So could you help explain that to our listeners?
S: So we can think of phonological awareness as an umbrella term. That's where we're focusing on rhyming skills, maybe blending, segmenting, but it's generally more of like at the whole word level. And then phonemic awareness is really where we're focusing on those individual speech sounds. So you still might be blending, segmenting, and manipulating. But we're not dealing dealing with it with the whole word. So an example for phonemic awareness might be like if we have the word cat and we might break it down and segment it out into the 3 sounds that we hear - /k/ /a/ /t/ and then maybe we're being silly and we're like all right change the /k/ to a /b/ what would that be? Oh now the word is bat and doing other manipulation type things. But when we're thinking of phonological awareness and phonemic awareness we're really just focusing with things on the sound level only. We're not necessarily yet incorporating letters when we start to incorporate letters or grapheme representation, that's really where phonics comes in and you're starting to make more of those connections between the letter that we see represented and the letter sound that it's representing.
D: That makes sense I feel like when I've been supporting like young children in the schools I see a lot of phonics which is great obviously that's very important but I don't see a ton of phonemic awareness practice like explicit phonemic awareness practice. So that's what I've always focused on to try to like fill that gap because I do feel, at least the schools I'm in, they get a lot of phonics support. But if itinerant TODs are supporting reading in the classroom are there specific skills you think we get the most bang for your buck if you're only with them like once a week, what would really help them improve their reading?
S: I love that you brought that up and I would agree with you I think that there's been a huge emphasis on phonics and really making sure that we're setting kids up to read. But what we know about a lot of our kids that are using listening devices particularly hearing aids, cochlear implants, or baha's, uh whatever they're kind of using, they really do struggle with that phonemic awareness and phonological awareness component and really, that's kind of seen as one of those foundational skills before we even get into word decoding. So before we should even really be like doing a lot of deep diving into the letters and letter sound association, making sure that their phonological awareness skills and their phonemic awareness skills are really solid is going to help them. Especially as they start having to decode and be able to read words that are a little bit more challenging for them. And you can always tie back in any of your phonological awareness activities to things that they are doing in the classroom. That's one thing that I love to talk about when doing teacher trainings is that sometimes we think that it needs to be like a set of activities and we can only focus on these things. But if they're trying to like decode words or if they are learning particular letters in the classroom make sure that you're bringing those in as the TOD when you are using phonological awareness activities. Those are maybe the particular sounds that you're going to focus on or you're going to focus on those particular words when doing some blending and segmenting of syllables with them. So that way it's reinforcing that information that they're already being exposed to in the classroom. We're just refining the skills a little bit.
D: Yeah, absolutely I found the only way for me to really support them like efficiently is to take directly from the classroom because I go to a bunch of different districts. So like they're even using different reading programs. So like they're similar like I get the gist of it but I don't want to teach them something different than what they're learning obviously so pulling like their workbook or their little like bag of words or like whatever it is and then maybe I'll do it more from a listening perspective like I'll do like phonemic awareness some sound manipulation like with the word families they're working on or whatever and maybe I won't show them the pages. But I am taking it from them because otherwise um there's just too many words to pick from [laughs] too many things. Do you have any like specific phonemic awareness activities you really like to do regardless of where you get the words from?
S: Oh that's a good one. Um I don't think that there's any particular activities that like jump out in my head that I like to do. I do like doing anything that involves multisensory learning and some type of manipulation. So a lot of times when doing phonemic awareness activities I'll use either like the dot markers so that way like we can have something visual to kind of go along with us. I've used like an echo mic that we've used to kind of make sure that we're hearing all of the sounds and have the kids repeat it back I think that that's a big thing.
D: I've done that with the HAT system like they listen to themselves through the hat system because so for some kids echo mic works good other kids they're like its whatever [laughs] Um, but I like having them listen to themselves through the hat system because I don't know it just reinforces it the way an echo mic does.
