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| Didax "Class Ideas" Newsletter Archive |
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This issue of Class Ideas focuses on sequencing: the skill of putting ideas or events in order. Reading experts agree that sequencing is an important component of reading comprehension. This month?s article summarizes the research and offers tips on how to improve the sequencing skills of young learners and children with learning disabilities. And don?t forget to check out the Internet links to sequencing activities and tools, downloadable activity pages, and this month?s subscriber-only special featuring Didax?s own sequencing card products.
As always, I welcome your comments and feedback. Until next time,
Cindy O?Neill, Editor |
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| Sequencing: A Key to Reading Comprehension |
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 When reading a story for the first time, a lot of the fun is anticipating or guessing what happens next. As stated by the International Reading Association, ?Most stories have a very definite sequence of events. Students gain a deeper understanding of the story by exploring this sequence.? In fact, reading experts agree that putting the events of a story in order, or ?sequencing,? is a key strategy for increasing reading comprehension.
The Kindergarten Readiness Indicators Checklist published by the National Center for Learning Disabilities lists three sequencing-related skills as key indicators of readiness for kindergarten:
The child?
? Recognizes, copies or repeats patterning sequence.
? Demonstrates the ability to correctly put in order or sequence up to three story pictures.
? Retells a story after listening to a story with pictures.
State language arts standards list sequencing as an essential language arts skill. California?s Grade 1 language arts standards, for example, calls for students to ?Identify and describe the elements of plot, setting, and character(s) in a story, as well as the story's beginning, middle, and ending.?
The basic structure of a story?beginning, middle, and end?may seem like an easy thing to grasp. However, for readers with learning disabilities, it is anything but easy.
Learning disabilities and sequencing issues
According to the Learning Disabilities Association, ?children with learning disabilities and ADHD are usually very disorganized. They have trouble dealing with sequences and order, so they don?t plan well?Problems with sequencing explain why they have trouble remembering the days of the week, seasons, the alphabet, counting, and the order of tasks and instructions.?
In the realm of reading, sequencing and organization problems translate into comprehension difficulties. Reading researchers Drs. Russell Gersten and Scott Baker point out: ?Skills in discerning and using text structures (the way reading material is organized) are important to understanding texts. Students with LD have trouble learning about the structures of stories. In addition, they typically recall less about stories they've read and cannot easily identify the important information in stories.? Specifically, students with LD have trouble identifying story grammar?the characters, setting, problems, and solutions to problems that add up to a coherent and engaging narrative.
What?s the answer? The research speaks
The situation is far from hopeless for struggling readers. Students with LD can improve their reading comprehension, according to Gersten and Baker, by learning ?self-monitoring techniques, such as asking themselves questions after reading a passage or summarizing in their own words the material they?ve read. While reading a story, they might try to predict what will happen next.? Asking questions, summarizing, and predicting are strategies that, when used together, can help students with LD unlock the meaning of narrative texts.
Reading researcher Dr. H. Lee Swanson reviewed 58 studies on reading interventions conducted between 1963 and 1997 to see which were the most efficient in improving the problem-solving, or high-order processing, skills of students with learning disabilities. Swanson?s research asked the question, ?Is the magnitude of the beneficial effect related to certain components of the intervention?? At the top of list of beneficial components in the interventions reviewed was sequencing, or breaking down a task into small steps.
Sequencing tools that can help
Many tools in today?s classroom are designed to support children in learning sequencing skills and thus content comprehension. Graphic organizers such as sequence charts, story maps, and timelines are all visual aids to help students put events or ideas in order.
According to the National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities, ?Graphic organizers provide a framework for students to connect existing knowledge to new information and discover previously unseen relationships.? In a 2004 study conducted by Kim, Vaughn, Wanzek, and Wei, graphic organizers were found to be effective in improving students? reading comprehension. The study found that ?students using graphic organizers significantly outperformed their peers who did not use graphic organizers regardless of whether they developed their own graphic organizers or used teacher- or researcher-generated ones.?
On a more basic level, teachers can literally cut apart stories into sentence strips and ask students to place the strips in order from beginning to end. Wall stories?where children listen to a story and then each draw a picture to show their favorite part of the story?can be used to put the events of a story in order.
For young learners and beginning readers, simple sequencing cards can help foster sequencing skills. These versatile tools combine engaging pictures and words in much the same way as wall stories, but on a smaller scale. For example, Didax?s own Story Sequencing System asks children to put a series of story cards in order. If the sequence is correct, and the cards are flipped over, the child sees a beautiful picture.
Sequencing cards can be used to introduce young learners to the concept of cause-and-effect, verb tenses, and the life stages of a butterfly. As such, they have applications in the language arts, science, social studies, and even social development areas.
Sequencing cards and activities are one approach teachers have at their disposal to help children in the early grades and students with learning disabilities gain the sequencing skills they need to become confident readers and learners. And the sequencing skills children acquire in the early grades provide a firm foundation for the organizational skills they will need later as they learn to write.
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| Downloadable Sequencing Activity Pages |
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 This month's downloadable activity pages come from the World Teacher's Press beginning literacy series, The Foundations of Reading. Use these simple sequencing activities to help build your students' comprehension skills at the reading level that best fits--pre-reading, readiness, or emerging reader. |
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| Sequencing Internet Links |
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 Need some fun ways to help your students put the events of a story in order? Try creating a wall story, a story circle, or a story road map. This month?s Internet links take you to these highly creative, fun, and visual ways to support reading comprehension?as well as more than 30 kinds of graphic organizers to help your students organize their thoughts when reading and writing! |
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| March Newsletter Theme: Violence Prevention |
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 March 31 marks the beginning of National Youth Violence Prevention Week, so to help you get ready, next month?s Class Ideas will focus on the important topic of violence prevention. Tune in for an informative article, downloadable activities, and Internet links on this important theme. And be sure to check out the subscriber-only special featuring Didax?s own character education products. You won't want to miss this issue! |
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