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IES has released videos to go along with the guide!

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Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4–9 (REL SW-PRISMS)

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These videos are part of modules within the REL Southwest Toolkit entitled Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Middle School (PRISMS). Each video…

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Lauren Spenceley, M.Ed.

Secondary ELA Specialist

Arizona Department of Education

lauren.spenceley@azed.gov

602-364-2267

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Padlet - Golden Lines  Secondary ELA Book Study Spring 2024

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Asking and answering questions will enable students to integrate information from the passage with the knowledge they have gained from prior knowledge.

These connections will enable students to draw text-based interpretations or inferences about what the author implied.

THE GOAL: For students to ask and answer questions to draw inferences and engage in meaningful discussions about text.

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Intro:

Introduction to the text and the 7-week book study format

Golden Lines Strategy

Recommendation 1:

Build students' decoding skills so they can read complex multisyllabic words

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Routinely use a set of comprehension-building practices to help students make sense of the text

Part 3A. Build students' world and word knowledge so they can make sense of the text

Part 3B. Consistently provide students with opportunities to ask and answer questions to better understand the text they read

Part 3C. Teach students a routine for determining the gist of a short section of text

Part 3D. Teach students to monitor their comprehension as they read

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reading intervention; reading instruction; literacy; reading difficulties; reading disabilities; comprehension; fluency; decoding; comprehension monitoring; world knowledge; word knowledge; vocabulary; stretch text; grade 4; grade 5; grade 6; grade 7; grade 8; grade 9

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WWC | Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4-9

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Routinely use a set of comprehension-building practices to help students make sense of the text Part 3A. Build students' world and word knowledge so they can make sense of the text Part 3B. Consistently provide students with opportunities to ask and answer questions to better understand the text they read Part 3C.

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Scarborough's Reading Rope and Adolescent Reading Models

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Scarborough's Reading Rope and Adolescent Reading Models

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Science of Reading and Middle School: The Other End of the Reading Rope | Amplify 

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Science of Reading and Middle School: The Other End of the Reading Rope | Amplify 

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Great to check out if the Reading Rope is new for you!

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Science of Reading and Middle School: The Other End of the Reading Rope | Amplify

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Keys to Literacy recently launched its newest professional development program: Advanced Word Study - Grade 4 and Beyond. Sometimes referred to as advanced phonics, instruction for advanced word study teaches students how to read and spell multi-syllable words by using a combination of word analysis that focuses on syllables, and structural analysis that focuses on meaningful units (morphemes - roots, prefixes, suffixes). Learning how to focus on morphemes also helps students determine the meaning of an unfamiliar word.

During kindergarten through grade 3, students are developing phonemic awareness and learning beginning phonics concepts that support word reading. Because English has an alphabetic written language, these skills are essential for learning how to decode unfamiliar words and develop the ability to use the orthographic mapping process to map and remember thousands of sight words, enabling fluent reading. In a previous post I discussed the value of a phonics scope and sequence that covers phonics concepts from basic letter-sound correspondences in kindergarten to advanced correspondences and learning syllable types in grade 3.

What type of advanced word study instruction do students need beyond grade 3? Students in grade 4 and above who are still having difficulty with basic decoding skills may need supplemental instruction for the basic skills described in the previous paragraph. However, most students beyond grade 3 benefit from instruction that focuses on strategies and practice for reading unfamiliar, multi-syllable words. Ehri's Phases of Word Reading Development (1991) provides a model of how word recognition develops over time. As shown in the graphic below, there are four phases: Pre-alphabetic, Early Alphabetic, Later Alphabetic, and Consolidated Alphabetic. Advanced word study instruction is for students who have reached the Consolidated Alphabetic phase where they are beginning to read fluently by sound, syllable, and morphemes, typically during grade 3 and the start of grade 4. This includes instruction to build automatic recognition of the six syllable types, application of syllable division principles,recognition of morphological (meaningful) units within words, an understanding of the schwa vowel sound in unaccented syllables, and knowledge of spelling rules for adding suffixes.

English is a Morphophonemic Language, Including Words Derived From Greek and Latin
Written English words are comprised of both sound-spelling correspondences and morphemes that provide clues to meaning. We spell by both the sounds in words (phonemes) and the meaning represented in word parts (morphemes). Certain morphemes keep their written spelling even though their phonemic forms change. When the sound in a word changes in a different variation of the word, the spelling does not change. This can be challenging for students when they read or spell more complex words in grade 4 and beyond. For example, read the sample pairs of words below and notice how the spellings for parts of the words stay the same even though the sound changes.

