Critical thinking..isn’t that a reading skill? Why should I be working on that in speech?  Well critical thinking (aka main idea, inference, predicting, comparing, problem solving) all require adequate vocabulary, syntax, memory, and more.  Those are our expertise and we can help.

Our challenge? Figuring out where to begin.  We need to know what reading levels our students are capable of independently (so that we aren’t focused on decoding) and how long of a text our students can recall independently.  We could ask the classroom teachers but sometimes it is better for us to find out for ourselves. I like to use materials at my students’ level rather than what they are expected to comprehend at their grade level. This helps build their confidence and allows us to focus on the language aspect of these goals.

One question I get asked often is, what assessment tools do you use?!

I always wanted to have a profound answer but it was typically just any comprehension material I had an arms distance. I decided to change that.  I created a tool that can be used for baseline, part of my assessment, and/or for progress monitoring.  I made passages at 3 different Lexile lengths to determine their reading (or listening) capabilities, I also created 3 levels for each of those levels!  For each Lexile, I created a story at the paragraph level, 2 paragraph level, and three paragraph level.

For each story, various question types are provided so that I can determine what types of questions can they do independently, which can they do with some support, and which are they unable to do on their own at this time.

I am so excited about this tool that I decided to share it with all of you...FREE!

I made it as a google slide resource so it can easily be used in person or virtually and completely paper free!  Who has time to deal with printers and photocopy machines these days anyway!?

Check out this video to see how it looks and can be used!