Reading train - Improve your reading skills

How do teachers apply the reading process in a basal reading program?

Public Comments

1. First, check out the sequence of reading skills. Do they follow the correct sequence? If not, teach the stories in order of the proper skill sequence. Next, with each story or unit, you'll want to introduce a reading strategy (making predictions, re-reading, cloze vocabulary, etc.) and use just that strategy X number of times with X number of stories before introducing the next strategy. For each individual story, you will need to introduce the story by preteaching the vocabulary and providing a mechanism for students to build background knowledge or make connections to the story's topic or theme (I like KWLs for nonfiction and 3-minute prompts for fiction). I like guided reading for basals, so I would use the questions in the text to prompt discussions at critical points in the story. Following the story, I would require students to write written responses to the text or another connected writing assignment. Finally, I would provide direct, explicit instruction on the related skill (i.e., main idea or plot or whichever one we're working on). I would follow this by group, then individual practice. My experience is that one story in the basal, with all of it's introductions, strategy practice, reading and discussion, and skill instruction and practice takes about one week, depending on the amount of time you have per day for reading.