Another challenge for students is that a large percentage of words learned after grade 3 are multi-syllable words derived from Latin and Greek (Carlisle, 2007); 60% of unfamiliar words in middle school books are derived words (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). These words consist of roots that hold the core meaning of the word, and prefixes and suffixes that can alter the meaning or function of a word. Once students begin reading multi-syllable words, they are further challenged by the occurrence of the schwa vowel sound. The schwa is the most common vowel sound in the English language, accounting for 20% of the vowel sounds (Yule, 1996), and it often is the cause of spelling mistakes. The schwa sound is formed with a neutral mouth position, and it replaces a vowel sound in the unaccented syllables of multi-syllable words. It is sometimes called the "lazy" vowel, and can sound like a muffled version of the short u sound or the short i sound, as in the words . It can be spelled with any vowel. See a previous post I wrote about schwa for more details and examples.
Instructional Suggestions
Multi-syllable word reading and spelling is aided by the application of an approach that COMBINES:

Word analysis focused on syllables: breaking words into parts by identifying vowel sounds, applying syllable division rules, saying each part, then putting the parts together to say the word

Structural analysis focused in meaningful units: reading words through recognition of roots, prefixes, and suffixes

Common Core Reading Foundations standard 4.3.a for grade four expects students to "use combined knowledge of all letter-sound correspondences, syllabication patterns, and morphology (e.g., roots and affixes) to read accurately unfamiliar multisyllable words in context and out of context."

In order to apply word analysis, students must learn to automatically recognize the six syllable types (closed, open, silent-e, vowel team, vowel-r, and consonant-le). They must also learn how to fluently apply basic syllable division rules, including 1) VCCV, divide between C's (rab/bit); 2) VCV, usually divide before the C, then try after the C (mu/sic, cab/in); 3) words ending in consonant-le - the 3 letters stay together (bub/ble, ri/fle). In order to apply structural analysis, students must learn to recognize roots, prefixes, and suffixes.

Students benefit from learning a routine for "attacking" an unfamiliar, multi-syllable word. Click here to watch a video of a routine offered by PaTTAN of Pennsylvania titled Reading Big Words. The example below of a word analysis routine is from Keys to Literacy's new professional development offering, Advanced Word Study - Grade 4 and Beyond.

To support spelling of multi-syllable words for which a suffix has been added, it is helpful for students to learn the following spelling rules:

Doubling Rule 1-1-1: if a one-syllable base word ends in one consonant with one short vowel before it, double the final consonant of the base word when adding a suffix that begins with a vowel. (mad + est = maddest, mad + ly - madly)

Doubling Rule for Two-Syllable Words: two-syllable words double the final consonant before a suffix that begins with a vowel if the second syllable of the word is CVC, and if the stress (accent) falls on the second syllable (admit + ed = admitted, limit + ed = limited)

Silent E Rule: words ending in a silent e drop the e before a suffix beginning with a vowel, but do not drop the e before a suffix beginning with a consonant (hope, hoping, hopeful)

Y Rule: final y after a consonant changes to i before any suffix except one beginning with i (copy/copies/copying)

Teaching Advanced Word Study in Any Subject
While it is typically assumed that the English language arts teacher should be responsible for teaching students these skills, students must read multi-syllable words in every subject. Academic words derived from Latin and Greek appear in all content area text, and it is often the case where science and math present the best opportunities to practice the application of advanced word analysis skills. Every teacher, regardless of the subject-area taught, can play a role in helping students learn to apply advanced word study skills to read, spell, and identify the meaning of unfamiliar, longer words.

References

Carlisle, J.F. (2007). Fostering morphological processing, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension. In R.K. Wagner, A.E. Muse, & K.R. Tannenbaum (Eds.). Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension. New York: The Guilford Press.

Ehri, L. C. (1991). Development of the ability to read words. In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. B. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of reading research, Vol. 2, pp. 383-417). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Nagy, W.E. & Anderson, R.C. (1984). How many words are there in printed school English? Reading Research Quarterly, 19, 304-330.

