Oxford Australia Blog

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Building Independent and Successful Readers

Independent and successful readers are developed as a result of educators implementing a well balanced literacy program. A combination of diagnosing reading abilities and providing shared, guided and one-on-one instruction allows students to develop the right skills and strategies to be able to read independently. See how a coordinated program can make children love reading!

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Reading independently means reading successfully, and so students are more likely to be enjoying the experience! The goal of building independent and successful readers is to foster in your students a genuine love of reading.

Diagnosing reading abilities
Teaching approaches that are based on students’ current levels of ability will best support reading development. To be independent readers, students need to be able to read and comprehend both individual words and connected text. Collecting evidence and data about students’ reading abilities allows educators to identify strategies that will help students become independent and successful readers.

Oxford Literacy Assess, read record respond, reading record
The Oxford Literacy Assess online Digital Reading Record (DRR) captures errors and reading behaviours using touch technology.

The reading record
The reading record captures students’ reading behaviours and yields extensive data that educators can use to make planning and teaching decisions. The reading record provides information about students’ use of word recognition and comprehension strategies – not just a reading level.

Assessment texts
To measure progress towards independent reading, educators need to assess a student using cognitively appropriate and accurately levelled texts. A student may decode and understand a particular text type at a certain reading level, but struggle with other text types at that same level. Therefore, it is important that students are assessed using both fiction and non-fiction texts, and a range of text types.

Next time you will get to hear from one of experts about the process the Oxford Literacy Assess books went through to make sure that they were just right for your students!

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