ND Curriculum Initiative

Subject & Standards

Needs Assessment/Rational

Anecdotal observations of two second-graders in a parochial school Title I setting showed a lack of fluency in re-reading classroom materials from basal readers. Standardized test results are not yet available for these students in this school. Results of the end of first grade Scott-Foresman comprehension assessments for these two students show scores of less than 80%, based on 25 questions. A current timed reading and Running Record of current classroom materials with both students gave measurable evidence of lack of fluency. The materials used classroom-wide are at a frustrational reading level for these at-risk students. Both students read at effective rates (27 and 25 words per minute) well below recommended rates of 85-120 wpm for second grade readers. North Dakota Standards and Benchmarks (DRAFT, January 2004) detail expectations of fluency, reading in meaningful phrases: clear, at an appropriate rate, with expression and accuracy. Richard L. Allington, in “What Really Matters for Struggling Readers”(2001 Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.) states that the slower rate, limited self-monitoring, and lack of fluency often predict reading that has gone off track in terms of comprehension. Fluency improvement should have a correlating improvement in comprehension.

Understandings & Goals

Enduring Understandings:  1. Reading is enjoyable and allows one to learn independently.  2. The child knows that his reading rate, text level and comprehension can improve.  3. Reading at an independent level improves fluent reading.  4. Punctuation and other conventions help the author convey language in many different and engaging ways. They help the reader to gain item knowledge in non-fiction and character knowledge in fiction. 5.  The student must assume the responsibility for monitoring his accuracy and comprehension as he reads. There are many strategies to use to decode and understand text.
Goal(s): 1. The student will significantly improve his reading rate.  2. The student’s independent text reading level will improve.  3. The student’s comprehension of text will improve.

Questions Answered

Essential questions:  1. What is the student’s current independent text reading level?  2. What is the student’s current reading rate? 3. Where are the student’s strengths and weaknesses in accurate decoding?  4. Has the classroom teacher noticed any changes during implementation?  5.  Is the student using punctuation and conventions appropriately in oral reading?
Objectives: 1. Given a tape-recording of his reading and a strategies rubric, the student will identify the strategies he used to monitor comprehension (at 90% accuracy or better) in an oral reading passage at an instructional level. 2. Using a reading passage rich in dialog, the student will work with another student to rewrite the passage in the form of a Reader’s Theater script. Dialog will be attributed to each character with 100% accuracy.  3. The student will tape-record and time his oral reading of a passage. He will record the passage, time and date on a simple graph. Three additional rereadings over a two-week period will be timed and added to the graph.

Assessment

What quiz and test items (e.g. simple content-focused questions that require a single, best answer)will provide evidence of understanding?
Running records identify specific areas with which the reader struggles. They also pinpoint the types of strategies readers use in decoding. Since fluency is linked to comprehension, a combination of accuracy percentage and words read per minute give an indication of the strength of comprehension.
What academic prompts (e.g. open-ended questions or problems that require students to think critically and then to prepare a response / product / performance)will provide evidence of understanding?
How does good reading sound to the listener? What helps a reader sound interesting to the listener? 
What performance tasks and projects (e.g. complex challenges that are authentic, mirror the real world and require a performance or product) will you include that will provide evidence of student understanding?
A reading accuracy of over 94% in increasingly difficult book levels indicates evidence of student understanding. (A 95%-or-above accuracy rate indicates an independent reading level.) The student will identify the speakers and changes of speakers in a reading passage rich in dialog. The student will read the re-written passage in play format with the teacher and another student, using appropriate expression.
What other evidence (e.g. observations, work samples, dialogues, student self-assessment) of understanding will you collect?
Tape recordings of some student text readings will be taken. Book levels and fluency rates will be graphed. Running records will make note of the reader’s use of strategies during reading.

Instructional Strategies

Reading of a simple Reader’s Theater script introduces the students to a simple format that requires the reader(s) to express emotion in order for the audience to understand what is happening. Taking a dialog-rich text and analyzing it (H.O.T.) to determine the individual speakers is a project-based strategy that requires the student to pay attention to punctuation and how it relates to changes in speakers. Extra text that is not actual dialog must be considered in terms of its usefulness to the speakers. There is a need for the student to synthesize (H.O.T.) the information and incorporate it into the script format to inform the reader.