Yule, G. (1996). The study of language (2nd ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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What is advanced word study? - Keys to Literacy

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Keys to Literacy recently launched its newest professional development program: Advanced Word Study - Grade 4 and Beyond. Sometimes referred to as advanced phonics, instruction for advanced word study teaches students how to read and spell multi-syllable words by using a combination of word analysis that focuses on syllables, and structural analysis that focuses on meaningful units (morphemes - roots, prefixes, suffixes).

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Useful set of ground rules for discussing a text in a collaborative space.

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Make sure you register for ALL of the sessions!

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Make sure you register for ALL of the sessions!

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Each session is worth 2 hours of PD. Make sure you register for each session to get the credit.

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Arizona Professional Learning and Development

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The Strategy:

Golden lines are an opportunity for each reader to share their learning from the text. It allows readers to collaborate and share their own learning and knowledge.

A golden line can be a line from the text that:

•raises questions for you

•confirms what you already believe

•makes you say aha

•conflicts with your beliefs

•causes you to reconsider prior assumptions

We will use this strategy at the beginning of every book study session moving forward - sometimes we will do breakout rooms like we did this evening, sometimes we will use chat.

So come ready with 2 golden lines from the chapter each week!

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https://www.azed.gov/standards-practices/secondary-literacy-middlehs

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ADE APLD - http://azed.geniussis.com/Registration.aspx?CAT=%2032

Use search term "secondary ELA" to narrow down your search for Secondary ELA opportunities.

Use search term "K12-AS-ELA" to narrow down your search for all ELA opportunities.

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https://www.azed.gov/standards-practices/k-12standards/english-language-arts-standards

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**The views and opinions expressed in any third-party resource do not necessarily reflect those of the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) and do not imply an endorsement by ADE.

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Provide purposeful fluency-building activities to help students read effortlessly

NOT popcorn reading – partner reading and timed/repeated readings, audiobooks and teacher read-alouds for modeling fluent reading

Fluency builds comprehension

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Webinar: Unlocking the Science of Reading for High School Students

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Webinar: Unlocking the Science of Reading for High School Students

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Lots of good info on how to do fluency practice in high school.

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Presented by Elena Canaras-Raoul, 10th Grade English Teacher, Community High School (NY); Deborah Reck, Chief Product Officer, Riveting Results; and Arthur Unobskey, Ed.D., CEO, Riveting Results

Sponsored by Riveting Results
Watch the Recording Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.
How can high school English teachers get all of their students-those who are three years ahead and those who are five years behind-to love to read complex literature?

In this workshop, the edWebinar leaders discuss the latest Science of Reading research that argues that adolescents need a differentiated approach to basic skills development, particularly through fluency practice, to engage with advanced text. A veteran tenth-grade English teacher describes her approach to fluency practice and how it triggers an emotional connection to text even for her most reluctant readers.

Once she has described the progress students make in accessing advanced texts, the teacher discusses how her students take the next step by debating responses to text-based questions with peers and surfacing misconceptions.

The team demonstrates how the Riveting Results app integrates these research-based approaches into one solution.

This recorded edWebinar is of interest to high school teachers, administrators, and district leaders.
About the Presenters
Elena Canaras-Raoul has been a teacher for 20 years, the last two as a founding teacher at Community High School in Brooklyn, New York. She has taught reading and writing to students in grades K through six and English to ninth- and tenth-grade students. For the past two years, she has implemented an innovative approach to fluency practice in her classroom. She gets great joy from creating classroom communities in which students fall in love with reading and become lifelong learners. Elena received her bachelor's degree from SUNY Plattsburgh and her master's in literacy from Bank Street Graduate School of Education.

After 25 years as a teacher and curriculum developer, Deborah Reck founded Riveting Results in 2016. She was acting on her belief that every child in the country deserves access to literacy instruction that enables them to read with understanding and insight and write with clarity and power. Riveting Results enables teachers to focus on the vitality of students' ideas so that they can use that energy to drive high school and postsecondary achievement. As Chief Product Officer, she has continued to work closely with teachers to improve Riveting Results' ease of implementation and its effectiveness.

From 2010 to 2015 Deborah led Amplify's development of its middle school digital ELA program from concept to adoption by the state of California. Prior to her work at Amplify, Deborah founded and expanded The Writers' Express into a reading and writing program and professional development organization serving students and teachers throughout the country.

Arthur Unobskey, Ed.D. joined Riveting Results after 30 years as an English teacher, principal, and school superintendent. Riveting Results puts tools directly in the hands of teachers so that they can teach all of their students how to read advanced high school texts. He is passionate about providing teachers with the support they need to seamlessly integrate foundational skills training with the study of irresistible, sophisticated literature. Dr. Unobskey received his bachelor's degree from Yale University and his Ed.D. from Boston College.

