Vocabulary, Reciprocal Teaching, and “The Capture” Sections 3&4.

Over the course of our reading of “The Capture” by Kathryn Lasky we have focused a lot on vocabulary.  Vocabulary is a hugely important part of any literature unit. We have done activities with coming up with child friendly definitions and word learning strategies. This helps students to become aware of words in the text and provides a context in which they can learn them. We did activities such as making choices, which had us pick a scenario to fit the word, forms of a word, which had us write out each form of certain words, and word wizard, in which we created an entry for a word with a definition, picture, etc. These word wizard entries can be complied in a word wizard notebook. A word wizard notebook can be created to keep track of all the new words learned during a reading. Each entry includes a child-friendly definition, page and paragraph number, synonyms, any associations the students has with the word, and a picture.  Using these for vocabulary in each section of the reading helps the students to become “word wizards” with these words. You can also use word wizard cards with words from the reading. The word wizard card contains the same information, just with the word and page and paragraph number on the front of an index card, and the rest of the information on the back. When doing word wizard cards, each student is in charge of teaching his or her group a word from the reading that was assigned to them by the teacher. Both word wizard activities are a great way to help teach students vocabulary explicitly. Since explicit vocabulary instruction is important overall vocabulary instruction all these activities are good to include in a whole class novel unit.

 

Another activity we talked about using in a whole novel unit is reciprocal teaching. Reciprocal teaching is an activity where a student becomes the teacher or their small group. The teacher will help lead a discussion in his or her group on a text. The students will be practicing the comprehensions skills of predicting, questioning, summarizing, and clarifying. Each student will be given a role for each section of the text, and they will rotate these roles between the sections. The roles involve the comprehension skills and are predictor, questioner, summarizer,  and clarifier. The roles are pretty self explanatory, the predictor predicts, the questioner asks questions, and the summarizer summarizes the passage, and the clarifer clarifies any questions that need to be answered if they can. My role as a teacher would be to first model for the students what each role is and how reciprocal teaching works, and then to help them with their discussions by scaffolding and guiding when needed. I will know when it is needed because I will walk around the room and listen to each groups discussions while their going on. This is also a very useful activity for whole class novel units because it allows for not only development of comprehension skills, but also in discussion skills.

 

There are many other activities that can be done with whole novel units as well. There are some additional comprehension/discussion activities like double entry diaries. There are also many different characterization activities you can do to help students get to know the characters. In section 3 there is a character interview the students will write like they interviewed a character.  This is great because not only do they have to come up with questions, but they must answer them as the character as well. This requires them to tap into the characters personality, as do most characterization activities. Another activity from section 4 that we had to do was to create a glog wanted or missing poster for a character. This activity was very fun and also challenging. Some of the information had to be inferred because it was not directly stated in the book, but it was still very fun to do. Glogs allow for great creativity for this kind of activity; I was even able to include music with mine. The experience was a great one, and glogs are definitely something I will try to include in my future classroom.

Link to my Glog.

http://jessicalh08.edu.glogster.com/gylfie/

Breaking Down Words Into Meaning.

This article was a very interesting article. It discusses using morphology to decode meaning of words. Morphology is a process in which the student breaks down a word into its smallest units of meaning and uses the known meaning of the smaller roots to compile a meaning for the larger word. This is an important skill for students to have because it can help them break down new academic words to help them develop meaning for them. The article gave four principles for good morphology teaching. The first is teach morphology in the context of rich, explicit instruction. This means that as a teacher you will introduce new words in meaningful context and give them child friendly meaning to help them make sense of this context. I saw this in our “The Capture” vocabulary unit in that we came up a child friendly definition for the vocab words and also had other context to go with the words, like the pictures we drew for them. We also were given useful context for the words in the “making choices” section of the vocab unit, where we picked out situations from a list that applied to the vocabulary word. The second principle is to teach students to use morphology as a cognitive strategy with explicit steps. This involves modeling the actual process of morphology. Showing the students that when you don’t know a word, you can break it down and find meaning in the smaller parts. The teacher can do this by finding a word in a reading that she may know, but the students won’t, and writing on the board and breaking it down for the students to show first hand. The third principle is teach the underlying morphological knowledge needed in two ways, both explicitly and in context. This means that you will directly teach morphology by showing students examples, letting them practice, and giving them meanings to uncommon root words, and you will take words from their context and show morphology practices with those words as well. This is an important balance of giving knowledge, and modeling it as well. The fourth principle is for students with developed knowledge of Spanish, teach morphology in relation to cognate instruction. This means that you will show students with knowledge of Spanish that they can take Spanish words they know and apply them to find meaning for a new English word.  This is because the languages have many similarities. Words like informacion can help a student learn what information means. If they can use this strategy effectively it will help them be able to develop meaning for many English words.

