Personal Reader Folders

Last month, I did a few posts about helping struggling readers.   You can read those posts by clicking on the links at the bottom of this message.  One of the most effective (in my little old opinion) things that  I use with my students is a personal reader folder.  Each student in my room (who is not already reading above grade level at the beginning of the year) has their own personal reader folder.   I select short stories with simple patterned text (that I write myself) to include in each students folder, depending on their individual needs.  During small group time,  students work with their personal reader folders as part of their guided reading time.  It only takes a few minutes of my time with each student, but I've found that it makes a big difference.   Text selection and repetition are the most important factors (again... in my little old opinion) when helping young students to learn to read.  Repetition, repetition, repetition.... and focused text selection are the reasons that I use personal readers with my students.

This is a picture of one of my personal reader folders.

It's just a simple folder on the outside.  If you are interested in finding out more about what is on the inside, I just posted my Personal Reader Sight Word Stories on Teachers Notebook and Tpt.  The product includes 25 stories that reinforce a variety of basic sight words from the dolch list.  I also included detailed instructions for how I use the folders with my students, a log sheet, parent helper/volunteer instructions and a reference sheet for the focus sight words for each story. 

Here are the links to the post about working with struggling readers.  The last one was a linky party that has lots of ideas from other bloggers as well.


My Top 5 Tips for Working With Struggling Readers

Just Right Books

How Do You Help Your Struggling Readers?

Happy Sunday!