2A - 5 Best Practices Reading Strategies
Here are 5 of the best practices reading strategies that I find most effective while teaching:
1. Assess the students reading ability before assigning reading material
https://www.nwea.org/blog/2019/what-to-look-for-in-effective-reading-assessment/
Before assigning reading material I assess my students phonetic awareness, phonetic decoding, vocabulary, reading fluency, and reading comprehension in small activities in class. Usually, it shows that pretty much all my students need help dissecting the quotes we read in class from the enlightenment philosophers and founding fathers. I’ve created a lot of activities to help students organize how to chunk and translate the quotes into modern English. Depending on the students I also have activities to translate the Constitution into modern conversational English. Each class is different, and within each class each student is different. Starting with the assessment I can know which activities to incorporate for which students.
2. Reduce the bad reading practices
https://www.naesp.org/sites/default/files/resources/2/Principal/2007/N-Dp42.pdf
The first hurdle to overcome is changing negative perceptions. Sometimes we focus so much on a students weakness we don’t focus on their strengths, but reinforcing their strengths can lead to great improvements. I’ve had high energy students read standing up, introverted students read in small groups, and social justice warrior students read civil rights stories to the entire class. Focusing on their strengths helped them all do better and helped reduce their stress. For most of my students reading out loud in their table group is less stressful than reading to the entire class. I make all my students read in their table group since there’s less stress and it feels safer to make mistakes, but I let my extroverted students choose to read to the entire class. I also do modeling, especially when I’m breaking down quotes from the founding fathers and enlightenment philosophers. I like to underline main concepts and translate the quotes to modern English, all while reading them out loud to the class. I haven’t used recordings in class since my students are in 12th grade and I generally read out loud what I would leave to a recording, but I do use recordings with my independent study students. I also create student responsive environments, which helps them feel calm and be in the proper mindset to learn. I don’t mind if students sit or stand during class. (I prefer to stand all day myself.) I also don’t mind if they snack. They sit in groups of 4 so that they can do a lot of small group activities, which makes them feel more comfortable and confident when working. This all adds up to reduce bad reading practices.
3 - Reading out loud to students
https://www.readingrockets.org/article/revisiting-read-alouds-instructional-strategies-encourage-students-engagement-text
Reading out loud to students helps them increase their reading vocabulary, comprehension, and supports listening and speaking abilities while enhancing overall language development. Teaching 12th grade government I usually start out reading a lot at the beginning of the semester and transitioning into having my students read in small groups and popcorn read as a class. If I read aloud when I introduce new information they hear the proper enunciation which gives them the confidence to say it themselves next time. Much of the political vocabulary is new to them, as well as the names and places in the textbook since they're taken from all over the world and are in different languages.
4. Oral reading in small groups
https://www.cde.state.co.us/sites/default/files/documents/coloradoliteracy/clf/downloads/oral_reading_techniques.pdf
This article has several suggestions for oral reading activities in class. I’ve noticed that many students, especially my English language learners, are exponentially more comfortable reading in groups of 3 or 4 than they would be reading to the entire class. The activities in the article offer different reading activities to help the students. I use the “cloze reading” in my classes to review vocabulary after it’s already been introduced. For example, I use it to reinforce longer common political vocabulary such as bipartisanship, democratic-republic, and autocracy. I do this by highlighting the vocabulary words in the passages on my power-point presentation. I pause my reading when I come to the highlighted word and have the entire class say the highlighted word to practice saying it out loud. The classic popcorn reading works in class. After reading this article I’m excited to try the “jump reading” method. My students already sit in groups of 4. To do the jump method I’ll read out loud with one group of 4 reading out loud with me. When I stop reading and step over to another group of students they’ll start reading, too. I’ll signal to the first group to stop reading. A little while later I’ll signal to another group to start and the cycle will continue. This will make reading out loud less of a chore and more of a game. Anytime the activity is more fun, it's easier for students to be patient with themselves while learning the material
5. Informal Assessments
https://www.brighthubeducation.com/student-assessment-tools/107232-informal-assessments-for-reading-comprehension-ideas/
This link leads to a list of informal assessments which can be used to assess student’s reading comprehension. Some of the suggestions include asking the 5 w’s, who, what, when, where, why. It’s a simple way to dissect a quote or passage. I like implementing this when my students read quotes from the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers. It allows me to assess their reading comprehension and at the same time it doubles as content review for the students to commit the content to memory. Entrance and exit tickets are good, too. I use this to get an overall estimate of what my students gleaned from all the reading during a class. When I notice a lot of students don’t have a solid explanation it has led me to start the next class with more reviews. I’ve never tried the class discussion tickets but after reading about it I will now. Students write their names on three pieces of paper which are called tickets. During the class discussions when they participate they put one of their tickets in a bowl. I think this can make it more fun to have the discussion after reading material, and since I’m collecting the tickets I can ensure that I get everyone to participate.
