Developmental reading levels
Understanding Your Child's DRA Reading Level
The Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) is an individually administered assessment of a child’s reading capabilities. It is a tool to be used by instructors to identify a students reading level, accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. Once levels are identified, an instructor can use this information for instructional planning purposes.
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DRA Testing
The DRA test is traditionally administered on an annual or semi-annual basis. The test measures nine categories of reading behavior and six types of errors. It was developed in 1986 (and revised in both 2000 and 2003) by a committee of educators and is intended to evaluate certain aspects of your child’s reading level.
How DRA Levels and Testing Work Together
Tasks measured by the DRA test are divided into several skill sets. Rhyming, alliteration, segmentation, and phonemic awareness are tested in the phonemic awareness section. Letter naming, word-list reading, spelling, decoding, analogies, structural analysis, and syllabication are tested in the alphabetic principle/phonics portions. Oral reading fluency or words per minute for contextual reading are tested under fluency. Vocabulary, comprehension, and reading engagement skills are also measured in the test.
After the test is evaluated and scored, your child is assigned a numeric (or alphanumeric for very early readers) DRA level A1 through 80. Children with stronger reading abilities yield higher numbers. Teachers are easily able to give children books they can read by choosing a text with the corresponding DRA level.
How to Find Books on Your Child’s Level
Once your teacher gives you your child’s level, you can search for books at a particular DRA level on Scholastic’s Book Wizard. By providing your child with books on his level at home, you are ensuring reading advancement and success with materials that will not cause your child stress or discouragement.
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Stages of Development | Reading A-Z
> Instructional Support > Stages of Development
Beginning Readers (Levels aa-C)
Readers at this level might display the following characteristics:
- Pretend to read familiar stories
- Sing their ABCs but not be able to name all of the letters in print
- Recognize and name more letters as they are exposed to print and instruction
- Identify the front cover
- Turn pages one by one
- Show how text progresses left to right, top to bottom
- Identify uppercase letters with greater ease than lowercase letters
- Know some sounds of frequently seen or previously taught letters
- Identify and produce an increasing number of sounds, particularly consonant sounds and short vowels
- Recognize environmental print in context
- Attempt to track print with their finger in books and other texts
- Begin to play with words
- Identify a rhyming pair when presented with choices (e.
g., rat, bed, hat) - Count syllables in words
- Listening comprehension far exceeds reading comprehension (the latter is limited to single words or short phrases/sentences)
Text to support readers at this level may include:
- Detailed pictures that add to the story
- Short, declarative sentences
- Repetitive patterns
- Repeated vocabulary
- Natural, familiar language
- Large print
- Wide letter spacing
- Familiar concepts
- Limited text per page
Developing Readers (Levels D-J)
Readers at this level might display the following characteristics:
- Apply their understanding of phonics for reading unfamiliar words
- Focus most of their energy on decoding, which leaves fewer cognitive resources for comprehension
- Recognize more frequently read words by sight
- Attempt to sound out unknown words, phoneme by phoneme
- Realize that their reading should make sense and will attempt to self-correct when making errors
- Look for word chunks to assist in reading
- Listening comprehension still exceeds reading comprehension, although readers begin to get meaning from text
Text to support readers at this level may include:
- Increasingly more lines of print per page
- More complex sentence structure
- Fewer repetitive patterns
- Pictures that relate to the story
- Familiar topics with more details
Effective Readers (Levels K-P)
Readers at this level might display the following characteristics:
- Attend to the phonics, word chunks, affixes when decoding unfamiliar words in their entirety, including multisyllabic and compound words
- Recognize more and more words automatically by sight
- Guess or predict what they think the sentence says rather than reading each word as it is written
- Glance ahead to prepare for upcoming words
- Focus less of their energy on decoding, which leaves more cognitive resources for comprehension
- Begin to transition from learning to read to reading to learn as they use text to learn new information
Text to support readers at this level may include:
- More pages
- Longer sentences with more complex syntax
- More text per page
- Richer vocabulary
- Greater variation in sentence pattern and exposure to a variety of text structures
- Fewer pictures
- More formal and descriptive language
Automatic Readers (Levels Q-Z2)
Readers at this level might display the following characteristics:
- Use phonics, syllable knowledge, and morphology to decode unknown multisyllabic words
- Recognize words they repeatedly see in text by sight
- Use fluency and prosodic reading at an appropriate rate
- Focus on comprehension as decoding becomes automatic
- Rely on text for directions, content knowledge, and general information
Text to support readers at this level may include:
- More text
- Less familiar, more varied topics
- Challenging vocabulary
- More complex sentences
- Varied writing styles
- Few, if any pictures
- Text features to support understanding (graphs, charts, infographics, etc.
