Appendix
D:
Selecting
Texts for RMI and RMA by Alan D. Flurkey and Debra Goodman
Finding
and selecting appropriate materials for personal and instructional reading for
RMI and RMA purposes takes a great deal of knowledge about the readers and the uses
for the material. The selection of reading materials for the purposes of
evaluation and instruction should be central in discussions about RMI and RMA.
Teachers and students should be consciously aware of this important aspect of
reading. It is useful to hold discussions in teacher education programs, among
all the teachers involved and the students throughout the grades, about the
importance of thoughtful selection of reading material that is of interest to
and serves the needs of readers.
In
relation to selecting materials, we use concepts of accessibility as well as
focusing on natural, predictable, familiar, and complex language. These terms
need to be considered based on knowing as much as possible about the reader and
how these concepts relate to readers? background knowledge, experiences,
interests and capabilities.
Choice
Avid
readers spend time selecting materials that are right for their purposes. They
know which bookstores that have selections they like. They frequent libraries
and other places where books and magazines are plentiful. The books and
magazines that avid readers would purchase for themselves
should be offered to all students as well. Classroom, school and community
libraries should be rich with a range of print and digital materials.
Visiting
reading recovery sites in New Zealand, Yetta was part
of a textbook selection experience that involved classroom teachers. The
teachers were sitting at a large table piled with recently published books.
Teachers working collaboratively based on the age of their students or the
content/subject matter areas they taught read and selected books for their
classroom and school libraries. As they read, they began to categorize the
features of the books they thought would be best for their students. These
criteria became the rubrics used to establish a sense of readability for the
books. They developed their own labels to represent the difficulty of the
books. Later in their classrooms, some teachers worked in a similar vein with
their students and even developed their own labels. In this way, the students
were better able to understand the teachers? categories and the issues
surrounding what makes reading material hard or easy.
Some
classroom libraries had books organized on shelves labeled Easy to
Read, Just
Right,
and A Challenge but Worth It. Being involved in such an experience lead
students to understand why libraries have categories for book selection and how
different categorical systems have been organized over the years. Librarians
are invited to discuss these issues with students.
Readability
formulas have been developed by individual scholars and publishing companies
over the years to support teachers and parents in selecting material for
students. In order to be computerized, such formulas have included simplistic
information such as the number of words and sentences, the ratio of hard words
to easy words, the number of syllables in words, etc. These formulas provide
some information but do not focus on the two aspects of book selection that are
most important to learners: how the material relates to what the individual
reader is interested in and how the material relates to the knowledge and
capability of the reader to allow connections between the reader?s background
and the content of the material.
Material
to Answer Questions Raised by the Student and/or by Assignments
When
we first started working with teachers, we provided lists of children?s books
that related to students? interests. We stopped doing that when we discovered
that there were so many such lists available on the Internet. For example, when
one student or a group of students want to know about basketball, we can use
the Internet to find basketball reading lists or children?s literature on
friendship.
Developmental
Interest
Based
on teachers? and students? intuition and experience it is possible to determine
if the story or content is likely to appeal to readers. Texts are selected that
focus on topics or characters of interest to the students and appropriate for the age group. A picture
book with humor or irony may be a good selection for older students who need an
?easier? text. Many picture books, especially in the content areas, have
sophisticated information about science, history, and other subject matter that
older students find useful. A younger child who is reading at a more ?advanced?
level still needs a topic or plot appropriate for his/her age group.
Adolescents don?t tend to enjoy stories as much if they are about older adults.
Predictability:
Texts
that contain natural story language, that have inviting illustrations, and that
are interesting and meaningful for the reader tend to be more predictable and
accessible. Keep in mind the things in each of the following areas that make
texts more for predictable for the reader:
l Language
l Experience/conceptual background
l Interest
l Meaningfulness for the reader
l Illustration, diagrams,
photos, etc.
Personal
Preference:
Interview
students or students can interview each other to discover how they respond to
the following aspects of the texts for selection:
l Genre
l Topic
l Style
l Media (is reading on a tablet, laptop or phone
preferred over paper books or magazines?)
Texts
That Typically Work Well:
l Picture books
l Complete short stories
l Informative articles on relevant topics
l Folk tales with several concrete events
l Plays that might lend themselves to
collaborative RMA
Texts
That Don?t Typically Work Well for Miscue Analysis (especially for the initial
sessions):
l Book chapters. A chapter excepted from a book is
usually not suitable, especially when it occurs later in a book. Book chapters
generally don?t ?stand alone? because there are often too many characters who may have been introduced in earlier chapters, or events
that are mentioned and not explained that are relevant to the meaning. All
things considered, whole, stand-alone texts work best.
l Texts that rhyme
l Abridged texts
l Unfamiliar topics
l Texts only about adult characters used with
young children
l Controlled vocabulary texts (?artificial? texts
written solely for instructional purposes)
Supports
and Challenges:
l Readers may find reading uninteresting and less
engaging if the text does not offer any sort of challenge to them. When
selecting a text, the idea is to strike a balance between the aspects of texts
that ?support? meaning construction and those that ?challenge? a reader just
enough to push a reader slightly beyond the comfort level (Clay, 1972; Y.
Goodman, 1982; Mooney, 2004). It is useful to involve
the readers in discussions about selecting books related to the above
categories and to expand on the categories. This provides teachers with greater
insight into the selection process.