Join the Language and Literacy community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming edWebinars, and view recordings of previous programs to earn CE certificates.
Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.
Riveting Results has the solution high school English teachers need. It has developed, tested, and implemented a comprehensive English Language Arts program that enables all students to read and enjoy complex text. Easy-to-use software positions the teacher to integrate differentiated foundational skills practice into the class's daily study of beautiful literature. Both individual and group activities serve as formative assessments to provide teachers with the data they need to intervene before students become frustrated. Riveting Results students improve their scores on national standardized assessments at three times the rate of the national average.

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Unlocking the Science of Reading for High School Students - edWeb

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Learn how to implement an efficient and effective approach to fluency practice in a core English language arts classroom.

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Reading Fluently Does Not Mean Reading Fast

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Reading Fluently Does Not Mean Reading Fast

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Examples of how to mark errors during read aloud

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Examples of how to mark errors during read aloud

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Credit to Lexia.

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Shanahan: How to Improve Text Fluency in the Middle Schools and High Schools

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Shanahan: How to Improve Text Fluency in the Middle Schools and High Schools

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How to Improve Text Fluency in the Middle Schools and High Schools

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Schools should provide students with up to 30 minutes a day of fluency instruction. But remember, this is across all classes and content areas. Get quick tips on paired reading, repeated reading, and other ways to improve reading fluency.

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AdLit.org: Key Literacy Component: Fluency

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AdLit.org: Key Literacy Component: Fluency

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Allinder, R.M., et al., Improving fluency in at-risk readers and students with learning disabilities. Remedial and Special Education, 2001. 22(1): p. 48-54.

Archer, A., M. Gleason, and V. Vachon, Decoding and fluency: Foundation skills for struggling older readers. Learning Disability Quarterly, 2003. 26: p. 89-101.

Calfee, R.C. and D.C. Piontkowski, The reading diary: Acquisition of decoding. Reading Research Quarterly, 1981. 16: p. 346-373.

Chall, J.S. and M.E. Curtis, What clinical diagnosis tells us about children's reading. Reading Teacher, 1987. 40: p. 784-788.

Chall, J.S., Stages of reading development. 1996, New York: McGraw-Hill.

Cunningham, A.E. and K.E. Stanovich, What reading does for the mind. American Educator, 1998. 22: p. 8-15.

Curtis, M.E. and A.M. Longo, When adolescents can't read: Methods and materials that work. 1999, Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books.

Curtis, M.E., Adolescents who struggle with word identification: Research and practice, in Adolescent literacy research and practice, T.L. Jetton and J.A. Dole, Editors. 2004, The Guilford Press: New York. p. 119-134.

Fuchs, L.S., D. Fuchs, and L. Maxwell, The validity of informal reading comprehension measures. Remedial and Special Education, 1988. 9: p. 20-29.

Harris, R.E., N. Marchand-Martella, and R.C. Martella, Effects of a peer-delivered Corrective Reading program. Journal of Behavioral Education, 2000. 10: p. 21-36.

Hasbrouck, J.E., C. Ihnot, and G.H. Rogers, Read Naturally: A strategy to increase oral reading fluency. Reading Research and Instruction, 1999. 39: p. 27-37.

Kamil, M., Adolescents and literacy: Reading for the 21st century. 2003, Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Meyer, M.S. and R.H. Felton, Repeated reading to enhance fluency: Old approaches and new directions. Annals of Dyslexia, 1999. 49: p. 283-306.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. 2004, Government Printing Office: Washington, DC. http://www.nationalreadingpanel.org.

RAND, Reading for understanding: Toward an R&D program in reading comprehension. 2002, RAND: Santa Monica, CA.

Snow, C.E., M.S. Burns, and P. Griffin, eds. Preventing reading difficulties in young children. 1998, National Academies Press: Washington, DC.

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Fluent readers can read text accurately, smoothly, and with good comprehension. Students who get bogged down in the mechanics of reading have trouble with this skill. With proper instruction, struggling readers can improve their fluency.

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Build students’ world and word knowledge so they can make sense of the text

Some students may have difficulty comprehending text not because they struggle to read, but because they have limited knowledge of the topic of the text or do not know the meanings of words.

