Nagel Language Arts

The framework is derived from a synthesis of practices from successful tutoring programs that met the needs of struggling upper elementary and middle school students (Lee & Neal, 1993; Morris et al., 1996; Tancock, 1994). Each program shared six instructional practices: oral reading practice, guided reading, word study, reading self-selected books independently, writing about reading, and learning and using strategies for comprehension. These practices were very successful in helping the tutored students become more proficient in their literacy learning, and they form the foundation for the pragmatic framework for classroom literacy practices (see Table 1).

Table 1 Connections Between Student Needs, Successful Tutoring Practices, and the Framework of Classroom Practices   Student Needs Tutoring Practices The Framework of Classroom Practices Fluency, word identification Oral reading practice Daily oral or shared reading Self-monitoring comprehension, integrated strategy use (word identification and comprehension strategies) Guided reading Guided reading in flexible groups Word identification, vocabulary, and spelling Word study Word study in guided reading groups Fluency, vocabulary, self-monitoring comprehension, integrated strategy use (word identification and comprehension strategies) Reading interesting, self-selected books independently Self-selected extended reading and writing Writing fluency Writing about reading Self-monitoring, comprehension, integrated strategy use Learning and using strategies for comprehension Comprehension strategy instruction

Probably the best way to use guided reading effectively, allowing students exposure to students of all literacy levels with similar interests, as well as students of similar literacy levels with varying interests, would be to use an alternating teacher-led/student-selected instructional pattern (Lewin, 1992).

Teacher read-alouds provide modeling for prosody, parsing, and pronunciation, aiding students’ conceptions of fluent oral reading. Unfortunately, the practice of reading aloud to students decreases as students reach upper elementary and middle school (Hoffman, Roser, & Battle, 1993). Teachers could plan daily time for reading aloud and include all genres in their read-aloud program including informational texts, poetry, and picture books, as well as novels (Hoffman et al., 1993; Ivey & Broaddus, 2000). Worthy (2000) found that middle students overwhelmingly suggested that more teacher read-alouds would improve their classroom reading instruction.

Students could also be given the opportunity for sharing their oral reading practice in class, but the key word here is practice. Part of what is so debilitating for struggling readers in round-robin reading (where students take turns reading short passages of a text) is that they are given no chance for rehearsal. Practice for performance gives students opportunities to reread their texts, leading to increased fluency and decreased miscues through repeated readings (Dowhower, 1989, 1994). Further, a classroom where students and teachers commonly share texts enables oral reading practice in a supportive environment, which is important for students’ growing confidence in their competence as readers. Book shares by students allow them to be the experts, sharing their expertise and interests with others, connecting themselves to the control of the classroom, and allowing their own personal self-expression, all of which are motivating experiences (Oldfather, 1993, 1995).

Student-centered oral reading activities provide students with a real purpose for reading text on their instructional reading level and allow repeated practice with a familiar text; however, these oral reading activities are only a few of those that might be incorporated into middle school classrooms. Other oral reading activities to aid the development of fluency and comprehension, to support struggling readers, to perform, and to assess students are all discussed in Good-bye Round Robin (Opitz & Rasinksi, 1998).

Reading along with taped chapters, giving a planned reading performance, rereading familiar material at the beginning of the tutoring session, and engaging in teacher read-alouds--all of these practices have been demonstrated to improve students’ fluency and confidence in their reading (Dowhower, 1989, 1994).

Book Club (McMahon, Raphael, Goatley, & Pardo, 1997; Raphael & McMahon, 1994; Raphael, Kehus, & Damphouse, 2001) is an example of one possible organizational strategy for guided reading in middle school. Book Club emphasizes social construction of meaning and metacognitive strategies while reading, as well as allowing students the opportunity for self-expression in small group and whole class contexts, all noted as important aspects of a classroom focusing on competence. Book Club and the similar instructional activity of Literature Circles (Daniels, 1994) can allow different groups of students to read varying books on individual or class-wide topics or themes (examples of text sets that might be of high interest in the middle school classroom and appeal to readers of all literacy experience appear in Table 4). In literature circles, student groups are given a selection of books with a range of instructional reading levels and are allowed to select the book they would like to read. This ability to choose books from a set has been identified by “renegade readers” as essential to their participation in classroom reading (Worthy, 1998).