1.2 | Reading

"What I know for sure is that reading opens you up. It exposes you and gives you access to anything your mind can hold. It gives you the ability to reach higher ground and keep climbing." - Oprah Winfrey

A student's ability to read can determine future academic success. Reading is necessary for students to comprehend the curriculum and build their communication skills. Reading is also a basic building block that should be practiced throughout a child's education. While the English Language Arts program has reading time built into the curriculum, it is the expectation in the Richmond County School System that students in all grade levels and all content areas spend time reading independently. The information on this page will provide guidance for teachers with improving students' reading skills through whole group lessons and independent work.

Recommended Minutes for Reading
How many minutes are recommended for independent reading time? Research suggests that students need 15-30 minutes of independent reading across all grade levels each day. For departmentalized grade levels, incorporating 5-10 minutes of independent or subject area reading during the school day could have a significant impact. Students who read 30+ minutes each day encounter a larger number of words, thereby increasing their vocabulary. When students read more, they are exposed to more words. As a result, they tend to learn more words from reading than from direct instruction. A larger vocabulary will increase comprehension.

Picture showing the vocabulary increase with time spent reading.
Daily Reading Practice and the Magic of 15 Minutes Links to an external site.

RCSS Cross-Curricular Reading Expectations

Students will read content material in class for at least 5-10 minutes per subject each day.
Student reading activities will cause students to think critically about grade level standards and content.
Students will know their Lexile levels and will self-select independent reading materials accordingly. Students should read 15-30 minutes of self-selected, independent reading at school or home each day.
Schools will intentionally and purposefully support at least one reading campaign each year. Examples include book clubs, Book It Programs Links to an external site., Richmond Reads Links to an external site., Augusta-Richmond County Public Library's Summer Reading Program Links to an external site., and other reading challenges.

Daily reading practice is a priority for all students across all grade levels and all content areas. The best time to set reading expectations for your students is the beginning of the school year. You will need to set expectations, model for your students, give your students time to read continuously, and hold your students accountable for their independent reading.

Ideas for Self-Directed, Independent Reading

Fostering self-directed independent reading in older students may prove to be challenging. Work with your school media specialist to create school-wide reading campaigns or book clubs. Allowing students to read books of their choice for pleasure during designated independent reading times will help motivate reluctant readers.

Match students to texts using their Lexile Links to an external site. scores. Student Lexile scores can be found in iReady, MAP and GMAS data. When students select texts 100L below to 50L above their reported Lexile level, they are reading within their comprehension "sweet spot" and should be able to comprehend the material independently while also growing their reading levels. Selecting texts below their Lexile bands may not move your students to higher levels, but it may encourage reluctant readers to get engaged. Selecting texts above their Lexile bands may lead to frustration unless you can provide scaffolded support. Don't forget, your media specialist is a great collaboration resource!

Dr. Kenneth Bradshaw, Superintendent of Richmond County Schools, reads aloud to students at Tobacco Road Elementary.

Read Alouds

Reading aloud to students has powerful benefits for students of all ages. It is one of the best ways to motivate readers and connect with your students. "When devoting just five to seven minutes a day to [reading aloud to students], you will marvel at how easy it is to motivate the most reluctant of readers to embrace literacy again" (Campbell, 2021).

Trelease (2019) stated, we read to children for all the same reasons we talk with children: to reassure, to entertain, to bond, to inform or explain, to arouse curiosity, and to inspire. But in reading aloud we also:

build vocabulary
condition the child’s brain to associate reading with pleasure
create background knowledge
provide a reading role model
plant the desire to read

Before - During - After Reading Strategies

Best practice research shows that before, during, and after reading strategies increase student motivation and help students with comprehension. This scaffolded approach will allow students who struggle with reading to access grade-level texts with your support.

Click on the arrow below to review strategies you can use to support reading. These strategies can be used whole group or modeled first to be used with independent reading.

Before Reading Activity - influence student motivation, increase the activation of prior knowledge and increase comprehension.

Anticipation Guide - Before reading, students listen to or read several statements about key concepts presented in the text. They're often structured as a series of statements with which the students can choose to agree or disagree. Anticipation guides stimulate students' interest in a topic and set a purpose for reading.
Concept Sort - A concept sort is a vocabulary and comprehension strategy used to familiarize students with the vocabulary of a new topic or book. Teachers provide students with a list of terms or concepts from reading material. Students place words into different categories based on each word's meaning. Categories can be defined by the teacher or by the students.
Think-Pair-Share - Think-pair-share (TPS) is a collaborative learning strategy where students work together to solve a problem or answer a question about an assigned reading. This strategy requires students to (1) think individually about a topic or answer to a question; and (2) share ideas with classmates. Discussing with a partner maximizes participation, focuses attention, and engages students in comprehending the reading material.

