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.
I have never heard of the 6-Minute Solution reading program, but it sounds like it has a lot of potential. One problem I've always had with having the students read short passages is that many of the stories are really boring. I can live with boring except that for my lowest readers, I feel like the main lesson I'm teaching is that reading is boring. Also, if I have a 10 or 11 year old boy reading at a first grade level, he probably does not want to read "Little Chicken's Trip to Town." (Unless Little Chicken meets an more interesting fate than is likely in children's story.) Does the program have low reading level/higher interest level readings. That alone seems worth the price of admission.
ReplyDelete