Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

From Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

A Blog by Dr. Gary G. Brannigan and Dr. Howard Margolis

By Teresa Foley, Ph.D.

Asnuntuck Community College, Enfield, Connecticut  Read more...

From Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

A Blog by Dr. Gary G. Brannigan and Dr. Howard Margolis

Children with reading disabilities often struggle to remember what other children easily remember. This struggle often frustrates, stresses, and confuses them. As such, they often berate themselves mercilessly: “I never remember anything…. I don’t know how to remember…. I’m the stupidest jerk in the school.”

From Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

A Blog by Dr. Gary G. Brannigan and Dr. Howard Margolis

Teachers can strengthen the memory of children with reading disabilities. To do this, teachers must first capture and then keep the children’s attention. They must then focus instruction on the acronym REMOS: Repeat It, Elaborate or Explain it, Make it Meaningful, Organize it, and engage in Spaced or Distributed Practice.

In practical terms, the teacher must get the children to:

From Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

A Blog by Dr. Gary G. Brannigan and Dr. Howard Margolis

My child has a reading disability. Can the school strengthen his memory? Often, yes.

But often schools intensify the memory problems of children with reading disabilities by not scheduling instruction to improve memory. Effective scheduling would repeat instruction a day to a week later and then a month or so later. It would give struggling readers feedback about what they learned, what they did right, and how they could improve their performance. It would focus on the big ideas, the most important concepts and skills, those with the power to unlock and strengthen future learning. Often, such repeated practice and feedback, called spaced practice or distributed practice, is critical for helping struggling readers remember what was taught. Unfortunately, schools often teach struggling readers something on Tuesday and then ignore it, assuming they will remember and apply it. Too often, they don’t.

The terms short-term memory and  working memory are shorthand for a variety of thought processes that capture, for a few seconds or moments, information. Unless a child with reading disabilities quickly makes an active, focused, and concentrated attempt to remember the information, he will quickly lose most, if not all of it.  Read more...