Independent Reading – Building Fluency and Comprehension
To develop reading fluency, conventional students should be reading books that are at or below their reading comprehension level – as it is hard to get more fluent at reading with texts that are too difficult.
Early conventional and transitional students should have levelled readers available to them. These have a focus on high frequency words and turning them into sight words which, in turn, helps build fluency. One of the faults of levelled readers (apart from the fact that they can be a bit boring!) is that they often teach students to guess rather than decode words. This is definitely something we want to avoid – and one of the recommendations is that no student should stay on the lowest level for more than 2 months. Keep that in mind – it should override any other consideration.
Decodable readers are also growing in popularity. Decodable readers are designed for a student to implement the skills that they are learning in their phonics program and are often based around a word family. Additionally, the student cannot usually guess the print from the picture. One of the downsides of decodable readers is that they frequently don’t have a lot of meaning or a storyline. This can have a negative impact on student writing, but it can also be very confusing for students who are hyperlexic. These students may already read without meaning, and also often have excellent decoding skills, and decodable readers can be confusing for them as we try to teach them that print always has meaning. These should also be included in the range of materials available to developing readers, but would be good to avoid for students with hyperlexia.
And, most importantly, readers should never be the only reading materials available to any student as we also want to use this area to show them how exciting books are to inspire them to read. You can also have books available that they can read for enjoyment with an adult, and any books that are in their areas of interest, that are also at an appropriate level.
Finding Books At or Below Their Reading Comprehension Level
You can use the Cloze Assessment for Reading Level to determine the appropriate reading comprehension level for each student.
Once you have determined each student’s reading comprehension level using Cloze with Reading A-Z Texts, then you can use the chart below to find other appropriate texts.
The sheet below was developed to assist teachers with organising, planning and implementing Self-Selected Reading.
Minecraft Readers
I have written some Minecraft themed Readers for students at a Foundation reading level. There are twelve at Early Foundation and twelve at Late Foundation. I know that finding Foundation level readers that are interesting to our students can be a challenge – and I hope these help with some students.
Independent Reading – Other Resources
Self-Selected Reading in our Classrooms Overview Sheet
- Self-Selected Reading in our Classrooms Overview Sheet (updated October 2020)
Self-Selected Reading Classroom Evaluation Form
- Self-Selected Reading Classroom Evaluation Form printable
- Self-Selected Reading Classroom Evaluation Form electronic fillable
Blog posts on Independent Reading from Jane Farrall