The goal of this part of the recommendation is to explicitly build students’ world and word knowledge.

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Jamboard: Rec 3A Word World Knowledge Planning

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Jamboard: Rec 3A Word World Knowledge Planning

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IES Guide Rec 3A Word World Knowledge - Google Jamboard

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Credit to Jason Stephenson, Oklahoma Department of Education

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The Frayer Model is a simple approach to building students' vocabulary and conceptual knowledge. It can be used across content areas/disciplines, builds students' critical thinking skills, and can expand their word knowledge.

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Familiarity with Greek and Latin roots, as well as prefixes and suffixes, can help students understand the meaning of new words. This article includes many of the most common examples.

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Research: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB8024.html

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This activity is called a Dale Scale.

Some words to try it with: https://leverageedu.com/blog/50-difficult-words-with-meanings/

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IES Guide Rec 3B Questioning - Google Jamboard

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Credit: https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/opinion-korematsu-1984

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Developed by the Right Question Institute, the Question Formulation Technique, or QFT, is a structured method for generating and improving questions. It distills sophisticated forms of divergent, convergent, and metacognitive thinking into a deceptively simple, accessible, and reproducible technique.

The QFT builds the skill of asking questions, an essential - yet often overlooked - lifelong learning skill that allows people to think critically, feel greater power and self-efficacy, and become more confident and ready to participate in civic life.

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What is the QFT? - Right Question Institute

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The Question Formulation Technique (QFT) is a simple but rigorous step-by-step process designed to help […]

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Credit to The Meadows Center (https://www.meadowscenter.org/).

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A gist statement is a synthesis of the most important information in a short one- or two-paragraph section of the text.

Gist statements can help students understand what they read and remember the most important information.

Teacher modeling/think alouds are the key to this recommendation

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IES Guide Rec 3C Gist Statements - Google Jamboard

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Using GIST Statements for Summary of Learning Content - Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository

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Description The goal of a GIST statement is to write a summary in a given amount of words (i.e 20 words, 15 words, 10 words). GIST is an acronym that stands for: Generating Interactions between Schemata and Texts (Cunningham, 1982; Herrell, 2000). The instructor can determine the amount of words when writing the GIST statement.

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Model the Assignment or Skill | Learner Variability Project

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Learner variability is the recognition that each learner is a unique constellation of strengths and challenges that are interconnected across the whole child. Understanding these connections and how they vary according to context is essential for meeting the needs of each learner. It embraces both students’ struggles and strengths. It considers the whole child.

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Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) teaches students to use comprehension strategies while working cooperatively. Student strategies include previewing the text; giving ongoing feedback by deciding "click" (I get it) or "clunk" (I don't get it) at the end of each paragraph; "getting the gist" of the most important parts of the text; and "wrapping up" key ideas.

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Planning for explicit strategy instruction

After you have chosen a strategy to teach, think about how the strategy works. Collect several passages from reading materials that you are using in your classroom. Assess the passages for opportunities to model the comprehension strategy. Put these passages on an overhead transparency or slide. Prepare to introduce the strategy, including a description of the strategy, why it is important, and when it should be used.

Teaching procedures for explicit strategy instruction

Phase 1: Explicit training and teacher modeling

Activate students' prior knowledge of the topic addressed in your selected passages. "Let's look at the title of this chapter and a few of the subheadings. What do you think this passage is going to be about?"

Name and describe the comprehension strategy you expect students to learn. "Good readers monitor their comprehension continuously as they read. We're going to discuss and practice using this strategy to make sure you are using it when you read. When you monitor your comprehension, you frequently ask yourself whether what you are reading makes sense to you. If you decide it doesn't make sense, you stop and figure out what the problem is and how to fix the problem."

Explain why the strategy helps comprehension and when to use the strategy. "We use comprehension monitoring to help us keep track of how well we are understanding what we read. You should monitor your comprehension while you are reading, particularly when you are reading materials on a topic you don't know much about or if the reading is difficult for you."

Model or demonstrate how to use the strategy by thinking aloud with the passages you have selected. For visible strategies, such as word mapping or graphic organizers, think aloud about your reasoning processes as you complete the map or organizer. Begin reading the passage, pause at several points and ask yourself,
"Is this making sense?"
Next, pause at a place where struggling readers might have difficulty and again ask,
"Is this making sense? I'm not sure. I don't know what this second sentence means."
Identify what the comprehension problem is by saying, "I don't know what the author means by 'the matter was not completely digested.' What was this 'matter,' and why wasn't it 'digested?'"

