Now that my classes are all reading from a novel, I have the opportunity to hear each student read aloud from a common source. Over the next couple of weeks, I hope to hear every student read at least a paragraph aloud during class. I will then assign a distinction of 1, 2, 3, or 4 to roughly correspond with below basic, basic, proficient and advanced. While it appears on AERIES, This is in no way a graded assignment. Nor is it scientific or formal. Rather, it is a simple formative baseline for me to track growth. When hearing your student read aloud, I will consider many factors including tracking, errors, pacing (believe it or not , most try to read too fast), recognition of dialogue, inflection, volume, and comfort with challenging vocabulary. I plan to complete this informal assessment multiple times this year and to gradually emphasize struggling readers more and more. In a perfect world, everyone ends with a 4 by May. Please understand that this initial score is the least reliable as anxiety is a key issue. I expect many kids are simply scared to read, and we will work through those fears slowly. If you would like to help your student read more confidently, have them read aloud to you at home. Just a paragraph here or there. If they hate it, that’s a pretty good indicator that they need to do it more. Lastly, reading aloud is a very helpful process, but it does not always translate into reading comprehension. If you see your son or daughter reading for school or pleasure, ask them about it. What are they reading? What is it about?...
Thanks.
Kurt Rix
