Supporting
Text
There are several ways to support students as they
work with text that is difficult to read, lengthy,
or difficult to understand including: adding audio
using text to speech, finding supplemental text
that is at the student’s reading level, and using
graphic organizers.
Text
to speech
Access
to audio versions of text has improved dramatically
over the last few years using electronic text. With
guidance, students can learn to use the audio
version to facilitate their comprehension. Having
both visual and auditory versions helps many
students, but is particularly useful for students
who have trouble reading the text or have a slow
rate of reading. Text to speech helps students to
keep up with the reading requirements of the class
while capitalizing on their listening comprehension
to help understanding.
Free Audio Books from the Public
Domain
Lit 2 Go
Supplemental
Text
Find
alternative and supplemental text on the teaching
topic using the student’s reading levels.
Using Lexiles
(reading levels)
Book
Search: Look up a book’s reading level in lexiles.
There are tens of thousands of book titles on this
site. If you know the students lexile – use it that
way. This site also provides a chart showing the
corresponding grade levels so if you know the
student’s approximate grade reading level you can
also use this site
Find a
Book for a
Student
using the topic and lexile
OKAPI
Enter
a portion of the text and get an approximate
lexile.
Graphic
Organizers
Graphic
organizers can be used in many ways to support
comprehension. They visually display the text
structure as discussed under text layout. Graphic
organizers are also an effective way to visually
display the relationships among vocabulary. Before,
during and after instruction, the class can build a
graphic organizer showing the vocabulary
relationships and their relationship to unit – this
is referred to as a ‘semantic network’ and helps
the students to build their own word maps, or
semantic networks with these
words.
Tools for Creating Graphic
Organizers
Inspiration
Many
schools have Inspiration loaded on their network.
If you do, find out more about it. There are
templates and lessons already developed. The tool
is also easy to use to construct new organizers.
Smart draw
Download
a free trial and receive access to changeable
templates for 100’s of maps and useful tables such
as
Mindmeister:
This is a free, cooperative tool for making a
concept map. Share it with your classmates,
convert it to an outline or print it out as a
study tool
Webspiration:
A Free Online version of
Inspiration
Pre-made Graphic
Organizers
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Text Page