Read back over previous sentences that provide clues. Use the clues to make a good guess about what the phrase you don't understand means. "Maybe the word 'matter' means the argument. I think this is true because the previous paragraph talks about the argument between the parents. Now if the argument was not digested, that could mean that it wasn't done or over. That sounds like the best possibility."

You can also read forward in the text to look for meaning clues.

Repeat teacher modeling with the other passages.

Phase 2: Guided practice

Begin to turn responsibility for the strategy over to the students by providing opportunities for students to practice the strategy with you. For example, after you demonstrate the comprehension monitoring strategy, you can ask individual students to try out reading and thinking aloud.

Prompt students to pause and ask whether the passage makes sense. Have them check whether it is making sense by occasionally prompting them to summarize or predict.

Ask students to continue reading and thinking aloud in small groups or pairs. Monitor the groups closely to ensure that they are practicing the strategy, not just reading aloud to one another.

Phase 3: Independent practice

Continue turning over responsibility to students by asking them to read independently in class and use the strategies that you have taught.

Ask students to keep a written log of their strategy use. Periodically ask students to share their logs with the class and lead a discussion about how students are using strategies. For example, have students keep a log of places where they used comprehension monitoring to identify difficulties and the problem-solving strategies that they used to help them overcome the difficulties.

Continue to support students as they learn new strategies by circulating and reinforcing strategy use on an individual basis.

Every few weeks, re-teach strategies that you have taught previously and remind students to use them in their reading.

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Use explicit strategy instruction to make visible the invisible comprehension strategies that good readers use to understand text. Support students until they can use the strategies independently. Recycle and re-teach strategies throughout the year.

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I have created an asynchronous on-demand course all about MTSS in Secondary. Please visit our Literacy Professional Learning page to register!

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Awareness – being able to say “I don’t understand this”

Ask themselves questions and take actions

Reflect over learning

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IES Guide Rec 3D Comprehension Monitoring - Google Jamboard

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Teaching Students the Skills of Expert Readers

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Teaching Students the Skills of Expert Readers

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Credit to Reading Apprenticeship (WestEd).

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A clarification chart helps students focus on where they lose comprehension in a text and what they can do about it. This graphic organizer suggests that reading is not magical, but rather a process of solving problems. The reader is in charge-of identifying roadblocks or confusions, trying problem-solving strategies, and taking a best guess at what the difficult passage may mean. For the teacher, the chart reveals where students struggle and what strategies they have appropriated for taking control of their reading. As students gain control and become increasingly metacognitive, the use of the chart should fade.

This PDF consists of two pages, with two versions of the chart: one page that includes context for teachers, and one that is blank for student use.

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A clarification chart helps students focus on where they lose comprehension in a text and what they can do about it. This graphic organizer suggests that reading is not magical, but rather a process of solving problems. The reader is in charge-of identifying roadblocks or confusions, trying problem-solving strategies, and taking a best guess at what the difficult passage may mean.

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Free Poster: Positive Self-Talk For Teens

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When students keep metacognitive reading logs in a loose-leaf binder or electronically, the individual sheets or documents can easily be turned in for teacher assessment, as with this Metacognative Reading Log Graphic Organizer. The log entries allow the teacher to see what students are understanding, curious about, or confused by-and respond accordingly.

This document can be printed for students to use hard copies or can be used electronically via fillable text fields.

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When students keep metacognitive reading logs in a loose-leaf binder or electronically, the individual sheets or documents can easily be turned in for teacher assessment, as with this Metacognative Reading Log Graphic Organizer. The log entries allow the teacher to see what students are understanding, curious about, or confused by-and respond accordingly.

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Stretch texts – reading selections that are challenging for students to read on their own – above students’ independent reading level

Support students – teacher supports, occasional technological supports, and working together in small groups

2-3 times a week for periods of 6-10 weeks

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Please bookmark this page for upcoming professional learning opportunities and guidance for all secondary ELA educators!

https://www.azed.gov/standards-practices/secondary-literacy-middlehs

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https://www.azed.gov/mowr/mowr-professional-development

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IES Guide Rec 4 Complex Texts - Google Jamboard

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Read Aloud, Read Along, Read Appropriately to Foster Flexible Readers

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Read Aloud, Read Along, Read Appropriately to Foster Flexible Readers

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Introduction

Based on the framework of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), there are three types of reading that dictate student proficiency: narratives (for literary experiences), informational reading (for facts, data, and a knowledge base), and procedural reading (for following directions and understanding technical works).

