Can You Help Me?
A Story Puzzler
Quick Links
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| Training Tips |
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| When you were learning to read, even the simplest word could be a challenge. To help you remember what it was like, try translating Can You Help Me? (the story that follows) into English. The story presents the problem of readers seeing, in context, words they have never seen before. Yet there are many clues to the meanings of these words. When used in a training session, this exercise can provoke interesting discussion about the multiple strategies readers use to make meaning out of text. It can also help literacy volunteers gain empathy for struggling readers, whatever their age. |
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| Instructions |
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| Before you use Can You Help Me? in your next training, see if you can crack the code and solve the puzzle yourself. (We gave you lots of hints.) Each character in the story corresponds to a letter in the alphabet, and all punctuation marks are standard. Give yourself a time limit, say five minutes, and see how far you get. Or, try this exercise as a group activity. |
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| Before you dive into translating, take a moment to conduct a picture walk. (For those unfamiliar with that term, it means to look at the illustrations in order to gain a sense of the action in the story. Doing so helps beginning or struggling readers gain a sense of the setting of the story and activate prior knowledge about the topic. It also gives the literacy volunteer a chance to preview some of the vocabulary that appears in the story, thus increasing the readers' chance of having a successful reading experience!) |
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| After completing the story, note what strategies you used to help yourself. |
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| Did you |
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- check the words already translated?
- figure out which letter each symbol represented?
- begin to recognize familiar words?
- look at the pictures to get a sense of the action?
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| Then think about how literacy volunteers can help beginning or struggling readers use these same strategies in tutoring sessions. One strategy, for example, is to use prompts and questioning techniques. Here are a few: |
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- Once the reader has figured out a complete phrase or sentence, have him or her re-read it, just to make sure. Reading words in context like this can also help the reader predict upcoming words.
- Ask the reader if what’s been read makes sense. If not, encourage him or her to make a prediction. Then help the reader to check the text itself to confirm this prediction.
- Direct the reader to the illustrations or encourage the reader to visualize the action in the story to figure out what would make sense.
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