Reading guides are low tech assistive technology strategies that help students navigate the reading materials, stay focused and engaged. They take many forms, from highlight strips to reading rules and pointers. They help not only the students with vision tracking issues, but also dyslexic students and students who can’t focus when a lot of text is presented to them at once.
POINTERS
Pointers help students with tracking print, as well as with directionality.
It’s all about the eyes!
Linking the eyes to the finger leads to the eye being able to follow the hand at greater speeds. This leads to increased reading speed, making tracking with the finger one of the most efficient ways to increase speed in young readers. There are two basic types of eye movement: saccadic and smooth pursuit. In order to understand the difference between the two and how each can help or deter one’s reading speed, you can try a simple eye-hand coordination activity (you can even ask your students to join you!). First, hold a finger up and point to different objects spread out around the room, while following with your eyes. Hold it steady for a few seconds at each point. While moving between the different points, your eyes will make brief, staggered motions also known as fixations, or saccadic movements. This is how your eyes move from word to word when you read. Next, move your finger continuously from one object to another. Your eyes will trace a continuous movement, in an uninterrupted, unbroken gaze. This movement is known as smooth pursuit. This is the most beneficial for a young reader. Tracking with a finger while reading eliminates the saccadic movement of the eyes as they go from word to word, thus increasing the speed of reading. Our eyes are naturally attracted to motion, so when students read and follow with their finger, even though their eyes are not fixated on the finger, they are able to trace a smooth movement, eliminating the interrupted, less productive eye movements.
Students love using pointers when reading. You can try anything from Popsicle sticks, to small star wands, and finger lights or any objects or toys that will attract and engage your readers. Witch fingers can add a lot of fun to a reading activity especially around Halloween, but can be used all year long!
READING STRIPS
Highlight reading strips are practical assistive tools that can help students to visualize, concentrate and retain the information they read in a more effective way. They are usually ruler sized strips with a transparent shaded cut-out window that is placed over the text being read. They come in 5-6 different colors, which gives students a chance to pick their favorite one.
Highlight strips- a requisite for reading interventions!
Like stated above, when reading any given content, our eyes must make small stops after a few words along the sentence. However, struggling readers tend to make many more stops, thereby, reducing their reading speed and inhibiting comprehension. The black and white contrasting font and background color can make it difficult for some students to focus and track smooth line transitions. Highlight reading strips work great for helping students to focus while reading, and increasing their fluency and accuracy. They highlight the sentence that the students are reading and block the sentence above and below, allowing students to stay focused without skipping lines or reading the same sentence more than once, and limiting distractions. This is a great strategy for emergent readers, low ASD readers, students with dyslexia, ADHD, and learning disabilities, but it is used successfully in regular education too.