Reading is a complex skill that requires fluency, comprehension, vocabulary development, and strategic processing. Fluency is essential, as Anderson defines it as reading at 200 words per minute with 70% comprehension when reading to learn. To support fluency, students need extensive reading—reading large amounts of accessible, engaging texts quickly. Extensive reading, particularly through graded readers, helps students develop automaticity, expand vocabulary, and increase confidence. Whenever possible, students should have autonomy in choosing texts that interest and inspire them to read.

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Intensive reading is crucial for deeper comprehension. Engaging with shorter, more challenging texts helps students build vocabulary, understand discourse patterns, and analyze meaning. Since effective learning occurs at 98-99% comprehension, it is critical to select appropriately leveled texts. Vocabulary plays a crucial role in comprehension, and explicit instruction, combined with spaced repetition and multiple contextual exposures, ensures retention and rapid word recognition application.

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Reading should always be purposeful, and students need to be conscious of their reading goals. These goals may include scanning for specific information, skimming for main ideas, or engaging in deep reading for comprehension and synthesis. In addition to having clear purposes, strategic reading involves active processes such as previewing, predicting, questioning, summarizing, and monitoring comprehension. Encouraging metacognitive awareness is key, as it helps students identify when comprehension breakdowns occur and apply repair strategies. Developing critical reading skills goes beyond mere comprehension. Students must also be able to identify main ideas, distinguish facts from opinions, make inferences, recognize bias, and thoughtfully evaluate texts. To further enhance comprehension and recall, teaching students to analyze text structure—such as discourse patterns, coherence devices, and rhetorical strategies—is crucial.

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Effective reading instruction balances fluency development, vocabulary acquisition, comprehension strategies, and critical thinking. Selecting engaging, accessible texts and integrating meaningful follow-up activities reinforces understanding and builds cognitive patterns for future reading. By creating an environment where students interact with texts purposefully and strategically, I help them become confident, independent readers who can engage with language both academically and practically.

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Novice

 

At the novice level, a strong emphasis should be placed on bottom-up strategies and vocabulary. Phonics and decoding skills are critical for readers at this stage. While learners may already be able to decode in their L1, English is an opaque language that requires explicit instruction in word decoding. Students should also work on building a large bank of sight words to increase their ability to recognize undecodable words quickly and increase their fluency. Vocabulary instruction should prioritize high-frequency words, which is essential for learners at this level. To support this, they should read texts flooded with high-frequency vocabulary, such as graded readers. Additionally, grammar instruction will be vital in helping students make sense of sentences. Reading materials should include texts with high-frequency vocabulary and reading texts needed for daily life, such as traffic signs, menus, instructions, advertisements, and more. Furthermore, students should aim to achieve a reading speed of 200 words per minute (wpm) with 70% comprehension for level-appropriate texts.

 

Intermediate

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At this level, I focus on helping students continue to enhance their decoding skills, expand their high-frequency vocabulary, and build their sight word bank. I also introduce some academic vocabulary as they progress. I encourage students to work toward achieving fluency of 200 words per minute (wpm) with 70% comprehension for texts that are appropriate to their level. Additionally, I guide them in incorporating top-down strategies, such as identifying the main idea, understanding major details, recognizing the author’s purpose and point of view, and making inferences about concrete ideas. The texts I select for them can be more academic in nature, including both narrative and some expository texts, but I ensure that they remain level-appropriate, featuring primarily high-frequency words along with some academic vocabulary.​

 

Advanced

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At this level, my focus is on top-down strategies to aid in the comprehension of academic texts, including both narrative and expository texts. I guide students in expanding their academic vocabulary while working toward fluency of 200 words per minute (wpm) with 70% comprehension for level-appropriate texts. I encourage students to make inferences and establish connections both within and between texts. Synthesizing and evaluating the material are key outcomes in the reading process. Additionally, I ensure that students engage with academic texts on topics that may be unfamiliar to them, helping them expand their reading skills in new contexts.​