Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

1. Understand the development of reading as a process that involves determination of purpose, selection and adjustment of strategies, analysis and reflection of underlying meanings, and integration of prior knowledge with new knowledge to address the purpose.
2. Acquire and use words and phrases found in low-intermediate level academic and everyday texts.
3. Accurately read low-intermediate level academic and everyday texts composed of a variety of sentence structures with appropriate pacing, phrasing, and expression.
4. Choose from a range of simple strategies and integrate them to monitor and/or enhance text comprehension.
5. Form and express basic opinions based on the information found in low-intermediate level academic and everyday texts.

Suggestions for Assessing Outcome #1:

1. Assess Read With Understanding Diaries (worksheet students can fill out to note how they are working through the reading process) to see how students use the process
2. Conduct a Listening-In Assessment (teachers use this form to ask specific questions about the student’s process) while students are reading
3. Assess students’ Reading with Understanding Self-Evaluation (self-evaluation that asks students to think about their reading process, usually on a particular assignment)
4. Complete a Teacher Observation/Evaluation (Read with Understanding evaluation that asks Teachers to document students’ reading process, usually on a particular assignment)

Suggestions for Assessing  Outcome #2:

1. Assess individual student vocabulary logs
2. Evaluate students’ ability to complete fill-in-the-blank exercises using target vocabulary
3. Assess students’ ability to determine the meaning of new vocabulary words from the

context

            4. Evaluate students use of new words in a culminating activity (presentation, paragraph, report, etc.

             5. Assess students ability to complete word sorts, prefix/suffix sorts, or concept sorts

Suggestions for Assessing  Outcome #3:

1. Assess student ability to mark a text for appropriate pausing
2. Assess student progress based on a speed and comprehension log
3. Assess student comprehension of the same text after one, two, or more readings
4. Assess performance reading for pacing, phrasing,  intonation and expression (in readers theater, as an introduction to large group or book club discussion,  in individual presentations of poetry, short stories, drama, or novels)
5. Use an Oral Reading Fluency Assessment or the Multidimensional Fluency Scale to rate each aspect of fluency (accuracy, pace, phrasing/expression).

Suggestions for Assessing Outcome # 4:

1. Assess students’ ability to identify and define commonly-used reading strategies
2. Evaluate students’ awareness of metacognition as it relates to the reading process and the selection of strategies
3. Evaluate students’ use of appropriate pre-reading strategies before reading a text
4. Evaluate students’ use of fix-up strategies when comprehension is not occurring during  reading
5. Evaluate students’ use of appropriate post-reading strategies to analyze and integrate new learning

Suggestions for Assessing Outcome #5:

1. Evaluate student presentations for ability to make comprehensible logical inferences, predictions, connections, and conclusions
2. Evaluate responses for ability to connect and compare characters, events, information, ideas or themes presented in a text with another text or own life
3. Evaluate students’ work from a literature circle/book club

Course Content – Themes, Concepts, Issues

A.  Content Comprehension

B.  Textual Analysis

C.  Critical Thinking Skills 

D.  Study Skills 

E.  Language Analysis

Competencies and Skills

A.   Content Comprehension

1.  Identify topics, main ideas, and supporting details

2.  Understand the difference between narration and other organizational types such as compare/contrast

B.   Textual Analysis

1.  Identify paragraph and essay organizational structures in unabridged and modified literature, and newspaper  and magazine articles

2.  Interpret basic maps, tables, graphs, and figures and their relationship to the main ideas in texts

C.   Critical Thinking Skills

1.  Make logical inferences, predictions, and connections

2.  Relate readings to personal needs and experiences

3.  Avoid plagiarism

4.  Distinguish between general and specific

D.   Study Skills

1.  Read, understand, and follow directions

2.  Use previewing techniques including tables of content, indexes, and glossaries

3.  Use skimming and scanning to find specific information

4.  Begin to highlight and make effective marginal notes to assist comprehension

5.  Develop questions based on readings

6.  Work in groups to define, analyze, and solve problems

7.  Begin to use a monolingual, adult ESL dictionary of American English and other references

8.  Use the Internet to gather information

9.  Read for comprehension and increase silent reading speed under time constraints

10. Develop fluency by reading aloud using correct intonation and phrasing

11. Understand and explore options available after Level 4 and write individual goals 

         and plan

E.   Language Analysis

1.  Identify the structures found in authentic and modified adult readings and understand their functions there.  Structures include subjects and verbs, passive voice, clauses, phrases, pronoun references, and connectors (including coordinators, subordinators, and transitions).

2.  Identify, understand, and apply knowledge of vocabulary items and their word families, word forms, and common prefixes and suffixes in new contexts. Use context clues with new vocabulary.