In my last article I discussed how teachers can give encouragement to struggling readers. When working with struggling readers, it is important to show them success in their reading. When students see that their work is paying off, they are much more likely to continue reading and working on reading strategies. They will also feel better about themselves and have more confidence when reading.
One way to monitor and show improvement to students is to periodically carry out reading speed tests. Once a month (or whenever you feel it is appropriate) had out a passage of text to the students. The text can be from a magazine or other form of print. The text passage can be a couple of pages long. At a given signal, students are to begin reading for one minute. At the end of one minute the students stop reading and circle the last word that was read.
The students can then count how many words that they read. There is no need to count every single word. Count the words in four lines and gather an average of words per line for those four lines. Then the students can multiply that number by the number of lines that they read. This will give a good average of how many words they read overall.
After the speed passage reading is carried out, continue to work on reading skills, vocabulary, and comprehension with the class. After about a month of practice, repeat the speed reading. The students should see an increase in the number of words that they read.
This exercise can help the students and the teacher monitor the reading progress of the students. The exercise can be very fun for the children and also give them encouragement to continue reading when they see that they are making progress.
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