In Read Naturally Live, you use a one-minute timing to:

• Conduct a student's placement story timing.
• Conduct a student's cold timing as he or she begins each story.
• Conduct a student's hot timing when he or she completes work on each story.

By default, a teacher must be present for the Cold Timing step. The teacher is always present for the Hot Timing step. Detailed steps for conducting a one-minute timing in Read Naturally Live are provided in the How-to section of the knowledgebase (Read Naturally Live: Conducting a one-minute timing) and in the Read Live User Guide (Conducting a One-Minute Timing).

Wordtastic is a vocabulary game in Read Live designed to keep students engaged and learning while waiting for a teacher to conduct a timing.  

The student answers each Wordtastic question by clicking the button next to the best answer. The student can click individual words to hear them pronounced. The software reveals the correct answer, and then the student clicks Next to see the next question. The student accumulates points for each correct answer. The points accumulated are displayed to help keep the student motivated and are not reported on or saved in the software.

When you arrive to conduct the cold timing, click Conduct Cold Timing or, for the hot timing, click Conduct Pass Activities. In the window that opens, enter your user ID and password and click Log In to open the Cold Timing or Pass/Hot Timing page, respectively.

In Read Naturally Strategy programs, you use a one-minute timing to:

• Conduct a student's placement story timing.
• Conduct a student's cold timing as he or she begins each story.
• Conduct a student's hot timing when he or she completes work on each story.

Detailed steps for conducting a one-minute timing in Read Naturally Encore, Read Naturally GATE, and Read Naturally ME are listed in Read Naturally Encore: Conducting a one-minute timing.

Determining the number of words the student read in one minute:

• Each numeral on the left side of the printed story indicates the total number of words through the end of the previous line of text.
• Start counting with the numeral to the left of the row with the last word the student read.
• Beginning with the numeral, count the words across the row, stopping at the last word.

It is very important to consistently track the number of errors a student makes while reading. The following is an explanation of what commonly are and are not considered errors.

Errors

Not Errors

The expression rating is a value from 1 to 4, where 1 is the lowest rating and 4 is the highest rating. Use the following guidelines to determine what expression rating to give a student. Students must receive an expression rating of 2 or higher in order to pass a story.

The purpose of the Cold Timing step* is for students to see how many words they can read correctly in a minute when reading a new (unpracticed) story aloud. This reading score is a baseline for monitoring progress. 

If student-to-teacher ratio is low enough for the teacher to be present, the Cold Timing step provides an opportunity to coach the student to become a self-correcting reader. Here's a synopsis of how the Cold Timing can be used to increase student achievement:

• The teacher uses the Cold Timing as instruction, not assessment, pointing out words the student missed but did not click.
• Reminding the student to click on errors raises the student's awareness. Being aware of difficult words as they are encountered is the first step in learning to self-correct.
• When the teacher alerts the student to additional errors during the cold timing, the interruptions by the teacher may result in a lower cold-timing score. However, the student quickly realizes they can speed up their Cold Timing by clicking on unknown words before being told to do so by the teacher. Reliance on teacher judgment begins to diminish.
• When the student clicks on a word, the software supplies not only the pronunciation, but immediate feedback through neurological impress – hearing the correct version of the word at the point of error.

When a student consistently clicks difficult words without being told to, consider releasing that student to complete the Cold Timing independently. Be assured that the Read Along step supports student-independent Cold Timings by providing the opportunity for the student to learn words not recognized as errors during the Cold Timing. Student-independent Cold Timings are an effective way to make high student-to-teacher ratios more manageable.

The teacher should periodically conduct the cold timing to determine if the student's independently-done cold-timing scores are accurate enough for evaluating the need for adjustments to goals or levels. If a student inflates cold-timing scores, set a rule for the next few stories that the student must exceed the cold-timing score by 30 (in grades 4 and below) or 40 words (in grades 5 and above) to pass, regardless of the goal. Usually students will become more accurate on student-independent cold timings after completing several stories under that rule.

NOTE: Suggestions based on student data will not be provided in Data Mentor in Read Naturally Live if the Cold Timing is not completed by an adult. A reliable cold-timing score is a critical component of Data Mentor suggestions.

*Teachers using the print versions of Read Naturally should have the student underline the words they don't know or mispronounce. While the student is underlining the word in Read Naturally Encore or ME, the teacher models the correct pronunciation. 

Having a student click on errors* may lower the rate of the cold timing initially, but using the cold timing as an instructional tool, not an assessment, has great impact on improving student accuracy. As a student makes fewer errors, the interruptions by the teacher decline and the cold-timing scores increase.

Often a struggling reader is not aware of reading mistakes, even though teachers/parents may have been pointing out errors for years. A student becomes much more alert to reading errors when the student takes control and has to click each word that is read incorrectly. At first, the teacher needs to tell the student which words to click. As the student selects the difficult word, the correct pronunciation of the word is provided. Hearing the correct version of the word at the point of error (neurological impress) is a powerful step in learning the word in context.

This process also makes the student realize that:

1. These errors are slowing the student down.
2. The student can become proactive about underlining unknown words and watching for errors, so the teacher will not have to stop the reading and point the word out.

Transferring the responsibility from the teacher to the student for clicking unknown or incorrectly read words has huge positive implications for accelerating student reading achievement. Making the student click a word read incorrectly does more than supply the pronunciation and add kinesthetic learning. It's a step in the process of transferring the responsibility for learning to the student. Having the student click an error trains the student to be aware of errors as the reading is taking place instead of reviewing errors reported by a teacher after the reading is finished. Self-correction is the skill of a good reader, and the first step in learning to self-correct is to be aware of errors as they are happening. 

*Teachers using the print versions of Read Naturally should have the student underline the words they don't know or mispronounce. While the student is underlining the word in Read Naturally Encore or ME, the teacher models the correct pronunciation. 

No, students who do two-minute or whole-story timings still need to make three or fewer errors in order to pass a Read Naturally story. The two-minute and whole-story timings are used by students whose reading has shown improvement.  So the higher standard of only three errors on longer passages is reasonable and desirable.