S: There's one that I've been um, using So I think that having like manipulatives or something physical for them to put their hands on with these is also really good too. So kind of hiding the object in a bag. And then like you pull it out but you keep it hidden so almost similar to what we might do when we're working with a kid that's really little on like they're learning to listen sounds but you would look at it and then just give them the particular phonemes for that word. So like if I pull something out of the bag and it's a pig. I might say okay listen to this I have a /p/ /i/ /g/ what do I have in my bag? And then have them blend it together and then you can manipulate it however else you want to do but that's pretty fun. Then you can have them do it in reverse and so and then purposely I always throw in miscues just to kind of make sure that we are really having the skill that it's narrowed down especially when they're at the point of generalization to really make sure that they have it. Throwing in some miscues then they're able to say like no, that's not those are not the sounds that I gave you is always fun too.
D: Mhmm.
S: But that one adds like an element of surprise and kind of keeps their hands busy while we're doing things like that but kind of moving beyond worksheets I think always is helpful.
D: Yeah, and I feel like phonemic awareness is one of those skills that naturally leans into these well because you're not focusing on the written letter as much. You don't really need as much paper in front of you. You can just do it with like some movement or like even like a fidget like I've given them a choice of a fidget and then we run through some phonemic awareness activities because it's just giving something to do while they listen and it's like more fun because they get to pick from my like little box of fidgets while we do their practice or whatever. But it's nice because it breaks it up from some of the, the worksheet activities and things like that.
D: Alright I'm moving on a little bit. Can you speak a little on the connection between listening and reading and speaking and writing. Because when I'm working with younger families, a lot of the times I'm explaining to them the reason we're working on their listening skills part of it is because listening is like the foundational skills needed for reading and speaking is the foundational skills needed for writing and I was hoping that as an SLP who knows hearing loss and knows reading, you'd be able to explain this in a little more detail.
S: That's a really great question to ask. So when we are thinking about early children and listening skills in particular why they're important is because there is a time period that we call the emergent literacy or early literacy phase that happens long before kids ever receive formal literacy instruction. And so the 3 foundational things that we think about there are oral language, phonological awareness, and print knowledge. So when we're encouraging parents to really read to their kids and kind of develop that listening skill, it's because kids are able to in that time period pick up so much information from an oral language perspective about reading. Um they're also able to pick up print concepts about books as well like how we hold a book, understanding the differences between a picture and print, being able to turn the page, flip the page, uh, starting to identify the differences between like the title and the author and then even to thinking about when we're reading to kids and how much language they are exposed to within written text. It is so much more than what we say. So when we're talking and conversing back and forth with one another. Ah, we tend to be pretty short. The subject's pretty much disclosed. We all kind of know what we're talking about versus when we are looking at things that are printed and in books. It's so much more language. The language structures tend to be more complex the thoughts and ideas that are conveyed on the page tend to be a lot more in depth then things that we might converse or talk about. You have to start to be able to pick up the differences between like when someone is reading and they kind of raise their voice, are they asking a question? Is it that they're indicating that they're excited? So those are all really great opportunities to kind of develop listening and then how that blends nicely into thinking specifically about spoken language is when we are able to talk and we are able to communicate those things being able to have a good understanding of language is going to help us when we're reading especially written text as well. Because as I was saying before it tends to be more abstract, it tends to be longer, it tends to be more complex. So you have to have a good understanding, good grasp on language in order to be able to understand those concepts.
D: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. When I was doing some of my like observation hours for my auditory verbal certification, one of the things that they talked a lot about is that a lot of like reading comprehension really comes down to like background knowledge like you need to know about stuff to be able to understand what you're reading. And most background knowledge is learned incidentally or like or through like exposure like through reading and that's the kind of thing that might be hard for students who are listening through technology and that's part of the reason that we work so hard to give them strong enough listening skills that they can pick up language naturally from their environment because it kind of like it trickles down. Like if they miss incidental learning from their environment then they know less about stuff and then when they read they have less understanding to like back up what they're reading about and I thought that whole process was really interesting.
S: I'm so glad that you brought that up. Background knowledge is huge when it comes to reading comprehension. I think that's something for us to think about as educators or people that work within the space as well is when we are picking resources and materials to be mindful of that right. Because sometimes they're going to be kids regardless of how well they're listening and spoken language skills have developed that they just don't have the background knowledge of something, not because they haven't picked it up but because they've never been exposed. So even thinking of life experiences give us background knowledge as well. So I always talk about this too when talking with teachers of like what's our point of emphasis if I have kids that are living in New York City and we're reading something or talking about something with farms. Okay, maybe they've never been exposed to that. But they know all about skyscrapers and taxis and things that are more related to city life than somebody living in a farm and the reverse is true. So we might have to do a little bit of pre-teaching. We might have to do a little bit more of exposure to some of those concepts and things and that's okay, we just always want to be mindful of like when we're picking things especially, when I think we get into trying to assess how much knowledge a child has about something is it that they truly didn't understand or follow along with the story or what we were discussing or is it that they didn't have the background knowledge and we didn't set them up to be successful that kind of pre-teaching and making sure they had a good understanding of the concepts long before we ever jumped into instruction.
