Reading Comprehension Strategies

[Reyne11]

Has anyone experienced success in reading comprehension?

This is an area I'd really like to find progress in with my ADHD. If there are any strategies that anyone can share, I'd love to hear it.

[happy_kitty]

I find it helpful to listen to music without words. not necessarily classical music, just anything without lyrics.

[Gus51]

Hello friend, what helps me is taking notes. Topics that stand out and I know that would help me remember it.

[Murgatron]

I have a couple of thoughts, depending on the situation.

If you want to get better at reading for yourself, then I suggest reading a lot. I was a low-average reader as a kid until I had a friend who pushed me to read more. She was an excellent reader, and I wanted to be as good as she was. I never caught up to her, but from age 9 we pushed each other and read faster and at higher levels until we were both reading college-level novels at age 13. I didn’t always understand every sentence I read, but even then, I think my mind was becoming familiar with language and vocabulary that I eventually understood with practice.

However... I’m still bad at reading textbooks. Most textbooks are poorly written. They’re wordy and hard to follow. My college disability office gave me a digital copy of my textbooks and software that highlights the words as it reads them out loud. It helps me focus so I only have to read the text once instead of having to re-read the same section several times.

[Reyne11 in reply to Murgatron]

This is great feedback. I thank you for your time and response. I have been enrolled in the EMT Program recently and the textbook is required to be comprehended rather quickly. An audio text format has been given, but I still struggle because of the volume and time expectations. I honestly hate reading a bunch of textbook wordy stuff much like you said. Our ADHD brains turn off SO quickly.

[pschoess]

Hi,

There are a number of strategies to help you! It would be helpful to connect directly for a conversation since I don't want to write a reading strategy book here. I'm a professional study skill strategist and teacher. I would be glad to help you with this!

[Reyne11 in reply to pschoess]

Thank you so much. I'm sure the time differences will be a lot different because I'm in Hawaii. I've been in the EMT Program this year, currently withdrew because the volume of decoding text was too much for my brain. I'm sure you're quite aware of this. How would like to proceed? Thanks for help. Besides the reading comprehension, I believe I've figured out strategies to most of ADHD tendencies. The reading is something I don't think I'll ever get fast at. Even with Meds and coffee

[pschoess in reply to Reyne11]

Hello again!

Each person is different in how the brain handles information but it (and you) can train the brain to take in information, store it in a way that makes it retrievable, and then practice retrieving the information many times before a quiz or test. That is what I coach people and teach people around. We create a time and topic study strategy for whatever content you have in a way that works with the way your brain works.

I'll see what I can do in a blog story!

Pam

[Reyne11 in reply to pschoess]

Hello Pam. Sorry I wasn't able to connect with you yet. I've been in a busy season for the time being. Do you have an email address we can connect through? I enjoyed reading how to coach people through "Multi Sensory" Strategy in taking tests, quizzes, just information in general. It is so soothing to hear these things. I'm not just going crazy within my own brain.

[cjnolet in reply to pschoess]

You know... an ADHD blog story on reading comprehension would be pretty badass and benefit a lot of us

[cjnolet]

I've been struggling with this as well. I find myself zoning out at the most random times, which causes me to sometimes have to read the same sentence or paragraph over again multiple times (sometimes 30 or more times!). I find that I always have to re-read the page BEFORE the page I left off on in order to re-grasp the details and put my mind into the proper context.

Unfortunately, as most things ADHD, I've found my comprehension sucks unless I'm interested in the material. I also use a pencil to underline key words or phrases (careful not to underline too much) that might be able to quickly job my memory if I get lost or need to come back to a particular part. Funny thing is, it's not even usually the words that I underlined that job my memory so much as remembering my actions having done the underlining.

Isochronic tones also help me or listening to nature sounds. I like consuming my auditory system with something so I can get into that hyperfocus flow much easier and drown out the rest of the world.

[pschoess in reply to cjnolet]

You've touched on something that is very real...the action of underlining brings your brains attention to it and you used more than 1 sense in doing it. Studying is a multi-sensory approach for our brains to engage at a higher level. More senses involved - increases our ability to retain and retrieve it later.

[Hidden]

I’ve spent a lot of time reading in my life and if you read a lot you just become better at it, or at least that happened to me. Sometimes I read a book in a day if I find it interesting to the point where I hyper focus. Other times, if I don’t find a book interesting, it can take me on and off a few weeks to finish it. Other times a very interesting paragraph or a sentence pops up and I need like hours to think about it (hyperfocus?). Then there are a whole lot of books I never got into nor finished. But I keep reading and it’s way easier for me now to get into a book than it used to like 30 years ago when I was in my 20’s. Since our problem is focusing I recommend the library for us ADHD folks because spending money on books we never get into and never finish reading is a huge waste of money.

[Reyne11 in reply to Hidden]

This is a great reply, I love reading interesting things as well. Yes, the Hyperfocus, which people don't understand separates us from the world is very true. I'm in a season of having to read material that's somewhat interesting, but it's for EMT school.

[Hidden]

Thank you Reyne11, good luck with your studies. Oh for school, I often found it helpful to write things down with a pen. It doesn’t really work if you type it, at least not for me. It’s a lot of work to write a whole lot of material with a pen but it always guaranteed a good or a decent grade for me.

[Reyne11 in reply to Hidden]

I have recently learned how much more memory is stored through paper and pen. My hand gets sore, but that's a minor cost.

[StrongMom]

Highlight like mad! I used to be afraid of marking up my school textbooks and any books I read on my own time for leisure, but then I realized they are there for ME, and I can use them how I need to, and boy, did I retain a lot more with that one simple action! I can even go back to the things I highlighted and remember instantly what I was thinking about when I was reading the text. It's an amazing technique and I would highly recommend highlighting everything that stands out to you as important when you read.

[Reyne11 in reply to StrongMom]

Thank you for this. Yes highlighting can do wonders!