You Want Me To Do What To My _______________? (Fill in the blank with educational material) Learning to Lexile and Why it is Important to You and Your Students.

All Educators Are Reading Teachers You play an integral role in students development in reading. Reading is the cornerstone of all school-based learning… …yet reading failure is pervasive (Diamond, L., Gutlohn, L. & Honig, B., 2000, p. 1.2).

A National Reading Crisis Risks for reading failures without proper instruction. Poverty Phonological processing difficulties Language barriers Parents low-reading ability Biological or psychological learning deficits 47% of adults in the U.S. are illiterate or can only perform simple literacy tasks (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1993).

A National Reading Crisis

Reading Gap What is the Reading Gap? Difference between the target level of reading proficiency, which should be possible for students to achieve, and the actual level of reading proficiency (p. 1.4). Reading Gap Factors Happens in the classroom Use research based teaching methods Assisting low level readers Creating an environment conducive for learning with support. Factors which cannot be controlled Home life Socioeconomic level English as the primary language in the home

Reading Failure is Preventable Enough is known [converging research] about how students learn to read to prevent most reading difficulties from starting as well as to help those who are already experiencing problems (p. 1.6). Balanced instruction is needed for prevention of reading failure. Phonemic awareness/ phonics Literature Writing SIOP Model Content and Language Objectives. Speaking, Listening, Reading, and Writing

Teachers Challenge Challenge to meet: bringing all students to a higher level of literacy. Challenge to overcome: bringing disadvantaged, vulnerable, reluctant, and learning-impaired students to higher levels of literacy. HOW DO I BEGIN?!

Understanding Your Students Educators have to know the students they are serving. What diverse learners are in your class? What reading levels are your students at? What resources are available to help meet the needs of the students in your class?

Lets Start At The Very Beginning. What is Lexile? Three Key Concepts Reader Ability –the cognitive set students use to construct meaning from text as measured on tests Text Readability –the difficulty of reading materials based on dimensions or characteristics of the text Forecasted Comprehension Rate –the construction of meaning from local text (Smeade, S. 2008, ppt.)

Determining text difficulty Syntactic Complexity the number of words per sentence longer sentences are more complex and require more short-term memory to process Semantic Difficulty the frequency of the words in a corpus of written text corpus has over 500-million words (Smeade, S. 2008, ppt.)

How long would you keep reading? (Smeade, S. 2008, ppt.)

Relationship between Time Spent Reading and Reading Achievement Percentile Rank Minutes of Text Reading per Day Estimated Number of Words Read per Year ,733,000 2,357,000 1,168, , ,000 51,000 from Anderson et al., 1988, Table 3, N = 155. Fifth-Grade Students (Smeade, S. 2008, ppt.)

Reading in the Workplace (Smeade, S. 2008, ppt.)

Lets Lexile Look at the difference between the Lexiled documents. How do we read the Lexile Map? I will walk you through how to Lexile a document. We will Lexile the School Mission Statement. Now Lexile your piece of educational material. Does it read at you students ability levels? All documents are available at the district website.

The Challenge Bringing all students to higher levels of literacy is the challenge teachers must meet; brining disadvantaged, vulnerable, reluctant, and learning- impaired students to higher levels of literacy is the challenge teachers must overcome (Diamond et. al, 2000, p. 1.12).

Assess Student Needs Know your students and their abilities. Know your curriculum and supplemental materials. Adapt materials readability to meet the needs of your students Strive to engage students further in advancing their reading ability. BE ACTIVE IN TEACHING READING!!!

References Diamond, L., Honig, B., &Gutlohn, L., (2000). Teaching reading sourcebook. Novato, CA: Arena Press. Smeade, S. (2006). Lexiles Powerpoint. Retrieved March 26, 2008, from Idaho Falls District 91: Curriculum resources Web site: %20Resources/Lexiles/