Home Tags Posts tagged with "Repeated Reading"
Tag:

Repeated Reading

repeated reading - child reading a book and laughing
Good TeachingiOS Tips and Tricks

Appifying Repeated Reading Assessments

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

What apps or tools can assist you and your students in tracking how fast you read? In this blog entry, we’ll extend our conversation on the use of repeated reading. In a previous blog entry, I focused on different ways to put in place repeated reading. Instead of the traditional go-in-the-corner-with-a-student, we can use technology.

Technology affords both teachers and students with infinite more opportunities to connect. In this blog entry, we’ll take a look at some ways to assess student fluency. But before we do that, let’s take a moment to review the repeated reading strategy.

Review of Repeated Reading Strategy

The repeated reading strategy, which enjoys an effect size of 0.75, involves:

Repeated reading is an academic practice that aims to increase oral reading fluency. … During repeated reading, a student sits in a quiet location with the teacher. The student then reads a passage (50 to 200 words) aloud at least three times.  The teacher calculates reading fluency. She does so by calculating words correct per minute that the student has read.

If the student misreads a word or hesitates for longer than 5 seconds, the teacher reads the word aloud. Then, the student repeats the word the correct way. If the student requests help with a word, the teacher reads the word aloud or provides the definition. The student rereads the passage until he or she achieves a desired fluency level (source: What Works Clearinghouse).

Now that we’ve reviewed a few aspects of repeated reading, let’s take a look at how you can assess it.

Note: Curious about the norms for repeated reading? Use Hasbrouck and Tindal (2006) Oral Reading Fluency Norms from Grades 1-8. Find them online in this free set of graphs from Jen Strange.

Assessing Repeated Reading

Ready to assess repeated reading? Providing this feedback to students can aid them in improving fluency.

Reading Rockets recommends one of the following approaches:

  • One minute reading. In this approach, the student reads for one minute as the teacher counts the total number of words read in a correct way. Make a note of the Words Correct Per Minute (WCPM).
  • Timed repeated readings. Like the previous approach, the student reads for one minute. He will do so several times (three to five times at least). The teacher counts WCPM for one minute. Graph results with a bar graph.
  • Words Correct Per Minute (WCPM). The teacher chooses a package and then times the student as he reads it. You can find tracking sheets available online at no cost.

Many educators use this approach in the classroom. But they may not realize it’s high-effect size and positive impact on reading fluency.

Appifying Repeated Reading

Would you like to use technology with repeated reading assessments? While not required, it can make the job of tracking WCPM easier. These tools can automate scoring and save teachers time. Let’s explore a few.

App #1: One Minute Reader

First up, let’s take a look at Read Naturally’s One Minute Reader for iOS devices such as the iPad. From their website:

The One Minute Reader reading fluency app for the iPad accelerates reading achievement. It combines the research-proven components of teacher modeling, repeated reading, and progress monitoring. The reader works at his or her own pace in an appropriate level of material. This motivating app guides the reader through the steps. The reader masters a story by reading along with audio.

Then, the student practices the story until he or she can read it with fluency and comprehension. The program automatically tracks the reader’s progress. The reader can print or email the story, the Story Summary (results from the story), and/or the Book Summary (results from the whole book).

The cost of the app varies. You can start with a free version, then buy more with in-app purchases. In-app purchases will get you eight books of five stories each (40 stories in all). The cost for each set of 40 stories is about $20 each. The books are available for different grade levels. Demonstration videos are available online for you to view. Get the iOS app online via the website.

App #2: MAP Reading Fluency Testing

A second app, the MAP Reading Fluency Testing, enables teachers to efficiently measure oral reading fluency. Learn more about it in Five Things to Know about MAP Reading Fluency. It uses an “online, adaptive assessment via a twenty minute assessment.” You can see what results look like in this blog entry. McKinney ISD (Texas) is featured in a case study. Costs vary.

App #3: K12 Timed Reading and Comprehension Practice

With many features, this $3.99 iOS app offers over two hundred and fifty stories in fiction and non-fiction and includes a fluency timer that calculates word per minute for each reading attempt. You can also see summary charts and graphs.

Bonus Resources

The web is full of resources for teaching reading and assessing fluency. Two more tools you may or may not be familiar with include these, even though they are not apps:

Istation ISIP Oral Reading Fluency

Many educators will be familiar with this final tool. Istation’s Indicators of Progress (ISIP) Oral Reading Fluency tool is a computer-based tool. It records the voices of students for automated scoring. Or the teacher can later listen and score the audio. It requires a headset with a microphone connected to a computer or laptop. Learn more about technical requirements online. Cost varies on several factors, so you will need to contact Istation.

Fluency Practice Passages

Although not an app per se, the Fluency Practice Passages website organizes texts that you can use with your students. Each text comes with a lexile level. Students can read these for one minute each.

Ready to get going with repeated reading in your classroom? In part 1 of this repeated reading series, we discussed various tools you can use. In this second installment, you now have an easy way to use iOS apps to assess fluency.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Good Teaching

How to Increase Reading Fluency with Repeated Reading Strategies

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

How do you increase a child’s reading fluency? It’s a question that seems to have an easy answer. One common response is that you give them more opportunities to listen to others as they read. You also make it important for them to read aloud and then provide them feedback on their reading. In this blog entry, we’ll explore a high-effect size instructional strategy that can increase reading fluency and explore some ways technology can make implementing this strategy easier.

