Putting it all Together

So, since we have all of these programs that we use to teach the student to read, how do we know where to start? Most programs have their own pre-assessments for placement. Some just expect you to start at the beginning. Let's talk about the one's I have recommended.

Next Steps is based on a running record assessment that is done at the beginning of the course and then every day as the student makes improvements. The running record begins with a basic reading (with a timed section) at the 1st grade level, followed by comprehension questions. Based on comprehension, decoding accuracy, and fluency, the student will stay at that level or move on to the next grade level passage. This continues until the student tops out at a grade level with a research-based fluency rate (changes depending on the grade), 60% comprehension, and 93% decoding accuracy.

Comprehension is probably the trickiest thing to assess. It varies depending on the context and the student's background. I might assess one student who has spent a lot of time with teachers summarizing things, so they do well summarizing. Another might have had a parent read to them and talk about what they were reading. Student background makes a huge difference in comprehension. The good thing about comprehension strategies is that they can be applied to any level of reading difficulty.

6 Minute Solution should be based on the Next Steps running fluency record. You can use the grade level and fluency rate to determine where the student should be. Appropriate fluency rates are available all over the place. I like the one used by DIBELS because of the breadth of research on it.

Phonemic Awareness Assessment is mostly feeling out what word dissecting abilities the students have. DIBELS has a good phonemic awareness assessment for young students. Its benchmarks are easily followed as well. Once you have this, then you can determine what type of activities your student needs.

Well, Have Fun and Happy Reading!

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic Awareness is a tricky critter. Like Comprehension, it does not have an easy assessment tool. To look at a student's phonemic awareness, you can see if they can segment words, put them back together, and rhyme. However, to teach phonemic awareness, I would use some direct instruction and lots of games.

Rhyming games, augmenting sounds in words (beginning, middle, or ending sounds), and other such games are enjoyable and the students don't have to worry about making mistakes - just becoming familiar with how the language works and how words are made up of different sounds.

Really, this bun fan key won!

Comprehension

The pinnacle component of reading is comprehension. Without it, the rest of reading is pointless. We instruct reading through a series of lessons. Each lesson is meant to teach the reader how to use one of many comprehension strategies. The goal is for the student to have 3 or 4 strategies that they know really well and can use interchangeably to get meaning out of the text.

Listed below are some common comprehension strategies:

1. Summarizing
2. Visualizing
3. Developing Background Knowledge
4. Inferring
5. Asking Questions
6. Predicting
7. Synthesizing

Teaching these strategies involves instructing the students in

• Declarative Knowledge - What the strategy means in student-friendly terms
  
• Conditional Knowledge - When the strategy should be used
  
• Procedural Knowledge - What you do before, during, and after reading with this strategy
  

The tricky part is to help the students to use these strategies interchangeably whenever they read. Even this takes direct instruction. Students are given teacher-chosen passages that have clues for the student to determine a strategy to use. The teacher then has them use that strategy until another strategy may seem more useful. The reader then uses a different strategy to make meaning. With guided practice and scaffolding, the reader becomes more and more able to tackle difficult passages by themselves, using the comprehension strategies in their toolbox.

Vocabulary

Almost all students with reading disabilities have difficulty with vocabulary.

Vocabulary is one of the biggest thrusts for secondary students because of the high impact it has on their success in specific academic subjects. Math, Science, History, Geography, etc. All of them have subject-specific vocabulary that can trip students up without a good backbone in how to dissect the words into meaning.

One way to help students learn some of the most essential concepts or vocabulary words is to use a vocabulary matrix. In the matrix, there are five main areas: word, definition, picture, synonyms and antonyms, and sentence. Each of the areas are filled out by the students in student-friendly language. They learn in the synonym/antonym section what the word is and is not, and they can visualize it (picture section).

Once students have completed the matrix, they should have a solid idea of what the word or concept means.

I like to have students use the matrix for more complex ideas or important vocabulary - maybe 5-7 words per week. Then they can use aspects of it for other words as needed.

Phonics

I spent a summer learning a program called Next Steps by the University of Utah. In this program, students spend 45 minutes each day in reading instruction. About 15 of those minutes are in phonics.

The teacher introduces a set of new spelling patterns (e.g., core "a" sounds like a consonant; a, consonant, e; ay; or ai) and has the student repeat them. The then have a stack of words with those patterns and have the student sorting them while repeating the spelling patterns and sounds.

The students' favorite part seems to be the game - usually memory - that they then get to play. They can learn to differentiate the sounds by remembering the spelling pattern in the word cards and where they are hidden on the table. To be honest, I love this part too.

I really enjoyed using Next Steps and especially learning the patterns of teaching students phonics in an enjoyable way!

Repeated Reading and the 6-Minute Solution

6-Minute Solution is a great program designed to help students use repeated reading to increase their fluency and accuracy. It is leveled by grade from 1st through 12th grade reading ability with tons of passages for each level. The best part (in my opinion) is that the passages are informational rather than fictional (like in DIBELS). No offense to DIBELS, but I like my students learning about things in the world. It's great to hear a student say, "Hey, I never knew that about the U.S." Makes you feel like they're learning something.

The main premise behind the repeated reading found in 6-Minute Solution is that students are able to increase their fluency speed and accuracy when they read the same thing a couple of times - not enough to just have it memorized, but to improve because they are familiar with the materials.

Repeated reading can happen in many ways: Readers' Theater, reading a story to multiple people, etc. The point is to get students to read something 3, 4, or 5 times as fluently and accurately as possible. Great strategy - Highly recommended.