Teacher Tech:4 Steps to Boosting Reading Performance

It was my last third grade class before leaving the elementary classroom.  Like any class of lively third graders, they couldn’t be more different from each other.  Abby, my strongest reader, always had a book with her.  Carl, a bit on the immature side of the scale, barely registered at grade level when he entered third grade.  Douglas, having been enrolled at five different schools by the time he came to my class was nearly two years behind the rest of the class.  What kind of reading program should I have for these students?  How could I challenge Abby yet remediate Douglas?

 

Based on 36 years of teaching, I decided that my principal approach would be quantity.  I wanted my students to read a lot.

Our school district had just adopted a reading program with a stunning array of components including a basal reader, small sets of booklets for readers of varying abilities, workbooks to challenge, remediate and move along students.  If I read Volume I of the teacher’s edition correctly, our class should read one story a week, and we would work on skills using the supplementary materials throughout the week.  

It surprised me that publishers were still producing skill-based reading programs that suggested we group our students by ability.  This is exactly what was being provided teachers my first year of teaching.   Both skill-based reading approaches and ability grouping have been shown to be ineffective or even harmful to students.

I knew if I used that program, Abby would be bored (one story a week), Carl would probably do all right, but Douglas would be reading the fewest words of anyone in the class due to the remedial materials provided by the publisher.  The fewest!  Douglas needed to read as much or more in order to catch up.

This is the story of these three students and how a whole class reading program met the diverse needs of all of my students.

In order to make certain that my students did a great deal of reading, I knew my program needed four components: Sustained Silent Reading, Storytime, Home Reading and Whole Class Reading Instruction (RI).   I think most teachers understand how the first three components can meet the needs of students like Abby, Carl and Douglas.  The part that’s not so intuitive is how the RI part of class can be set up to help Carl and Douglas grow to the best readers they can be and still stimulate Abby.  This can be done in 4 quantity-boosting steps.

 Same Book

1.            Put your students in the same piece of literature.  I like to use novels for most of the RI time because they have more words than most other types of literature.  Still, we read essays, poems, plays and stories because we are trying to produce literate citizens.   Reading is not only about quantity.  And since most of the direct instruction given during RI is designed to make students more skillful writers, we need to use a variety of literature. 

What about Douglas?  He can’t keep up with Carl and Abby.  What about Abby?  Would she get bored in a class where everyone reads the same book?

First Douglas’s needs.  It’s unlikely that he could read the material without a great deal of support.  However, if I pick an age-appropriate novel for the class, the story will be developmentally perfect for everyone.  Abby and Douglass are far apart when reading ability is measured, but, like matching tuning forks, their brains both vibrate when a third grade story is told.

When my students’ minds are humming with the magic of a great story, I can use this interest as leverage to get them to read more.  Also, most students like Douglas, who are behind the rest of the class, are acutely aware of their shortcomings and are happy to be placed with the rest of the class.  Lower skilled students will want to be with the rest of the class.  Douglas will have greater interest in reading and motivation if I keep him in the same book with the rest of the class.

Abby bored?  I don’t think so.  She’s a third grader developmentally and will respond to great literature that is written for her age group.  When you yourself read a Robert Frost poem, like Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, you are not thinking that it only has a second grade vocabulary in it.  You appreciate the beauty of it.  Use good literature and your high ability students will be interested and motivated as well.

Prereading

2.            Typically, my goal when teaching a whole-class reading lesson is to prepare students to understand the material.  I give students the necessary vocabulary and background information to foster curiosity and allow them to connect the story to their lives and experiences.  For a Beverly Cleary novel, I’ve brought in 1950’s style bikes, balls of bubble gum, milk bottles and twirling batons.

Read Aloud

3.            Read the book aloud to the class while they follow along in their own copy.  You will need to train your students to track with you.  Many teachers play the “Next Word” game where the teacher stops reading and asks the class what the next word will be.  Once most of the class has their hand up, a student is called on, the next word given and the entire class is at the right spot.  The teacher can continue drawing the class through the story.

Initially, Douglas had problems with this, but I had him read with Carl for a few days, and he caught on.  In fact, by the end of the year, he proudly became one of the best in the class at keeping up with me.

Read it Again

4.            When enough of the story has been read aloud, I think of a reason for the students to read the material again. A list of sample reasons to reread the section is posted at the end of this article.   If you do it right, your students will be motivated to reread.  If you just tell them to read it again, all interest and motivation will drain out of them.

Remember our goal here is quantity—raising word count.  I tell my students that they need to find a different chair in the room to sit at for this silent rereading.  I want to get them out of their seats to increase their blood flow and raise their energy level. 

I suggest you have all students find the exact spot in the text to begin reading and start them together.  Once the class is on correct page, I make a show with a timer, a starting signal and I tell them that they have only X number of minutes to do their reading.  If they finish early, they can read it again, read ahead or read something else.

Abby.  She likes our story, but she doesn’t want to read this material again.  Nor should she.  Abby doesn’t need to practice; she needs to read materials more suited to her abilities.  I tell my students that anyone who reads the whole book and passes the test, is excused from most of the re-reading.  Sometimes I’ll just kneel next to Abby and whisper to skip the rereading and read something else.

While your students are reading the material again, you can monitor their progress.  You can see who’s actually reading and who’s not.  Who’s skipping ahead, and who needs you to refocus them with a little guided reading.  If you are attempting to teach reading using groups, you will be unable to do this precious monitoring.

Now think about how many words your students have read during RI so far.  Let’s say your reading text is an Amber Brown book by Paula Danzinger.  You read a chapter with the class as they follow.  They’ve read about 1,000 words.  When your students read it again, it’s another 1,000 words.  If the follow up activity is pairing up and reading the book to a buddy (so you can hear each student read aloud), they’ll get another 1,000 words.  This is 3,000 words in a single lesson vs. the reading program that doesn’t have any real reading until the fourth day of the week. 

My students and I truly love RI.  There is no sense of drudgery present as if we were all doing skill sheets (which I would need to manage, correct and record).  It’s lively, fun and rigorous—3,000 words. 

Think about your students reading 3,000 words, and they haven’t even had their Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) period yet.

I continue to boost word count by displaying other books by the same author, an award for reading two or more books by that author (with stars for books beyond the first two).  I assign Douglas a reading buddy during SSR to make sure he and his buddy get the Paula Danzinger Award.  Douglas and his classmates become amazingly enthusiastic about whichever author we are reading at time.  We view ourselves as readers.

What about Abby’s mom?  She might have concerns.  Of course she’ll be happy that Abby loves reading, but if she’s used to Abby being in the high group, she may ask me about why Abby is not in an advanced book.  I would have previously explained in a class newsletter that students like Abby are seldom required to do the rereading and that she can try for a star-studded award. I also explain that Paula Danziner is a brilliant author, and that Abby and the rest of the class are studying how to be a better writer by examining Danzinger’s style and imitating it.

What about reading scores?  Having fun with reading is fine.   Avoiding the humiliation of being in a low group is fine.  What about those scores at the end of the year?

My last year of teaching, every student, Abby, Carl and Douglas, all exceeded state standards on our reading test.  The exception were two special education students who were pulled out of class for special classes during parts of my reading time.