Mastering Reading Accuracy
Maryland third grader Xavier is sharing one of his favorite books with reading expert Linda Farrell. Ms. Farrell is going to help him focus on reading every word accurately.
Linda Farrell: Can you read some of this to me? Can you read?
Xavier: Look. We’re heroes because we save the world from Flippy. This — it says here that scientists are going to study Flippy brain.
Linda Farrell: Get the ‘s’ on that.
Xavier: Studies …
Xavier: -dy …
Linda Farrell: What’s this word right here — this one right here?
Xavier: Flippy’s.
Linda Farrell: Yeah. Read that whole thing again.
Xavier: It says here that scien- scientists are going to study Flippy’s brain.
Linda Farrell: Keep going.
Xavier: Dog Man, I have a important job for you.
Linda Farrell: What’s that word?
Xavier: An.
Linda Farrell: Keep reading again.
Xavier: Dog Man, I have a, an important job for you.
Linda Farrell: Can you read that — an important.
Xavier: An.
Linda Farrell: Read it again.
Xavier: … important. Dog Man, I have an portant job …
Linda Farrell: Okay. We’re gonna do this. Read this with me. An.
Xavier: An.
Linda Farrell: Important.
Xavier: Important.
Linda Farrell: Now do it. So read An.
Xavier: An.
Linda Farrell: im
Xavier: im
Linda Farrell: por
Xavier: por
Linda Farrell: tant
Xavier: tant
Linda Farrell: Okay. Now, read it again.
Xavier: Dog Man, I have an important job for you.
Linda Farrell: Keep going.
Linda Farrell: One of the things I notice is that teachers often will let an inaccurate reading slip by if the meaning isn’t changed. Ah, it’s close enough. Move on. And that is setting students up for poor comprehension.
Take for example a sentence like, “The horse got a cold.” If a student leaves out the article a and reads it, “The horse got cold,” the meaning changes significantly.
Linda Farrell: That one little word that seems so inconsequential, a, made a difference in meaning. “The horse got cold” and “the horse got a cold is different.” We never know when that’s going to make a difference in comprehension. We have to build good, strong reading habits for students. And that means as a teacher, it’s my job to help my students develop accurate reading habits so that they don’t miss a question on a comprehension test because they misread a sentence. They left off an ‘s.’ They left off, they left out an article. They added an article. They read present tense instead of past tense. They read – they read a contraction incorrectly. All of those can lead to poor comprehension. And we need, in kindergarten, first and second grade and even third grade, to be making sure that our students read accurately. It’s our responsibility.
Xavier: Who wants to protect the scientists? Who’s a good boy protector?
Linda Farrell: Wait. Who’s what?
Xavier: Who’s a good boy — good protector.
Linda Farrell: Yeah.
Xavier: Who — who wants to protect an, and survive?
Linda Farrell: And what’s that word?
Xavier: Surva — suh-verve?
Linda Farrell: Okay. I’m gonna tell you that ‘v’ is — that ‘e’ is silent. So what does that say?
Xavier: Serve.
Linda Farrell: You got it. So read that again.
Xavier: Who wants to protect and serve?
Linda Farrell: We’re teaching students, our children, that every letter does make a difference and that when you come to an unfamiliar word, you have to pay attention to every letter. And then when you read that word two or three times, it then becomes a word that you’ve seen before and you just read it because it’s part of your vocabulary and you’ve seen that spelling before.
[Music]
Linda Farrell: And what does he do? Does he save people?
Xavier: Yeah. He helps people. These are …