Further suggested in this model are four levels of reading: initial understanding, interpretation, developing a personal response, and evaluating. To help students become efficient and flexible readers moving through the different levels of proficiency, the three strategies of read aloud, read along, and read appropriately play different roles.

Reading aloud gives students the opportunity to hear the sound and rhythm of the language. As the teacher thinks aloud about what he or she is reading, the students begin to understand the connections between the words on the page and what they mean. When students read orally, they, too, can hear the words as they process them.

In the read along strategy, teachers provide needed word prompts and cues, as well as fluency in the reading act. As students follow along, their pacing is propelled by the fluency of the reader. The read along activity is a reading exercise for the classroom and for the home. Parents/guardians and older siblings can read orally as the student reads along.

Surprisingly, the fluent reader can read along at quite a brisk pace,and the student somehow seems to keep up, carried along by the flow of the oral reading. (When read-alongs arc employed as a strategy for fluency, do not point to the words, but rather place a paper marker beneath the line being read).

The read appropriately strategy promotes the policy of reading material at an appropriate instructional level for greatest individual gains. The adage "different strokes for different folks" applies well here. Because readers respond differently to the reading and writing process, their skill level is critical to their developmental progress. Read aloud, read along, and read appropriately are a triad of strategies that effectively achieve the results teachers want.

Discuss the NAEP framework for types of reading and levels of comprehension to inform students of the various types of reading. In this way, teachers expose learners to the idea of flexible reading for different purposes. Included in the types of reading are narratives for literary experiences, informative texts for Information gathering, and procedural steps for following directions. Demonstrate each type. Then discuss or think about the levels of reading comprehension: initial understanding, interpretation, personal response, and evaluation. Develop a rubric with students that helps them begin to assess their own levels of understanding about their reading (see figure below). Discuss the differences and make them aware of the ultimate goal - achieving a deep understanding of the reading.

Read aloud, read along, and read appropriately strategies involve three phases of reading instruction.

Read Aloud

Story Time: Using juvenile literature books to highlight the idea of being literate is a powerful strategy for youngsters to use as they read to younger students. Several of the best books include Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus, Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco, and The Jolly Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg.

Readers' Theater: This read aloud approach calls on a group of students to take on roles to read, as they perform a dramatic reading. It creates a natural flow to reading aloud, set apart from the usual round robin reading. In this case, students read when their roles appear in the text. It seems to be highly motivating and engaging to students of various ages.

Read Along

Echo Reading: When students read side by side and echo read, they basically read in tandem. This affords students the advantage of seeing, saying, and hearing the words and the sound of the language as they read.

Partner Reading: By alternating paragraphs, sections. or pages, students have a companion reader to spark their read-alongs.

Read Appropriately

The Rule of Five: When students count (on their fingers) five unknown words from one page, the book is probably too difficult. It is called "the rule of five." but it is a simple, folksy assessment for finding an appropriate level book.

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Read Aloud, Read Along, Read Appropriately to Foster Flexible Readers

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The read aloud, read along, and read appropriately strategies involve three phases of reading instruction. As the teacher thinks aloud about what he or she is reading, students begin to understand the connections between the words on the page and what they mean; in the read along strategy, teachers provide needed word prompts and cues, as well as fluency in the reading act; and the read appropriately strategy promotes the policy of reading material at an appropriate instructional level for greatest individual gains.

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Recently, the American Educator republished a chapter of Marilyn Adams. I have featured Marilyn's input here before (thank you, thank you), but this recent pub is a must read as far as I'm concerned (and so I have included a link to it at the end of this blog).

The good Dr. Adams documents how American textbooks have grown simpler over time. I've long believed that the measurement of text difficulty was a great scientific advance, but as useful as that tool can be, it has been a weapon of mass destruction when it comes to supporting students' reading achievement. You see, teachers and publishers have been hyper-aware there always seems to be someone who will have difficulty with some text or other, and so they have striven to provide easier texts (texts that will leave no one behind). Their solution means that kids get a steady stream of texts with easier words and less complex sentences and text structure.

