Reading interventions are a direct engagement technique. The teacher confronts a student outside of class, then works to understand the student’s specific learning needs. This can include practicing education fundamentals with the student, talking over the reading process, listening to the student read aloud and transitioning into a quiet reading period for the student, where the teacher is present to answer questions. While reading interventions require one-on-one attention, this method allows teachers to address reading problems at any level and focus on a student's specific reading problems. This is often most effective for students with a poor grasp of the fundamentals of the reading process or for students who require special learning techniques, such as students with severe dyslexia.
While all classrooms are structured learning environments, teachers can extend this by scheduling every minute of a student’s time in the room. This includes spending the same amount of time lecturing each day, the same amount of time working on worksheets and the same amount of time reading. For students with learning disabilities, such as severe ADHD and other attention disabilities, this advanced level of structure helps hold their attention and prepares them to transition from one task to another.
Students learn in many different ways. For example, visual learners learn to read by watching others read, auditory learners learn to read by listening to the teacher instruct them on the reading process and kinesthetic learners learn to read by opening a book, moving their fingers across the page and practicing. A teacher can address each of these learning needs by reading to the class, running her finger across the page, thinking aloud about sections of the book and providing books for students to follow along while she reads. This strategy helps students who respond to a diverse learning experience, while ensuring that students with a limited learning focus receive reading instruction in the method that provides the greatest benefit.
Parents play a formative role in children’s lives, and teachers can use this role to help students with reading disabilities. Along with in-class reading, provide home-reading assignments for students each day, which encourage parents to spend time with their children and develop reading skills on a one-on-one basis. For instance, make a home-reading assignment for a book you are reading in class, asking parents to listen to their children read aloud and discuss the text with them afterward. Use this strategy to provide reinforcement for the reading skills you teach in class, while giving children additional practice with parents.