) - Text structures (compare and contrast, cause and effect, problem/solution, sequence, descriptive)
Teaching reading to preschoolers
The section "Teaching reading to preschoolers" introduces children 5-6 years old with letters and allows them to learn how to put them into words. Forming a list of tasks, the specialists of the Razumeikin development site used traditional methods of presenting material. However, some methodological techniques are copyrighted.
Please note that when we learn consonants in online tasks for children 5 years old, we call them without a vowel overtone. For example, not [be], but [b], not [ef], but [f], etc. This approach will allow the baby to facilitate the process of establishing the relationship between sounds and letters. And their names the child will be able to learn, getting acquainted with the alphabet.
In order to make the process of learning letters in the form of a game easy for children of 5 years old, it is advisable to use the maximum number of analyzers.
The specialists of the Razumeikin development site tried to take this nuance into account when compiling a list of exercises. When completing online tasks in the “Teaching Preschoolers to Read” section, the child hears the sound corresponding to the letter, sees it in whole and in parts, creates it from wire, lace or plasticine, draws it with a finger. You can design letters from any materials at hand. It can be pebbles, matches, sticks, etc. Such exercises help kids learn letters while playing.
Very useful and effective are games with "rough" letters. They can be cut out of sandpaper or sheet with a velvet surface. At first, you can invite the baby to swipe the letter with his finger. This will help him understand how it is written and remember the direction of the hand movement. Then invite the child to recognize this letter among several others. In this case, the baby's eyes should be closed.
When creating exercises for preschoolers, our specialists tried to make them not only understandable and fun, but also really useful.
Consistently passing online classes from this section, the child learns to read. At first, we learn to read simple and short words in syllables, then gradually the tasks become more difficult. By the end of the lesson, the child will be able to read and, most importantly, understand texts of several sentences.
A few words about the submission of material
In order to make reading for children aged 5 easy and productive, the specialists of the Razumeykin development site have prepared special thematic pictures and voiced text for each task. Some exercises also involve the motor area. All developmental tasks in the block "Reading for children 5-6 years old" can be completed online by preschoolers.
How are results evaluated?
For the correct performance of tasks-games in the section "Teaching preschoolers to read" there is a whole system of rewards. We are sure that in this way it is possible to increase the interest of preschoolers in learning and form positive motivation.
Toddlers receive a reward by completing tasks in the form of an educational game in the "Reading and letters for children of 6 years" section. For their achievements, they can be awarded medals, cups, pennants and certificates.
Most of the exercises in the section "Reading for children 5-6 years old" are evaluated depending on how the child was able to give the correct answer. If necessary, it is possible to return to any exercise done. By completing the task in the section “Reading for children 6 years old” again, the child will be able to improve the previous result. For this, in turn, he will be awarded a higher award.
Your child may be tested when they start reading. The results obtained will help you understand which tasks you need to dwell on in more detail. In addition, parents will be able to determine which exercises in the section "Reading and letters for children of 6 years" should be performed first.
It is important to take into account that the child needs not just to learn to read, but to learn to understand the meaning of what he read.
This is what our online classes are devoted to in the section "Teaching reading and letters for preschoolers."
Pedagogical conditions for raising interest in reading in children of senior preschool age
References:
Galkina, I. A. Pedagogical conditions for cultivating interest in reading in children of senior preschool age / I. A. Galkina, E. M .Now. - Text: direct // Questions of preschool pedagogy. - 2020. - No. 2 (29). - S. 1-4. — URL: https://moluch.ru/th/1/archive/155/4811/ (date of access: 11/27/2022).
