Archive for the ‘Reading Skills’ Category
Posted by SFleming on
June 11, 2010
Upper elementary and middle school students will enjoy the novel Holes by Louis Sachar. With a reading level of 5.2, the book is accessible to upper elementary students and interesting to middle schoolers. It’s a Newberry Award winner and has been made into a popular movie.
Holes is the story of a boy named Stanley who seems to have everything go wrong in his life. He blames it on a family curse from four generations back, but the results seem very real to him. He’s a social outcast, overweight, and now accused of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to a juvenile detention camp with a twist- the warden believes that boys’ characters can be changed by having them dig holes in the desert in the hot sun. Is he secretly searching for buried treasure?
The book touches on themes of friendship, destiny, and even literacy. The characters demonstrate determination and strong will. It will appeal to girls as well as to boys, and is an outstanding choice for summer reading fun.
Online resources to use with Holes include:
SparkNotes: Holes
Free Holes Online Trivia Game
Activity Suggestions for Holes
Scholastic.com Activities for Holes
Book Wizard: Holes Literature Guide
Don’t forget that you can help your child learn to write an outstanding book report in the Book Report Workshop!
Posted by SFleming on
June 6, 2010
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird shows up on a LOT of high school reading lists, and with very good reason. The book tackles racism, being a social outcast, and many other very deep subjects through the eyes of a child. In between, there are themes of maturation and lost innocence. The book will cause some deep thoughts about racism and issues of right and wrong both at the personal and at the community and societal levels.
The story is about a young girl growing up in the deep south in the 1930s, and is told through her eyes. She and her brother ponder why some people are outcast from society, and look on as her attorney-father tackles the defense of an African-American man accused of rape.
Parents will want to be aware that there are some instances of bad language and references to rape, violence and racial injustice in the book, and might want to screen it before sharing the story with younger or more sensitive readers.
To Kill a Mockingbird is on classic reading lists for good reason. Harper Lee was honored with a Pulitzer Prize in 1961. The story boasts some outstanding depictions of life in the 1930s in the deep South. The tone moves from childish joy and innocence to dark and almost frightening depictions of the town’s racism during the trial. It’s truly a masterful work of art.
You can read To Kill a Mockingbird online for free at Goodreads.com.
You’ll find a few outstanding study guides and question sets for To Kill a Mockingbird at the following websites:
And as always, you’re welcome to sign up for the Book Report Workshop for $5.00. This self-paced online class will guide your student through the process of writing an outstanding book report, and may be just the ticket to boost those English grades in middle school and high school.
Posted by SFleming on
May 20, 2010
How is your child’s reading? Are you sure that he or she is reading as well as needed for grade placement? Too many parents assume that reading skills are developing normally, only to find out that skills are far below grade level when the grades start to drop. Now is a great time to make sure your student is reading as expected. Here are some warning signs that shouldn’t be ignored:
- Reluctance to Read: Reading is generally a fun activity for children and youth. If your student protests picking up books on a regular basis, this should set off your warning bells.
- Slow Silent Reading Pace: Silent reading should be faster than oral reading. If your child seems to be lagging when reading silently, it’s time to check reading skills. Think about how long it takes your student to read a book for a book report, or the length of time required to complete content reading assignments.
- Avoidance Behaviors: Does your child complain of headaches whenever asked to read? How about putting required reading off until the last possible moment? These can be signs of a reading problem.
- Poor Test Scores: Children with reading problems often do well on homework scores but fail tests miserably. This can be due to having ready help with reading directions and problems on homework assignments that is not available in test situations. Some children even convince their parents to study with them orally and families become very confused when the test scores don’t seem to match the effort put into studying.
- Difficulty with Written Expression: Reading and writing are so closely tied together that if your student is having trouble putting ideas into words on paper, chances are good that there are reading problems, as well.
Do any of those warning signs sound familiar? If so, there are some simple ways you can find out if your child is reading at the level expected for his or her grade placement.
- The Five-Finger Test: Choose a book that is labeled to be at your child’s grade level. Many newer fiction books have grade level designations listed. Open the book to a page in the middle with lots of words and few or no pictures. Have your child read aloud from that page. Keep track of the words that are misread, stumbled over, or hesitant. If you count five or more words on the page that are difficult, that grade level of text is likely too difficult for your reader, and you should have a teacher or reading specialist investigate further.
- Oral Reading Fluency: Choose a book at your child’s reading level. Choose a passage from the middle of the book and count the words. You’ll want a passage of around 250 words. Have your child read the passage and time his or her reading. Note how far he or she read in one minute. Use the chart below to judge if your child’s reading rate matches other students of similar age and experience.
Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) Target Rate Norms
|
Grade
|
Fall
(WCPM) |
Winter
(WCPM)
|
Spring
(WCPM)
|
|
1
2
3
4
|
30-60
50-90
70-110
|
10-30
50-80
70-100
80-120
|
30-60
70-100
80-110
100-140
|
|
5
6
7
8
|
80-120
100-140
110-150
120-160
|
100-140
110-150
120-160
130-170
|
110-15-
120-160
130-170
140-180 |
| Source: Adapted from “AIMSweb: Charting the Path to Literacy,” 2003, Edformation, Inc. Available at www.aimsweb.com/norms/reading_fluency.htm. Data are also adapted from “Curriculum-Based Oral Reading Fluency Norms for Students in Grades 2 Through 5,” by J. E. Hasbrouck and G. Tindal, 1992, Teaching Exceptional Children, 24, pp. 41-44. |
- Retelling Stories: Another sign of successful reading is the ability to retell and summarize the text. Have your child read a story and tell you what happened. See if he or she can get most of the main events in the retelling and in the right order. There should be a beginning, middle and ending to the story.
If you see signs of trouble, try the quick assessments mentioned above. If the quick assessments indicate problems, seek out a teacher, reading specialist or a tutor to do a more extensive and detailed evaluation. Don’t let your child fall further and further behind!
Posted by SFleming on
April 27, 2010
Book reports, critiques and other responses to literature are fixtures in most language arts curricula. Teachers use them to assess a student’s understanding and analysis of their reading. One key element in most of these assignments is the summary of the text, so it’s important that your student learn to summarize. Here’s one method that can help.
Start by having your student summarize smaller pieces of writing. Try a paragraph or even a single long sentence. Challenge your student to find key words in sentences, or distill the paragraph into one or two sentences that contain the most important ideas. This takes practice, so don’t be discouraged if the first attempts are off-base.
Once your student has the knack of summarizing paragraphs, you’re ready to work on a book. Read a section. This could be a paragraph, a page, or a chapter. Have your student write down a specific number of important events or bits of information learned from that assigned section. Check his or her work to see if you agree. With practice, your student will learn to restate entire books in one or two paragraphs, and summaries will almost seem to write themselves!
