Score 4 Reading

Researchers have reported on the effectiveness of frequent feedback, tape-assisted reading, partner reading, silent reading, and oral reading.  These are all components of the Score 4 Reading intervention for struggling readers.  Adults and children needing assistance can count on Score 4 Reading.

Score 4 Reading integrates (1) accuracy, (2) fluency, and (3) comprehension as the key elements of intervention.  The ultimate goal is to develop successful readers who comfortably read and understand any text as long as they have enough prior knowledge to make sense of it.  Rate (words per minute) is addressed during assessments and is not a focus of the intervention itself, although a natural sounding pace is considered during the intervention.  

The objective of this program is to generate fluent, comfortable reading that is understandable to the reader and/or listener.  The reader in Score 4 Reading is compelled to generate successful reading (feels comfortable, sounds natural, and makes sense).  This is accomplished by a six step process that includes repeated reading, silent reading, partner reading, and listening to a model of wonderful reading on a CD.  Our stories are modeled using natural phrasing that sounds like talking. 

Score 4 Reading stories have been through readability statistics to assure appropriate grade-leveling and divided into parts.  The last part is not recorded or read to the reader.  The reader is required to generate successful reading with all parts, even though he or she has not heard the last part.  This “cold read” with an adult guide nearby, allows the reader to safely experiment with newly acquired strategies.  A simple guided reading process is used to generate successful reading. 

In Score 4 Reading, one adult can work with up to five readers at a time.  The adult is responsible for judging the reading according to a stringent scoring guide before readers are allowed to move to another part of the text.  Readers are required to score a 4 (the highest standard on the scoring guide) on all parts of a story in accuracy, fluency, and comprehension.   

The role of the teacher is to guide and encourage the student as they work through the process of listening to the well-modeled sections of each story.  The other principal task for the teacher is to assess progress so that the student moves forward at an appropriate pace.  Score 4 Reading provides software and data collection forms and even tapes to collect reading samples from each student.  Assessments take between four and seven minutes to administer and are recommended after every 20 hours of instruction.  

In order to collect accurate data from a running record, it is a good idea to tape record the assessment.  The reader reads a passage the teacher has chosen from the two sets of assessment stories included in the manual, knowing that at the end of the reading they will be expected to provide a retell of what they read in their own words.  The teacher then listens to and analyzes the recording. He or she marks errors, self-corrections, and changes that work (accuracy).  In addition, the assessor marks pauses, repetitions, and unnatural sounding reading (fluency).  Because all of this has been recorded, the assessor can easily recheck the comprehension (the depth of the retell), and the markings for accuracy and fluency.  Knowing how fast or slow a reader is reading (rate) is also important information.  The recording allows the assessor to get this information without the reader having to worry about speedy reading.  The software that comes with Score 4 Reading will compute the rate for you.