engage with grade-level complex text; students experiencing reading difficulties need scaffolding to
interpret and respond to texts above their reading level.
Providing opportunities for students to engage in extended periods of structured independent
reading of self-selected challenging books, accompanied by supported, individualized reading
instruction can have a positive effect on reading achievement (Reis, and others 2008; Taylor, Frye,
and Maruyama 1990). When planning an independent reading program, teachers design structures
for students to record what they read and to chart their progress toward meeting their reading goals.
Students should be taught how to select books that interest them and to evaluate the complexity
of the text so that they know how challenging it will be. Student choice is a hallmark of an effective
independent reading program. Successful teacher librarians and classroom teachers seek to connect
middle school students with books and other texts that inspire, delight, and challenge young minds
and spur them to read more. In addition, it is especially important in the middle grades and beyond,
as students are intensely interested in establishing their identities, for school and classroom libraries
to contain an abundance of literature that reflects the cultural and linguistic diversity of the school
and of California. (See chapter 2 of this ELA/ELD Framework for more information on wide reading,
independent reading, and planning an independent reading program.).
Foundational Skills
Ideally, by the time students enter middle school their
knowledge of foundational skills is well established. They
have a large base of sight words—those they recognize
instantaneously—and they rapidly and effectively employ word
recognition skills to identify new printed words. In short, they
access printed language efficiently.
Fluency, which includes accuracy, rate, and prosody,
continues to develop as students engage in wide and extensive
reading. Rate of reading varies, however, as it should, with the
text and the task. Data from an extensive study of oral reading
fluency revealed the mean words read per minute (that is,
the reading rate by students in grades one through eight in
unpracticed readings from grade-level materials) (Hasbrouck and
Tindal 2006). See the grade-level sections that follow for charts of mean oral reading rates by grade.
The researchers recommended that students scoring more than 10 words below the 50th percentile
receive additional instruction that targets fluency.
Fluency rates should be cautiously interpreted with all students. They are particularly difficult to
apply to speakers of languages other than English and to deaf and hard of hearing students who use
American Sign Language. When students storysign, they are actually interpreting the story from one
language (printed English) to another (American Sign Language). In this case, fluency rates as listed
in the figure do not apply.
Fluency is important in that it supports comprehension. The greater the ease with which students
can identify words accurately, the more cognitive resources they have available to engage in meaning
making. If students are experiencing difficulty with fluency, that is their reading is slow and labored, it
is critical to determine the reason. Some students may have inadequately developed decoding skills.
Others may have insufficient language (i.e., vocabulary and syntax) or knowledge, both of which may
also impact fluency. Still others may not have developed automaticity with printed language.
It is critical for teachers to understand that pronunciation differences due to influences from the
primary language, home dialect of English (e.g., African American English), or regional accent do not
necessarily indicate a difficulty with decoding and should not automatically be interpreted as such.
In addition, although pronunciation is important, overcorrecting it can lead to self-consciousness and
538 | Chapter 6 Grades 6 to 8