Rising Readers

Your student is on a lifelong journey of reading: for school, for fun, and to learn about anything they choose. The best way to get better at reading is lots of practice.

Remember to take breaks between worksheets or other activities, and enjoy the journey!

Tutoring a School on Wheels student in literacy comprehension provides many opportunities for fun learning! As a tutor, you have a unique opportunity to design engaging lessons for YOUR student. The motivation to read is an essential part of gaining comprehension skills. Find out what your student loves to think about, talk about, and soon… read and write about!

Begin by following an included “model lesson plan”, and follow our suggested routine as a guide when you design your own lesson plans. Select stories with Lexile ratings within 100 of your student’s score, which you can find in the results email from their most recent assessment. Feel free to choose a story that is a little too challenging for your student to read independently and help them out by reading a portion of the text out loud yourself.

Comprehension is not just reading the words. When it’s time to read a text, comprehension strategies are useful before, during, and after reading.

Each story in the library below includes detailed lesson plans that will help you address these strategies, and others. Read over the lesson plan before your tutoring session so you know what to expect. They include several hours worth of activities, so select what your student will most enjoy or needs to learn – you don’t have to complete everything. As you become familiar with strategies and skills, you have the chance to apply them to many stories, and follow your student’s interests and passions to choose reading materials.

Your student’s comprehension will also benefit from work on:

Vocabulary (try keeping a personal dictionary together, and click here for more ideas.)
Practice reading out loud (take turns!)
Background knowledge (have conversations and even do research together about topics that interest them!)

Just Getting Started?
Follow the ‘s for your first steps

Follow these model lesson plans for a full tutoring session

THE TEAM/ EL EQUIPO

Bilingual Tutor Lesson

Spanish Student Lesson

THE BOX

Tutor Lesson

Student Lesson

This is Your Library! Click to open the purple drop-downs below to find stories for your reading level.

Tips for reading with your student:

Each of these stories should be read over at least 2 tutoring sessions. Read through the lesson plans included below for ideas about what to talk about before, during, and after reading each story.
It is ok for you to read out loud to your student.
Ask questions and encourage conversation as you read, there is no need to just stick to the text. Make up silly or dramatic voices – or have fun with it in whatever way you choose!

The stories below are ordered from easiest to most challenging text throughout. Refer to the email you received with your student’s assessment results to find their Lexile score. The stories that are appropriate for your student’s assessed level of comprehension can be anywhere from 100 less to 100 more than their Lexile score. This means that you will need to support your student more in reading some of these stories than others.

For example:

Student A has a Lexile score of 250. Tutor A should open the drop-down menu labeled 100-300. Student A can be expected to read the stories listed towards the top fairly independently (such as “How Many Wheels”), need some tutor support for the majority of the stories, and need the tutor to read much of the text in the stories listed at the end, such as “Firefighters” and “I Bet I Can”.

Student B has a Lexile score of 310. Tutor B can open the drop-down menu labeled 300-500 and choose the stories listed towards the top, such as “The Contest”, for practice reading out loud together. Tutor B can also open the drop-down menu labeled 100-300 to find stories that their student can try to read independently.