STANDARD 3.1
| STANDARD 3.1 (READING) ALL STUDENTS WILL UNDERSTAND AND APPLY THE KNOWLEDGE OF SOUNDS, LETTERS, AND WORDS IN WRITTEN ENGLISH TO BECOME INDEPENDENT AND FLUENT READERS, AND WILL READ A VARIETY OF MATERIALS AND TEXTS WITH FLUENCY AND COMPREHENSION. |
Descriptive Statement: A primary reading goal is for students at all grades to read independently with fluency and comprehension so that they become lifelong readers and learners. In order to achieve this goal, students benefit from "daily opportunities to read books they choose for themselves, for their own purposes, and their own pleasures" (Calkins, 2001). Students should read grade-appropriate or more challenging classic and contemporary literature and informational readings, both self-selected and assigned. In order to grow as readers and deepen their understanding of texts, students need many opportunities to think about, talk about, and write about the texts they are reading. A diversity of reading material (including fiction and nonfiction) provides students with opportunities to grow intellectually, emotionally, and socially as they consider universal themes, diverse cultures and perspectives, and the common aspects of human existence.
In early reading instruction, children need to know about sounds, letters and words, and their relationships. Phonemic awareness, knowledge of the relationships between sounds and letters, and an understanding of the features of written English texts are essential to beginning reading. Direct, systematic phonics instruction enables many students to develop their knowledge of phonics, and provides a bridge to apply this knowledge in becoming independent and fluent readers. Systematic phonics instruction typically involves explicitly teaching students a pre-specified set of letter-sound relations and having students read text that provides practice using these relations to decode words (National Reading Panel, 2000). It is important to help students become fluent readers in the early years, and then help them expand their literacy abilities as they progress through the middle and high school grades.
The reading process requires readers to respond to texts, both personally and critically, and relate prior knowledge and personal experiences to written texts. Students apply literal, inferential and critical comprehension strategies before, during, and after reading to examine, construct, and extend meaning. In becoming fluent readers, students must draw on the word meaning and sentence structure of text and sound/symbol relationships, and use these cueing systems interchangeably in order to gain meaning. Students need to recognize that what they hear, speak, write, and view contributes to the content and quality of their reading experiences.
