For me to apply the Six-Minute Solution to the classroom, I need to use it from the beginning. I need to know the instructional level of reading of the students and they need to have a solid understanding of how to read fluently and understand what they read.
To consider using this program, students need to know words, and how they work with other words. The Six-Minute Solution can help with words, but it doesn’t help with how they work together. If students don’t know how to read, the beginning is only good to teach sight words.
I want to expose the system to the second grade. I want them to start using it from the beginning of the year, start at the word lists, and over time find the instructional level of the student. Then compare the information to the F&P tests we have to do to see if it is relatively the same. If it is, then the reading sheets will be more beneficial for fluency over time. Fluency should increase and understanding should increase as well.
I truly believe in this system improving R-CBM and MAZE scores. But as I said, it has to be used from the beginning. I am going to share the benefits of the program with the second grade teachers. If nothing else, the students will master sight words, which is important to reading fluency as well. I am implementing this program next year as well as the rest of the third grade classes. I believe that by using the program from the beginning we can improve reading fluency, comprehension, and test scores by 10 points.