Independent reading levels by grade

About Reading Levels... - Mrs. Merkel's Website

Blog :: Questions About Reading Levels? We’ve Got Answers. :: Read Naturally, Inc.

As you know, students will make optimal reading progress when they work in material at the appropriate level. The problem is that the definition of “appropriate level” changes depending on the context. When should you give students material at their independent level? How about their instructional level? What is the difference between the two? And is it ever appropriate to let them work at their frustration level? If you’ve ever found yourself asking these questions—or if you find yourself needing to explain these concepts to parents—you’ve come to the right place! We’re here to break it down for you.

Independent vs. Instructional Level: What’s the Difference?

A student’s independent reading level is the level at which the student can read successfully without help. Independent-level material is material that the student reads fluently without difficulty. Experts recommend that students’ accuracy should be around 98% at this level and that they should be able to answer 90% or more of the comprehension questions correctly. Students can use independent-level material when reading for enjoyment or when practicing a new reading strategy. Ultimately, we want students reading independently at their grade level.

A student’s instructional reading level is the level at which a student can read with support from a teacher and/or program. Because of this support, the student’s instructional level is higher than their independent level. According to experts, a student’s instructional level is the level of material in which they demonstrate at least 90% accuracy and a score of 60% or better in comprehension. Students will often read material at or slightly above their instructional reading level in a fluency intervention. The Read Naturally Strategy includes teacher modeling, repeated reading, and progress monitoring.   With these supports in place, working at or slightly above instructional level challenges the student and accelerates their reading achievement.

Determining a Student’s Independent and Instructional Reading Level

Educators often use a reading inventory to determine students’ instructional and independent reading levels. These tools are designed to accurately assess students’ reading abilities. Reading inventories and benchmark assessments will help you identify whether there is a need for a reading intervention like Read Live or Read Naturally Encore.

Read Naturally Programs: Independent or Instructional?

Students using a Read Naturally Strategy program (Read Live or Read Naturally Encore) should be placed at or slightly above their instructional level. This is because the program provides audio support and other scaffolding to accelerate progress. With this support, the students can handle more challenging material.

What About “Frustration Level”?

A student’s frustration level is a level at which fluency and expression are lacking. The student is reading word-for-word, halting, and with less than 90% accuracy and less than 60% comprehension. Typically, teachers avoid having students read this material. However, if a student is asking to read something too challenging, there is no harm in letting them try, especially with a supportive teacher or program. They might surprise you. In this video, Read Naturally founder Candyce Ihnot shares the unique story of a student wanting to work in a more challenging Read Naturally level. Although he needed a lot of help at first, he made significant progress over time. He was engaged and motivated enough to rise to the challenge.

Talking to Parents

Often, parents will receive a reading inventory report and need clarification on their child's independent vs. instructional level. For example, the report might say a fifth-grade student’s instructional reading level is at the fifth-grade level. Parents will often assume this means the student is reading at grade level. However, this is not the case. If the student’s instructional reading level is at the fifth-grade level, their independent reading level is lower than that—and, thus, below grade level.

Similarly, it is not uncommon for a parent to see that their fifth-grade child is working in level 5.0 in Read Naturally programs and assume this means their child can read at grade level. Teachers should explain that, although the student’s instructional level (5.0 in Read Naturally programs) might line up with the grade level (fifth grade), the student’s independent reading level is lower. Typically, students will graduate out of the intervention when their independent reading level is at or above grade level.

For More Information…

This Read Naturally blog article explains how the Read Naturally Strategy allows students to select engaging material at a level that might feel “too hard” (instructional level) at first—but, thanks to the Strategy, students experience success, build confidence, and make progress quickly.

In this Read Naturally blog article, reading expert Jan Hasbrouck discusses why accuracy is the foundation of reading fluency, which is why inventories measure accuracy to determine reading levels. Good interventions, like Read Naturally Strategy programs, prioritize accuracy as well.

Please reach out to us here at Read Naturally if you have questions about this topic or if we can support your work with students in any way.

A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 ‹ Ingleks

What grammar and vocabulary students learn at each level of study - from Beginner to Proficiency.

Among philologists and linguists, it is customary to divide the knowledge of a foreign language into six levels. This concept is called the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), and it appeared at the end of the 20th century. In 2001, the Council of Europe decided to use the CEFR to assess language proficiency in any language taught as a foreign language. Following the CEFR system, there are three language proficiency groups - A, B, C, each of which is divided into two subgroups:

We have listed the aspects of English that students learn at each level of education. Vertically there are columns with types of speech activity: listening, speaking, reading, writing. The two extreme columns display what grammar and vocabulary the student should know at a particular stage. The levels of training are shown horizontally - from Beginner to Proficiency. At the intersection of a row and a column, a description is given of what knowledge the student acquires at each level.

Beginner

For clarity, we suggest comparing how students with different levels of English speak on the same topic.

Beginner: I want to eat this tasty chocolate bar. I want to eat this delicious chocolate bar.
Elementary: I would like to eat this delicious chocolate bar. I would like to eat this delicious chocolate bar.
Pre-Intermediate: I feel like eating this yummy chocolate bar. I want to eat this delicious chocolate bar.
Intermediate: I wanna scarf down this yummy chocolate bar. I want to eat this delicious chocolate bar.
Upper-Intermediate: I’d kill for this super delicious chocolate bar. “I would kill for this super delicious candy bar.
Advanced: I’m drooling over this chocolate bar. Yum-yum! “I want this candy bar so much it makes me salivate. Om-Nom-nom!
Proficiency: I wish I could eat this chocolate bar which seems to be finger-licking good. - I would eat this chocolate bar - it seems so tasty that you will lick your fingers.

If you want to learn more about any of the levels of English proficiency, read the corresponding article from our selection:

We also recommend that you watch a video on the topic "How to determine your level of English?".

