Lois Letchford, a literacy problem solver, shares her childhood struggle with reading comprehension despite being able to decode words. In third grade, she could read SRA passages but couldn't answer questions about them, yet no adult helped. She now works from this perspective to understand what blocks reading beyond basic phonics instruction.
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Good morning, I'm Lois Letchford and I am the Literacy Problem Solver here with my cat Mary-Bella Bennett. There's Mary-Bella Bennett. Say good morning, Mary-Bella. And she's frightened, she's terribly afraid of the camera, poor little girl. But I'm here to talk about literacy and today I particularly wanted to talk about reading without comprehension, reading words without comprehension. And it's a a topic quite close to my heart because that's how I grew up. I grew up being able to read words without comprehending anything. I was taught decoding, I was taught phonics, I was taught to read whole words, sight words, but I particularly remember sitting in 3rd grade and doing what we had then was an SRA reading box and I had to read a passage and answer the questions. Well, I could read the passage alright. What I couldn't do was answer the questions. And I remember reading and rereading the passages and just wondering what it was all about. What do I have to do? And I think what stresses me most is not one person helped me. No one said anything because people have made up their minds. If you're, you know, she's doing what she can, she's not particularly smart. That's why she can't do very well. What it did for me, now as an adult and a competent reader, is that it helps me see the world of reading through the eyes of a non-reader or a struggling reader. Because I'm looking at it from my point of view. What else do I have to do? What else goes wrong? What stops children from reading effectively? other than just the decoding strategies that we know that have to be taught. So that's where I come from, that's what I'm in. And so I'm Lois Letchford, the Literacy Problem Solver. So I'd like you to like this video, subscribe to the channel, and feel free to share it with others as well. So thank you very much. Thank you.
