What is Scanning?
Scanning means finding words in the text by quickly glancing at each line or paragraph. Students with dyslexia or other reading difficulties find scanning less intimidating than oral reading, and it accomplishes the goal of pairing the visual image of the printed words with the meaning of the words, in context. Dyslexic readers struggle with phonemic links but excel at context clues, so this is playing to their strength and allowing them to experience real success. Success motivates!
Lay the Foundation for Success by Tracking
First, teach the student to look at the words as you read them aloud. Tracking along with a reader does not come naturally to many children, especially those who have had painful experiences with reading. So, before scanning, spend some time making sure the student can track as you read. After tracking has become embedded, add scanning. Have the student track a sentence or paragraph as you read aloud. Select a passage that is interesting to the student but not too long. With beginners, use a single short sentence. With older students, a paragraph or short poem works well. After tracking, ask the student to find words in the text you have just read.
How to Use Scanning
Say to the student,
“In this line/paragraph, point to the word ‘of.” Now find the word ‘forever.’ “
Pick both big and little words, at different places in the lines. Give the student all the time he or she needs to scan and find the words. If your student points to the wrong word, simply track through the passage again, then give it another try.
“I think I went a little too fast for you. Let’s track it again and then I’ll ask you to find the same word. Ready?”
Ensuring Success
Passages should be short enough to ensure success. Ask for words in the order they appear in the text to help imprint a left-to-right, top-to-bottom reading pattern. The purpose of scanning is to practice the proper eye motion and repeatedly process the image of the words as they appear within a meaningful context. It is NOT the same as using flashcards, which remove the word from context.
Astoundingly, Nicholson and Fawcett in Dyslexia, Learning, and the Brain (2008) revealed that a dyslexic student requires an average of 1000 repetitions to learn a word on a flash card, but only 30 repetitions to learn a word in a meaningful context.
Adding Fun Practice
When the student reliably tracks and scans for words with an instructor, it’s then time to encourage daily practice to send this skill deep into memory. A fun way to do this involves well-known and well-loved movies, with the sub-titles turned on. Tell the student to just enjoy watching the movie. Students do not need to read every word of the sub-titles. Rather, it’s best for the student to glance quickly at the subtitles, but not linger on them or try to read them in a word-by-word fashion. Emphasize that this is for fun, and is not a test. Dyslexic students, especially, will begin to absorb word patterns along with favorite characters’ dialogues. Turning on sub-titles uses the dyslexic strength of pattern recognition.
Ramp Scanning Up While Turning Sound Down
At first, sound and sub-titles should both be on, but after a few viewings of the same movie, the sound can be turned down a bit each time until it is barely audible or even silent. Do this only if the student still enjoys the movie this way. Let the student know that deaf people use sub-titles to watch movies. Many children like to experiment with how it feels to be blind or deaf and will have fun pretending. Meanwhile, scanning skills improve!
Eye Movement
Fast, efficient reading depends on eye movement. Slow readers jerk hesitantly from word to word, and even go back and forth to double-check themselves. Scanning quickly for words in text mimics the eye motions needed for rapid reading, thus helping the student pick up speed. Faster reading results in higher comprehension because whole sentences (ideas), rather than just single words, can be processed in the 10-15 seconds of working memory.
Scanning Increases Silent Reading Speed
Scanning for words in a familiar text will not significantly raise your student’s scores on an oral reading test. But scanning powerfully increases silent reading speed and comprehension. It makes use of dyslexic strengths of mind (see The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain, by Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide).
by Yvonna Graham, M.Ed.
www.dyslexiakit.net
@GrahamYvonna