GET 2 BIRDS WITH 1 TIP: FLUENCY & COMPREHENSION HELP

The Terrier Technique

"Do Scottish Terriers like to hunt elephants?"

“Do Scottish Terriers like to hunt elephants?”

You’re gonna love this simple technique, because it will improve two things: fluency and comprehension. How good can it get?

What Did You Say?

Simply explained, you repeatedly ask silly questions which requires the student to read the correct answer aloud–over and over again. That won’t make sense until I give you an example, which is this:

Example: Scottish Terriers

One of my students–I’ll call him Mark–had to read a report aloud for his class and needed practice. The topic was Scottish Terriers (interesting to him only because he has one.) His mom had cleverly put the page-by-page report on her iPad in large print with double-spacing between words (Yay, mom!)

One of the sentences was a mouthful, and beyond both Mark’s current reading level and his language fluency. “Scottish Terriers like to hunt raccoons, mice, and rats.” So here’s the technique, which worked beautifully:

Me: “Do Scottish Terriers like to hunt turtles?”

Mark: (grins; imagine chomping down on a turtle) “No!”

Me: “What do they like to hunt?”

Mark: (reading) “Scottish Terriers like to hunt raccoons, mice, and rats.”

I continued asking questions I knew would amuse him until he got some reaaaally nice reading fluency going with that sentence. “Do Scottish Terriers like to hunt grasshoppers?” “Pigs?” “Elephants?”

LOL

Our children’s penchant for humor is legendary, and we can certainly take advantage of that with this technique. And there is nothing so sweet as hearing a child like Mark rolling that phrase out so smoothly in the end.

I asked his Mom later how Mark’s presentation had gone. “He knocked it out of the park!”

Rolling right along,

Natalie-Hale-sig

 

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