Another connection to our “The Capture” vocabulary assignment is that we had to look at the e vocabulary words and other forms of the vocabulary words. We showed the noun, verb, adjective, and adverb forms to help us see that the word can change form. The article states that “knowing what a word means is not only knowing its literal definition, but also knowing its relationship to other words, its connotations in different contexts, and its power of transformation into various other forms.” We also found relationships to other words for the vocabulary words, like the article says to do to develop meaning. We did this by finding synonyms and antonyms for each word. It is evident by the connections to our assignment that I made in this post that we were practicing good morphology skills and developing deeper meanings for words.  I enjoyed this article as well, and hope to be able to model vocabulary assignments off of the one we did for “The Capture.”

Internet Workshops

Internet workshops are an activity where students are allowed to go through websites the teacher gives them to think about and gather information on a subject. After reading the article I can see that these are a tool that can be used for so many areas of learning. Internet workshops lend themselves to to be used in Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, and possibly even Math. You could research information about an author, a certain animal, a major event in history, or even fractions. If you ask the right kind of critical thinking questions, and not just cut and dry fact questions, your students will be able to think about the information from the internet resources deeply. They can take these thoughts and come together in a class discussion that will allow them to bounce ideas off of their fellow students. For example, they can discuss effects of early interactions with Indians on colonial life in America based on information they find on the internet resources you give them. Using internet workshops can also help children compare information on different websites. The open-ended discussion format allows them to interpret and choose what information they share in a discussion from the websites. Students will use critical literacy skills to gather the information from the webistes. The will synthesize the information they find to share with the class. To do this they will read critically, evaluate information, and form their own opinions to share in discussions.  This will help their motivation and deepens their understandings of subjects because they are required to think about and share something in a discussion on a topic. Because of the critical thinking aspect, internet workshops can be used for practice with critical thinking skills. This is a great added benefit to using these workshops, not only do you have students develop a deep understanding of a subjects, but they are also using their critical thinking skills.

Another great use for internet workshops are teaching students how to use the internet wisely. Students learn how to judge information on one site compared to information on another. They will be able to use this to search for finding sites later in their schooling that have researched and credible information on them. This is a skill they can even use when everyday internet searching for information. The internet has so much information, it can be hard to sort through and the skills they take away from internet workshops will help them to better sort through the information. Also, internet workshops can help students learn the basics of internet browsers. They will learn about the back, forward, refresh, load, etc. buttons, and how to use them. They will learn skills that will help them navigate websites as well, not only with learning what to click, but how to find the information they need from the website. I’ve always felt internet education is a very important thing. The internet is so ingrained in our lives today, and it can be a very dangerous place when your not sure what your doing with it. By teaching our students internet skills, they will be able to track down realiable information on the internet when they need it, and will learn to use it wisely.

I thought the Owl workshop was very interesting. I love owls very much for starters, and I was able to learn more about barn owls. I liked that we were encouraged to find the information using various sites, and not just one. Although, I was limited, because two of the informational sites given would not open for me, so I had to use one site for most of the questions. Had I been able to open these sites though, I would have looked at all of them and complied information on the different topics we had to look up. Knowing what I know about the internet, I would have found varying information on the different sites, and probably would have learned a lot more having those two extra sites to look at. I did enjoy the process though, and had fun learning about barn owls.

The article and owl workshop also helped me to learn more about child friendly sites. It opened my eyes to more criteria that I had never really though about. I, for some reason, had never really thought about taking reading level into account. I’m not sure why, and I feel horrible saying it, but now I know it is a major factor I need to look at when looking for websites. I had never thought about social bookmarking or giving introductions to websites either. I can see that this would be very helpful introducing new informational sites to students though, because it may allow them to find the information they need faster, and will give them information to judge what sites they choose to look at. I’m glad this article included search engines that I can use to help me find these sites in my future teaching career as well, I know I will find these very helpful. I hope to one day use what I learned from the article and workshop to do my own internet workshop with my class.

