During reading class, students need to spend time reading with understanding each and every day.
Does self-selected independent reading accomplish this?
If you teach small group guided reading, do you teach all your students every day?
How can you support all of your students' reading comprehension every single day?
Here are 5 Ways to Support Every Student Every Day
I'll explain these 5 approaches in order of increasing student independence.
1. Teacher reads aloud while students follow along (track).
Use this strategy at the beginning of the school year, with special needs students, with English Language Learners (ELLs), and whenever a text is too challenging for most of your class. Ideally, each student should have a copy of the text in front of them and follow with their eyes. Some students will benefit from using a bookmark, index card, or "Reading Focus Card" to help them track the words.
When reading aloud to your class, model thinking aloud, explain vocabulary, demonstrate asking questions and rereading for understanding. You can model other reading comprehension strategies that apply to the text. Just choose one or two that you need to emphasize. However, be aware of how much you are talking, keep the focus on the text, and read twice as much as you talk.
Follow your read aloud with a "Turn and Talk" activity to deepen your students' understanding.
2. Students read aloud with teacher.
In this approach, students take turns reading one sentence aloud at a time. This can be done with the whole class or with a small group. No reluctant reader should be forced to read out loud in front of the whole class. Allow them to say, "Pass." Usually I find that students enjoy doing the reading. By requiring only one sentence from each child, turns come up quickly and no one has to struggle through a long passage. It is less intimidating for your struggling readers. In addition, this activity encourages students to attend to punctuation. They must stop at the period, or others will say, "Hey! It's my turn."
When you do this you may also model reading comprehension strategies with your students, and explain unfamiliar words.
Combine this student read aloud activity with "Turn and Talk" slips. By having students stop at intervals to talk briefly about their reading, they will increase their comprehension.
3. Students read aloud without teacher.
Use this approach when you need to work with a small group, and the students have already worked with you on reading aloud one sentence at a time. Require that the kids read only one sentence per turn so they will attend to punctuation, feel more successful, and have more turns.
For accountability, provide one or two "Turn and Talk" slips, and require that students write down their answers to the questions at the end of the reading. These "Turn and Talk" slips include sentence starters to help students answer the questions clearly.
4. Partner Reading
When your students are reading with a partner, provide them with support to keep them on task and accountable. To keep them on the job, use these ready-made partner reading cards. Secondly, I recommend that you require them to read only one sentence at a turn, and switch turns after every sentence. This strategy keeps them reading more often, yet they don't have to read a lot at a time, nor do they have to listen to another student reading a lot at a time. This strategy helps them stay more focused. It also compels them to pay attention to punctuation, particularly the periods.
After reading the assigned passage, students can
1) talk or write about an essential question using "Turn and Talk" student slips
2) write the answer to one of their own questions
3) exchange questions and write the answer to their partner's question.
5. Reciprocal Teaching
Divide students into groups of three or four students each. Assign students a specific passage or number of pages to read together as a group. Provide each group with a set of "Reciprocal Teaching Cards." Again, require students to take turns reading one sentence per student for the reasons explained above. At the end of each page or paragraph (depending on the length and/or complexity of the passage), students are to do the job on their respective cards. Afterwards, students either keep their cards or switch to the left so as to change jobs after the next page or paragraph is read. For more about reciprocal teaching, see my post, "Reciprocal Teaching for Reading Comprehension in the Upper Elementary Grades."
In Summary
You can use five different teaching strategies to foster your students' development in reading comprehension. Not only do these activities promote understanding and engagement, they also provide enjoyment and accountable independence. In my nineteen years experience, I've found that employing these strategies will result in greater reading achievement than working with small groups while the remainder of the class reads self-chosen titles on their own.
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