I have no doubt that the textbooks for older kids have gotten easier and easier, but there is more to it than that. While the books themselves have been providing less mental exercise, I believe (and this is not well documented) that many middle school and secondary teachers are less likely to have students reading those texts than was true a generation ago (or if they are read, it is done using round robin or some variant which usually means that most of the kids do little reading or thinking).

Awhile back, Achieve asked me to help draft a statement that they were using with various state standards. The statement often served as a preamble to grade level standards, and it indicated that text difficulty was important. (For example, students might be able to draw great inferences with a third grade text, but not with a fifth grade one. Just working on inferencing makes no sense unless the text is hard enough).

As terrific as I thought that preamble was, it was generally ignored by teachers and testers. The reason? It wasn't one of the standards. (People love those numbered lists).

As a result of such experiences, the common core standards includes both a huge appendix about text difficulty, and a numbered item about text difficulty in every set of reading standards. People might ignore the appendix, but they can't miss that text difficulty item. That means that textbooks are likely to start getting harder again.

However, just throwing kids into harder text won't solve the problem, especially if teachers simply skip those books when they are difficult.

When I was in Ireland last fall, I was working with a group of teachers and elementary students. When I finished up the lesson and the children were trooped out, one of the teachers pointed out that I handled the hard text issue differently than they did. "When we find that the children struggle with a text, we put them in something easier [à la guided reading]. But you taught the students how to handle the harder material."

This idea of using challenging (not impossible texts) is important. Students do need texts that they can read, but they also need to stretch. Towards that end, I suggest the following:

1. Students should get daily experience in school in reading something hard and something relatively easy. The hard material really should be a challenge-even a year or two beyond their reading level! The easy stuff needs to be something that is intellectually challenging, but with easy enough language that they are not struggling with the words much (in fact, it can even be something that they are rereading).

2. The difficult reading materials should be heavily scaffolded. That means the teacher must provide lots of instructional support to help the kids succeed with the material that is supposedly "too hard" for them.

3. In full agreement, with Marilyn A., one of those scaffolds should be direct instruction in vocabulary. That can mean substantial lessons in particular word meanings and it might mean that the teacher just tells the students meanings as needed as well.

4. Another scaffold should be oral reading fluency work. It is easier to untangle complex sentences when you are working on the prosody of such sentences. That means students should be spending some time reading these texts aloud with feedback (supervised paired reading). This work could also include listening to the teacher (or an audio recording) and then trying it themselves.

5. A third scaffold should be some kind of productive work with the text. This might include participating in a discussion or writing about the text or trying to develop a chart or some other visual representation of the ideas. The key point is to get the meaning.

6. Yet another way to explore a hard text is to build up to it, by reading more than one text on the same subject (maybe an easier, less detailed or thorough version can help kids to bootstrap to the more difficult one). In any event, these kinds of easier "mentor texts" should not replace the reading of the challenging text.

7. And, finally, as this hard text becomes easier for the students - and with such scaffolding, such texts do become easier - this text can be used as an easier text that might be worth rereading again later.
Advancing Our Students' Language and Literacy: The Challenge of Complex Texts

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This idea of using challenging (not impossible texts) is important. Students do need texts that they can read, but they also need to stretch. Towards that end, I suggest the following.

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Quick reference chart for converting leveling systems such as Lexile and Flesch-Kincaid into CCR grade bands.

Step-by-step guide to accessing free, online tools that help identify the appropriate grade band for a text.

SCASS Rubric for Informational Text SCASS Rubric for Literature
Qualitative Dimensions of Text Complexity Chart: Scales for evaluating the qualitative features of text complexity: text structure, language clarity and conventions, knowledge demands, and levels of meaning/purpose

Grade 11-CCR Sample Qualitative Scale
Example of completed qualitative scale for the 9-10 band.
Companion to Qualitative Scales
Detailed explanation of qualitative features; to be consulted in filling out the qualitative scale.

Grade 11-CCR Sample Qualitative Scale
Example of completed qualitative scale for the 9-10 band.
Companion to Qualitative Scales
Detailed explanation of qualitative features; to be consulted in filling out the qualitative scale.

Use this guide to support the analysis of a text for complexity.
Read Aloud for Grades K-2

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Quick reference chart for converting leveling systems such as Lexile and Flesch-Kincaid into CCR grade bands. Step-by-step guide to accessing free, online tools that help identify the appropriate grade band for a text.

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The ELA Glossary that accompanies the Arizona ELA standards further defines text complexity, starting on page 7.