Most experts agree that any child who is reading two or more grade levels below grade placement should be classified as disabled. Although a wide range of maturational, neurological, and intellectual factors are associated with reading disabilities, we will concern ourselves here with strategies to help poor readers succeed in the regular classroom setting. Students who are reading two to three grade levels below expectation are overwhelmed by the long reading assignments, definitions, questions, and research reports often required in social studies classes. Special instruction through resource programs frequently centers around basic skills, so that poor readers are additionally handicapped by lack of exposure to the academic, study, and library skills necessary to survive in the mainstreamed classroom. The teacher should be concise and clear when oral version of written directions.
Periodic checkpoints can help break up lengthy assignments into more manageable tasks.
This style of writing can pose particular problems for disabled readers, who need specific instruction to develop these skills. Students must be able to determine the main idea in a reading selection and distinguish relevant details from among those presented in order to understand what is read. Direct instruction in comprehension strategies may be necessary when the social studies text is the primary teaching resource. Sequencing of events and accompanying cause-effect relationships are often represented visually in social studies materials, as in charts, time lines, or diagrams. The distinguishing of fact from opinion is a critical reading skill, one closely associated with the social studies.