During Reading Activity - help students make connections, monitor their understanding, generate questions, and stay focused.

Concept Maps: A concept map is a visual organizer that can enrich students' understanding of a new concept. Using a graphic organizer, students think about the concept in several ways. Most concept map organizers engage students in answering questions such as, "What is it? What is it like? What are some examples?" Concept maps deepen understanding and comprehension.
Inquiry Chart - The Inquiry Chart (I-chart) is a strategy that enables students to gather information about a topic from several sources. Teachers design the I-chart around several questions about a topic. Students read or listen to several sources on the topic and record answers to the posed questions within the I-chart. Students generate a summary in the final row. Different answers from various perspectives can be explored as a class.
Text Tagging With Sticky Notes: A student-friendly way to quickly jot a thought based on the thinking job and place the note in the section of text where the thought occurred.

After Reading Activity - provide students an opportunity to summarize, question, reflect, discuss, and respond to text.

Jigsaw - Jigsaw is a cooperative learning strategy that enables each student of a "home" group to specialize in one aspect of a topic (for example, one group studies habitats of rainforest animals, another group studies predators of rainforest animals).
Literature Circles - This is a small group of students that gathers to discuss a book in depth. The discussion is guided by students' responses to what they have read. You may hear talk of events and characters in the book, the author's craft, or personal experiences related to the story. They are quite popular because they are incredibly effective.
Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) Comprehension - The question-answer relationship (QAR) comprehension strategy teaches students how to ask key questions about their reading, and then how to find the answers to their questions — whether it means locating a specific fact, drawing an inference, or connecting the reading to their own experience.

These strategies and others can be found in the Additional Resources links below.

Strategy Spotlight: Anticipation Guide

Teachers play a very important role in supporting the independent reading of students. A reading plan with a variety of strategies that promote independent reading is necessary to creating students who are lifelong readers.

An anticipation guide asks students to make predictions before reading a texts. Students are asked to "Agree" or "Disagree" with a series of selected statements that are meant to activiate prior knowledge and prompt predictions. While reading, the teacher will ask questions connected to the anticipation guide. After reading, students can revisit their original predictions and make connections to their previous beliefs.

Watch one of the three video samples below:

- Secondary Science Example Links to an external site. (Supporting Resources Links to an external site.)
- Elementary ELA Example Links to an external site. (Supporting Resources Links to an external site.)
- Reading Strategies with Ms. Shikara Willis Links to an external site., In this video, Shikara Willis, C.T. Walker teacher and Richmond County Teacher of the Year 2022-2023, implements the Anticipation Guide reading strategy to pique her students' interest in their upcoming reading lesson learning about main idea and supporting details. You will see her ask questions to activate prior knowledge and you will hear students' responses making real-world connections .

Reflection

Think about the reading strategies shared above and explore those listed in the Additional Resources below. Select a strategy you would like to use and consider how you would implement this strategy in a lesson. Talk with a colleague about your plan.

Additional Resources

6 Research-Backed Elementary Reading Strategies that Really Work Links to an external site. - Strategies like choral reading and ear reading improve students’ reading fluency, expand their vocabulary, and increase their confidence.
Edutopia: Early Literacy Strategies that Work Links to an external site. - A teacher shares her approach to teaching reading using research based insights.
Reading Rockets: Classroom Strategies Links to an external site. - A library of effective, research-based classroom strategies to help strengthen your students’ skills in phonological awareness, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing.
Reading and Literature Resources Links to an external site. - Printable activities and lesson plans.
The Benefits of Read Alouds Across Grade Levels Links to an external site. - article
Augusta-Richmond County Public Library PLAY Card Links to an external site. (free to all RCSS students)

References

Campbell, Linda. “How Read-Alouds Can Benefit Older Students.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 26 July 2021, https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-read-alouds-can-benefit-older-students/ Links to an external site..

Renaissance. “Daily Reading Practice and the Magic of 15 Minutes.” Renaissance, 31 Jan. 2023, https://www.renaissance.com/2018/01/23/blog-magic-15-minutes-reading-practice-reading-growth/ Links to an external site..