Informal Reading Inventories (IRI)

It is important for teachers to get a general idea of a childs reading level and strengths and weaknesses in wrod recognition and comprehension. IRI (informal reading inventories) helps the teacher identify specific types of word recognition and comprehension difficulties.

An IRI can indicate the child's:

1. Independent reading level (level to be read "on his or her own").


2. Instuctional level (level of the material the child can read with teacher guidance).


3. Frustration level (level that thwarts or baffles).


4. Listening comprehension level (potential reading level).

References:

Roe, B. D. , Smith, S. H. & Burns, P. C. (2005) . Teaching Reading in Today's Elementary Schools ( 9th ed.) . New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Image taken from the same book (above) by screenshot.

Miscue Analysis

The reading miscue inventory (RMI) considers both the quantity and quality of miscues, or unexpected responses. The teacher can analyze the RMI for the significance of each miscue.

In studying the miscues, the teacher should check for specific items such as the following:

1. Is the miscue a result of the reader's dialect? For instance, if a reader says foe for four.


2. Does the miscue change the meaning? For instance, if the reader says dismal for dismiss.


3. Does the reader self-correct?


4. Is the reader using syntactic-clues? For instance, if the reader says run for chase.


5. Is the reader using graphic clues? For instance, dogs for dog.

References:
Roe, B. D. , Smith, S. H. & Burns, P. C. (2005) . Teaching Reading in Today's Elementary Schools ( 9th ed.) . New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

image taken from the same book (above) by screenshot

Self-Appraisal

Assessment should help students develop the ability to judge their accomplishments, to set their goals, decide how to achieve those goals, and evaluate their progress in meeting the goals. Self -Appraisal allows children to recognize areas of strenghts and weakness.

Self-questioning proceeds as follows:

1. Do i understand exactly what i am supposed to do for this assignment?


2. What i am trying to learn?


3. What do i already know about this subject that helps in understanding what i read?


4. What is the most efficient way for me to learn this material?


5. What chapters may give me problems?


6. What can i do in order to understand the hard parts?


7. After i have finished readind, have i understood what i have read?

References:
Roe, B. D. , Smith, S. H. & Burns, P. C. (2005) . Teaching Reading in Today's Elementary Schools ( 9th ed.) . New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

image taken from the same book (above) by screenshot.

DRA- Directed Reading Activity

The directed reading activity (DRA) is a teaching strategy used to extend and strengthen a child's reading abilities.

Steps to be followed:

1. Motivation and development of background (activating and building schemata). Teacher can determine whether the children have the backgrounds of experience and language needed to understand the story. (can develop new concepts if needed)
2. Directed story reading (silent and oral). It is essential before reading, that the teacher provides the children with purpose questions or help them to set their own purposes to direct their reading.
3. Strategy or skill-building activities which the teacher should provide during the lesson.
4. Follow-up practice. Children would practice the stategies and skills they have already been taught.
5. Enrichment activities. For instance: creative drama, an activity that links the reading with speaking and listening.

References:
Roe, B. D. , Smith, S. H. & Burns, P. C. (2005) . Teaching Reading in Today's Elementary Schools ( 9th ed.) . New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

DRTA- directed reading-thinking activity

The DRTA (directed reading-thinking activity) focuses on student control instead of primarily teacher guidance of the reading. It encourages children to think as they read and to make predictions and check their accuracy.

Steps to be followed:

1. Making predictions from title clues.
2. Making predictions from picture clues.
3. Reading the material.
4. Assessing the accuracy of predictions and adjusting predictions.
5. Repeating the procedure until all parts of the lesson have been covered.

References:
Roe, B. D. , Smith, S. H. & Burns, P. C. (2005) . Teaching Reading in Today's Elementary Schools ( 9th ed.) . New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Semantic Webbing and Story Mapping

Semantic webbing is a way of organizing terms into categories and showing their relationship through visual displays that can help students integrate concepts.

Steps to be followed:

1. The teacher chooses the core question, which becomes the center of the web, to which the entire web is related.
2. The students answers are web strands; facts and inferences taken from the story and students' experiences are the strand supports; and the relationship of the strands to one another are strand ties.

Story Mapping provides mental representations of story structures that can aid reading comprehension.

References:
Roe, B. D. , Smith, S. H. & Burns, P. C. (2005) . Teaching Reading in Today's Elementary Schools ( 9th ed.) . New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

K-W-L Teaching Model

K-W-L teaching model: K stands for "What i Know", the W for "What i Want to learn," and the L for "What i Learned."


Steps to be followed:

1. The K and W steps take place before reading. The teacher and the students discuss what the group already knows about the topic of the reading material.



2. Class discussion of what the students what to learn.



3. Each student writes down personal questions to be answered by the reading.



4. Students then read the material.



5. After they have finished reading, they record what they have learned from the reading.



6. If the reading did not answer all of their personal questions, students can be directed to other sources for the answers.

References:
Roe, B. D. , Smith, S. H. & Burns, P. C. (2005) . Teaching Reading in Today's Elementary Schools ( 9th ed.) . New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Image taken from the same book (above) taken by screenshot.

Retelling

Talking about reading material has shown to have a positive effect on reading comprehension. Therefore, an appropriate comprehension enhancement technique is retelling of the important aspects of the material read. Children become better storytellers, and it allows the teachers to see how well the children understand the reading selection.

Steps to be followed:

1. Students are paired with partners in this activity.
2. Students should silently read a section from a text.
3. One child retells what have been read, while the other listens.
4. Tellers and listeners alternate.

References:
Roe, B. D. , Smith, S. H. & Burns, P. C. (2005) . Teaching Reading in Today's Elementary Schools ( 9th ed.) . New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Maze Procedure

The maze procedure, a modification of the cloze procedure, requires the reader to choose from alternatives rather than to fill in a blank.

Maze tests are consrtucted as follows:

1. Teacher should select an appropriate text.
2. First and last sentence should be left intact.
3. Beginning with the second sentence, every fifth and tenth word is deleted.
4. Three alternatives are offered. One choice is the corrcet word, another is a word that is syntactically acceptable but sematically unacceptable, the final choice is both syntactically and sematically acceptable.

References:
Roe, B. D. , Smith, S. H. & Burns, P. C. (2005) . Teaching Reading in Today's Elementary Schools ( 9th ed.) . New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Cloze Procedure

The cloze procedure is an instructional strategy that can also be used as a tool to assess student comprehension.

Cloze tests are constructed as follows:

1. Select a passage of approximately 250 words that the students havn't read before.
2. Type the passage, leaving the first sentence intact and deleting every fifth word thereafter. Substitute blanks of uniform length in place of the deleted word. Then leave the last sentence intact.
3. Give the students the passage and tell them to fill in the blanks. Allow the time needed.
4. Score the test by counting as correct only the exact words that were in the original text. Determine the percentage of correct answers.

References:
Roe, B. D. , Smith, S. H. & Burns, P. C. (2005) . Teaching Reading in Today's Elementary Schools ( 9th ed.) . New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Image taken from the same book (above) by screen shot.