Sean Taylor M.Ed. Reading Sage: Advocating for Every Child to Read, Reason, and Thrive

Evidence-informed reading instruction. Joyful learning. Education centered on the child. Welcome to Reading Sage, created by Sean Taylor, M.Ed., a special education teacher, dyslexia educator, and literacy advocate with 26 years of teaching and intervention experience.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

AzMERIT Math Test Grade 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8

AzMERIT Math Test 2015 | Online AzMERIT Pre-Test and Practice Test Grade 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8

AzMERIT Math Test 2015 Mathematics
3rd Grade: Operations and Algebraic Thinking (Student Version)
3rd Grade: Operations and Algebraic Thinking (Teacher Version)
4th Grade: Type II and III Tasks (Student Version)
4th Grade: Type II and III Tasks (Teacher Version)
5th Grade: Operations and Algebraic Thinking (Student Version)
5th Grade: Operations and Algebraic Thinking (Teacher Version)
6th Grade: Ratios and Proportional Relationships (Student Version)
6th Grade: Ratios and Proportional Relationships (Teacher Version)
7th Grade: Ratios and Proportional Relationships (Student Version)
7th Grade: Ratios and Proportional Relationships (Teacher Version)
8th Grade: Sample Items (Student Version)
8th Grade: Sample Items (Teacher Version)
Algebra: Type I Tasks (Student Version)
Algebra: Type I Tasks (Teacher Version)

Posted by The Reading Sage at 9:51 PM No comments:

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Labels: 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, AzMERIT Math Test 2015 | Online AzMERIT Pre-Test and Practice Test Grade 3

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Close Reading Strategies

Close reading is the careful, analytical, sustained interpretation of a

brief passage of text to enhance understanding and reading comprehension. Such close reading places great emphasis on the single particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they are read.

Close Reading Modeled by Benjamin Franklin

"I thought the writing excellent (Spectator), and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand."Benjamin Franklin

My favorite close reading strategy that boost reading comprehension and writing skills is reading using a key word outline. You start by selecting a quality mentor text and create a bank of key words that are organized into a standard outline. This strategy will quickly help your students build reading comprehension strategies and speed writing competency. The close reading strategy can be used for all mentor text, text excerpts, short stories, paragraphs or poems: Select three or four key words from each sentence that will help you understand, comprehend and remember the content of that sentence. These words should be selected based on interest and importance to the reader and don't have to be teacher directed. Fill your key word outline with you three words from each sentence, separated by commas, on line number one of the key word outline. see model below

After the reader selects 1-4 key words from each sentence or line of text and puts them in a key word outline. They put the original text away and practice summarizing what they just read. After summarizing the passage orally with a partner or the teacher they create a new paragraph from the key word outline of the original text. When students practice summarizing, rewriting or retelling the story, ideas, facts, opinions from their key word outline they vastly improve reading comprehension.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

The fable Summary

The tale concerns a shepherd boy who repeatedly tricks nearby villagers into thinking a wolf is attacking his flock. When one actually does appear and the boy again calls for help, the villagers believe that it is another false alarm and the sheep (or, in some versions of the story, the boy) are eaten by the wolf.

A shepherd-boy, who watched a flock of sheep near a village, brought out the villagers three or four times by crying out, “Wolf! Wolf!” and when his neighbors came to help him, laughed at them for their pains. The Wolf, however, did truly come at last. The Shepherd-boy, now really alarmed, shouted in an agony of terror: “Pray, do come and help me; the Wolf is killing the sheep”; but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance. The Wolf, having no cause of fear, at his leisure lacerated or destroyed the whole flock.

Example of Key Word Outline

I. shepherd-boy, watched , sheep

1. brought, villagers, crying, “Wolf!

2. neighbors, laughed, them

3. Wolf, truly, come

4. Shepherd-boy, shouted, terror

5. Wolf, killing, sheep

6. his, cries, assistance

7. Wolf. lacerated, destroyed, flock

Use the keyword outline provided or write your own and rewrite the story in your own words and post it to the blog!

Redundant Review:

An efficacious close reading strategy in any form starts with a mentor text (short story, expository text or poem) that might be a few hundred words up to a maximum of a thousand words. The reader or teacher reads a quality mentor text with a stated purpose before reading the text. The reader or teacher selects a paragraph that they rank as important, interesting or containing a great example of writing and practice and model close reading strategies.

What is the author teaching me?
What are the important words or powerful ideas?
What does the author want me to understand, question or retort?
How does the author use words to help the reader draw conclusions, infer ideas, internalize feelings or add meaning?

Introduction/Topic/Opener
1. Select 1-4 key words from each sentence or line of text
2. Select 1-3 key words from each sentence
3. Select 1-3 key words from each sentence
4. Select 1-3 key words from each sentence
5. 1. Key Word Questions or Ideas
  2. Whom/which/who/whose
  3. What
  4. Where
  5. When
  6. Why
  7. How
  8. Who
  9. Conflict
  10. Problem
  11. Best? Worst?
  12. Facts
  13. Opinions
  14. ...
  15. ...

A U T O B I O G R A P H Y

OF

B E N J A M I N

F R A N K L I N

How did B E N J A M I N F R A N K L I N Lear to Write?

"He was naturally more eloquent, had a ready plenty of words, and sometimes, as I thought, bore me down more by his fluency than by the strength of his reasons. As we parted without settling the point, and were not to see one another again for some time, I sat down to put my arguments in writing, which I copied fair and sent to him. He answered, and I replied. Three or four letters of a side had passed, when my father happened to find my papers and read them. Without entering into the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about the manner of my writing; observed that, though I had the advantage of my antagonist in correct spelling and pointing (which I ow'd to the printing-house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remarks, and thence grew more attentive to the manner in writing, and determined to endeavor at improvement.

About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method of the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on public worship which my father used to exact of me when I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, thought I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practise it."

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The Dyslexic Reading Teacher Sean Taylor M.Ed.

The Reading Sage: Literacy for me was almost an unrealized unattainable dream! As a dyslexic learner I was unable to read, write, or decode words as a child, p,d,b and q were all the same letter. The written word was a collection of cuneiform squiggles that swam around on the page. I was identified dyslexic at age 9 and later dysgraphic. I spent the next 6 years in special education programs (limbō) trying to learn to read and write. The special education programs never acknowledged my creative capabilities, coping skills and shame and humiliation of being illiterate, they focused on "curing" my learning disabilities with under-trained teachers! Many classroom teachers assumed I would never read or write due to the severity of my dyslexia and this made me feel worthless. I eventually learned to read all words by sight the same method as learning Chinese. I am a dyslexic reading teacher that has built a reputation for finding innovative ways to teach reading and critical thinking to all students! ALL children are gifted and can learn to read! Sean Taylor M.Ed.

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My Gift of Dyslexia and ART!

Artwork by Sean Taylor. My Portraits. and Pen and Ink Artwork helped pay for college! Art and Dyslexia was a gift that let me travel to 29 countries. Click on picture for more information.

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