Back during the Christmas Holidays I was contacted by a young lady who had problems with Reading Comprehension. She was a college student who had taken the TEAS exam to get into nursing school and had failed it twice. Her scores had improved from the first test to the next, but to tell the truth they were really all over the place. For those of you who might not know, the TEAS has several sections--reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, spelling, math and science. Her reading comprehension was so poor that it was causing her to have difficulties answering questions in the science section, even though she was actually quite well versed in science and math. To make matters worse, she was only available for tutoring for two weeks during the holiday break and then she would be returning to school. She was scheduled to retake the exam at the end of January. She needed to improve her overall score a minimum of 13 points and she had a goal of 15 points which would give her the rating she needed to ensure entrance into the program of her choice. Needless to say, it didn't look promising. I told her right off the bat that her goal was quite an aggressive one and that I could not make any promises. She was willing to give it her best shot and so we embarked on a two-hour journey/four times a week in an attempt to accomplish her goal. When we first started, as always I administered a mini-assessment so I could get an idea of how deep the pool was into which I had dived. I also reviewed her two test analyses to get a better understanding of the types of questions that were the most challenging for her. Well, actually it was worse than I thought. The real problem was that her vocabulary was probably about a 6th grade level. That really made me mad. Every other word in the reading comprehension passages were like reading a foreign language for her. She had no skill for using contextual clues; she didn't know any synonyms or antonyms and using the words in sentences that were less complicated didn't seem to help either. But I have to give her credit. She did everything I suggested. Everyday I left her with mounds of homework-- words to look up and use in sentences; fill-in-the blanks; word matches for synonyms, antonyms and crosswords. We had vocabulary coming out of our ears. I was even learning words I had never heard of before. We even had a session of tears. The worse part was that when we finally had to end our sessions, I wasn't sure if we had accomplished our goals. It was evident that some progress had been made, but I just wasn't confident that it was enough to make the grade. I even recommended that she might consider a different school where the entrance requirements were less stringent. But she hung in there anyway. And guess what! Last week I received a text message from her. She passed the exam and was accepted into her school of choice.
I'm especially writing this for those of you that may be feeling as though you're about to throw in the towel and give up. Just remember, you might just be on the verge of victory. So keep on doing what you're doing. Keep on studying. Persevere. The old saying "better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all" has never been truer. And keep reading. The more you read the more you'll know. You may not even know that you know until you know that you know. And when you come upon those words that you don't know, look them up. That's especially easy now, with e-readers and some of the other latest technology. You just click on the mystery word and instantly there's the meaning along with synonyms, antonyms and examples. Before you know it, you'll have improved your reading comprehension to a level that will make all of those eligibility exams and more "a piece of cake".