PIRLS 2006 Encyclopedia

In addition to providing focused instruction and explicit demonstration of readingstrategies, the curriculum provides opportunities for students to think and talk abouthow they construct meaning as they read and pay close attention to the strategies theyuse. It is crucial that all students have opportunities to read texts at their level widely andfrequently, so that they will achieve fluency. Modeling is important for fluency as well.Students are challenged across the curriculum to engage in meaningful involvementwith many kinds of text, including printed words. Reading print texts has always been anessential component of the language arts program and other disciplines and is becomingincreasingly important in a complex, global, information-based technical society.Students are required to make sense of information and be able to reflect, pose questions,discover connections, and communicate what they have learned. Students work withmultilayered texts, especially in science, math, music, and electronic media. Therefore,students need to learn specific strategies to assist them in constructing meaning fromthese various texts and in these varied disciplines. 31 In grades 4–6, our dual focus is onlearning to read and reading to learn.Reading Instruction in the Primary GradesA minimum of 90 minutes instructional time is required every day for language arts,grades primary–2, and a minimum 115 minutes every day for language arts grade 3,including Active Reading Hour (L’heure de lecture active). 32 For language arts in grades4–6, a minimum of 90 minutes is required every day. In grades 4–6, there is a requirementof one or more blocks of Learn to Read/Read to Learn Time (Apprendre à lire/Lire pourapprendre) in language arts and other subject areas totalling 60 minutes every day.Nova Scotian teachers use Atlantic Canada English Language Arts, Grades 4–6(1997) as the basis for instructional design. In grades 3–6, teachers provide explicit,strategic instruction, considering the needs of transitional readers. Reading instructioncomponents include reading aloud and shared, guided, and independent reading.Instruction in specific comprehension strategies include making connections, visualizing,inferring, questioning, determining importance, analyzing, synthesizing, monitoringcomprehension, and “fix-up” strategies when meaning breaks down. 33The province is working with school boards to provide literacy mentors to assistteachers in enhancing classroom instruction, assessment, support, and intervention.PIRLS 2006 EncyclopediaReading DisabilitiesAn early-literacy intervention program, Reading Recovery® , is currently beingimplemented across the province. This program helps the lowest-achieving studentsin grade 1 (approximately 20% of each grade 1 class) become successful readers andwriters. Nova Scotia worked with the founder of the program, Marie Clay, to redevelopReading Recovery® in French, and the program is now available to the lowest achievinggrade 1 students in English, French Immersion, and Francophone schools. The goal ofthe program is to enable students to reach at least the average performance levels of theirclassroom peers after 12–15 weeks of intensive instruction with a highly-trained teacher.CanadaTIMSS & PIRLSInternational Study CenterLynch School of Education, Boston College 73