About Placing Students
When you place students, you establish both an instructional level and a reading rate goal that are appropriate for each student. You also select the type of curriculum that best meets the needs of each student. Correctly placing a student is crucial to the student's success in Read Naturally. The combination of instructional level and goal rate should challenge the student without being frustrating.
You need to use your knowledge of your students in conjunction with the placement procedures to determine the correct level of material and to set developmentally appropriate goals for them.
Levels
Reading levels indicate the degree of difficulty. Read Naturally assigns levels to its materials, from first to eighth grade reading level, based on the following readability formulas:
- Fry and Spache readability formulas for levels .8 through 2.7.
- Harris-Jacobson readability formula for levels 3.0 through 5.0.
- Dale Chall readability formula for levels 5.6 and above.
When a student begins Read Naturally, use the placement procedures to set the initial level. The level of reading material needs to be sufficiently difficult to challenge the student with new words and/or more complex sentences. The level of material needs to be easy enough that the student can pass a story after reading along one to three times with the audio recording and then practicing the story five to ten times.
If you are using Read Naturally Masters Edition, record the reading level and the date the student starts the new level on the inside pocket of the student's folder along with the goal rates. As the student continues to work with the program, adjust the difficulty of the reading material to meet the changing needs of the student and record those changes on the inside pocket of the student's folder.
Types of Curriculum
The following types of curriculum are available:
Type of Curriculum |
Description |
Levels Available |
Formats Available |
| Sequenced | The sequenced series is the basic curriculum and is appropriate for any developing or struggling reader. The sequenced levels build fluency and support comprehension and vocabulary growth. | 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5R, 4.0, 4.5R, 5.0, 5.6, 5.8/6.0, 7.0R, 8.0 | ME & SE |
| Phonics | Like the sequenced series, the phonics series is primarily designed to build fluency. But the phonics levels also include supporting activities that focus on the decoding of featured phonics patterns. Each story includes many words with the featured pattern, a short audio phonics lession, and a word list activity. | .8, 1.3, 1.8, 2.3, 2.6, 2.7 | GATE (levels .8 and 1.3 only), ME, & SE |
| American Manners & Customs | These stories are designed to acquaint English language learners with some American manners and customs as they work on reading fluency and comprehension. The stories include extra audio and vocabulary support. | 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5 | ME & SE* |
| Idioms | With these stories, both native speakers and English language learners can learn common American idioms as they work on reading fluency. The stories include extra audio and vocabulary support. | 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5 | ME & SE* |
| Spanish Translations | The Spanish stories are mostly word-for-word translations of the corresponding sequenced series stories. Native Spanish speakers can read along with the Spanish stories to gain an understanding of the story content and vocabulary before working through the same story in English. Some teachers also use these passages to support students who are learning to read in Spanish. | 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 | ME & SE* |
| Multicultural | Students can read these stories to learn about African American or Mexican American history as they build fluency. Extending activities support mastery of the story content. For variety, you may wish to intermix these stories with stories in the sequenced curriculum. | 3.0/4.0 | ME |
Goals
The reading rate goal is the number of words a student must read correctly per minute in order to pass a story. For each student, you set a predetermined goal that is appropriate for his or her current reading ability. The goal needs to be sufficiently high to require the student to practice reading the story many times in order to achieve the goal rate, but not so high that the student becomes frustrated.
After you have set the initial goal for students, they usually keep that goal for at least six stories, typically about two weeks. You can adjust the goal as the student's reading fluency improves. For more information, see Adjusting Levels, Goals, and Steps.
How to Place Students
You can place students with the Placement Packet or with one of the SE placement programs.