Teaching Reading: How Do You Decide What to Teach?

There a couple events in my past week that have really made me think about reading in a special education classroom.  1)  My guest post with Christine Reeve over at Autism Classroom News, 2) I have a new student teacher that I am trying to explain to why I teach what I teach and where the activities come from, and 3) my Reader's Survey results came in and showed that a majority of you want to know more about reading and what to teach.

Below is a little button that I created to remind me and to help you figure out what to do about reading in a resource room.  I shared this on Chris' blog and now I thought it would be beneficial for all of you if I went a little more in depth about the "A" and "D" in READING.

A:  As I've blogged about in the past, my favorite tools of assessment are Dr. Fry's Informal Reading Assessments, Reading A-Z running records, Corrective Reading assessment and my school district's universal screening-NWEA's MAP (Measures of Academic Progress).  I believe that it is important to administer varied assessments, because each test will give you specific information that you need on each student.  No one test is going to give me all of the information that I need.  It is hard for me to place all of my instructional needs on the results of one assessment.  When I use several different assessments, it helps to give me a better overall picture of my students.  

Below is a chart of the assessments that I use to inform my reading instruction.  *Note these are my personal preferences and what I use each assessment to measure.  Please understand that this is not the be all/end all to assessments or ways to guide your instruction, but it is a good place to start if you don't know where to start.*

There are several places to find reading curriculum for special education students.  Some reading companies even have a companion reading intervention component.  I have used the intervention curriculum to Reading Street in the past, but this was at a different school and I am no longer at that school.  I did really like that curriculum and it worked well for the students that I had at the time.  In my current school we do not have the intervention curriculum, so as is the special ed way of things, I modify what is available at school, find another curriculum, or create my own activities to meet specific needs.

D:  Decisions, decisions, decisions!  It's time to make some choices in what to use to teach students.  All of my decisions are based on assessment, need, and of course IEP goals.  If you check out the table below you can see which instruction strategies I use to meet each of the 5 literacy components.

In my classroom, meeting several students varying and challenging needs, means that management of the class time and instruction is incredibly important.  This is why I choose to use a Daily 5 type of classroom management for reading.  The Daily 5 stations allow me to meet the needs of each student in all areas that they are experiencing difficulty during one class period.  It also allows students to have ownership of their learning and gain independence in the rotations.

My Reading Resource schedule looks like this:

I will give you a quick synopsis of what each piece of the schedule means, but in later posts I promise to give you more details of each!

Timed Fluency:  Students are given a reading fluency passage each week.  (I find my fluency passages on Reading A-Z).  On Monday, the students each individually read the passage to me for one minute.  Together the student and I record the words per minute, accuracy of word reading, and we set a goal.  Students know when they come in the room they are to get their passage, a timer, and a partner.  Students take turns reading and timing each other.  The students are trying to build accuracy and beat the previous day's time.

Vocabulary Instruction:  As a whole group, we do vocabulary instruction.  I use graphic organizers and other instructional strategies to teach vocabulary.  We have weekly vocabulary that goes along with our weekly story (from Reading A-Z).  I use the book Word Nerds to help guide my instruction.  If you don't have the book, Word Nerds.....go get it!!

Rotations:  I know it is Daily 5, but with a short resource time, I don't have time for all 5 rotations.  You will notice a star beside Read to Self and Word Work.  The star means that they have to do these two stations daily.  The students then choose a 3rd station, but all stations must be visited throughout the week.

Teacher Time:  On Monday and Wednesday, I meet with two of my students during the rotation time.  These two students have very similar needs that the others in the group do not have.  These students do guided reading with me for two sessions worth of time.  On Tuesday and Thursday, I meet with the remaining four students.  We use the same story, but on a different level (when available) and do guided reading for two sessions.

Read to Self:  Students self select "good fit" books and read to themselves.

Work on Words:  I create or find a word work activity to go along with the weekly guided reading story.  Each story on Reading A-Z has a word work skill.  (Are you seeing a pattern?  I love Reading A-Z.  It is a special educator's life saver).   Students that need sight word instruction also can work on sight words during this time using apps, time delay, or a word work station.

Work on Writing:  Students can complete their vocabulary journal at the writing station, choose a writing prompt (free write), or have a prompt (also available with Reading A-Z guided reading lesson).

Listen to Reading-Students can listen to stories on the computer, using RAZ kids, or on CD or the iPad.

Read with Someone:  Students read with a partner.  They complete an activity with the partner such as a graphic organizer that goes along with the story and comprehension skill we are focused on for the week.

EXTRA!!

A few extra components that I have to "get in" to my reading time include: Lexia (a computer based reading intervention), progress monitoring.

Students use Lexia on Tuesday and Thursday in the village square to meet their weekly usage minutes.  They can also use this during Listen to Reading time if they have completed other station work.

Progress monitoring-I do weekly progress monitoring on Fridays.  My schedule then looks different for Fridays.  I individually listen to each student read the fluency passage and get the week's word per minute average, students complete reading comprehension quizzes, and for my students with basic reading goals, I monitor sight word recognition.  While all of this monitoring is going on, students complete rotations they didn't get to work on or finish from the week.  

Geez!!! How do the kids keep up with all of this??  It's hard enough for me!  I've got an organizational freebie for you that I hope you will love!

Questions?  Suggestions?  Comments?  I would love to hear them!

Kim