Creating Critical Readers: Developing Vocabulary, Fluency, and Comprehension

In this ongoing course, students will practice grade-level comprehension skills. Each week will focus on a passage taken from Readworks. The class will dive into vocabulary, work on fluency by practice one section multiple times, and then developing comprehension skills. Comprehension skills will be practiced through answering questions, drawing pictures, and playing games. Comprehension skills include retelling the story, identifying the details and main idea, making connections, and using text evidence.

The class will be laid out as follows:
1. Each meeting will begin with a quick get to know you activity.
2. The students will learn 2-3 oral vocabulary words from the passage. Students will identify the syllables, synonyms, and meaning. They will also practice using the word by answering a targeted question.
3. The teacher will choose one section of the passage to help develop fluency. The group will practice reading this sentence or group of sentences multiple times. When this part of the passage is read aloud, students will help the teacher read.
4. Next, the teacher will read the passage as students follow along.
5. The group will complete comprehension activities to dive deeper into the passage. This will include surface-level questions such as identifying characters. The class will also explore deeper comprehension skills like making inferences or using text evidence. 

The class passages will focus on the following topics and are taken with permission from Readworks:
1/3: What is a rainbow?
1/10: Ballet
1/17: Penguins
1/24: Learning about Earth
1/31: Animals of the Arctic