A Quick Review

If you’ve been following the TCEA TechNotes blog, you’ve sensed our new focus on the work of John Hattie. Hattie conducted meta-analyses of research on instructional strategies. Some strategies fall above what he characterized as the “hinge point,” or an effect size of .40. Strategies that speed up student growth in one year fall above the hinge point. For example, the jigsaw approach (1.20) yields three years of growth in one year when used in a consistent way. Reciprocal teaching (.74) yields almost two year’s growth in one year.

Picking a high-effect size strategy is not enough. These strategies also fall into general categories. They include “surface,” “deep,” or “transfer” learning. That’s because Hattie defines learning in this way:

…the process of developing sufficient surface knowledge to then move to deeper understanding such that one can appropriately transfer this learning to new tasks and situations. (Source: Visible Learning for Literacy)

Jigsaw is a surface learning approach that assists students in two ways. Fisher, Frey, and Hattie says that surface learning consists of two sub-phases. The first to help students acquire, summarize, and outline a topic. The second is to practice testing and receiving feedback. As you might imagine, the jigsaw approach works great for this.

Reciprocal teaching focuses on comprehension. As such, the goal is to assist students to transition. That transition is from surface knowledge to a deeper, conceptual understanding. Knowing when and why you will use a strategy remains important. Neither strategy (e.g. jigsaw, reciprocal teaching) would be appropriate for developing decoding as a part of reading fluency, which is our primary concern in this blog entry.

Definition: Decoding: Decoding is the ability to apply your knowledge of letter-sound relationships, including knowledge of letter patterns, to correctly pronounce written words. Understanding these relationships gives children the ability to recognize familiar words quickly and to figure out words they haven’t seen before. (Source: Reading Rockets)
Definition: Fluency is defined as the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. In order to understand what they read, children must be able to read fluently whether they are reading aloud or silently. When reading aloud, fluent readers read in phrases and add intonation appropriately. (Source: Reading Rockets)

Developing Decoding Skills

Listening to teachers at a professional development event, one teacher pointed something out. She made a connection to the type of problem reciprocal teaching solves. “Students first need to move beyond the mechanics of reading. They need to become fluent readers first.” Reciprocal teaching addresses a different problem. That problem is, “What if students are fluent readers, but cannot comprehend what they read?” But what about those students who haven’t overcome the mechanics of decoding?

Why Decoding and Fluency Are Important

Students, from grades one through middle school, may encounter decoding challenges. This might also be true for older students learning a second language. Timothy Shanahan  offers the need to:

  • Get students to read the author’s words in an accurate manner.
  • Read texts at about the speed of oral language.
  • Make reading sound like language. This involves pausing in the right places so that text makes sense.

While there are several approaches for addressing decoding, repeated reading offers one approach. It works for young readers as well as middle school students. Repeated reading (effect size of .75) enables students to move from decoding to meaning:

Repeated reading involves students reading the same passage (=>3x) to teachers. When the student miscues, the teacher can read the correct word aloud. Then, the student rereads the passage until reaching a satisfactory reading level.

Repeated Reading Approach

There are several other approaches to achieve repeated reading effectively. One way is to have a student listen to a passage read aloud by the teacher. Then the student reads it to himself several times. Then, the student reads it aloud. The teacher calculates the rate, accuracy, intonation, pacing, and expressiveness and reports this to the student along with elapsed time. The student re-reads the passage again with this information in mind. The student has the goal of improving these elements.

How could classroom technologies facilitate repeated reading as a strategy? Let’s consider one of the challenges teachers and students face.

Opportunity for Repetition with Repeated Reading

One of the challenges teachers and students may encounter with repeated reading is the opportunity for repetition. A teacher with a large class may be unable to read for each child. Carol Chomsky suggested another approach that involves teachers recording a selection to audiotape. Students are then invited to record themselves as well.

With modern technologies, teachers have several options:

  • Option #1: Use Flipgrid. The teacher can read the text, modeling facial expressions and word formation for students. This is great for dramatic readings since students can see it. In return, students can record themselves reading their text. They can submit as many repeated responses as they like. What’s more, Flipgrid includes Microsoft’s Immersive Reader. This makes it a fantastic addition given Immersive Reader’s features.
  • Option #2: Seesaw. Teachers can share an audio/video recording of a reading, then invite students to leave a video/audio recording of their repeated reading. This is great because it makes archiving and tracking student growth easy for sharing via Seesaw.
  • Option #3: Google Slides or PowerPoint Online. The teacher can display text to be read on screen via a slide and then insert an audio recording. Students can then record their own versions for a particular number of times (three to five times) before turning it in to their teacher.
  • Option #4: Use web-based audio recorder. Using a web-based audio recorder, the teacher or student can record audio. Copies of recorded items can be saved to Google Drive, OneDrive, or submitted as part of Microsoft/Google Forms.

These are great options to use because they result in a record of reading, and it can be dramatic to see growth over time. What’s more, they make it easier for the teacher to provide corrective feedback. Corrective feedback has a significant impact on fluency and comprehension.

“Repeated readings has been the most researched and successful approach to improving reading fluency,” says Lauren Nienhuis. These technology tools mentioned can assist you in maximizing your impact on student readers. Give them a try for repeated reading.

2 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail