Tru here, with reading tools that i personally use to compensate for my dementia symptoms.

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i was always a voracious reader, and in 6th-grade my teacher visited my home to speak with my parents
— because he was concerned that i was living life thru books, instead of thru real experiential happenings.

10 years ago i sold about 200 books, many of them because i had lost ability to understand them.
Even now my library is substantial … but now i can no longer understand ANY of my printed books – except for quick poetry PIECES.
So most of these collections will be given away or sold.

For lower-level reading,
e-book (kindle) allows me to highlight sections of the story that will trigger memories about the story.
Because if i get interrupted (even for toilet-break or a notifications “ding” from my phone)
then i need to review those highlights in order to continue the story.

Altho it is at a much lower level, using these techniques has allowed my continued joy of reading.

Anything over about 6th-grade-level i have learned to avoid, because my memory is insufficient to understand what i am reading;
there is no hope of holding the information from early part of paragraph until the later part of the paragraph.
In sentences, the noun and verb must be close together, without too many conditional clauses or explanatory phrases.
Only short paragraphs without too much extraneous detail are understandable.

Some of these stories i have read 10 or 12 times thru the years.
Because i have re-read them so many times, i am still able to enjoy SOME of the books that i read in 6th grade … IF i add some compensation strategies.

For these stories i must listen to audio book at the same time as i read from e-book.
Audio book by itself (without text) is completely useless to me, because the sounds do not go together to make words and sentences.
Either audio or visual by themselves are insufficient for my needs,
— but when i combine them i am able to again read SOME of my old favorites. …
but again, the book must be e-book with tool for easily-reviewed highlights of the story.

((So i use Kindle)).

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NEW  NORMAL:
When i have additional infection or extra stress, i get a preview of coming dys-Abilities, and i am unable to enjoy this level of short stories.
Then i enjoy several books of short (one paragraph) excerpts on one topic, and short poems.  These i am still able to appreciate, even on “bad” days, so that will probably be my next “new normal”.

My favorite anthology is from books written by Abraham Joshua Heschel called “I Asked for Wonder”.  i also especially like books of quotes — Those are GREAT (especially if they have nice pictures, LOL) !

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LINKS:

Text format – My Dementia Style at >> https://truthfulkindness.com/2019/03/04/text-format-dementia/ ;

https://keepingbusy.com/learning-center/montessori-dementia-reading-groups/ ;

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/metacognition-and-the-mind/201804/can-reading-help-my-brain-grow-and-prevent-dementia ;

Reading Improves Memory and Helps Prevent Dementia

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* Admin issues: SHARE dementia awareness thru buttons below. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the form of comments, but please filter your comments with truthful loving kindness to all concerned. If interested in receiving notice of future blog postings, subscriptions are available through a “follow” button in the upper left corner (MS Explorer) or lower right (Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Chrome). If there is an advertisement below, I have no control over what is shown. My own full legal name is Truthful Loving Kindness. My current diagnosis is still Mild Cognitive Impairment, but my neurologist said I am in a unique position for helping because I have “one foot in each door”. Text Copyright © Truthful L. Kindness 2020Sep06. Tags are: dementia, grammar, PLwD, reading, strategy, symptom, twitter