For more than three decades, Constance Weaver has been one of the fields’ leading voices on literacy topics ranging from the reading process to grammar instruction.

• Core Comprehensive Reading Program

What is Repeated Reading? (And why is it a must?) Repeated reading means the child reads the same passage multiple times. Decades of research indicates that if you want your child to improve fluency and comprehension, they should not be going from article to article or paging through a book. Instead, they should read a body of content at least 3 times in a row. The more your child reads a body of text, the easier it is for them to decode the words and read the text accurately.

Their familiarity with the text frees their mind to work on reading more fluently, with expression. And reading with expression, leads to improved comprehension. Achieving a higher level of fluency and comprehension in a body of text gives your child an experience of reading at a level that they can apply to new text. With Reading Buddy Software, every session your child will read a text three times. Your child will master the text, learn new words, and achieve an elevated level of fluency and comprehension that they can apply to future readings.

The Importance of HEARING Fluent Reading In addition to guided reading, it’s also crucial for your child to hear fluent reading. Think about it: did you teach your child how to talk? You may have explained some vocabulary here and there, corrected an occasional grammar mistake, but essentially your child learned to talk by listening to other people talk. It works similarly with reading. In order to improve fluency and comprehension, your child has to listen to fluent reading.

Most children who use Reading Buddy Software do one session per day. A “session” means that they complete all 7 steps of the Reading Buddy protocol:. Child reads. Reading Buddy Software reads to child. Practice words. Child reads.

Reading Buddy Software reads to child. Child reads. Comprehension quiz Notice that in steps 2 and 5, Reading Buddy Software reads to your child. So a child using Reading Buddy Software hears a dramatic and fluent reading twice each session.

Hearing these fluent reads is instrumental in helping them become more fluent readers. And improved fluency leads to better comprehension. The Key to Comprehension By Ari Fertel Founder & President Reading Buddy Software Many parents want their children to improve their reading comprehension. But how to accomplish that is often misunderstood. The best way to improve reading comprehension is not to focus on comprehension; it’s to focus on fluency. Your child’s fluency will determine the depth of their comprehension.

Let me explain. Fluency is the ability to read words accurately, easily, and with expression. There’s a progression there Accurately Easily Expressively ACCURATELY First, a child learns to decode words and pronounce them accurately. This is the first step to fluency. EASILY The more a child reads, the easier it is for them to read accurately. It’s not that the accuracy increases; it’s that the effort required for the same accuracy decreases. First, a child learns to decode words and pronounce them accurately.

This is a very important step in a child’s progress toward improved comprehension. Because the more brain power your child has to invest in pronunciation, the less brain power they have available for comprehension. There’s a limit to how much your child can do at once.

If he’s focused on one thing, he’s not able to focus on another. Last night I was talking to my husband while he was brushing his teeth.

He understood everything I said while at the same time brushing and swishing. What would have happened if I tried to talk to my 9 year old while he was brushing his teeth? He would have stopped brushing and said, “What mom?” For my husband, brushing is automatic.

He doesn’t have to think about it. In fact, he can do it while thinking about something else. But for a 9 year old, brushing takes more thought. He has to concentrate. And therefore, he can’t concentrate on anything else at the same time. The problem with many young readers is that they spend so much energy thinking about how to read that they don’t have spare energy to think about what they’re reading.

A child with impaired fluency is like an actor who doesn’t know their lines. As long as they’re thinking about the words, the meaning doesn’t come through. And that’s why improving fluency leads to improved comprehension. Before your child can find the meaning of the words, the words themselves have to be easy to read.

EXPRESSIVELY After your child reads accurately and easily, they can read with expression. Expression catapults comprehension. Think about a public speaker. A good public speaker uses volume, tone, emphasis, cadence, and phrasing to convey meaning. Our understanding is not just a function of what the speaker says; it’s also a function of how he says it.

A poor public speaker, on the other hand, is monotone. Their delivery is robotic. It lacks expression. And without the verbal cues, their message is less engaging and harder to comprehend. It works similarly with reading.

Comprehension skyrockets once a reader realizes which words to chunk together and which ones to emphasize within each chunk. But again, this chunking of words and injection of emphasis is only possible for fluent readers who have the brain capacity to make sense of what they’re reading. WHAT should Your Child Read (And Why it Matters) By Ari Fertel Founder & President Reading Buddy Software I remember as a child, most of what we read in school was soooooooo boring. It’s hard enough to learn to read, but what I was being asked to read was killing my interest in learning the skill altogether. The same thing is happening today.

Many schools, tutors, and reading programs fail to choose good content. The result is that the child’s progress suffers. People think that content is irrelevant, that as long as it’s age appropriate, children will learn to read regardless. That’s only partly true. The fact is that content has a big impact on the child’s experience reading and on the pace of their development. If the content is dull, it’s hard for the child to focus and they won’t be motivated to read.

If, on the other hand, the content is engaging, it’s easier to focus and the child will want to read. These issues of focus and motivation directly impact your child’s progress, and therefore, in a very practical way, content matters!