Barn Owl Workshop

1. Tyto alba

2. Barn owls can range in size from 12.5-15 .5 inches long with wingspans from 42-43 inches and weighing about 15.5-20 ounces. Females are typically slightly bigger than the males, but they are still relatively the same size. Upperparts of the owl are typically light grey with many dark spots and a few pale spots on the feathers. Underparts are typically white, sometimes with black spots. The have few feathers on their legs. They have a heart shaped facial disc, which is white with a brown edge and brown marks at the front of their eyes. They have off white beaks and yellow-white to brownish feet. Females and young barn owls tend to be more heavily spotted. Instead of hooting, barn owls mainly screech to communicate vocally, but they do not use it frequently.

3. Barn owls can be found in many different environments, but prefer open woodland areas versus forests. The stay during the day in places like tree hollows, caves, wells, and thick foliage. They are nocturnal, so they sleep in these places during the day. Sometimes you can see them out at dusk or dawn though.

4. The barn owl’s facial disk gathers sound, and its ears a located near its eyes. Using its ears it can hear small mammals on the ground, so that it swoop down and get them. Its soft feathers and light body allow for near silent flight so that it can sneak up on its prey. It also has very long legs so they can dive into tall grass to catch their prey. Their eyesight also allows them to see that small prey at night when it is very dark since that is when they hunt. Their color also allows them to be camouflaged over the mostly brown grasslands they hunt over.

5. Barn owls eat mainly small mammals like mice, voles, and shrews. Sometimes they eat things like insects, frogs, bats, and lizards. Their prey is mostly found by watching and listening to the ground from a perch in open grasslands.

6. When barn owls are flying they can use one ear to hear whats above them and other to hear whats under them. They sallow their pray whole, and the indigestible parts are regurgitated in pellet form. Even though they have great eye sight they still mainly depend on their hearing.

7. Barn owls reproduce at any point in the year, depending on food supply. Males will circle around the nest tree making calls for the female. The female will lay 3-6 eggs in 2 day intervals. The eggs are incubated for 30-34 days. Young barn owls are fledged after about 50-55 days, but stay near the nest to learn hunting skills. After about a week they leave the nest, and at 10 weeks old they can start the cycle again by reproducing. Barn owls typically live 1-2 years in the wild, but have lived up to 17 years in the wild.

8. I learned that their lifespans can vary largely and I wonder why there is sometimes such a gap? I learned that they eat 1,460 small mammals a year, that a lot if you ask me. I learned that unlike a lot of birds, barn owls can be found almost anywhere on earth. The coolest thing I think I learned was that the shape of their face helps their hearing.

Double Diary Entries

1. “The way things are,” his father preached, “is not that way they will always have to be. In the next world, people of all colors will live together and respect each other.” Martin didn’t want to wait for the next world, but he couldn’t stay angry. (Page 6)

I can see a change happening here. Martin doesn’ t want to wait for the next world, which I think means heaven, he wants people of all colors to live together and respect each other now. I can’t blame him, I want that too. I wonder if he will do anything about it. I think he will.

2. That winter a colored woman refused to stand and move to the back of the bus so that a white man could sit down. She was arrested and sent to jail. “The time has come for action,” Martin told his congregation. “Don’t ride the buses until we can sit wherever we please.” (Page 10)

I was right, Martin didn’t want to wait for everyone to respect each other. He is calling to action the people of his church to protest the unfair treatment of African Americans. I wonder if he will succeed, I sure hope he does.

 

3. For ten years, Martin marched all over the country, speaking out for civil rights. The Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups jeered and spat at him, but he kept marching. Mayors and governors and judges tried to stop him from helped Negros to vote, but he kept marching. Sometimes Martin was discouraged, but he kept marching. (Page 14)

It looks like it will be a hard fight for Martin and his followers who support civil rights. Its sad to me that so many were unwilling to to let African Americans be their equals. As Martins mom said, we are all as good as anybody. This is a statement I live by, no one is better than me, and I am better than no one. We are all equal.

4.  ”Decent people know that prejudice is wrong,” he said, “but many are too frighted to speak out.” (Page 15)

As I said before, no one is better than me, and I am better than no one. I believe that prejudice is wrong, and I think that any person should feel the same way. Why would someone think that treating another human being poorly is right? I like to think I would have stepped up to help if I was alive during the civil rights movement. Martin is right though, it is frighting to speak out against what a majority believes. It is important we find the courage to do so though, like Martin did.

