Reading

“Out-of-school reading habits of students has shown that even 15 minutes a day of independent reading can expose students to more than a million words of text in a year.” (Anderson, Wilson, & Fielding, 1988)

All Newton Middle School students are expected to read 20 minutes a night minimum for homework.

Open a Book Rap Video

Components to Reading:

    • Phonemic Awareness is understanding and manipulating sound without letters.

    • Phonics is understanding the sounds letters and letter patterns make.

    • Decoding is figuring out how the written word transfers into the spoken word. If done well, fluency (speed of reading) will be appropriate to support comprehension.

    • Encoding is spelling or writing out words correctly.

    • Links to practice phonics and phonemic awareness: Sushi Spell, Phonics Games, Starfall, Letters and Sounds

  • Vocabulary

    • Vocabulary refers to the words we must understand to communicate effectively.

    • A reader cannot understand a text without knowing what most of the words mean.

    • Students learn the meaning of most words indirectly, through everyday experiences.

    • Direct instruction is used for other content specific words.

    • Link to practice vocabulary, improve your Lexile word recognition score, free rice vocabulary.

  • Fluency

    • Fluency is the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression.

    • When reading aloud, fluent readers read in phrases and add intonation appropriately.

    • Their reading is smooth and has expression even when read silently in their head.

    • You can time your child reading out loud and compare it to this fluency chart to see how they are doing.

  • Comprehension

    • Comprehension is the understanding and interpretation of what is read.

    • All of the above skills are necessary to comprehend text fully.

      • Throughout lessons in my class, they write a 5 finger retells (somebody wanted because and/but so) (adapted from MacOn, Bewell & Vogt, 1991, Beers, 2003) summary sentence, Levels of Questions (adapted from the AVID curriculum), a Literary Signposts (by Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst), and signposts for nonfiction (by Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst).

    • Read a "Just Right" book. Use the RIT or Lexile score you received during the Measurement of Academic Progress (MAP) test or use a book's Readability Level score.

“Especially while we are still in school, a major portion of what we know comes from the texts we read. Since writing is the act of transmitting knowledge in print, we must have information to share before we can write it. Therefore, reading plays a major role in writing.”

-K12reader.com