Of course, the content has to be age appropriate and reading-level appropriate. That’s obvious and easy.

Pretty much everyone gets that right. In my opinion though, that’s far from the definition of good content.

That just gets you in the game. To win, the content has to be truly engaging. The more captivating the content, the faster your child will develop reading competency. Now I want to temper my point. It’s important that children also learn to read content that doesn’t excite them. This is an important skill.

I wasn’t excited about reading the instructions on the absentee ballot, but if I wanted my vote to count I had to get through it. Certainly, in order to succeed academically, a child must be able to read a variety of content, including the boring kind. But, for the most part, what your child reads should be riveting.

When I was developing Reading Buddy Software, I took this very seriously. Most reviewers don’t care so much about content in the way I’m describing, as long as it’s age and level appropriate. So it would have been easy to get away with using mediocre content. I refused to do that. Instead, I spent over a year searching for just the right content for every reading level. And in the end, a lot of the articles and stories I wrote myself.

The result is that kids enjoy using Reading Buddy Software. They know they’re going to read something interesting. They know they’re going to learn something that’s meaningful to them. And this one is big; they know they’re going to learn something that helps them feel smart around other people.

Let me give you some examples. What’s the body’s biggest organ?

Children who use Reading Buddy Software know the answer to that question. It’s not the brain, the liver, or the lungs; it’s your skin! And did you know that skin is not only on your body, it’s all over your house! That’s right. A lot of the dust in your home is dead skin.

If your child read an article like that today, what do you think would happen? Wouldn’t they come to you and say, “Guess what I read today”? How great would that be? Your child coming to you excited about what they read. Here’s another one. Did you know that you can go snow skiing in the summer? Yup, it’s true.

There’s an indoor ski resort in Dubai. And kids who use Reading Buddy know where Dubai is (quick geography lesson) and they’ve seen a picture of the resort, which they think is very cool. Sorry, I can’t resist, I have to share with you one more. Who invented baseball?

If you’re like most people, you answeredAbner Doubleday. But if you were a child using Reading Buddy, you would know that Abner Doubleday did not invent baseball.

And you’d also be able to tell the story about how that myth came to be. The bottom line is that content matters. What your child reads will affect how much your child values reading.

And practically speaking, that makes a big difference as to whether or not and how quickly your child progresses. If you use Reading Buddy Software, you’re all set with hundreds of stories that your child will think are awesome.

What’s Included? Reading Buddy Software for 1 Computer.

400 Reading Sessions (20-40 minutes each) divided into 4 reading levels for grades 1-8. Each session includes the complete Reading Buddy 7-step practice protocol (repeated readings, word mastery exercise, & comprehension questions). The Reading Buddy Point & Prize Motivation System. Custom kid-friendly dictionary. 1-click access to synonyms, Spanish translations, Wikipedia, and pictures. Full reporting including stats and graphs for time spent, word accuracy, comprehension, and pass/fail.

Unlimited Usage. Your child can access any of the 400 readings as many times as they want. Unlimited Users. If you have multiple children, you can create separate accounts for each child. Unlimited Technical Support. Phone and email. What’s Included?

Reading Buddy Software for 1 Computer. 400 Reading Sessions (20-40 minutes each) divided into 4 reading levels for grades 1-8.

Each session includes the complete Reading Buddy 7-step practice protocol (repeated readings, word mastery exercise, & comprehension questions). The Reading Buddy Point & Prize Motivation System. Custom kid-friendly dictionary. 1-click access to synonyms, Spanish translations, Wikipedia, and pictures. Full reporting including stats and graphs for time spent, word accuracy, comprehension, and pass/fail. Unlimited Usage. Your child can access any of the 400 readings as many times as they want.

Unlimited Users. If you have multiple children, you can create separate accounts for each child. Unlimited Technical Support. Phone and email. Weaknesses Reading Buddy Software is not for every child. It’s important you understand its weaknesses. Reading Buddy Software is not a quick fix.

To transform your child’s reading skills they will have to follow the Reading Buddy Software practice protocol, which takes 15-30 minutes/day, ideally 5 times/week. Reading Buddy Software is not a phonics program; it’s a fluency and comprehension program. In order for Reading Buddy Software to work, your child must know how to sound out the letters of the alphabet and how to read simple words. Reading Buddy Software is not completely hands-off for you, the parent.

Your role is to utilize the built-in Reading Buddy Point & Prize System and to make sure that the prizes you’re dangling are motivating your child to use Reading Buddy Software. If they’re not, you’ll need to change them. In 10% of the cases, Reading Buddy Software initially delivers a library too easy or too hard for the child. This can be a little disappointing at first. It will require you to edit your child’s library level.

This will take you about 3 minutes to do and there’s no cost. Research Excerpts “Speech-recognition-based readingware offers an unprecedented platform for melding research and practice andfor making real contributions to the vital challenge of closing the literacy gap.” Marilyn Jager Adams, Ph.D. International Handbook of Literacy and Technology “The effects of tutor- or computer-assisted word recognition were assessed in a sample of third grade children. At pre-test, students' reading accuracy and fluency were evaluated on a training word list, generalization word list, and reading passages. Students were then randomly assigned to one of three group conditions—control (students practiced word lists alone), tutor-assisted, and computer-assisted—and given three training sessions.

