Read Naturally SE Teacher's Guide

Students sometimes make too many errors because they are focused on trying to readfaster. If simply drawing attention to the increased error rate does not solve theproblem, you may need to temporarily lower the goal and attend to accuracy.Adjusting the StepsThe read along step is crucial for teaching correct pronunciation, phrasing, andexpression. However, middle and high school students may be ready to drop the readalong step when they can read grade-level material with very few errors at a fluencyapproaching grade-level expectations. If an older student regularly has cold timingscores above 90 words correct per minute with few errors and few phrasing andexpression problems, have the student go directly to the practice step after the coldtiming step. Rather than drop the read along step all at once, you could also graduallyreduce the number of read alongs from three to two to one and finally to none.The writing steps—prediction and retell—promote comprehension and have proven tobe beneficial for many students. However, if a student is very deficient in fluency andyou have a limited amount of time, you might consider making the following changes tothese steps:Drop the prediction step. The student would still use the key words, title, andpicture to mentally prepare for reading the story. Have students retell the story orally instead of in writing at the time of the final passstep.Teachers may also consider these changes for students who very slow at keyboarding.SE Teacher's Guide 34 Copyright © 2004–2009 Read Naturally, Inc.Working with StudentsRead Naturally Software Edition