Consider such a concept as a condition. In the philosophical dictionary, the concept of “condition” is considered as “a category that expresses the relation of an object to the phenomena surrounding it, without which this object cannot exist. The object itself appears as something conditioned, and the condition as the variety of the objective world relatively external to the object.
The conditions represent the environment, the environment in which the latter arise, exist and develop” [7, p. 118].
The main condition for the implementation of the main educational program of preschool education in accordance with the Federal State Educational Standard for Preschool Education are: psychological and pedagogical, material and technical, personnel, financial conditions and developing subject-spatial environment.
The development of children's interest in books and reading is one of the main tasks of preschool education. This process must begin at an early age. It requires hard work from teachers. A preschool child should communicate with a book every day at home, and in a preschool educational institution all the time [4, p. 151].
One of the main conditions in the development of interest in a children's book in children is a subject-spatial developing environment and qualified teachers. Psychological and pedagogical conditions and requirements for personnel provide for a number of teacher competencies.
Involving children in various forms of activity, developing children's curiosity, the child's interest in their own activity. For each specific child, the teacher should be able to choose the forms of pedagogical support, which is defined in the Federal State Educational Standard for Preschool Education as an individual approach and “providing equal opportunities for the full development of each child” [6]. Also, the teacher must be able to competently organize a subject-spatial developing environment, in accordance with the federal state educational standard for preschool education and the general educational program of a preschool educational organization, and create conditions for free children's play.
The subject-spatial developing environment is created by teachers to develop the individuality of each child, taking into account his capabilities, level of activity and interests. To accomplish this task, the subject-spatial developing environment should be:
- rich in content;
- transformable;
- multifunctional;
– accessible;
– safe [3].
A book corner is being created in the kindergarten group in order to form children's interest in fiction and to cultivate a careful attitude to the book. There is a book corner, at the height of the children and as they grow up, the corner is regulated. Literature for the corner is selected according to the age characteristics and needs of children [6]. Books should be with a small amount of text, large colorful illustrations, several copies of the same title.
Book repair materials are best stored nearby. Books for preschool children should be of different genres. At this age, children need to be taught to listen to stories, poems, follow the development of the action in a fairy tale, and sympathize with positive characters.
The attention of children is drawn to the imagery of the language of fairy tales, stories, poems, they are attracted to the repetition of remembered individual words, expressions, songs of characters [2, p. 237]. Samples of rhythmic speech are provided by folk tales, songs, nursery rhymes, riddles, they introduce children to the colorfulness and imagery of their native language [4, p.
34].
It is very important for children to show a lot of pleasant things related to reading: you can read yourself or listen to others read, you can read and beat works. In order for a child to want to turn to a book, it is necessary to form the motivation for reading activity. “Disinterested but interesting reading is what makes one love literature and broadens one’s horizons” [5, p. 47].
Forms of work to familiarize children with fiction outside of class help to develop interest and love for the book, to educate future readers. The development and improvement of the ability to understand literary works and the formation of interest and love for the book occurs throughout the entire period of childhood. At an older age, a new stage begins in the literary development of the child. He acquires the ability to understand the text without the help of illustrations. Children are already able to understand events in the book that were not in their own experience. The child develops the ability to perceive a literary work in the unity of content and form, comprehend the verbal image, treat it as an author's device.
There is also the ability not only to notice an expressive, vivid word, but also to realize its role in the text.
The possibilities of children allow solving new, more complex tasks in the formation of aesthetic education and understanding of works of fiction. The integration of the educational process is an important condition for its effectiveness. The perception of literature by children is inseparable from the game, and other types of children's activities. The figurative impressions received when listening to works of art are fixed in the game. You can play the game with musical accompaniment, which introduces the atmosphere of literary works.
Not only kindergarten teachers should read to children, but also parents at home. The family is given a leading role in the upbringing of the younger generation - it is in the family that the spiritual and moral foundations of the individual are laid. And it is the family, according to S. A. Denisova, that is the environment where interest and love for the book is formed from early childhood [6, p.