5. “No Jews allowed in Germany,” a policeman yelled. “Go back to where you came from. You have one hour to leave.” (Page 23)

I have heard of this event before. It is called the Holocaust. It was another instance of a group of people being discriminated against. It is amazing to me how this horrible events can happen all over world to anyone. I hope that in the future we can rid the world of prejudice and live peacefully together, so that these events don’t happen anymore.

Links

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/civil1.htm

http://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/?page_id=79

http://www.neok12.com/Civil-Rights-Movement.htm

http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Civil-Rights-Movement.aspx

Shared Readings

The article was very interesting in to me. I expected something similar to text talk lessons that I learned about in RE 3030. Text talk lessons are when a teacher is reading aloud and asks comprehension questions, and points out vocabulary words. These lessons would ask simple comprehension questions because the lessons are meant for beginning readers. Shared reading turned out to be more of a modeling experience with comprehension skills and learning new vocabulary. The also add in modeling how to use text features and structure to help with understanding when appropriate. We can’t expect students to know how to use comprehension skills, learn new vocabulary words from text, or use text features and structure automatically, nor can we expect them to use them to guide their thinking when reading. Since Shared Readings model these practices and show how a fluent reader should think while they read, they are great to show kids how to use many strategies to guide their understanding. The teacher acts as the fluent model and stops periodically to share his or her thoughts on the text. The students use this model to help them use the same practices the teacher uses while reading, while they read. Shared readings are very beneficial to the students because without the model the teacher provides, the students will struggle to use comprehension skills, learn new vocabulary from texts, and use text features and structures to guide their understanding. I personally don’t recall ever seeing anything like these shared readings in the classrooms in which I was a student. I hope that more teachers now are using them, and I myself plan to use them in my future classroom.

We also read two children’s stories about the civil right movement/era. The first one, “As Good As Anybody,” was shockingly truthful to me for a children’s book. It showed direct examples of hate, like the bus driver yelling at Martian to get out of his seat. It also addresses the hate groups like the KKK. While it does not explain in detail about the horrid hate crimes they performed, it does mention them spitting and jeering at the supporters of civil rights during protests. It also mentioned briefly the killings of the Holocaust. I’m not saying children shouldn’t know or can’t understand at least some of these things that went on. It was just shocking for me to think about exposing this type of thing to an elementary student in school. It is important for them to know and understand these events though, because hopefully by exposing them to this, they will learn to be accepting of people different than themselves. These are things I would hit on during a shared reading for this book, that the hate you can see saddens me. Also that I feel that everyone should be treated equally, and that I cannot understand way people would hate a group of people so much. I also thought it was interesting that the Holocaust was tied in with our civil rights movement. With this fact, I would hit on the fact that hate can happen anywhere, anytime, to anyone, and that this too saddens me. I would maybe bring in another instance of hate crimes from another area of the world, like apartheid in South Africa, that has only recently ended.

The next book, “Freedom Summer,” was much more of a positive twist on a negative event. I enjoyed this book, and below I have developed a full shared reading plan for it.

Page 2. “I see here from the picture that John Henry, the narrators best friend, is black and the narrator is white. With what I know about the civil rights movement, people may not approve of this, in the story. Do you agree?”

Page 5: “I see the word dam here. It says that they dam the creek to make a swimming hole. If I were to make a swimming hole from a creek, I would block it off so all the water flows to one place to make a larger area to swim in. I’m going to read it again with the word block. So we block the creek with rocks and sticks to make a swimming spot. That seems to work, do you agree?”

Page 7: “It seems to me that John Henry and the narrator see them selves as equals since they both want to be fire fighters. They also acknowledge that they are different, but don’t think much of it. It only briefly talks about their skin color and adds in that they smell different too. Everyone smells different, just like some people are white and some are black, and some are different colors still. People don’t judge you on the way they smell, so why should they judge you on the way your skin looks?”

Page 10: “I wonder why John Henry and the Narrator can get along so well, while the rest of the world wants them to be separate. Why do other people look at John Henry differently because of his skin?”

Page 13: “Maybe the world is starting to see what John Henry and the Narrator see, that they aren’t so different after all.”

Page 17: “I see the word asphalt on this page. I don’t see any context clues that help to much with finding the meaning of this word, except that I know their filling the pool with it. I notice on the next page in that picture that asphalt is dark and looks almost like what roads, sidewalks, and blacktops are made of. Maybe that’s what asphalt is, the stuff they use to make roads, sidewalks, and blacktops.”

