Reading Intervention Program | 6 Minute Solution | Free Downloads

Every day reading is very important for growth. It is hard to find the time but a great solution is this great free program “6 minute solution”.  This program only takes 6 minutes and come with easy to follow instructions. Students can practice their fluency skill everyday!!!

6 Minute Solution Website

There are three different levels, primary, intermediate, and secondary. So whatever grade you teach this is something you can use! This can also go home as homework for parent participation goals. 

The website just has the passages but I will add each full book for you to download. They include all instructions on how to use the program and all passages in each level. 

Click here for K - Third Grade

Click here for Third - Sixth Grade

Click Here for Sixth - Ninth Grade

Click here for a Free Parent Participation Guide

MAZE Reading Passage Generator | Understanding While Silent Reading

At my new school there is a MAZE reading comprehension test the students take and I felt I needed to teach that strategy so they could apply it on a test, but there were no materials to do so.

I searched high and low for MAZE comprehension passages online and found few to none for free. Of course, because I think it is crazy that people expect us poor teachers to pay for these resources I kept searching. 

A co-teacher of mine would write her own but of course not a whole reading passage but a couple sentences for her students to practice on homework. This takes so much time and as teachers, our time is precious! After days of searching I finally found a website that you can paste a fluency passage in and it will generate a MAZE reading passage from it. I felt like the clouds to heaven had parted. I was so excited!

MAZE Passage Generator (Click Here)

 I have been using it to assign as homework and as a weekly practice test. Discussing strategies to picking the correct word and having practice I have seen major improvement in scores.

• What is MAZE comprehension?
• It is a task that measures how well students understand text that they read silently. After the first sentence, words in the reading passage are replaced with the correct word and two distracters. Students choose the word from among the three choices that fits best with the sentence. The MAZE is different from traditional comprehension that is based completely on text. 
• Why test MAZE?
• Capable readers understand syntax of what they read and meanings of words as they are used in the text. Some readers with reading difficulties can’t comprehend what they read well enough to choose words based on semantic and syntactic accuracy.  The MAZE reading assessment identifies these students and measures the changes in their reading behaviors as a result of instruction and practice.

Example of a MAZE scored:

Guided Reading Note Template | Anecdotal Recordings | Free Download

With the big switch to Common Core Curriculum here in Arizona, taking anecdotal running record notes on your guided reading groups is crucial but also a distraction to students. For a long time I struggled with how to take notes on students reading to me with out distracting them. I also struggled with taking notes myself, while still paying attention to the students reading skills I was to be assessing.

After making lots of different templates, my most recent one is easier to use and does not distract students. While I have students read to me one on one, I tally the errors made while reading and the number of self corrections (SC) made while reading at the bottom. After they have read to me, I then check boxes of skills they have used, you can also mark boxes later when you are checking for understanding and other skills like making predictions.

My students have been able to focus more on their reading skills than on me since I have switched to only tallying while they read and then making marks/notes after they are done. I have also been able to focus on the students! WOOHOO!!!

I have included a FREE download of the template below,  just click here.