31].
It is in the family that the habit of reading is born. A good book in the hands of parents and their children is a good sign that a reading atmosphere and spiritual unity will reign in this family. In the family, the personality of the child is formed, his initial attitude to various activities, including reading [4, p. 39one]. Joint readings of children and parents, necessary for the development of interest and love for books, bring together and help to better assimilate the content of the work.
The initial stage of introducing children to reading, reading-listening to literary works. Looking at illustrations together with adults and listening to reading, the child actively thinks, worries about the characters, anticipates events, establishes connections between his own experience and the experience of others. Adults and children are brought together by joint reading, it stimulates and fills with content rare and joyful moments of spiritual communication, brings up a kind and loving heart in a child [3, p.
19].
For the educator and parents, the most important task is the selection of works of art that help the formation of a literary taste in children. It is not always easy for parents to navigate the abundance of books intended for children's reading. When choosing a book for children, you must adhere to the following rules:
- the expediency of using this work in a children's audience;
- belonging of the work to genuine art;
- the artistry of the illustrations and their correspondence to the content of the work, preferably publications with illustrations, where the images of animals and people are as realistic as possible.
For children's reading, works are selected that help to reveal the richness of the surrounding world and human relations, beauty, teach to understand the beautiful, form their own opinion in the child. Choose those works whose characters are close and understandable to children. When choosing works, the characteristics of children are taken into account: susceptibility, the desire to imitate the characters they love.
An important condition for the development of interest in a book in children is work with parents, which is carried out in the form of thematic meetings, individual conversations, consultations, and the involvement of parents in activities held in a preschool educational organization.
Parents are told about the dangers of early accustoming the child to TV and computer games, about the inadmissibility of replacing them with direct communication between the child and parents. To promote the formation of interest in the book, the organization of reading club meetings in the kindergarten group, where parents can be invited and children and parents can compose fairy tales [3, p. 96].
The group can provide visual information for parents about the work of children's writers [6, p. 128]. The website of the kindergarten contains a constantly updated list of literary works for home reading.
During childhood, there is an active development and improvement of the ability to perceive literary works, the development of interest and love for the book, the child is formed as a reader.
The specificity of working with children lies in the fact that, while forming new valuable qualities, not to destroy the existing ones: creative activity, non-patterned perception, emotionality, sincerity, joy and voluntariness of classes.
In the formation of interest in reading among preschoolers, both traditional and innovative methods and techniques are used.
Reading or telling the educator from a book or by heart are traditional methods. Reading conveys the thoughts of the writer, preserves the language of the author. Emotional contact with children, the interest of the educator and expressiveness, increase the impact of the artistic word on children. Repetition of reading is one of the methods of deepening the understanding of the content. Repeat the reading of the individual, most significant parts. Poems, nursery rhymes, short stories are repeated more often. Familiar stories and fairy tales children like to listen to many times. When re-reading, it is important to accurately reproduce the original text.
But one of the modern technologies today to increase the reader's interest of preschoolers is a book trailer - a small video (up to 3 minutes long) that tells in an artistic form about a book [1]. The goal of book trailers is to foster interest in reading (to tell about the book, to interest the reader), to draw attention to books with the help of visual means typical for movie trailers [2].
It can be in three main versions: film or cartoon, presentation or a combination of these forms. Vivid visual and sound images, quick picture change, brevity are the distinguishing features of book trailers.
In modern education, the booktrailer is widely used in the library environment, as well as in school education - as an innovative method of increasing interest in literature and reading. In the practice of preschool education, the issue of using the booktrailer, according to the results of the analysis of literary and Internet sources, remains unexplored, there is no technology for working with children of preschool age.
All this led us to the development of a technology for using a booktrailer as a means of generating interest in fiction in children of senior preschool age, which implies the inclusion of booktrailers in the process of perceiving literary works, where it acts as a motivation for further acquaintance with the work.
The main stages of technology implementation:
- The episodic use of a booktrailer as a motivational tool within the circle of children's reading.