Page 19: “I see the word hunker on this page. I know that the boys were told to go home, so they wouldn’t want to be seen. I also know they’re in tall weeds, which could hide them from view. Maybe hunker means to hide. So we hide in the tall weeds…. That seems to work. I also see that the job of filling in the pool has made Will Rogers angry. I wonder why that is?”

Page 21: “Ahh, it makes sense why Will Rogers was angry now. They filled in the pool because they didn’t want black people to use it, but they couldn’t legally tell them they couldn’t. So they had to not let anyone use the pool by just closing it down, and filling it in.

Page 23: “I wouldn’t know what to say to John Henry either. It hurts my feelings very badly when someone doesn’t want me to play with them. John Henry isn’t wanted anywhere it seems like, that must hurt his feelings even worse then mine when someone tells me I can’t play. I would also want to do everything with my best friend too, but the narrator can’t because people don’t want John Henry around because he is black. This just doesn’t seem nice at all to me, they should let John Henry join in. Do you agree?”

Page 27: “I’m very glad that not everyone wants to exclude John Henry from doing things. Can you imagine not being able to by your own icy pop because you aren’t allowed in the store? I can’t. The people in the book “As Good As Anybody” that we read worked very hard and suffered a lot so that John Henry could buy his icy pop. I know this because of what I read in “As Good As Anybody” about people getting spit on and pushed around because they stood up for civil rights. I’m glad those people did what they did though, so that everyone, no matter who you are, can be friends, and can do everything together.

Read Aloud

For my Read Aloud assignment I read “Big Chickens Fly the Coop.” Overall I feel the read aloud went pretty well for one of my first times reading aloud to a class. At the beginning I was a little nervous, even though I practiced the night before and that morning before school. I felt good once I started reading the story though, I realized that knowing the story was not going to be an issue since I practiced. I had even planned a few small questions throughout the book, and those went as planned when asked. This was a great story to read out loud. It had lots of rhyming descriptive words during different parts of the story. The students seemed to like the rhyming words a lot, and they laughed during several different parts. I tried my best to enunciate and change my voice where appropriate in the story, and I think the students really liked this too. There was one student though, that interpreted me quite a few times. I was unsure if I should interrupt the story for the other students to talk to the interrupting student myself, or if I should read on. I ended up just reading on, as to not ruin the experience for the other students. Eventually my cooperating teacher stepped in, and sent the interrupting student to another area of the room. When I asked her for feedback, this was advice she had for me, to work more with the management aspect of reading aloud. This was also the only part I came out of the experience feeling unsure about as well. Next time I read aloud I will be sure to practice and be prepared, as I was this time, as well as being prepared for management issues that may arise. I’m glad I had this experience and I am excited to be able to do it again when I get the chance.

Sustained Silent Reading Makeover that Transformed Readers

This article was very eye opening to me. I realized that there were some problems with the SSR program, but never thought they were this bad. In my block 1 experience the students had 20 minutes of SSR everyday. This time was used mainly to read books for AR tests though. The time was also used to conference with the teacher, or myself on the days I was there, on the book you were reading to see if you ready for the AR test. I noticed the flaws in the system when I started conferencing with students. Students would often only be able to give vague details. One student in particular would go off the pictures he could see in the book during our conference, and would describe them to me instead of the story. During SSR time I did notice most of the kids reading, so there were few fake readers, but I think it was because these AR tests were holding them accountable. Each child had an AR goal for the grading period they had to meet. I also realize that AR is not the best thing to incorporate with free reading, because then it just becomes another test the students have to take and pass. I think I noticed these things in the back of my mind when I was there, but reading this article allowed me to take that experience and realize the flaws it had.

In the article they saw the same types of things I saw. Students would fly through pages and not comprehend anything, and some would just fake read. They did tests with the students to see where they stood with fluency, engagement, and comprehension. They found that while students may be fluent, many of the students in the class were struggling with their engagement and comprehension. As it was in my block 1 experience, many students would read the book without any comprehension or engagement at all. The students in the class from the article would also read books that were too easy for them, or they would read one series or one genre. In the adjusted SSR, or R5 (relax, read, reflect, respond, and rap), the article describes, the teacher logs the “status of the class.” The teacher goes around to see what and how much the students are reading. If the teacher saw a student was making poor book choices they could have a mini conference with the student as their collecting the information for the class log to help that student pick a better book. This helps makes sure students are reading on level, and also reading a variety of books that interest them.

