The goal of this project is to increase my students reading speed. Most of my students now read at the speed of 100-150 words per minute (wpm) which pretty low for advanced ESL students. I'd like to see my students read faster. The target speed to achieve by the end of the project is 250-300 wpm.
The characteristics of the audience.
My students are all non-native speakers learning English as a second language. They come from Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Italy, and India. The students are all taking an advanced ESL reading class during their last semester in the ESL program.
A description of activities that are designed for applying the technology.
In my reading class, I assign articles, short stories, book chapters, news pieces or blog posts and ask my students to read them on Spreeder. The students can easily copy and paste this content on Spreeder and set the speed that fits their reading level. To keep track of the students' performance and progress, I design and share a reading log with the students on Google Docs. The students use this reading log to record their reading speed. After the students finish reading the text they take a content quiz on Springboard to test their comprehension. I use the quiz scores and the reading speed chart to provide feedback.
A description of how this unit links with other disciplines or units students should be experienced at this grade level.
This unit is part of the ESL academic reading course. In this course the students learn college reading skills. They need to master these skills to ensure their readiness to read academically at the college level. Reading speed is one of these essential skills. This skill is interconnected with all the other skills in the course. As the students are working on the reading speed exercises they are also practicing other skills, like vocabulary acquisition, main idea and detail identification and so on.
Assessment: Please explain how to assess students learning outcome based on the learning objectives in the case.
The students are assessed through the reading log and the comprehension quiz which were explain above.
For general use of the program and for more information about speed reading especially for learners of English as a second language or young learners, I've created a website with tips and guidelines. Here's a link to the website: http://gozips.uakron.edu/~ag81/index.html
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The overall learning objectives for the unit:
The goal of this project is to increase my students reading speed. Most of my students now read at the speed of 100-150 words per minute (wpm) which pretty low for advanced ESL students. I'd like to see my students read faster. The target speed to achieve by the end of the project is 250-300 wpm.
The characteristics of the audience.
My students are all non-native speakers learning English as a second language. They come from Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Italy, and India. The students are all taking an advanced ESL reading class during their last semester in the ESL program.
A description of activities that are designed for applying the technology.
In my reading class, I assign articles, short stories, book chapters, news pieces or blog posts and ask my students to read them on Spreeder. The students can easily copy and paste this content on Spreeder and set the speed that fits their reading level. To keep track of the students' performance and progress, I design and share a reading log with the students on Google Docs. The students use this reading log to record their reading speed. After the students finish reading the text they take a content quiz on Springboard to test their comprehension. I use the quiz scores and the reading speed chart to provide feedback.
A description of how this unit links with other disciplines or units students should be experienced at this grade level.
This unit is part of the ESL academic reading course. In this course the students learn college reading skills. They need to master these skills to ensure their readiness to read academically at the college level. Reading speed is one of these essential skills. This skill is interconnected with all the other skills in the course. As the students are working on the reading speed exercises they are also practicing other skills, like vocabulary acquisition, main idea and detail identification and so on.
Assessment: Please explain how to assess students learning outcome based on the learning objectives in the case.
The students are assessed through the reading log and the comprehension quiz which were explain above.
For general use of the program and for more information about speed reading especially for learners of English as a second language or young learners, I've created a website with tips and guidelines. Here's a link to the website: http://gozips.uakron.edu/~ag81/index.html