If you're having trouble figuring out your level using the table, take our online English proficiency test.

Modern approach to the formation of semantic reading skills

"People stop thinking,
when they stop reading”
(D. Diderot).

It is difficult to disagree with the words of D. Diderot, who lived more than 200 years ago. But over the past twenty years, the status of reading, its role, the attitude towards it in Russian society, as in many countries of the world, has changed a lot. To overcome this negative trend, the years 2003-2013 were declared by the United Nations as the decade of literacy, and in our country the National Program for the Support and Development of Reading in Russia was developed ". The program aims to develop literacy and a culture of reading in Russia, increase the intellectual level of the country's citizens, and, consequently, its competitiveness on the world stage. The implementation period of the Program is 2007-2020.

Russian schools are moving to new educational standards. The problem of reading could not but be reflected in this normative document. The federal state educational standard of primary general education, which is based on a system-activity approach, involves the education and development of personality traits that meet the requirements of the information society, innovative economy. This will be possible if all schoolchildren master the reading culture.

Primary school is a special stage in a child's life. It is associated with the formation in the student of the basics of the ability to learn and the ability to organize their activities. And it is reading skills that will provide the younger student with the opportunity to independently acquire new knowledge, and in the future they will create the basis for self-learning and self-education at subsequent levels of education.

Therefore, the primary task of the primary school teacher is that every primary school student must acquire a solid and complete reading skill. Reading is a complex phenomenon. It consists of two sides: semantic and technical.

Semantic:

• understanding of the content and meaning of what is being read.

Technical:

• reading method,
• reading rate,
• correct reading,
• expressiveness.

Years of experience at school shows that the primary school teacher, teaching children to read, paid more attention to the technical side of reading. And to assess reading skills in schools, a control cut was used, which is called “Checking Reading Techniques” (there has always been a lot of controversy about the very fact of its implementation). At the same time, for many years, when evaluating a skill, paramount attention was paid to the parameters “reading method”, “reading pace”, “reading correctness”, “expressiveness”, and the “reading awareness” parameter was considered in the very last place, i. e. The technical side of reading was considered paramount.

In today's society, the ability of schoolchildren to read should not be limited to mastering the technique of reading. The educational standards of the new generation force us to take a fresh look at the very definition of the meaning of the word "reading". Reading should be considered as a quality of a person, which should be improved throughout his life in different situations of activity and communication. Therefore, the technical side should be considered as subordinate to the first (semantic) side that serves it.

It is no coincidence that the Federal State Educational Standards for Primary and Basic General Education include in the meta-subject results of mastering the basic educational program as an obligatory component:

- mastering the skills of semantic reading of texts of various styles and genres in accordance with the goals and objectives; consciously build a speech statement in accordance with the tasks of communication and compose texts in oral and written forms; [1, p. 9].

What is "meaningful reading"? In the Exemplary Basic Educational Program of Primary General Education, semantic reading is understood as “understanding the purpose of reading and choosing the type of reading depending on the purpose; extracting the necessary information from the listened texts of various genres; definition of primary and secondary information; free orientation and perception of texts of artistic, scientific, journalistic and official business styles; understanding and adequate assessment of the language of the media” [2, p. 98].

Based on this definition, it is possible to formulate the basic skills of semantic reading, the development of which should be ensured by all educational activities:

• the ability to comprehend the goals of reading;
• the ability to choose the type of reading depending on its purpose;
• the ability to extract the necessary information from the listened texts of various genres;
• ability to identify primary and secondary information;
• the ability to freely navigate and perceive texts of artistic, scientific, journalistic and official business styles;
• ability to understand and adequately evaluate language media.

Knowing and understanding this, the teacher must create favorable conditions for students to master the methods of understanding texts of different styles and genres, methods of improving reading techniques, skillfully use various types and types of reading in the lesson.

The main types of reading are: communicative reading aloud and to oneself, educational and independent.

The main types of reading are: introductory, searching or browsing, studying and thoughtful.

Introductory reading is aimed at extracting key information or highlighting the main content of the text.

Search or browsing reading involves finding specific information, a specific fact.

Study reading aims to extract complete and accurate information with subsequent interpretation of the content of the text. Such reading requires the reader to be able to:

• compare different points of view and different sources of information on the topic;
• carry out semantic folding of the selected facts and thoughts;
• compare illustrative material with textual information;
• transfer text information as short notes;
• distinguish between topics and subtopics of a scientific text;
• set the goal of reading, directing attention to information that is useful at the moment.

Thoughtful (slow, reflective, artistic) reading as

the most demanded type of reading is also to master a whole range of skills:

• to anticipate the content of the text by the title and based on previous experience;
• understand the main idea of ​​the text, predict the content in the course of reading;
• analyze changes in one's emotional state while reading, etc.

As can be seen from the classification of types and types of reading, semantic reading cannot be considered as a separate type of reading. Semantic reading characterizes the level of reading. It is aimed at comprehension by the reader of the value-semantic content of the text, at the subtraction of the meaning of the text, which is given by the purpose of reading. Reading should not be aimless.

When should a teacher start working on the formation of meaningful reading skills?

As soon as the student began to master the technical side of reading. Already during the period of learning to read and write, attention should be paid to improving the technical side of reading and, in parallel, work on the semantic side of reading. The child must understand why he reads. At this stage, the teacher voices the purpose of reading to the child. I read to learn a new word, to understand its meaning, to build a phrase with it. To understand the meaning of one sentence, a small text - these are the first steps in developing the skill of semantic reading. As a rule, during this period, the teacher mainly uses communicative reading aloud, educational and independent reading in the classroom. You can check the conceptual side of reading at this stage through the algorithm: the teacher's question - the student's answer.