Hi i have five students that all year have not moved up the reading levels. Does anyone have any ideas on how I could get them to move. The sad thing is there parents do not listen to them read as they are not confident english speakers. Any ideas to get these kids moving? Any resources you could share?

[Susan/IN]

I, too, know how frustrating this can be. Last year we had 2 students who never got past a level 3 all year and both had Reading Recovery (I was one of the boys' RR teacher). Needless to say both were going to repeat, although one moved so I don't know what ever happened to him. The other started off feeling quite confident but now has reverted back to old ways. We have done a number of pupil assistance team meetings, and finally is going to be tested. There could be so many reasons - speech, low IQ, vision, attention problems...these are all things we are trying to rule out. One thing you might try with some of your students. Have them write (or dictate to you if they can't write all the words) their own stories. We originally started off with 3 boys who had had Reading Recovery, but couldn't get past those first levels. One, though, loved to tell stories, so he "wrote" his own books with our help and this kind of spurred him on. He is repeating this year and doing pretty good and feels so much more confident. I think we just have to keep trying different puzzle pieces in different combinations until we come up with something that works. Don't give up; you're not alone.

[bamateach]

I understand completely. I too have had those students that just won't budge. It is so frustrating. I am assuming these children are ELL. Do they go to ELL classes? Do you think there may be something other than a language barrier? Do you have a referral system set up to get help from a group of peers and/or get students tested? Sorry for all the questions. Last year I had several students that did not move up their reading levels either. They went to the reading coach and nothing. I referred both of them and unfortunatly they were tested, but did not qualify for Special Education services. It was a matter of a point or so on their testing. I was furious. Even the Psychometrist commented that she was surprised. Basically I was told they are only doing the best they can do. I wish I could tell my administration that and they could tell the state and the state could tell the gov't and the gov't could tell the president, but it doesn't work that way. (They can only tell us that!) Anyhow, here are some things that I have done in the past that worked with some of my students. First I always start with fluency. I don't care if they are speed readers just that they can read with accuracy and enough speed to keep a flow. I find poetry to be good for this. I teach my children how to chunk phrases together and read them. Some of my lower readers will always need me to chunk for them, but most can do this. We are now required to pull our struggling readers (those that have not benchmarked on DIBELS) and work with them in a small group 2 times per day. So basically I do my small groups, my struggling students go to reading coach, then I teach them in a small group setting AGAIN! It does provide extra time for practice. I have the book sets that came with our Harcourt series and we read several of these per week. They read it to themselves, to a partner, with the groups, and for homework. Lots of practice. By the way our school has a large population of hispanics. It has taken a long time for our Special Education Coordinator to come to terms with the fact that she will have to find a way to test some ELL children. Her cop out seemed to always be "it's a language problem." Even when we knew that was not the case. We had to continue to be an advocate for these children and finally that is no longer an issue at our school. Good luck. Keep us posted.