Choral reading: The entire class, along with the teacher, read out loud together. This strategy serves a number of different purposes. First, it helps take the stigma away from struggling readers. Second, it gives you the opportunity to model correct pronunciations for the students that is not combative or anxiety inducing. Third, all students are engaged at the same time, which is a lofty goal for any teacher.
Partner up: Have your students pair up and share the reading, each taking turns reading a certain amount of text out loud. This is a little more difficult for you to manage and monitor than the whole class reading, but it can help students get a chance to read out loud in a less stressful situation.
Heterogeneous pairing: This is the same as the previous strategy except that you intentionally partner struggling readers with readers who are excelling. The idea is that the excelling student can help the struggling reader bridge the gap. Critics note that this strategy does not really help the strong student very much, as slowing down to adjust for their partners might work against them.
Teacher modeling: The teacher reads aloud to the class to model pronunciation and fluency. This can be an effective strategy because it helps the students see how the piece should be read as they follow along, but make sure you are closely monitoring for engagement, as it is a type of lesson where it is easy for students to be inattentive.
Echoing: This is similar to the previous strategy except the students echo back whatever the teacher reads, trying to match the pronunciation, inflection, and emotion. This can be a great way to model for students while still holding them accountable in the classroom.
Reading buddy: Students prepare individually, each with a unique text, and then read their piece to a buddy, trying their best to read it with no mistakes. Peers can offer critiques and suggestions, and you can monitor many students at once.
Tape recorder: Students read into a tape recorder and play it back to themselves as they follow along with the text. There are many different things you can do with this, such as having the students try to get the perfect recording and then turn it in or have the students swap recordings with a partner. This is a great way for your students to get an idea of what they sound like, where they are struggling, and where they are excelling. This is also a great way to help students get used to self-correcting.
No comments:
Post a Comment