Results indicated that students practicing alone did not improve fluency, whereas both tutor- and computer-assisted groups significantly improved reading speed and accuracy on the trained list and reading fluency on some passages. Students who received word recognition training via a computer performed as well as students who received individualized tutoring.

Importantly, the computer-assisted instruction required little teacher time or supervision.” Lewandowski, L, Begeny, J., & Rogers, C. (2006) Word-recognition training: Computer versus tutor. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 22, 395-410. Microphone Headset Your child needs a USB microphone headset to use Reading Buddy Software. In theory, any good quality USB mic headset should work well with Reading Buddy Software, and you can try whatever one you want, and sometimes we hear from users that they’re using a different mic headset and it works well, but we’ve done A LOT of testing and have found that the speech recognition accuracy with the is usually far superior. It's crucial that you have the right USB microphone headset, otherwise Reading Buddy Software may not work properly. Is the approved USB microphone headset, available on amazon.com and at many other online and local retailers.

More than fifteen years ago, Constance Weaver's Grammar for Teachers (NCTE, 1979) broke new ground by responding to widespread concern about the place of grammar in the curriculum. Hindi film songs. Suggesting that teachers need to know key aspects of grammar in order to teach writing more effectively, Weaver also argued that students need to be guided in learning and applying grammatical c More than fifteen years ago, Constance Weaver's Grammar for Teachers (NCTE, 1979) broke new ground by responding to widespread concern about the place of grammar in the curriculum.

Suggesting that teachers need to know key aspects of grammar in order to teach writing more effectively, Weaver also argued that students need to be guided in learning and applying grammatical concepts as they revise and edit their writing. Attention to sentence structure and mechanics during the process of writing would result in better products. With Teaching Grammar in Context, Weaver extends her philosophy by offering teachers a rationale and practical ideas for teaching grammar not in isolation but in the context of writing. She begins by introducing some common meanings of 'grammar' and provides a historical overview of traditional reasons for teaching grammar as a school subject.

After examining those reasons, she questions them, citing decades of research which suggests that grammar taught in isolation has little, if any, effect on most students' writing. To lay the groundwork for a more effective approach, Weaver considers how preschoolers learn the basic structures of their native language and how second-language grammar is acquired. She goes on to suggest a research-based perspective on the concept of error and on the writing 'errors' our students make, concluding with practical alternatives to what Lois Rosen has dubbed 'the error hunt.' Equally useful is Weaver's examination of the aspects of grammar on which we might focus as we guide our students in writing and revising sentences and in editing selected pieces. Her final chapter addresses the teaching of grammar from the perspective of learning theory. The appendix includes numerous sample lessons from Weaver's own teaching, illustrating the five broad topics suggested in the text: teaching concepts of subject, verb, clause, sentence, and related editing concepts teaching style through sentence combining and generating teaching sentence sense and style through manipulation of syntactic elements teaching the power of dialects and dialects of power teaching punctuation and mechanics for convention, clarity, and style. Teaching Grammar in Context fills a long-standing gap in the literature on teaching writing.

It will prove invaluable to all practicing and preservice teachers, especially those at the middle and high school levels, where grammar is taught most intensively. This book is cited in nearly every more recent book I've read that addresses grammar instruction, so I had to read it. Not a read and apply type of teacher book, but it definitely addresses theoretical foundations behind grammar instruction. It does include some application with sample lessons in the appendix, although if application is really all you want, I would look elsewhere (Jeff Anderson or Janet Angelilo). Still, it was a good read if you want more detailed information on research and th This book is cited in nearly every more recent book I've read that addresses grammar instruction, so I had to read it. Not a read and apply type of teacher book, but it definitely addresses theoretical foundations behind grammar instruction. It does include some application with sample lessons in the appendix, although if application is really all you want, I would look elsewhere (Jeff Anderson or Janet Angelilo).

Still, it was a good read if you want more detailed information on research and theory. The chapter that compares behaviorism with constructivism along with Hunter's lesson design vs.

Mini-lessons (a la Calkins and Atwell) was fascinating. I really, really dislike Weaver's view on the importance of teaching grammar in schools. I, like Weaver, believe that reading and writing is an incredibly important tool for children learning to write. However, she puts NO premium on learning grammar. She finds it absolutely useless.

I do not agree with this outlook. The book has a good section at the back containing potential lesson plans for mini-lessons; these are quite useful if you're going to teach.

But otherwise, the book isn't that great I really, really dislike Weaver's view on the importance of teaching grammar in schools. I, like Weaver, believe that reading and writing is an incredibly important tool for children learning to write.

Core Comprehensive Reading Program

However, she puts NO premium on learning grammar. She finds it absolutely useless. I do not agree with this outlook. The book has a good section at the back containing potential lesson plans for mini-lessons; these are quite useful if you're going to teach. But otherwise, the book isn't that great. I don't recommend it.