How do know where the student’s level is? This is where fluency testing comes in. It does not describe the testing in the article, but I have tested students reading fluency before. In block 1, and currently in block 2, we are required to administer a basic fluency test on a upper grades students. This test consists of the student reading selected passages starting at one under the grade level they are suspected to be on through the level when they reach frustration level. The teacher listens carefully and marks the students mistakes on an  instructor copy. The number of words read without mistakes is then divided by the number of words in the passage to find the students accuracy. The student is also timed for rate, or words read per minute. The number of the words in the passage  is multiplied by 60 and then divided by the number of seconds the students took to read the passage to find the students rate. Depending on grade level and time of year, there are expectations for rate that are listed on my reading assessment project in a chart. Once the assessment is done you look for the highest passage where the student scored a 95% accuracy or more and meet the rate expectations for their grade. That passage is considered the students reading level. For example if the student scored a 96% accuracy and met rate expectations on the 4th grade passage, and scored a 94% accuracy and met rate expectations on the 5th grade passage, then their reading level is 4th grade. This is valuable information to help students pick books on their level for SSR. It is possible to fluent and not comprehend, but if a student is not reading at their fluency level then they will not be able to comprehend the text, because they will be focused on decoding, not comprehension.

Another change to the SSR program that was added in the R5 program was a way to help students be accountable. Part of the R5, the rap portion, requires the students to share something about their reading with a partner, then that partner is required to share it with the class. Also, outside of SSR mini lessons on the comprehension skills were given, and the students were expected to use these in their thoughts they shared with their partner. The article states that students realized quickly they needed to put some thought into their responses and listen to their partners. So this practice of sharing thoughts helped the students be accountable not only for reading, so they had something to say, but also on the comprehension skills they were learning, so that they had thoughtful responses.

To help the students prepare to share with partners a reading log was developed. The reading log showed in the article is filled out after each SSR session and includes Title, Author, Genre, and  Response. The response section includes prompts in the heading like “I’m wondering…., I can see clear picture of….., I feel sorry for….., I really liked it when….., Can you believe….., and I made a connection too….. Each of these prompts gets students to use comprehension skills like prediction, summarization, literal comprehension, interpretation, reflection, and metacongnitive awareness. In thinking about these responses, the students can think about what they want to share with their partners. This was a particular favorite area of the article for me. I have never seen a reading log like this. The reading logs I know simply log what, and how much you read. I liked that this reading log actually had students think about what they had read too.

Four months after the class in this article implemented the R5 program the students showed results of having much higher engagement and comprehension skills then when they were originally tested. After reading this article I am very impressed with the R5 version of SSR, and I hope to use it in my classroom one day.

 

Revisions: 9/21/11

After looking at the power point Dr. Frye made and discussing it in class I have learned a few new things about SSR. For starters, I learned that the vocabulary aspect of silent reading is way more important than I realized. It is suggested that children can learn and retain 8-10 directly taught vocabulary words a week, but on average students learn 2000-3500 new words a year. Where do they pick all those words? They pick up these words while they are reading silently in many books on their level. The more books they read, the more words they learn. We also outlined some of the features of a successful SSR program. These include staff training, time to read daily, non-accountability, and follow-up activities. We also talked about using whole class novels for some SSR times. This is great because students can discuss the same book, but problematic because all students may not be able to read on the level of the book you choose. This makes it difficult for them to be able to keep up with the class, and makes it difficult for them to get anything from the text as well because they are struggling to read it. One potential way you could combat this is by letting them follow along with the text while using an audio book. This will keep them on track with the rest of the class and allow for better comprehension of the text. It is important you think about how much students are able to read in a period of time because you don’t want to assign them to much reading that they can’t complete in the time given. You can use the expected reading rate and the average number of words on a page of the book and see how many pages they should be able to complete in the time you give them. It is also very important for SSR times that readers are matched well to books. Students will need a book that’s readability matches up to their reading level. You can use readability formulas to find the readability of a text. Most will use word length, sentence length, and the number of low frequent words in a sample of a passage. You should not rely on just on formula, but several. Once the students are matched up well with their books they will be able to learn those extra vocabulary words and comprehend the text well while reading independently.