Reading Is Our Business

How You Can Foster Reading Comprehension & Engagement

The Community Located in the southwest section of Baltimore

County Sixty-one percent of the school’s total enrollment

qualify for free or reduced lunch Minority population of 23.3% Thirty-four percent of our parents had their first

child when they were teenagers. Sixty-one percent of our kindergarten students do

not have someone to read to and with them at home

What was our central issue? Our students’ decoding skills were increasing,

but their comprehension of and engagement with books was not.

Root Causes: Low literacy rates among parents Lack of reading models and materials Gap in vocabulary development Poor nutrition Poor health care

What was our solution? Research conducted by Pearson et al. (1992)

revealed that proficient readers consistently use the following strategies to construct meaning: connecting, questioning, inferring, determining important ideas, synthesizing, repairing faulty comprehension, and monitoring the adequacy of their

understanding.

Gradual Release of Responsibility

What does it look and sound like?

4. Application 1. Independent Practice

2. Guided Practice1. Demonstration

3. You do; I help.4. You do; I watch.

1. I do; you watch. 2. I do; you help.

Must Read Bibliography: Harvey, Stephanie and Anne Goudvis. 2000.

Strategies that Work. Markham, Ontario: Pembroke Publishers Limited.

Miller, Debbie. 2002. Reading with Meaning: Teaching Comprehension in the Primary Grades. New York: Stenhouse Publishing.

Pearson, P. David, J.A. Dole, G. G. Duffy, and L. R. Roehler. 1992. “Developing Expertise in Reading Comprehension: What Should Be Taught and How Should It Be Taught?” in What Research Has to Say to the Teacher of Reading, ed. J. Farstup and S. J. Samuels, 2nd ed. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.