D: Yeah I always like to like situate that kind of like background knowledge pre-learning like within the context of like a conversation. I usually say something like what do you know about this or have you heard this word before and then I go from what they tell me because sometimes tell me something that I like really wasn't expecting like they have a connection to that word that is like so random like and it's just not what I was thinking and it's certainly not what the story is going to be about. So I'm kind of glad that [laughs] I discuss it with them ahead of time because if they go into the story thinking like, I don't know, one that jumps out to me is like the word film like as in like like to record something but also like if something is dirty and it has like a film of dust on it. I know this is like a multiple meaning word, but this came up in a story where they were so confused they were like where's the movie like where's so and I'm like it's not it's not that like so we just had to like there was some background knowledge that had to be like built beforehand and I realized that there was a little bit of vocabulary gaps just I mean it was because of a multiple meaning word, but it really could have happened with any word. And just talking about it with them like just really casually through conversation beforehand like I didn't really need like a formal lesson I don't need like I don't need a special chart like I don't need I just like a little chit chat before we get started and then if I realize they need some of that background knowledge building doing it before because then they when they read the story they're much more likely to comprehend it because they have something to connect it to.
I also love looking at maps like I feel like maps are a really good way to like build background knowledge because a lot of kids know like vaguely about other places but not like where they are compared to them or anything about those places. So I feel like I often like will pull out, especially with my kids who are like quote unquote higher like they have a lot of knowledge but they have a lot of gaps and they're very curious about things that they don't know so lot of times I'll pull out my phone. And I'll go on like Google maps or Apple maps and I'll pull it up and I'll like show them where things are compared to other things and I don't know why like geography and maps tend to be one of those places I start with background knowledge. Because it's very geographical your background knowledge like you said like if you know about cities but you don't know about like rivers like looking at it on a map in the areas around it sometimes it's like a nice way to start that and it is a visual that I can pull up pretty readily.
S: Absolutely and I love that you mentioned that. I mean I think that using not only just maps but pictures in general is very helpful for kids just to kind of develop that background knowledge to have some type of mental association with what exactly we're talking about.
D: I feel like I say that all the time if I say something and they don't know what I mean like oh let me show you a picture and I Google it like on like on my phone I'm just like here this is what a camel looks like. [laughs] Like you know, like because like've tried to describe a camel to somebody with that picture is really hard. [laughs] And like if the story's about the desert like they got to know what a camel is right? So I just like I'm always like pulling up things on my phone I feel like sometimes teachers don't think that they can do that I guess maybe depends on where you work. But I don't know as an itinerant teacher I don't always have like a smartboard or anything with me. So I make do with what I have.
[MUSIC]
Jumping in real quick to let you know this episode is brought to you by the Phonemic Awareness Sound Puzzles. Perfect for this episode all about reading and phonemic awareness! Basically you start off with a word, then it gives you a bunch of ways to manipulate that word: adding sounds, substituting sounds, etc. until you figure out the mystery word at the end! It’s an easy way to build manipulating phonemes and phonemic awareness practice into your sessions. Link in the show notes. Now back to the interview!
[MUSIC]
D: Alright so my next question is coming from a place of like when we know better we do better. Are there any things that we should avoid doing when helping children learn to read?
S: Absolutely. So I think the biggest thing that we should avoid.
D: It's like I don't want anyone to get mad I just like it's one of those things where it's like once you know it, It's like oh my God that makes so much sense like I'll just change it. So it's coming from that sort of place.
