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Reading
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Stephanie Paolone
Reading Coach
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Highland Park Literacy
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Our goal at Highland Park is to support all
students in their efforts to read and understand text at or above
their grade levels so that they can become lifelong readers.
To best achieve this goal, we combine the use of walk
to read and balanced literacy models for reading instruction.
The walk to read model assures students are
being instructed at their instructional reading levels and that
their specific reading needs are being met. Sometimes this occurs with the
students’ homeroom teachers, but other times, students “walk to read,”
traveling to a teacher who is teaching to that student’s particular needs.
A balanced literacy model ensures that students
are being instructed with a variety of teaching methods using varied
reading materials.
To understand better what goes into teaching a
complete reading program, please read the Countdown to Reading! in
the next column. Please feel free to contact Helen if you have any questions!
Reading First Coach (K-3)
206.252.8252
stpaolone@seattleschools.org
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COUNTDOWN TO READING!
Five… components of reading
- Phonemic
awareness
- Phonics
·
Comprehension
Four… modes of reading instruction
·
Shared reading
- Independent
reading
- Read
aloud
Three… levels of reading
- Independent
level
- Instructional
level
- Frustration
level
Two… responsibilities of teachers
One… main goal of reading
- To
help students read and understand text at or above grade level
READ!
(Definitions of reading
terms begin on page 2)
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Five Components of Reading:
Phonemic Awareness
- The awareness of sounds (or
phonemes) in words. This includes the ability to blend sounds together
(Teacher says, “/d/-/o/-/g/”, and student blends the sounds together
to respond, “dog”) and the ability to segment sounds in a syllable
(Teacher says, “cat,” and student segments the sounds in that
word/syllable and responds, “/c/-/a/-/t/”). Phonemic awareness does not rely on print; students do
not need to know letters and their sounds to be able to blend and
segment.
Phonics
- The knowledge of letters, letter
combinations, and their corresponding sounds. Also called decoding, word
recognition, or word identification, this is when students start to
learn how to read words.
Fluency
- Fluency is reading with speed
(words per minute), accuracy, and proper expression while
simultaneously constructing meaning. Fluent readers automatically
recognize words, group words quickly to help them, understand what
they read, and read aloud effortlessly with expression.
Vocabulary
- Refers to the words we need to know
to read and communicate effectively. Students can be taught words
“indirectly”, meaning that they learn the meanings of words from
hearing adults read aloud or reading on their own. Students can also receive “direct”
vocabulary instruction. Direct
vocabulary instruction takes two forms: the teacher tells the students
the meaning of a word OR the teacher teaches students strategies for
figuring out the meanings of words on their own, such as learning to
use reference tools (glossary, dictionary), learning to use contextual
clues to figure out the meanings of words, or learning affixes
(prefixes, suffixes) to figure out the meanings of words.
Comprehension
- This refers to how well a student
understands what he is reading…which is the goal of reading. Comprehension also refers to the
strategies teachers teach (such as asking questions about the text,
summarizing, clarifying words/sentences one doesn’t understand,
predicting) to help students better understand text.
Four Modes of Reading Instruction:
Read Aloud
- The teacher reads aloud to the
students. Reading aloud builds
enthusiasm for the act of reading.
It can also be an opportunity for the teacher to model
(implicitly or explicitly) fluency or to model strategies in decoding,
vocabulary, and comprehension.
A read aloud is usually done with the whole class.
Shared Reading
- The teacher reads aloud a book,
usually a big book, which has print large enough for the students to
see. The text is usually
repetitive, predictable, and/or rhyming text. The teacher reads the initial time and
then invites the students to “share” with her in all subsequent
readings of the book. The
teacher also does some sort of explicit instruction (decoding,
comprehension, fluency, vocabulary) after a couple of readings of the
text. Shared readings of a text
usually happen over multiple days.
A shared reading can be done with the whole class or a small
group of students (who are grouped by reading achievement level or by
need to learn a specific strategy).
Guided Reading
- Students are grouped by reading achievement
level in small groups (six is generally accepted as the optimum number
for a guided reading group).
Teacher provides materials that are at the instructional level
for the group. Students
typically are taught a reading strategy and then use the strategy to
read a text. Teacher assigns a
few pages for students to read, students read silently, and then the
teacher asks questions about the just-read pages to check for
comprehension or to see if students are using the just-learned
strategy. Although, reading is
done silently, teacher may occasionally ask a student to read aloud to
observe the fluency of individual students.
Independent Reading
- Student reads independently. The text should be at the student’s
independent reading level.
Independent reading can foster fluency and provides an
opportunity for students to independently practice/refine reading
strategies.
Three Levels of Reading:
Frustration level
- Reading where errors occur in more
than 10% of the student’s reading of the text. This is text that is considered too
difficult for the student to either read independently or with
support. Students have such
difficulty with the text (it is too difficult to decode which results
in poor fluency which results in poor comprehension) that students
should not use this text.
Instructional level
- Reading where errors occur in 5%-9%
of the student’s reading of the text.
This is text that is considered appropriate for
instruction. This is text that
is just challenging enough that when the teacher is teaching reading
strategies, the student can practice the strategy with the teacher’s
guidance (guided practice) and with this “appropriately challenging”
text to a) learn the strategy and b) comprehend the text.
Independent level
- Reading where errors occur in 0%-4%
of the student’s reading of the text.
This is text that is considered appropriate for daily
independent reading. The text
is easy enough that students can practice/refine already-learned
reading strategies without the teacher’s support, though the text
should not be too easy. This
text does not provide enough of a challenge during instruction when a
teacher is teaching/re-teaching a reading strategy as the student
probably may comprehend the text without having to use the
strategy. This is the level of
text used in Accelerated Reader (daily independent reading time).
Two Responsibilities of the Reading
Teacher:
Assess and Instruct
- Teachers must continually monitor
their students’ progress in reading and adjust reading instruction to fit
student needs. Assessments may be informal and based on student
classroom work and teacher observations. Assessments may also be
formal, standardized examples of student performance including
assessments such as the Washington Assessment of Student Learning
(WASL), the Direct Reading Assessment (DRA), or the Dynamic Indicators
of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS).
- Using student assessment data to
determine student needs, teachers must use a variety of methods to
explicitly teach literacy skills, based on the five components of
reading, at the students’ instructional reading level. Teachers must
then, reassess, and adjust instruction accordingly.
One Main Goal in Teaching Reading
Getting students to understand text at
or above grade level!
Now, put it all together and
READ!!!
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