Jerry documents evidence that reading 'volume' - how much a student reads - is directly related to their success with reading. Read on to see how to encourage your students to read this summer. Carol offers a complete lesson planto jumpstart your students' summer reading goals. You'll get complete texts of our re-told versions of The Telltale Heartand The Gold Bug short stories from our Start-to-Finish® Library series as well ascomplete professionally-narrated audio files!
What the Experts Say: Dr. Kevin Feldman
"Common sense confirms what research suggests--reading volume matters! Reading voluminously not only builds reading skills, it increases vocabulary, general background knowledge, and supports improved cognitive functioning across the board!
Sadly, struggling readers are caught in a “Catch 22” relative to reading. The very thing they need to do -- read --they often avoid because they are not yet skilled. Noted literacy researcher, Keith Stanovich dubbed this phenomenon the “Matthew Effect”, taken from the Bible parable in which “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”
Literacy research strongly supports the findings that struggling readers need a combination of both excellent explicit instruction and prodigious amounts of reading practice. Therefore, teachers and parents need to pull out the stops to ensure struggling readers are provided with age-appropriate reading materials that tickle their fancy and motivate them to read, read, and read some more! It does make a difference!”
Kevin Feldman, Ed.D.
Director of Reading and Early Intervention,
Sonoma County Office of Education, CA
Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered weak and weary,
over many a quaint and curious
volume of forgotten lore...
Well, you’ve done it again. You’ve put together a few lines from a famous poem, a picture of a bird and a man, and said, “Ah! The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.”
Now, what has Mr. Poe to do with summer reading? Read on.
Summer is just around the corner: hours of extra daylight, baseball and bike rides, a camping trip perhaps with spooky stories around a campfire, stay up late, sleep in later. At last—time to read all those books I never got to all school-year long!
Time for reading?? Not if you’re one of the struggling readers we know. Reading is the last thing you’ll find them doing this summer. Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.” They are ‘weak and weary’ from pondering over many a quaint and curious volume...until now.
The Rich Get Richer
Experts like Kevin Feldman and Keith Stanovich tell us that as good readers spiral upward to higher and higher levels of language and knowledge, struggling readers spiral downward into lowered expectations, lack of motivation and limited practice.
Did you know that the average 5th grade student at the 90th percentile reads almost two million words per year outside of school, more than 200 times more words than the student at the 10th percentile, who reads just 8,000 words outside of school during a year? (Cunningham and Stanovich, 1998) It should come as no surprise, therefore, that these same struggling readers lag behind their able-reading peers in vocabulary development, background knowledge, fluency, and comprehension skills.
More reading—reading volume—leads to increased fluency, vocabulary, background knowledge, and comprehension. So the good news is that the more students read, the more information, motivation, and pleasure they will derive. Now, how to get them reading this summer?
Thank-you, Mr. Poe
We must convince students who struggle to read smoothly that there is a cost-benefit ratio to reading. Step one is finding material that is at once motivating, age-appropriate, and at a skill level that allows these students to read with some degree of independence and fluency.
Thanks to Edgar Allan, we have two re-told short stories that you can share with your struggling readers. Both stories are real page-turners.
These collections of short stories come from the Start-to-Finish library of books. They can be purchased in three formats: computer book, audio book and paperback book to provide just the right combination of scaffolding so that older, struggling readers can be successful. Today, we offer the audio (MP3) and print (PDF) files for two complete stories for FREE.
Scaffolding for Success
With this kind of scaffolding, students are suddenly motivated to read because the content matches their interest level and they will be successful. They can follow along as the text is read by an actor. They pay attention to the words because the text is considerate of their developing syntactic competence, vocabulary and background knowledge. And just wait until you hear Kurt Elling reading The Telltale Heart. The bedtime flashlight or campfire glow will cast ghostly shadows.
Reading Volume
Struggling readers lag behind able readers in vocabulary because vocabulary acquisition is linked to the volume of reading students do. Start-to-Finish books build vocabulary systematically. Less frequently occurring words are supported by definitions, illustrations and story context.
Volume is a curious word. You know its usage here. What does it mean to a struggling reader? Loudness? as in ‘turn up the volume.’ Book? as in ‘the volume I want is missing from the set.’ Considerable quantity? as in reading volume leads to increases in vocabulary, background knowledge, and improved cognitive functioning across the board! In the words of Kevin Feldman, our struggling readers must read voluminously and we must do all we can to get them started — this summer!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cunningham, A.E. & Stanovich, K.E. (1998). What reading does for the mind. American Educator. Spring/Summer.
Stanovich, K.E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360-407.
Getting Ready for the Lesson
Everything you need for this lesson is available here.
Simply click on the links provided below.
Download and Print the
chapters from the PDF files, The Gold Bug, Parts 1-4 (Start-to-Finish
Gold Library, 2-3 grade readability) and The Telltale Heart, Parts
1 & 2 (Start-to-Finish Blue Library, 4-5 grade readability) (TIP:
Print 2-sided to match the audio. Test 1 copy before printing all copies.)
NOTE: These books are written for older students who struggle with
reading. Please listen to or read the text before making copies to ensure
the material is appropriate for your students.
Download the MP3 audio
file to a player such as an iPod®. The MP3 file is a fluent reading of the
passage by a professional narrator.
Here's how: On a PC, RIGHT CLICK on the The Gold Bug MP3or The Telltale Heart MP3 and choose
SAVE TARGET AS... On a Mac, press CTRL key, click the The Gold Bug MP3 link orThe Telltale Heart MP3 link then
SAVE LINK AS....
Browse to the location where you want the file saved. Click OK.
If you prefer, play the MP3 from here over your computer speakers.
The Gold Bug
The Telltale Heart
If you want to make the
entire book and audio recording available, order them before you begin the
lesson. Call 800.999.4660, option 2 and request Code F07MWB for the
paperback, Code F07AWB for the audio book of The Gold Bug or. Code
H21MWB for the paperback, Code H21AWB for the audio book of The
Telltale Heart.
Once upon a midnight dreary, 
