NEISD Reading Academy News
March 2023
Connecting Reading Academy Content with NASOT
Module 9 concluded with an in-depth look at the effective use of Oral Reading Fluency assessment. One essential, but often overlooked aspect of fluency, is prosody. Unlike the calculations for words correct per minute (WCPM), gauging a reader's prosody, or expression and rhythm, necessitates the use of a rubric or scale. Providing scales or rubrics is Element 1 of the NASOT framework. While the rubric provided through the Texas Reading Academies content is quite elaborate, students could be provided with a simpler scale, such as the following: 4 - Sounds just like talking; 3 - Sounds mostly like talking; 2 - Sounds a little bit like talking; 1 - Doesn't sound like talking. After explicit instruction and modeling, students could work in partner pairs to listen to each other read a short passage, then rate each other. The New Art and Science of Teaching Reading mentions that these ratings could even be collected anonymously to get an informal assessment of the class as a whole. Alternatively, students could individually share their ratings with the teacher and receive feedback, thereby becoming a participating member of the assessment-instructional cycle.
Resource 1: Fun with Emojis
When children read with expression, they are better able to convey the emotions and intentions of the characters in the story, and this can make the story more vivid and engaging for the reader.
In addition, reading with expression can help children develop their communication skills. By practicing how to express emotions through tone, pitch, and volume, children learn how to effectively communicate their own thoughts and feelings. Expressive reading can also help children become better listeners. By paying attention to the emotions and nuances of the text, children can learn how to listen more closely and respond more effectively to the people they interact with in their daily lives.
Resource 2: Alphabet Prosody
Alphabet fluency refers to a person's ability to quickly and accurately identify and name the letters of the alphabet. This includes both uppercase and lowercase letters, and being able to recognize and name them in any order. When children are fluent in recognizing and naming the letters of the alphabet, they are better able to decode and spell words, which can improve their overall reading and writing abilities. Check out "ABC Fluency" to develop students' prosody and quick letter identification.
Resource 3: Fluency Punctuation
Be sure to model how to read the letter strings with the intonation indicated by the end punctuation. Then have students practice reading the letter strings in a row with expression.
Resource 4: Chunked Text
A phrase-cued text has phrases explicitly marked, or cued, for the reader. When students read with appropriate phrasing, the words are chunked together into meaningful units.
Marking phrase boundaries within an independent-level text gives students the added support they may need to read with prosody. The next step is for students to determine their own phrases and mark the text. Eventually, the scaffold is removed and students use their eyes and the meaning of the text to determine natural phrase boundaries.
Resource 5: Student Fluency Graph
Students can set goals for their fluency and track their progress over time. This can help them stay motivated and see their growth. By regularly tracking their progress toward their fluency goals, students can adjust their strategies and efforts as needed to improve their fluency in a specific language skill, such as reading, writing, or speaking.
It's important to note that while students should have input in setting their fluency goals, it's also essential that the goals are realistic, measurable, and achievable. Teachers and educators should provide guidance and support to ensure that students set appropriate goals aligned with their language proficiency levels and learning needs.
Oral Reading Fluency
Speece and Ritchey (2005) examined whether oral reading fluency was an early predictor of later reading difficulties.
Students identified as at risk at BOY in 1st grade, read less than half the words and were progressing at half the rate as their typically achieving peers at EOY in 1st grade.
Word-level skills in 1st grade were powerful predictors of achievement in 2nd grade.
Students who made better progress in 1st grade performed better on high-stakes testing regardless of starting point.
The reading skills students demonstrate in 1st grade predict where they are in reading in future years unless intervention is intensive and effective. Normed ORF scores can be found here.
Administrators can support fluency in a number of ways:
Use Effective Instructional Practices: Encourage teachers to use effective instructional practices, such as choral reading, partner reading, and audio-assisted reading. They can also provide resources and materials to support these practices, such as decodable texts, fluency passages, and audio books.
Monitor Student Progress: Monitor student progress in fluency development by regularly reviewing student data and providing feedback to teachers. This can help identify areas of strength and weakness in fluency development and inform instructional decisions.
Foster a Positive Reading Environment: Foster a positive reading environment by encouraging reading for pleasure and providing access to a variety of reading materials, such as books, magazines, and online resources. A positive reading environment can help motivate students to read more frequently and can support the development of fluency.
Support Parent Involvement: Support fluency by involving parents in their children's reading development. This can include providing resources and information on effective fluency development strategies for parents to use at home, as well as encouraging parents to read with their children regularly.
Lucas at the Paralympics
Lucas and Eddie are two physically disabled friends who visit the Paralympics and cheer on blind and physically challenged athletes. Students will learn how physically disabled athletes model strength, determination and courage. This book is a great text to help build awareness of people with physical disabilities. Lucas at the Paralympics is one book out of the three book series.
Little Daymond Learns to Earn
by Daymond John
Little Daymond Learns to Earn is written by Shark Tank star Daymond John! In this story little Daymond develops a plan for a small business. Daymond and his friends work to earn money to purchase a poster Daymond wants. Students will learn the basic ideas about money, such as, saving, spending, borrowing and budgeting.
The Biggest Stuff in the Universe
Mr. DeMaio Presents! is a book series based on the popular YouTube series of the same name. Mr. DeMaio and crew explore the world and beyond in search of the biggest stuff in the universe! Students will learn about giant asteroids, mega space volcanoes and much more as Mr. Demaio and crew travel across the galaxy. This high interest read is a must have for your classroom library.
Norma Puente
Is it Time to Drop ‘Finding the Main Idea’ and Teach Reading in a New Way? by Holly Korbey
There has been a growing movement in education to move away from comprehension skill-based approaches to teaching reading in a way that focuses on building background knowledge, vocabulary, and critical thinking skills.
In the article, Holly Korbey shares the successes of various schools who altered their comprehension instruction to ensure students gain knowledge about the world around them.
-Norma
Melissa Salazar-Nelson
In preparation for the next RA session, "Module 11: Written Composition," I wanted to delve into the constructs of writing. The Writing Rope is a book written by Joan Sedita that provides a systematic and comprehensive approach to teaching writing skills to students of all ages and abilities. The book outlines a step-by-step process for developing writing skills, starting with basic sentence construction and moving on to more complex writing tasks, such as composing essays and research papers.
The book also emphasizes the importance of building students' background knowledge and vocabulary in order to support their writing development. It includes a variety of writing prompts and assignments that encourage students to explore different genres and styles of writing, as well as to connect their writing to real-world contexts and experiences.
-Melissa
How to Teach Fluency So That It Sticks
Below is an excerpt from a Tim Shanahan blog post about fluency. In the post, he offers suggestions for effective fluency instruction. Access the full article here.
Fluency instruction can be valuable with fourth-graders (and with lots of other kids in grades 1-12)—it can help them to decode better, read more fluently, and improve reading comprehension.
Partners. Research suggests that lots of people can be effective reading partners. Teachers, parents, volunteers, cross-age tutors, computers, and classmates have all been tried in one study or another and they have all been effective. Studies (and personal experience) tell me that not all kids are great partners. Some are careful and supportive and others could care less.
In some studies, children are paired on the basis of ability, and that can be successful, at least generally. In such pairings, the bottom students are placed with the top ones. This makes sense: The better readers can certainly help with errors, but that means they get no help and just because someone is a good reader, that doesn’t make them patient or helpful.
I believe in sharing the pain, sharing the gain. Match kids with a different student partner every day.
Rereading. [When students are reading text without fluency] what should be happening is that the students should be asked to reread those portions of the text again. And, they should sometimes do so even a third time.
That’s where the learning is. By reading and rereading a text the students transform it from one they can’t read well to one that they have read well. In some schemes, they read the text again and again until they can do so, and in others, 3 readings seem to be sufficient.
Having kids taking turns reading paragraphs aloud poorly is not effective teaching. Whereas, having kids read and re-read a text gives them an opportunity to figure out [both] unknown words and how to make the text sound meaningful.
-Tim Shanahan, Shanahan on Literacy