S: Yeah, and I agree. It's never a shaming thing. It's something for us to think about and consider. So one thing that was really popular and sometimes we might see people doing this is using guess and go. We have a child that might be reading they might come to a word or something they don't know and they're like oh just take an educated guess at it and then keep going. Why that might seem harmless what ends up happening is you help kids develop a really bad pattern of if they come to across a word that they don't know the guess at it instead of taking the time to actually decode and figure the word out. Also too looking at the first letter of a word and then trying to make an educated guess even if you understand the context around it. You still may get the word wrong and it's going to completely throw off the meaning of what you're trying to understand so guess and go is probably the biggest one that I'm like oh please, let's not do that if possible.
S: The other one would be using pictures. So especially when kids are little, a lot of times we'll be like okay I'm reading and like look at and tell me what the picture is. That's not to say that we don't use picture books. Not to say that you don't encourage a child for comprehension purposes to maybe look at the picture and discuss it. But when we are thinking of strictly reading and when I say that I'm talking about being able to decode the words read the words that are physically on the page, we want to encourage kids to do that. We want to encourage them to track along with their finger if they're introduced if they're coming across that where they don't know once again that we're taking the time to really break it down because if we're looking at picture cues that might get you far. It might you might be able to answer those reading comprehension questions in first and second grade. But guess what happens in third grade. That's when that switch comes in and we go from learning to read to reading to learn and a lot of the text in third grade tends to be what we call more expository or informational type text. The other thing that kind of goes away along with those tends to be picture supports and so sometimes we might see kids that have been doing extremely well with reading hit third grade and they completely fall apart. So we want to be mindful of that is well. What else have you seen that you're like oh I have questions about? [laughs]
D: Those are probably the big two that I've seen that I would say are different than what I learned originally perhaps or maybe not what I learned originally but what I observed when I was young like in my like student teaching. Not even to my student teaching but you what I mean like as a young teacher I saw people do those things so I did those things and then I have since learned there's a better way just to focus more on the word itself and not encourage guessing. Whether it be by the words or the pictures. Those are kind of the two that I've seen. And then my other question is along the same lines like I a lot of times will use independent reading books in my sessions as material for listening comprehension practice or reading comprehension practice. Sometimes we read it together sometimes I read it and they listen, but are there any like good strategies for if you're reading out loud to a child like a chapter book like ah, not a picture book per se? I usually try to model like quote unquote like good reading strategies, you know. But are there any specific things that would be helpful if you're reading aloud with a child to do?
S: Yeah, so there's something called crowd strategies or dialogic reading. Traditionally people think about using those when talking of picture books are like working with younger kids but you can use the same type of questioning methodology when you are working with kids that are a little bit older.
S: Ah, So if you are trying to follow along with what CROWD means. So the C is completion so you might start off the sentence and then leave like it kind of blank and you let them fill it in based on whatever you read in the story. The R is for recall questions. So you're just having them straight kind of tell you exactly what they heard. O is for open ended that one's pretty straightforward as well till you're gonna try to get more of those how and why type things in there. W is WH so you're who what where and why and then our D is for distance. And so we're starting to really bring in more of their own opinions when we are listening to them read to like when we're reading to them but we're having them listen to us and be able to relate more of their own experiences and kind of bring that back into a complete understanding of what the story is.
