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Read Naturally Live’s default setting is three required read alongs. However, students in middle school and above often don’t need this many, especially if they are actively reading along. Claire recommends changing this setting to two at first and then potentially either adding or dropping a read along as needed. If a student is actively reading along—lips moving as they read along, or whisper-reading along with the narrator—one read along is often sufficient. Conversely, if the student does not seem to be actively reading along, you may need to increase the required read alongs to three. Claire will tell the students, “If I see you actively reading along, then you only need to do one read along. If you’re not actively reading along, you’ll stay at two, or I might have to add one.” This often motivates older students to complete an active read along—and an active read along will build fluency more efficiently than silent reading.

Older students also need to work on reading endurance. Stories in the upper levels of Read Naturally Live are intentionally longer in order to get students used to reading for longer reading stretches of time at school, during standardized tests, and for fun. As such, Claire recommends requiring students to complete whole-story timings (as opposed to Read Naturally Live’s default setting of one-minute timings) for the Practice step.

For students doing whole-story timings, Claire recommends setting a lower initial goal. Typically, Read Naturally recommends setting the student’s initial goal by adding 40 to the Cold Timing score. However, when students are doing whole-story timings, it can be challenging to keep up that pace the entire time. Setting the initial goal by adding 25-30 words to the Cold Timing score is often more sustainable for students doing whole-story timings.

While most older students respond well to whole-story timings, Claire notes that exceptions should be made for students who struggle with motivation and self-esteem. These students will experience quick success with one-minute timings. Then, after the students gain confidence in their reading ability, the teacher can adjust the settings to whole-story timings.

Claire’s final recommendation for older students applies to students who are reading several levels below grade level. For these students, Claire recommends turning off the writing steps, especially the Retell step which takes more time than the Prediction step. This allows the students to dedicate more time to actual reading, which is often their most urgent need. However, if the teacher’s objective is to simultaneously develop writing skills, these steps can be left on.

Most of Read Naturally Live’s default settings tend to work well for elementary students. According to Claire, these students will ideally complete two to four stories per week. If you are not seeing this progress, certain settings may need to be adjusted.

Turning off the Prediction Step, the Retell Step, or both, is often a good solution when you are not seeing sufficient story progress. Typing can be challenging for younger students, and they might be spending too much time on these writing steps to move through the stories at an appropriate pace. Predictions and Retells are important for comprehension, however, so Claire recommends requiring the students to tell an oral prediction/retell to the teacher if these steps are turned off. Some teachers leave the Prediction on as a reminder that students should think about what they are about to read. Then teachers will turn the Retell Step off and ask the student for an oral retell when the student is completing the Pass activities with the teacher. When the steps are left on, the teachers tell the students to simply type in a letter in the text boxes as a placeholder.

Multilingual learners often need to focus on building vocabulary. Claire has found that it is highly beneficial to require these students to learn the definitions of the bolded vocabulary words in the story prior to starting the Read Along step. Before starting their first read along, multilingual learners should click on each bolded vocabulary word and read along with the definitions. They are more likely to retain the words’ meanings if they learn them as they are preparing to read the words in context. After reading the vocabulary, multilingual learners can complete their read alongs.

Claire also recommends requiring multilingual learners to do the Retell step orally. You can have the students record their oral retells in another application, or they can tell it to you when you meet with them for the Pass step. Requiring an oral retelling allows multilingual learners to practice speaking the English language. You can turn off the Retell Step for these students, and then ask the student for an oral retell while completing the Pass Activities together.

Multilingual learners who are Spanish speakers can also read a Spanish translation of each story. For these students, Claire recommends that the teacher turns on the Spanish translation of the story in Story Options.