Facilitating Reading Comprehension for Students on the Autism Spectrum

1
Facilitating Reading Comprehension for Students
on the Autism Spectrum

• By Samantha Varney

2
Hyperplexia

• Patterns of higher word reading skills
  accompanied by poor reading comprehension

3
There are 8 strategies to Comprehension

• 1. Priming background knowledge
• 2. Picture walks
• 3. Visual maps
• 4. Think-alouds and reciprocal thinking
• 5. Understanding narrative text structure
• 6. Goal structure mapping
• 7. Emotional thermometers
• 8. Social stories

4
Priming Background Knowledge

• What does the student already know about the
  subject?
• helps students make connections from what they
  know to what they are about to learn

5
Picture Walks

• Go through the story before reading
• Make predictions according to pictures

6
Visual Maps

• Would make a visual map when there are no
  pictures.
• Should include main characters, setting, problem
  in the story and order of action.

7
Think-alouds and reciprocal thinking

• Breaks into 4 strategies
• Predicting
• Questioning
• Clarifying
• Summarizing

8
Understanding Narrative Text Structure

• Breaks story down into Who-Did-What Sequence

9
Goal Structure Mapping

• Understand how events of one character can
  influence the actions of another character.
• Who-did-what and then what it lead to.

10
Emotional Thermometer

• Helps students understand what emotion the
  character is feeling.
• You can use colors to help.
• Blue sad
• Green happy
• Red Angry

11
Social Stories

• Students make connections of emotions or action
  in the story to their life.

12
Questions

• Would you use any of these?
• Do you think they would help students?
• What strategy did you like most?