Help From Seasoned Tutors

Well, in general I don’t have students reread, ever.

Occasionally when they get a sentence all hashed up I have them re-start it from the beginning. If they have a read-and-answer assignment from school I have them read the whole passage once to know what it is about (our goal after all, right?) and then I point to the sections that need to be reread to get the answers. But re-reading a whole passage over and vover again — no way.
You are supposed to be modelling the reading behaviour you want the student to teach — all right, when was the last time *you* re-read the same page over and over and over again and set a timer on yourself?

In order to get sufficient repetition, we read lots and lots of stuff on the same level, but with different topics. I do this at beginning levels by using a very planned and structured series up to about Grades 1.6 or 1.8. After that we use many many short stories from old basals and/or full-length novels such as Boxcar Children, on up to popular youth novels like Hatchet or Harry Potter. Reading a whole novel with a couple of hundred words per page and several hundred pages gives all the repetition of high-frequency vocabulary needed, without the boring negativity of constant re-reading. In the very basic levels the repetiton (oodles of it) is built-in.

I have huge questions about re-reading and timing for “fluency” — to me fluency means picking up a book that you want to read, which generally means one you have not memorized to death, and reading it with pleasure and ease at a *reasonable* speed.

My students become fluent, and that includes a great increase in their speed, by *slowing down* at first. First accurate, and only then faster.

And here’s from a different perspective:

Repeated readings are actually a pretty well-established way to develop fluency. See http://www.auburn.edu/%7Emurraba/fluency.html for one of many explanations of rationale and strategies. (While I haven’t timed myself, I have re-read things, as most good readers have. Also consider the rather valid similarities to music; practicing the same piece is SOP. Think of poetry…)

HOWEVER> I am one for choosing my battles. I think I would offer a trade-off… since he is doing exactly that strategy - repeated readings - with Great Leaps, *if* he is doing those reading accurately, then he’s meeting that need. If not, talk to him - have him choose: Slow down for the fluency stuff, or repeat the stories… Of course, I wouldn’t just make it a victory… I’d make sure you both discussed the rationale behind not doing the repeated stuff. That way you’re both working towards finding a solution instead of fighting over aking him do stuff (in an ideal world :-) :-))
[Modified by: Sue (Sue) on July 12, 2006 02:29 PM]

[Modified by: Sue (Sue) on July 12, 2006 02:30 PM]

Thanks to both of you, Victoria and Sue, for replying to my post. I really appreciate your responses. It took me a few days to figure out how to reply to your responses. I didn’t realize I had to press the submit button in order to reply to the posts until I wrote to the LDOnline hosts. :)

I followed Victoria’s advice and have not asked him to reread the decodeable passages! I told him that he would only have to repeat individual sentences that he stumbled over. That made things somewhat better. He just hates to read those decodeable passages in the Wilson readers, but does well on the sentences. Should I not bother with the the stories and go straight to the dictation. Then use the Great Leaps phonics, phrases and stories? He would prefer that, I know. Then we’re reading a chapter book—one of the Henry Winkler books. He seemed to enjoy the first chapter.

This is the first time I’ve done individual tutoring. Live and learn, I guess.

Marilyn

Oh, live and learn is my motto! I don’t know that I would call myself a “seasoned” tutor, but I’ve done 5 years now since leaving the classroom, and my practice changes and grows over time and I learn from each student. And each is SO different and has different needs. Some love structure and practicing from a formatted series book like Great Leaps or Specific Skills Series. Some hate it and must read about their interests - animals, sports, funny poems… Some of my students love repeated readings and timing themselves and charting their scores. Others get very uncomfortable and read much worse when timed (I sometimes sneak a peek at my watch with those students and don’t comment to them about their speed at all.)

Listen to the student, and explain your requests, but don’t insist. Keep up the good work!

Lisa