Sharon addresses diverse reading challenges with older students. A Year 5 girl struggling with chapter book comprehension learns to apply visualisation effectively by keeping her "mind in the book" paragraph by paragraph. She develops a strategy of writing brief summaries at logical breaks. Another Year 5 student, transitioning from graphic novels to regular novels, discovers how text structure and organisation work. This student doesn't pause for punctuation or recognise paragraph functions. The teacher later connects this reading challenge to the student's writing issues, demonstrating how the Listening to Reading Protocol reveals critical connections between reading and writing skills.
Part 3: Addressing Diverse Reading Challenges
Sharon shifts focus to a Year 5 girl who, like the first boy, immediately expresses difficulty remembering what she reads in chapter books. When examining her reading, Sharon notices the girl has strong decoding skills but struggles with comprehension. Using the same "keep your eyes and mind in the book" strategy, Sharon guides her through reading paragraph by paragraph.
The breakthrough comes when the girl connects this strategy to visualising. She explains that while she's been taught visualisation techniques, she never knew how to apply them effectively. By focusing her mind on the text paragraph by paragraph, she can now create mental images that accurately reflect the author's words rather than going off on tangents with personal connections. The girl develops her own strategy of writing one-sentence summaries at logical breaks in the text.
Sharon then discusses a Year 5 student who has been reading only graphic novels and wants to abandon her first attempt at a regular novel because "the author jumps all over the place." Through careful observation, Sharon identifies that the girl reads continuously without pausing for punctuation, paragraphs, or other text organisation features. When questioned about how graphic novels organise information versus novels, the girl reveals her misconception that novels "just write everything all mixed up together."
This leads to a teaching moment about text structure and organisation—how novels use paragraphs, punctuation, and white space to organise information that graphic novels convey through illustrations and speech bubbles. The teacher later connects this to the student's writing, realising she never uses paragraphs because she doesn't understand how they function in text.
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