December 2004     Vol.5 Issue 12

The Lesson Plans that accompany each article are based on a long-established reading instructional lesson design called the Directed Reading Activity or DRA. In the DRA, the teacher or tutor is a mediator between the printed text and the student or literacy learner. The mediator’s role is to ensure that the learner practices reading habits during the lesson that are effective ones that can be transferred later to other reading situations. To ask a reader to read material that is too difficult for him or her, without providing help, is to encourage the learner to practice habits such as the skipping of unknown words and to misread or miss altogether the message intended by the author. Obviously, ineffective reading habits are counterproductive and leave the reader with habit patterns that interfere with further literacy development.

The helping adult or mediator has three opportunities to offer help – before the reading takes place, during the reading, and after the reading has taken place. Usually, before reading an article, new words that might cause difficulty are presented. Other practices include anticipating what content the story or article might have in it, connecting the content of the new reading with past experiences, or presenting questions up front that help the reader deal with new concepts or ideas that are contained in the article. During reading, the helping adult attempts to ensure that the reader is reading the words accurately and processing the information contained in the article. After reading, the reader’s comprehension is checked to determine the degree to which the content of the article was understood. Often, efforts are taken to demonstrate to the reader that by reading the present selection, he or she is now prepared to address other related and similar types of reading. With developing readers, the opportunity to discuss the reading and to test out their reactions with an adult is an extremely important step.

The articles in Young Saint Louis.com primarily are aimed at a range of readers in the 8 to 13 year-old age range, or grades 3rd to 8th. Some learners at each of these levels can read the articles with perfect fluency and understanding of the author’s message. These learners can enjoy and profit from Young Saint Louis.com without the need for any adult assistance. Other learners at each of these levels may not be able to read the words well enough to read the material fluently or to adequately understand the author’s intended meaning. For this second group, a helping adult is expected to be available to be a mediator between the article and the reader or literacy learner. The lesson plans are intended to assist the helping adult make the determination of how much help, if any, is called for, and to then provide some suggestions as to what kind of help to provide.

It should be apparent that the greater the gap between the learner’s skills and the difficulty level of the article, the more help that is required to make the lesson a profitable one for the learner. Where the gap is too great for the learner to actually “read” the material even with adult help, the article should be read aloud to the learner. Fluent and expressive reading should be modeled by the adult, and the opportunity to discuss the content should follow the reading.

Since the articles in Young Saint Louis.com are directed to middle grade level learners, it is expected that they have had prior reading instruction. Some of them will have mastered all the word recognition skills (which include “phonics”) before they entered the middle grades. These kids will read most words automatically without even being aware of how they know the words. Others, quite normally, will not have mastered these skills, but need further instruction and lots of directed practice in reading before the application of these skills becomes automatic for them.

As further issues of Young Saint Louis.com are published, some of the lesson plans will include more of an emphasis on the systematic teaching of the word recognition skills essential to becoming an effective reader. However, any adult taking on the role of a “helper” or the “mediator” in a Directed Reading Activity already is providing invaluable instructional assistance just by helping the learner enjoy reading or listening to the articles. It is empowering for young learners to be able to discuss an article with an adult who shows interest in both the learner and the material being read. It does not require a reading “expert” to provide that priceless kind of help.