One of the greatest strengths of the Read Naturally Strategy is that it is individualized. Each student begins at challenging (but not frustrating) reading level and progresses at his or her own rate. This powerful benefit of working individually is exemplified as each student:

• Works in material that challenges the student, but with support to prevent frustration — never too easy nor too difficult.
• Works independently and therefore does not have to wait or continue practicing already mastered stories while less able students are still working to pass.
• Takes as much time as needed to master a story and progresses at their own pace.
• Stays on task without the distractions that working with other students can sometimes cause.

The more time students spend reading, the more they will improve. We recommend that students use Read Naturally a minimum of three times a week, although four or five times a week is even better. Ideally, each Read Naturally session should be at least 30 minutes long, but 45 minutes is preferable.

The Read Naturally stories are read slowly to provide students the opportunity to learn to read the words accurately and ultimately more fluently. If the stories were read at a normal speaking/reading rate, non-fluent students would not be able to read each word along with the recording and so would not learn the words well. Once the students have learned to accurately read the words during the Read Along step, they build fluency by reading the passage many times during the Practice step.

Read Naturally does not calculate errors in percentages; rather, we simply say three errors per story is adequate to pass. Raw numbers are easier for students to understand than percentages.

As the student improves in fluency, the acceptance of three errors gradually increases the percent of accuracy to a range of 95% or higher, Of course, a long-term goal of 95% accuracy is appropriate, but beginning readers need to build to that expected goal.

Students need challenging stories to advance their reading skills. Leveling is important to ensure that students continuously work in demanding material. Students build fluency and confidence at one level before progressing to a more difficult level. Consistence of readability within each level allows students to select stories, which helps to keep them interested and motivated.

Read Naturally levels ensure that:

• Stories within each level are at a similar level of difficulty to each other.
• Each level is an appropriate step up in challenge from the level below it (and a clear and appropriate step down in difficulty from the one above it).

Read Naturally employs a number of readability formulas (listed below) in conjunction with the judgment of its writing and teaching professionals to keep the difficulty of the stories in each level within a range of about a half a year of one another and the levels properly spaced according to difficulty.

Readability Formulas Generally Used

• Lexile® reader measures for all levels of Read Naturally Encore II.
• Fry and Spache readability formulas for levels 0.8 through 2.7.
• Harris-Jacobson readability formula for levels 3.0 through 5.0.
• Dale Chall readability formula for levels 5.6 and above

Our levels do generally correspond to the grade levels they are named for in that the readability scores for the stories in each level fall within the approximately half-year range used for the level.

However, this does not mean that stories in our 2.0 grade level, for example, are appropriate for all early second graders. Rather, the 2.0 level is appropriate for students of any age who  would be challenged, but not frustrated, by reading material at an early second grade level. Because of the audio support, students can usually work a half year or more above their instructional reading level.

It is important to use the placement procedure to place students in the Read Naturally program. Proper placement is essential to provide the students with the right balance of challenge and success:

• Read Naturally Live built-in placement
• Read Naturally Encore placement packet

Passages for teacher modeling and repeated reading need to be interesting so the reader is willing to read them several times and not so long that the reader is unwilling to read them several times.  An ideal length of stories for modeling and repeated reading is 100–400 words, which is also a good length for a nonfiction passages on a specific topic, such as an animal, place, or famous person. Because short stories interesting enough to hold a readers interest are typically longer than 400 words, Read Naturally has non-fiction passages.

Also, non-fiction stories appeal to readers of all ages. You might have a third grader, a fifth grader, and an adult all reading the same second-grade level material. So, the stories must be interesting enough to appeal to many readers and not appear too young or immature, regardless of the level of vocabulary in the story.

Read Naturally stories present new information about unusual animals, people, inventions, etc., and as students do repeated readings, they increase their knowledge base and share it with parents, in class discussions, etc. It is motivating for students to share the interesting information they've learned from the topics.

Nonfiction can also encourage students who have not previously enjoyed reading to want to read more about a particular subject that interests them—so they not only enjoy learning to read but also begin to enjoy reading to learn.

As you know, there are many high frequency word lists, such as Fry’s 1000 High Frequency Words. Read Naturally passages are made up of a high percentage of these words. For example, 96 percent of the words that make up the stories in level 1.0 are on the 1000 most frequent words list.

At the same time, Read Naturally believes that it is important to continually challenge students. Therefore, as the Read Naturally levels get higher, so do the number of words that do not appear on Fry's most frequent words list. The highest Read Naturally levels are made up of around 87 to 89 percent of the words on the most frequent words list.

These numbers dip from the 96 percent correlation of the lower levels, but appropriately so. As students are able to read in the higher levels, they are generally more knowledgeable of most of the 1000 frequent words and need to learn language that is much richer and more powerful. We want to continue to increasingly challenge students to grow and to expand their vocabulary in these higher levels. Therefore, Read Naturally passages provide a good balance of the most frequent words and less frequent words for students to practice.

Also, keep in mind that because the Read Naturally stories are nonfiction, a number of the words that do not appear on Fry's list are the proper names of famous people and places.

Read Naturally Strategy programs are best implemented with a student-to-teacher ratio of six students per adult. The ratio for Read Live can be raised to eight students per adult, but six students is optimal. Not all of the adults need to be teachers. Teacher-trained educational assistants, parents, or other adult volunteers can help run a Read Naturally Strategy program.

If many students are placed in the Phonics series, a lower student-to-teacher ratio may be needed, because the word list requires extra time during the Pass step.

Because Read Naturally interventions require a high standard of accuracy (no more than three errors at the pass step), students’ awareness of the importance of accuracy is raised. Read Naturally’s attention to accuracy prepares students to be mindful of accuracy on their oral reading fluency assessments as well.