Read Naturally
Students work to improve reading comprehension and fluency
Reading affects all areas of a person's life. Whether you are in school, at work, or on the road every person will need to be a fluent and successful reader. This year, Title I students are working hard to improve their reading skills. First, Second, and Third grade Title I students are using a newly purchased program to improve their reading fluency and comprehension. The program, Read Naturally, is a research-based reading program developed using a unique strategy that combines teacher modeling, repeated reading, and assessment and progress monitoring. Studies show that reading fluency greatly affects reading achievement. Read Naturally focuses on improving reading fluency as well as monitoring reading comprehension and expression.
Each student is placed in the Read Naturally program at their individual level. The steps and strategy is the same whatever the level, but the level of the program is individualized according to each students ability and need. Once a student is placed in the Read Naturally program they complete the following steps:
Choose a story: students have the freedom of choice. They can pick from 24 stories in their reading level. This increases student motivation and interest.
Listen to and read along with the key words: CD's accompany each story. Students are able to listen to modeled fluent reading.
Write a prediction: using the keywords and title, students apply this important reading skill.
Cold read: students time themselves for 1 minute and read the story. This is called a cold read because each student is unfamiliar with the story. Students calculate the number of words read correctly and graph their results.
Each student has an individualized goal for the number of words they need to read correctly in 1 minute. After conducting their cold read students will read along with the CD of the story and practice reading on their own until they can reach the predetermined goal.
Once students have met their goal for words read correctly in 1 minute they conduct their hot read. This time, I monitor the reading to ensure honesty and accuracy. When a student reaches their goal they again graph their results and go on to answering comprehension questions and writing a retell of the story.
During this first quarter I have been very pleased with the Read Naturally program. Students are motivated by the graphing and enjoy the non-fiction stories. Seeing the growth on their progress monitoring graphs is encouraging for the students, teachers, and parents. Feel free to contact me if you would like to see the program in action!
