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.

PovertyPhonological processing difficultiesLanguage barriersParents low-reading abilityBiological 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 FactorsHappens in the classroom

Use research based teaching methodsAssisting low level readersCreating an environment conducive for learning with support.

Factors which cannot be controlledHome lifeSocioeconomic levelEnglish 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/ phonicsLiteratureWriting

SIOP ModelContent 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?

Let’s 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 Complexitythe number of words per sentence

longer sentences are more complex and require more short-term memory to process

Semantic Difficultythe 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

989070502010

90.740.421.712.93.11.6

4,733,0002,357,0001,168,000601,000134,00051,000

from Anderson et al., 1988, Table 3, N = 155.

Fifth-Grade Students

(Smeade, S. 2008, ppt.)

Data: National Adult Literacy Study (1992)

Jo

b L

evel

151413121110 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

700

900

1100

1300

1500

•••

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••

••

••

••

•

labor

serviceconstruction

craftsmanclerk

foreman

secretary

salessupervisor

nurseexecutive

teacheraccountant

scientist

Reader Ability in Lexiles

Reading in the Workplace

(Smeade, S. 2008, ppt.)

Let’s Lexile

Look at the difference between the Lexiled documents. How do we read the Lexile Map?www.lexile.comI 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 material’s readability to meet the needs of your studentsStrive to engage student’s 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: http://www.d91.k12.id.us/curric/Curriculum%20Resources/Lexiles/