D: Interesting. I a lot of times I mean it depends on the student but I try to limit my questions when I'm reading mostly because, well for 2 reasons. A lot of the times like my actual goal, well I guess I have like my IEP goals you know, but more importantly, a lot of times I'm just trying to like instill like a love of reading especially if they're still on the younger side and they've struggled I really don't want them to feel that reading is like hard or something that like takes a lot of work which I know it does but I don't want them to feel bad about reading I want them to love reading because I love reading and like I've always loved reading and I want you know other children to be able to to have that experience. So a lot of the time is part of what I'm doing when I'm reading aloud is like I'm just trying to make it interesting. Like I'm trying to read like with a fun voice for the characters and I'm modeling my own thinking in the sense that like I'll make connections to myself I'll wonder aloud um, like oh I saw they did that I wonder what's going to happen next and I don't necessarily ask them like what do you predict is going to happen next? Because I don't know if they have that skill yet. I just kind of want to get them like thinking about it. But like this is this type of activity is more based on my own like experiences of what has worked well. It's not necessarily like a named strategy as far as I know um, it's just you know, what I feel like has worked because then they get comfortable enough reading with me and especially if it's like a chapter book. Then we read it over the course of several sessions and then after a little bit of time of them getting comfortable. They start to make comments without me having to ask so many specific questions. That's just that's just my own like ah process... [laughs]
S: Yeah, so that's all part of dialogic reading being able to like kind of have that melodic intonation as we're reading really starting to get their brains thinking about what they've heard or read on the text is always going to be beneficial and then as you've said like you start to see that they're able to start to do that skill on their own. That's ultimately the goal because think about when you're no longer reading picture books or even chapter books. Even when you're not necessarily reading for pleasure but you're having to read to understand that's part of the process right? You have to read the information and not just read it. But since synthesize it, be able to break it down, be able to kind of communicate it back to somebody else either in the form of a test, explaining it, writing out the explanation or the process behind it. So I love that you're using those strategies I Definitely think that that's great and especially too when you are working with individuals that struggle a little bit more with reading I find that you have to really model what that looks like especially for the comprehension component. That's where graphic organizers I think are my best friend because we're really able to kind of do those things or talk about how we can take notes as we're reading to kind of jog our memory. So that way they're not feeling so overwhelmed by I had to read a whole chapter. Or waiting necessarily until the end of a book if you are working with younger kids to think about everything they heard. We're doing small check-ins, we're doing small things throughout so that way it's a little bit more manageable.
D: Mhmm. Are there any graphic organizers you tend to fall back on or just depends?
S: Um, it just depends some of them tend to be pretty basic. Um and they aren't anything special. One thing that I definitely do is use sticky notes and so ah I know that sometimes kids don't like writing in books or they're not able to. So we'll literally just use sticky notes and then we'll talk about what our 3 bullet points or our 3 key details from however, many pages we've read for. We'll write them on a sticky note and then we'll slap it in and the book. Yeah, those are pretty much it I think for a picture book sometimes we might use like a chart. And really break it down by the different narrative the different pieces of a narrative right, so like the characters, the setting, where they are, all of that those kinds of things just because the structure of those are a little bit different. But yeah I like to keep it simple as much as possible.
D: Yeah, me too I'm a big whiteboard person like if I can do it on a whiteboard I'm I'm doing it on a whiteboard. Or the whiteboard app on my ipad that's even easier I don't even need to bring the marker with me. Two like common reading esque goals that I tend to get as a TOD I tend to get ones about like retelling like for younger students. Sometimes it's just ah, like listening to an auditory story. Um, and then retelling it. But it usually is tied into like a reading comprehension kind of goal and then the other one I get is about like inferences like making inferences based on text. So I think those are pretty common for TODs to work on. Do you have any specific strategies for teaching kids retelling or teaching inferences?
S: So I think the biggest thing with retell is a lot of kids need that modeled for them if we're listening to and this is where language samples kind of come in handy because if you've taken a language sample on the kids that you're working with or if you can get that information, the person who took it should be able to kind of have some type of information about what things they include when they are conversing with other people and what pieces of information they tend to omit. So when you're doing some type of retell then do you know that those are the areas you particularly want to focus on. Um I always try to model that for kids first because generally they might be a little all over the place. I think to using ah graphics can be very helpful so when I really like there's um, a story cue deck from Bjorem Speech Publications and they have a choo-choo train on it and so it has like beginning middle and in so for my kids that are young. We might do have those pieces out and say like you know when we're telling a story or retelling we have our beginning, our middle, and our end. But that works if you have a story that kind of nicely fits in those 3 boxes but most stories and things don't so they also have some that talk about first, next, then, after that, and last so you're able to expand it a little bit more so I think in having those visuals. It helps guide kids along as to what they're supposed to be talking about and realizing like that there's multiple steps and pieces to what they're doing. I also question kids when they're saying something that I may not necessarily fully understand about what they're talking about. Or it doesn't really align with what's in the story. So I'll let them finish and just say you know your words made me picture whatever. Is that what I'm supposed to be picturing? And then that gives them a hint that whatever they just told me is not exactly in line with what we read in the story or what we were listening to if doing just like a straight auditory type task.
