You can use story options to customize the program for all students, specific groups of students, or individual students.
Staff members in the Teacher role need to be a student's lead teacher to customize the program for that student. Account Administrators and School Coordinators can customize the program for any students, regardless of the students' lead teachers.
You can open a student's Story Options from either the student's workstation or the Staff Member Module.
Opening Story Options from a student's workstation enables you to change the options for that student only. Opening them from the Staff Member Module enables you to change the story options for any of your students, including multiple students at one time.
Read Naturally Live and Read Naturally Live–Español include separate Story Options, allowing teachers to customize each application to suit students' needs. For example, changing the options used in English-language stories does not affect the same settings in Read Naturally Live–Español.
To open Story Options from a student's workstation in either Read Naturally Live or Read Naturally Live–Español:
To open Read Naturally Live Story Options in the Staff Member Module:
To open Read Naturally Live–Español Story Options in the Staff Member Module:
Most steps are on by default, because they are important to a student’s success. However, there are times when you may want to turn a step off (or on) for a particular student. Refer to the table that follows for examples of when you would turn off a particular step. Note that some steps are mandatory and cannot be turned off.
To turn story steps off or on:
Step | Why you might turn the step off |
---|---|
Key Words | By default, the Key Words step is enabled. It may be beneficial to turn off the step if you have a student who already has a good vocabulary and would profit more from using the time to practice reading or if you have a student who is clicking on key words as a play activity rather than to learn the words. |
Prediction | By default, the Prediction step is enabled. You may want to turn off the step if you have a student who does not have adequate keyboarding skills. As an alternative, you can have the student write the prediction in a notebook. |
Cold Timing | By default, the Cold Timing step is enabled. Consider carefully before turning off the Cold Timing step, since this step provides valuable data that both you and the student can use to monitor performance. It would be very unusual to turn off this step; this step provides motivation for the student and contributes to the success of the strategy. One scenario in which you may want to consider turning off this step is if you have a new student who finds it unusually intimidating or stressful to be timed on a story that he or she has not practiced. If the stress of a cold timing is so great that the student loses motivation, then you can turn off the step until the student becomes more confident and comfortable with timed readings. Note: If the Cold Timing step is turned off for a student, or if the step is performed without a teacher present, Read Naturally Live's Data Mentor feature will not be able to make suggestions for the student. |
Read Along | By default, the Read Along step is enabled. Consider carefully before turning off the Read Along step; this step is crucial to the success of the strategy. If you have a student who is close to meeting his or her long-term, grade-level fluency goal and will soon be able to leave the program, you may want to gradually reduce the number of read alongs required until, finally, you can turn off the step entirely. Very rarely, a student may have an auditory "photographic memory," so that the student can actually memorize the entire story by listening. In this case, you may need to reduce the number of read alongs or turn off the step entirely. |
Quiz | By default, the Quiz step is enabled. It would be very unusual to turn off this step, since the questions not only help the teacher test comprehension but also remind students that they are ultimately reading for comprehension—not speed. Turn off this step only if comprehension is clearly not an issue for the student and the student would profit more from focusing on fluency rather than comprehension. Note: If the Quiz step is turned off for a student, Read Naturally Live's Data Mentor feature will not be able to suggest changes to the student's assignment. |
Retell | By default, the Retell step is enabled. If you have a student who does not have adequate keyboarding skills, you may want to turn off the Retell step. As an alternative, the student can retell the story orally or by writing in a notebook. You may also consider turning off this step if you prefer to hear the student orally retell the story during the Pass step, which gives you the opportunity to better understand the student's thinking or to explain vocabulary words. |
Word List | By default, the Word List step is enabled for students working in the Phonics series. If you have a student who successfully decodes the words in the stories at an automatic level and reads the stories with good accuracy, you may want to turn off the Word List step. |
By default, the Prediction step has a two-minute time limit. If you have a student who needs to spend more time on this step because of a lack of specific skills, such as typing, you may want to increase the number of minutes set for this step.
To change the amount of time allowed for the Prediction step:
By default, the Cold Timing step requires a teacher to be present. Read Naturally recommends that you teach students to time themselves and that you are present for the first few stories to coach them through self-timing. This helps you check whether placement is appropriate and determine whether the student is able to self-time.
As soon as you determine a student's placement is correct and that the student is able to self-time, he or she could be released to do cold timings independently.
Important note: Because adequate data is necessary to support valid suggestions, if a teacher is not present at a student's Cold Timings Data Mentor suggestions will not be made for that student.
To enable students to complete the Cold Timing step independently:
By default, the Read Along step is set for three required read alongs. If you have older students, or if you have a student who is close to meeting his or her long-term, grade-level fluency goal and will soon be able to leave the program, you may want to reduce the number of read alongs required.
You may want to increase the number of read alongs for younger students, students who are English language learners, or students with disabilities.
To change the number of required read alongs:
Some levels include an optional Spanish read along of each story. By default, this feature is turned off. You may want to enable the Spanish read along if you have native Spanish speakers who are learning to read in English. Reading along to the Spanish translation first may help them better understand the English version.
The English Read Along step is available in Read Naturally Live– Español stories, allowing students working in Spanish content to hear an English version of each story before the Spanish one.
To enable the Spanish or English read along steps:
By default, the number of required practices is set to three. You may want to decrease the number of required practices if you have an older student who almost always meets all requirements for passing on the first try, and you do not think raising the level or goal is appropriate. Or, if you have a student who is close to meeting his or her long-term, grade-level fluency goal and will soon be able to leave the program, you may want to reduce the number of practices required.
To change the number of required practices:
By default, the practice timings last one minute. However, it may be beneficial to change to a:
To change the length of the practice timings:
By default, the Retell step has a five-minute time limit. You may want to change this time limit if, for example:
To change the time limit for the Retell step:
By default, Word List timings are set to a Whole list duration. If you have a student who, after multiple practices and extra support, cannot read a word list's words both down the columns and across the rows, you may want to adjust the student's Word List Goal and/or change the duration story option to 1 minute.
The 1 minute exercise option stops each timing after 60 seconds. A bell sounds, and students are asked to click the last word they read when the timing ended. Whether a student performed a Whole list or 1 minute timing, the reading rate for a timing is based on the number of words read in the elapsed time.
To change the length of Word List timings:
Individual students' access to recording features can be enabled or disabled as one of each student's Story Options.
Note: In order for each student to save recordings of story and word list readings, the Enable recording features settings for both the account and the student must be on.
To enable or disable recordings for a student:
Once a student is experienced with a given Read Live application, teachers may want the student to hear less direction audio about how to perform each step. The Full Audio Directions option allows teachers to control this audio feature.
To enable or disable Full Audio Directions for a student:
To restore the story-option settings to their default values: