Candyce Ihnot Answers Questions
About One Minute
Reader
One Minute Reader is based on Read Naturally, a successful classroom reading program developed by Candyce Ihnot, who is a reading teacher in the Minneapolis Public Schools. Read Naturally is used in thousands of schools across North America, just as One Minute Reader is used in thousands of homes.
Here, Candyce answers some common questions about the One Minute Reader home reading program.
Q: Who can benefit from using One Minute Reader?
A: One Minute Reader can help developing readers improve their ability to read fluently while also providing comprehension and vocabulary-enhancing activites.
As a teacher, I've successfully used a similar system in my classroom to improve the reading fluency of my students, some of whom were special education students. Other teachers have also seen great improvements in fluency using the system with a variety of students, including beginning readers, struggling students, and students for whom English is not their first language.
Q: How often and how long should readers work on the One Minute Reader stories?
A: For the best results, students should work with One Minute Reader three times a week. Five times a week is even better. It's usually more effective to work for a short time—maybe 15 to 30 minutes—several days a week than to work for just one long session.
Each One Minute Reader story takes about 30 minutes to complete. But every reader is different, so there's no need for concern if your student takes more or less time to finish the steps.
And don't worry about completing a story in one sitting. Young children or those with shorter attention spans may take two or even three short sessions to complete a story.
You know your child best and how long he or she can handle intense concentration. If your child becomes tired or frustrated, it's time to stop.
Q: Do I need to be present while my child works on One Minute Reader?
A: The only step that requires you to be present is the
final timing.
Whether an adult needs to be present to help a student
work on the other steps of One Minute Reader really depends
on the individual student.
Younger children or easily-distracted youths may need to
have an adult present for all the steps. Older students
can work by themselves.
It depends not just on age, but also personality. Some
students may enjoy having someone to work through the story
with. Others may prefer to practice by themselves, and
only read aloud for someone else once they've mastered
a story.
Regardless of whether you're present for all the steps of a story or only for the final timing, your support, interest, and praise can make a big difference to your child.
Q: Do the readers have to read out loud?
A: There are several reasons why it's important for students using One Minute Reader to read out loud.
When reading along with the CD, it's very important for students to read out loud. To be successful, the reader must actively read along, and not just listen as the CD plays. Actively reading along means seeing a word on the page at the same time as saying the word out loud and hearing the narrator say it. This process increases the likelihood the student will learn the words well enough to be able to read them later in another text.
When students time themselves reading without the CD, the only way we can know they are actually reading is to hear them reading. In addition, the same person will read out loud and read silently at different speeds. To be able to compare one timing score to another, the student always needs to read aloud. Finally, the only way we can know if they are reading correctly is if we hear them read.
Q: Why does the narrator on the CD read slowly?
A: The stories are recorded near reading rates appropriate for the difficulty level of the stories. Since the narrator reads at the student's pace, readers can see the word on the page at the same time they hear the word and say the word. This helps them to learn new words, and to become more comfortable with commonly-missed words like "were" and "where."
You may have noticed that there are three recordings of each story. Many readers need to listen two or even three times to learn the words well. Each of the three recording gets just a little faster, to keep students challenged as they become more familiar with the words.
Q: Should the reader always read along with the CD three times?
A: Even though there are three recordings of each story
on the CD, students don't always need to read along three
times. They should read along as many times as it takes
to be able to read the words by themselves. For many readers,
this takes two or three times.
I recommend starting by reading along three times. Work
through a story with your student; if the reader doesn't
know the words, ask them to read along more times. If the
reader knows the words well, that student may need fewer
read alongs.
Q: How many times should a reader practice reading the same story?
A: Below each story there are five green lines to record the reader's scores for each practice timing. That might make you think students should always practice five times. But those lines are just there for your convenience.
Readers should practice as many times as it takes for them to read the story accurately and with expression. Most students should time themselves reading at least three times. Many students will need to do this five, seven, or even more times to master the story.
One way to encourage your student to read the same story over and over is to set a goal to work towards. A typical goal would be to practice until the reader can beat the original cold timing score by 30 words. If that seems too hard, lower the goal. If it's too easy, see if the reader can beat the original score by 40 words.
Another type of goal might be to practice some set number of times and see how high a score the reader can get with each reading.
Q: How important is it to read without mistakes?
A: Reading without mistakes is a very important aspect
of fluency.
Think about fluency as being able to read as well as you
speak. Nobody talks perfectly…but most people do speak very
accurately. Most people say the words they mean most of
the time.
Likewise, readers should correctly say the words most of the time. A good reader typically would not make more than one to three mistakes for every 100 words of text.
During the one-minute timings, some students try to read so fast that they rush through the words, making lots of mistakes, not stopping for punctuation, and not understanding what they read. If your child does this, immediately stop the timing and have him or her start over. Remind the student to read like he talks.
Q: What should I listen for as my child reads during the final timing?
A: In one of the final One Minute Reader steps, your child reads the story for you or another proficient reader. In this step, time your child reading for one minute, and keep track of the number of words your child still doesn't know. Ideally, you'll hear three or fewer mistakes during the timing.
If you've set a goal for your child, such as trying to
read 30 words faster than the cold timing score for the
story, then the final timing is your opportunity to see
whether your child met that goal. Meeting the reading goal
is a great reason to congratulate your child on all that
hard work.
As you listen to the story, also pay attention to whether
your child reads smoothly, expressively, and pauses for
punctuation.
Finally, review the Quick Quiz and help with any misunderstandings. Another way to help your child understand the story is to talk about the story together. Talking about the discussion question is one way to do this.
Q: What kind of fluency improvement can I expect within a story?
A: Every reader is different, so the amount of improvement you'll see within a story will vary with the reader's age, the difficulty level of the material, and how well the reader can read the story to begin with. Readers who start out knowing most of the words can't improve as dramatically, since they don't have as far to go.
When using a system similar to One Minute Reader in my classroom, I've typically seen improvement of 25 to 40 words between a student's original cold timing and the final hot timing score.
A reader's scores won't necessarily improve after every single one-minute timing. However, my experience in the classroom tells me scores usually do go up as a reader practices.
If I saw that the scores for a reader were not improving, the first thing I'd do would be to check whether the student was correctly reading along with the CD. Readers can't just listen to the CD, but must actively read along out loud—as they see the word, they must hear the word and say the word themselves.
Q: How do I know when my child is ready for higher-level books?
A: These are some indications that your child may be ready to move up to the next level of books:
 |
At the cold timing (step 2), your child makes very few mistakes and his or her cold timing scores have gone up significantly. |
|
The hot timing scores (step 8) are increasing. |
|
Your child is able to pass a story in less than 15 minutes. |
These are all signs that the current level of stories is becoming too easy and it may be time to move up a level.
As a parent, you need to monitor your child so that the material he or she is reading is neither so hard that they can't read it easily nor so easy that they're just maintaining where they are. You want to keep challenging them with material that's a little bit harder.
