StudentIn order to know whether a student has made enough progress to exit a Read Naturally program, you need to assess the student with grade-level material. It is important to celebrate your student’s daily growth from cold to hot timings in a story, goal increases, and level increases. It is also exciting to see a student’s cold-timing scores increase from story to story. These are all indications that the student’s reading skills are improving and that they are making progress in the program. But it is essential to keep the long-term goal in mind.

Remember, your long-term goal is to have a student reading unpracticed, grade-level material at or above the 50th percentile when compared to national norms. So look at the student’s most recent benchmark assessment. If the student didn’t reach their long-term goal on this assessment, continue the student in the program and evaluate the student’s progress again following the next benchmark assessment.

If the student was able to read unpracticed, grade-level material at the 50th percentile or above when compared to national norms, the student has reached the long-term goal and you can determine the right time to exit the student from the program. If the student just barely reached the 50th percentile, it might be better to continue the intervention for a little longer to ensure success.

Because Read Naturally programs provide so much support for students, it is not uncommon for them to be working successfully in a level above their grade level. However, a fourth-grade student working in level 5.0 or 5.6 may or may not be ready to exit the program. Base your decision about whether or not a student should continue in a Read Naturally program on their results from a grade-level benchmark assessment.

As always, please reach out with questions or concerns!