By: Elaine K. McEwan
Silent reading fluency for text was assessed with an experimental measure of story reading. Each individual read a grade-appropriate story in English that was rendered word-by-word on a MacBook Pro computer using a custom MatLab Psychophysics Toolbox script (Brainard, 1997). Find silent reading comprehension lesson plans and teaching resources. Quickly find that inspire student learning. Reading comprehension is key to success in nearly every subject in school, but how do you improve comprehension in a pupil with dyslexia? Here are several tips that define ways in which educators can provide strategies to. Make a commitment to SSR and stick to it. You won’t see any results if you’re inconsistent.
One way to scaffold mindful silent reading is by teaching students a set of prompts or procedures to use as they read. This type of scaffolding helps students to engage in mindful reading but gradually releases to them the responsibility for using a variety of cognitive strategies, such as activating prior knowledge and questioning the author. A sample lesson is shown below.
Another way to scaffold silent reading for comprehension is to teach six signals that indicate a need for comprehension repair. These signals function as prompts for struggling readers to help them internalize and routinize comprehension monitoring.
6 Signals
- The inner voice inside the reader's head stops its conversation with the text and only the reader's voice is heard pronouncing the words.
- The camera inside the reader's head shuts off, and the reader can no longer visualize what is happening.
- The reader's mind begins to wander, and the reader becomes aware of thinking about something far removed from the text.
- The reader cannot remember or retell what has been read.
- The reader is not getting clarifying questions answered.
- Characters are reappearing in the text and the reader doesn't recall who they are.
Source: Adapted from Heibert (2003) and Heibert and Fisher (2002).
One caveat before you are tempted to give your struggling students a handout with these six signals listed and announce that whenever these things happen, they need to refocus their attention. Struggling readers won't know what you are talking about. They hear no inner voices. They see no cameras or video recorders. Start from scratch and think aloud for students about one signal at a time. Explain very clearly what your inner voice is saying to you at various times. Tell them precisely where you zoned out and started thinking about what you were going to have for lunch. Then as you work with them in scaffolded silent reading groups, stop the reading every five minutes to talk about what their inner voices were saying when you called time. After spending a week or two with the inner-voice prompt, try the camera prompt. These will be new insights for your students and perhaps even for you as a reader.
McEwan, E.K. (2009). Teach them all to read. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
There has been much debate surrounding whether oral or silent reading is more beneficial in developing the skills and fluency of struggling readers. Here, the educators at Lexplore explain the differences between oral and silent reading techniques, what studies show regarding the benefits of each type of exercise and how a balance of both oral and silent reading may be optimal.
Oral And Silent Reading Comprehension
What are Oral Reading and Silent Reading Techniques?
Oral reading is the act of reading printed or written text aloud, and is often used by teachers to track and measure a student’s overall reading ability including reading accuracy, pronunciation, fluency, comprehension and understanding of punctuation. Oral reading can allow a teacher to directly observe a child’s reading skills, including decoding, fluency, and prosody (tone and expression). Many teachers frequently employ silent reading to build fluency. Sustained silent reading is the practice of having students read silently for a specified period of time each day. Some schools include adults in this practice, which may be known as DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time.
Reading Comprehension Multiple Choice Pdf
What Does the Literature Say About Oral vs. Silent Reading?
Educators and researchers have debated for decades about whether oral reading or silent reading is more beneficial to struggling readers. Some researchers do not favor silent reading, despite its popularity in the classroom, on the grounds that there is not enough evidence that silent reading exercises lead to improved reading achievement. However, other researchers in defense of silent reading exercises argue that there are ways to successfully implement silent reading in theclassroom to boost students’ interest in reading and improve their fluency and motivation. Support for this practice can be found in the book Revisiting Silent Reading by Elfrieda H. Hiebert and D. Ray Reutzel. Proponents of oral reading claim the practice is a sure way to improve students’ fluency, pronunciation skills and overall accuracy, while opponents argue that oral reading is not as necessary a skill as silent reading, particularly for older children.
Is A Combination of Oral and Silent Reading Practices Optimal?
A highly regarded study conducted at Arkansas State University, Comprehension and Rate: Oral vs. Silent Reading For Low Achievers, focused on the techniques of oral reading and silent reading for students who struggled with reading comprehension. The study found that, despite many professionals in the field almost exclusively favoring silent reading over oral reading, a combination of both oral and silent reading, based on the individual needs of the students, is potentially the best way to increase fluency and comprehension of struggling students. In addition, the research concluded that purposeful, intentional oral reading should be given more emphasis in elementary classrooms than it has been in the past. Ultimately this study, along with additional resources focusing on the benefits of oral and silent reading, points to the a combination of oral and silent reading as optimal. Silent reading can increase a student’s understanding of a text and motivation to read, while oral reading allows educators to track the fluency, pronunciation, accuracy and overall progress of their struggling readers.
Speak to a Lexplore Professional About Best Practices for Helping Your Struggling Readers
According to many literacy researchers and professionals, there are benefits to implementing both oral reading and silent reading exercises in your classroom to increase the proficiency of your struggling readers. The educators at Lexplore are passionate about helping struggling readers by ensuring you have the tools you need to understand each student’s reading needs. Lexplore’s state-of-the-art, eye-tracking and AI software can analyze a student’s reading level in just a few minutes and then provide you with recommendations for instruction. For more information contact the educators at Lexplore today.