Samuel:

Ensure the reading material relates to students' prior readings, experiences/interests, or societal issues to make it interesting and motivating for them, especially at the primary level. They would be able to relate to this material much easier. 

Debra

This is such a key concept as it represents the shift from primary to junior grades (in Ontario, from Grade 3 - 8 years old, to Grade 4).  In the primary grades (kindergarten to Grade 3) we focus on getting students thinking aloud, discussing and writing about what they read.  Using a guided reading approach, where teachers take students through modelled, shared, guided and independent reading, usually in groups according to reading ability (We use Marie Clay's Observation Survey in kindergarten, the Developmental Reading Assessment in the second year of kindergarten up to Grade 3, and the Comprehension, Attitudes, Strategies, Interest assessment in Grades 4 - 8, teachers assess students' abilities to decode and make meaning of what they read.  Students are taught reading strategies to help them and teachers regularly assess for, as and of learning, so that they can adjust their teaching throughout the process.  There are some wonderful resources to assist teachers in creating a strong guided reading program;  The Cafe Book and The Daily Five by Gail Bushey and Lynn Moser, explain and help you set up an excellent reading program, for example.  Throughout the process of learning to read and reading to learn, teachers focus on Big Ideas, Enduring Understandings and Inquiry to push students' thinking to a deeper level, using questions from Bloom's Taxonomy to make inferences about what they read.  Throughout the process, assessment as learning (checklists, one-on-one conversations, peer-conferences, small-group instruction, whole-class discussions, rubrics, activities and assignments, the teacher fine-tunes and adjusts her/his teaching to respond to what the assessments are telling her.  Regular reassessments using the Observation Survey, the DRA and the CASI (in Ontario these area available in English and in French), help the teacher to determine what progress is being made, where the strengths and areas of need are and adjusting as and when needed.  This is a very quick overview of a very complex process.  The cornerstone of early learning leading to reading, however, is oral language.  The more students are given opportunities to talk, discuss, debate (small-group, partners, turn-and-talk, think-pair-share), the better able they will be to develop their decoding and comprehension skills.  This cannot be stressed enough.  Particularly in the fast-paced world we live in, time spent talking with adults, with peers is a vital component of the development of reading skills.  

Reading Instruction and Development @ Harvard

Explore how children from kindergarten through high school learn to read across a variety of texts and contexts and how teachers can use a variety of instructional strategies to address the literacy learning of students from diverse home and language backgrounds

https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.gse.harvard.edu/course/fall-2015/h818-reading-instruction-and-development-fall-2015&ved=0ahUKEwiJsMb7-LDJAhVMkY4KHeKNB-g4PBAWCDQwCQ&usg=AFQjCNHVgtDCUfpz_7gcKN0paPsUoee4eg&sig2=OX2b5a6FxBFiAJ2Y3uEtLQ

Debra,

Very interesting. Thanks for your nice response to my question.

I agree with all that has been said.  In Indigenous education, content can be problematic in that students do not see themselves in the content, never experienced the scenario that is provided, or don't understand the language used.  It is important to ensure the language is clear and that everyone is starting from the same basic understandings of the language at hand.

Hello Samuel

I am a professor at the University of Stavanger, where we have an excellent team of specialists in what is called the Norwegian Reading Centre. Here is a link, and feel free to say I referred you. Best wishes Paul

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