D: Yeah, that's funny. I think that's a good tip that having like oh that's is what I'm picturing so sound right to you. I a lot of times I'm glad you brought it up about like those words in particular because sometimes if I notice so they're not using those words like just regularly even before retelling, I'll play a bunch of games that have like like you know with like a dollhouse or like some little pets and like we'll say like okay first they wake up and then they brush their teeth and next they go down the stairs like do what I mean like just like games that involve those words so that way they at least have some practice using those words in like a non-reading situation because like reading is already um, like a challenging skill and one thing I always say or we always go by is like we don't challenge like listening skills and content at the same time. Like we either like they need to have the language to do the content or the other way around but we don't do 2 new things at once. Um, because that's not fair on their brain basically um so I do sometimes like to do like a retelling activity. That's not a book like it's just like ah it's not even really a retelling it's like a sequencing activity where we're playing games that involve that language and then when I go to do something like that with the book it's you know they've, even if like the info's not quite there. We have to work on that comprehension piece at least they have like that sequencing language. So I'm glad you brought that up.
S: Yeah, and then I think the other piece of your question was talking about inferencing.
D: Yeah, that's the other one I see a lot usually around third grade second you know so.
S: I think I personally like switching it from inferencing to more of like perspective taking um because depending on the kid or the situation, like I think we sometimes tend to be finite in our thinking of like this is the direct inference that should be made based on what we just read. Sometimes that's true, but sometimes there is a little bit of flexibility depending on everything that you're bringing to the table and so it doesn't mean like that their inference is right or wrong. It just might be a little bit different than ours and I think we tend to get like locked in. I think that's where explaining what an inference is to kids or like what different perspectives is first is really helpful. This is when you talked about using your whiteboard. Yeah, this is where my whiteboard definitely comes out. Um and so I might draw for them like you know. This like do one. That's really simple for them to understand and then draw that out on the whiteboard and kind of like draw a direct arrow to different inferences or different things that could happen based on this one interaction and I find that it helps them to kind of start getting in their mindset of like oh I'm thinking Beyond what's here and now and kind of into the future a little bit. That I feel like tends to help a bunch of making sure that they have an understanding an idea for what inferencing means and is and that different perspective sometimes can influence the prediction or inference that we might have.
D: I like that. I haven't really heard it explained like that before. A lot of times what I'll try to do is like we'll find the words like in the text like this is what it says and then separate that from like this is what it makes me think. I usually like you said start with one that's really obvious where it's like the tears slid down her face I'm like okay it says there's tears, what do tears make me think they make me think she's sad like I know that's like a really really straightforward one but like it at least lets me model that language of like this is what I see that it makes me think X Y Z. But it's funny you say that kids bring different like they bring their own different perspectives their own different background knowledge to the table because sometimes like what I think certain things mean are different than what they think certain things mean because of their own history. That's different than mine as like a different person. So I do think that that's helpful and I do think it's funny sometimes when I like I present an inference where in my head I think I know what is inferencing um and they come with something that's totally valid and not at all what I was thinking because I think that's really fun I feel like oh wow. Like it's amazing how different people's brains work you know. And at least if you know if they're thinking if it's not exactly what it says on the page and they can explain it to me like, I'm happy, it's an inference.
D: Alright, thank you so much I feel like that was so helpful just to learn a little bit more about reading strategies and get some helpful information. Is there anything else important that you think like if you want people and support teachers to know about reading?
S: Oh that's a great question. I think um, asking questions is always a really good idea. Leaning into your resources that you have within the school. Schools are a plethora of resources so you can tap into the SLP for what they may know. Don't be afraid to tap into like the reading interventionist and kind of figuring out some of their knowledge and then I always like leaving people with helpful resources. So reading rockets, I think it's dot org, is one of my favorites to go to. It has really good information about teaching reading. It has a lot of activities and strategies listed on there and that's a really good one if you are working with school age kids just to kind of get a better understanding of some of the things that we talked about today.
D: Awesome! Thank you I'll link that below for anyone who wants to check it out. Could you tell everyone where they could find you online if they want to follow up with you with any questions?
S: Yeah, so you can find me @TheListeningSLP on all social media platforms. You can contact me at our website www.thelisteningslp.com or you can shoot me an email at hello@thelisteningslp.com
D: Awesome! Thank you so much and thank you for everyone for listening to today's episode. As always a full transcript show notes and links to everything we mentioned will be available at listentotodpod.com and we'll see you next week. Bye!
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