- Inclusion of the booktrailer as a means in various structural components of the activity: OOD (organized educational activity), circle of children's reading (regime moments), evening entertainment for children (leisure activities)
- Creating a booktrailer with children (with the help of a teacher)
- Interaction with parents on the use of book trailers in work with children of senior preschool age: a master class for parents on creating book trailers, assistance and support of the teacher at the stage of independent creation of a book trailer by parents.
The first stage of the implementation of the technology included occasional demonstration of book trailers in sensitive moments - a circle of children's reading in the evening. The selection of works on the basis of which the book trailers were demonstrated was carried out in accordance with the plan of the educational process. The work is based on the algorithm for using the booktrailer in working with children:
- View Booktrailer
- Booktrailer content conversation aimed at further perception
- Perception of a work of art (reading)
Before perceiving a literary work, children were asked to view the book trailer for this work. After watching, the teacher organized a conversation with the children on the booktrailer, which made it possible to clarify the initial ideas and aimed at further perception. Next, direct perception of the literary work (listening) was carried out. Such episodic inclusion of book trailers in the educational process made it possible to see the reaction of children, to assess the level of their interest.
For the demonstration, ready-made booktrailers were taken, which were adapted for children of older preschool age.
The second stage provided for the inclusion of the book trailer in various structural components of the activity (OOD, regime moments, leisure activities). When the booktrailer was turned on during sensitive moments (children's reading circle), literary works were selected that did not have a vivid and dynamic plot, as well as works intended for long reading.
As part of organized educational activities (OOE), we used book trailers as a bright motivational component. The selection of literary works for this was carried out taking into account the program content for the perception of fiction. In addition, we included a booktrailer in the plan of evening entertainment with children, which were dedicated to the work of specific authors (G. H. Andersen and others).
In the course of literary leisure, the educator told the author's biography, a book trailer based on his work was shown, after viewing which the children could comment on which work they liked and which made them want to read.
A literary game was organized based on the author's work, or a dramatization based on works. In addition, an exhibition was organized in the book corner of the group, where children could look at books and illustrations.
Third stage. Gradually, the children began to show interest in the booktrailer, began to ask questions about how the booktrailer is created, so the children were invited to become the creators of the booktrailer. For children, a situation of choice was created - the choice of the genre of the work, we will create a joint or individual booktrailer, collect illustrations, or draw our own drawings, how the video will be dubbed. In the course of this activity, we created a book trailer based on the works of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass.
The fourth stage of work is cooperation with parents to create a booktrailer to generate interest in fiction. First of all, we considered this issue at a thematic parent meeting dedicated to the problem of declining interest in the book.
Introduced parents to a new ICT tool - a booktrailer; a selection of the most successful booktrailers was demonstrated. A master class on creating a booktrailer was organized for parents. Then the parents were asked to create a book trailer of the child's choice together with the children. The children had ideas and initial skills in creating a video, so the parents only helped, prompted and made the installation. At the leisure event “My Favorite Book”, some book trailers created by children and parents were presented.
The practical implementation of the technology made it possible to determine the optimal conditions for its functioning - first of all, this is the presence of appropriate conditions, compliance with the stages of implementation of the technology, and, of course, orientation to the activity of the child. The effectiveness of the book trailer as a means has been proven experimentally - there has been a qualitative increase in the indicators of the level of formation of interest in fiction.
The successful implementation of the technology is evidenced not only by the results of the experimental part of the study, but also by the demand and positive assessment of the presentation of work experience in the city's preschool educational institutions. The methodological recommendations developed on the basis of the results of testing are an addition to the technology and make it possible to competently organize the system of work, think over the content, adapting it to a specific group.
Literature:
- Booktrailer as a tool for book promotion: a methodological guide Comp. O. V. Rykova - Vologda: VOUNB, 2016. - 23 p.
- Booktrailer as a way to promote the book: a methodological guide / Nat. b-ka, Res. Buryatia, Department of Method. provision of municipalities. libraries; - Ulan-Ude, 2015 -16 p.
- Gritsenko, Z. A. Origins and causes of non-reading // Preschool education. - 2008. - No. 4. - S. 33–41.
- Gurovich L.
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