That summer time break is almost upon us! We have 5 days and 2 hours left and counting in my school district. My students have been working hard on their reading skills in intervention class all year. While they are looking forward to playing tag outside, going to the pool, or traveling on adventures during a vacation, reading should not be forgotten. I send home individualized packets with each of my students with suggestions of books to read on their Lexile level and in their interest areas. I also try to add fun reading activity calendars, kid magazine suggestions, local summer reading program information, and many other items. Take a moment to check out what I have found. I would love to hear of any additional free items you might be aware of! Lexile book suggestions: Teachers can go to lexile.com to enter a student's reading level and interest areas to receive book suggestions. If you are not sure what the student's lexile reading level is, you can enter in the student's grade level. Melissa Taylor has a great blog titled Imagination Soup where you can find great book selections based on grade level and interest. The link will take you to the 1st grade summer book suggestion post. I just kept clicking around finding more and more fantastic items as I went along! Harper Stacks is a treasure trove of resources for parents and educators on books for children and young adults. This resource is free from Harper Collins Publishers. I found a great handout for parents on summer reading tips, book recommendations, and teaching guides for specific books. Kids can earn a free book from Barnes & Noble through their summer reading program Triatholon. Students can download their summer reading log from the website, read the required number of books, and then take their reading log to the nearest store to choose their free book from the list offered. Reading is Fundamental has a great set of reading activity calendars for June, July, and August. Each day has a different activity suggestions from "Chocolate Ice Cream Day: Use your senses to write a poem about chocolate ice cream." to "It's tapioca day. Find out where "tapioca" comes from. Describe how it can be used in your journal." These are just a few suggestions of resources that you can use with your child or student(s) over the summer to encourage them to continue reading. Do you have any other suggestions?
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Have you ever had a student who just didn't want to read? They did everything in their power to avoid a book? That student who would rather get in trouble than read anything you put in front of them? Many of my students enter my classroom telling me "I hate reading!" or "Reading is boring!". Those students truly believe what they are telling me. I am not going to be able to teach them reading strategies until I can encourage them to try reading.
So what can I do to encourage that struggling reader to read a passage or pick up a book? First, I do a reading survey to find out what my students are interested in. There are several good surveys out there; Elementary Reading Attitude Survey by McKenna and Kear (1990), Me and My Reading Profile by Marinak, Malloy, Gambrell, and Mazzoni (2015), and several can be found on www.teacherspayteachers.com. The survey could ask students questions about their favorite class in school, their least favorite class, what is their favorite tv show, what hobbies to they have, and ask them which genres of books they like to read. If I know that they like to read things about sports, then I will purposefully choose books on sports for instruction. Another strategy to help struggling readers who don't like to read is to build a relationship with the student. If they feel comfortable with me and believe that my classroom is a safe and accepting place where they can make mistakes and keep trying, then students will usually make an effort to read. If students feel a teacher is judging them or is going to just find fault, then they won't attempt to read for that teacher. How do I build relationships? I make my expectations clear from the beginning of what our routine will be, what the procedures are for each activity, and we get to know each other on a personal level. Now, I'm not sharing my personal life every day with them! But they do know what types of books I read (my favorite is Anne of Green Gables), my favorite food is chocolate, and that when I make mistakes, I'm not going to bite. When they make mistakes I will offer them support and encouragement. Every day is a new day and we just have to keep trying. The next blog post (next week) will continue this topic and discuss how you can use graphs and data to encourage students to read. Hope to see you here again soon! Asking questions before, during, and after reading can improve comprehension. Children are natural at asking questions. They are trying to figure out how the world works every day. This desire to find out what is happening and how it happened helps to make reading fun. If reading time is fun, then your child will want to spend more time reading. The more they read, the better they become at reading. You can help your child fall in love with reading by talking about the book together, sharing your questions, and encouraging their curiosity. This is easiest to do when you can find a topic that the child really wants to read about.
Here are some tips on asking questions to improve reading comprehension: 1. When you are looking at the cover, what questions does your child have? Write a few questions on sticky notes to help them get ready to read. 2. Play a game. Try to find books related to the questions your child has asked. 3. Encourage your child to ask questions that they are wondering as you read together. Share your questions as an example. If you ask your child a question from the reading, ask them to find the answer on the page. Many of my students qualify for my reading intervention class because they have difficulty with reading fluency. When we read, it isn't necessarily a passage from a book; we read song lyrics, poetry, news snippets and more.
What does a fluent reader look like? There are many parts to being a fluent reader. It isn't just all about the speed. Because many students are progress monitored using oral reading fluency passages, they misunderstand the idea of fluency. Oral reading fluency passages are meant to be used as a temperature check; one way to check in and see if we need to take a deeper look at a student's reading skills. Research-based progress monitoring passages have standardized scores for each grade level to determine fluency rates. The research shows that students who do not score within the normal range on oral reading fluency passages may have reading skills that need intervention. It is at this point educators need to use more detailed reading assessments to determine if the student is missing reading skills in fluency, phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, and/or vocabulary. Fluency isn't just about speed- it has many other components.
When looking at reading fluency, one characteristic is that the student pays close attention to accuracy. Are they reading what is written in the passage? Or are the students substituting words, leaving words out, or changing word endings? I use the prompt "Are you the author?". This reminds them that they are not the person who can edit the passage. Only the author can make changes. Next, we look at reading with appropriate expression. As the student reads it should sound like they are having a conversation. Sometimes we emphasize certain words as we read, sometimes read words quietly to make a point. Students who are reading word for word or using the "robot" voice are not using expression. If a student is having difficulty using expression as they read, I might record them reading and then have them read along as we play back the recording. This can help them hear their tone of voice and volume. Punctuation is another important part of reading fluently. As a student reads, they should be reading smoothly. If they come to a comma in the reading, they should pause. If they come to a period in the passage, they should stop. If they come to an exclamation point, their voice should rise with excitement. When I first start working with students, they will often ignore punctuation and the entire passage will sound like a run on sentence! Reading a passage with a natural pace is also the sign of a fluent reader. The reader should sound like they are having a conversation. The pace shouldn't be too quick or the reader may make mistakes in their accuracy. My reminder to students is "Remember Goldilocks". Goldilocks didn't like things too hot, too cold, too hard, or too soft. She liked things just right. A natural reading pace should be "just right". Finally, a fluent reader should comprehend what they read. If a student reads with accuracy, expression, punctuation, and a natural pace then they should be able to understand the content of the passage they are reading. This is the time I might ask questions about the passage like "What just happened to the character" or "Why did the character take that action". If the student can give me key and supporting details, they have comprehended the passage. Being a fluent reader is a complex job. Many people mistake speed of reading for fluency. But when you include accuracy, expression, punctuation, pace, and comprehension then you truly have a fluent reader. |
AuthorI am a certified reading specialist with a background in speech pathology. I love reading and sharing this passion for learning with students. Archives
September 2016
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