Mr. DeSantis

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island." — Walt Disney

In the Library we use the "5 Finger Rule" to choose "just right books".
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EASY
* you can read the words fluently (smooth and with an interesting voice)
*there often are not a lot of words on a page
*you know how to say all the words
*there are not a lot of pages in the book
*you have a lot of background information on the subject
*sometimes the book has a larger font
*you totally understand the story
*your reading rate may be quicker
*your thinking comes easy as you read the words

JUST RIGHT
*you can read most of the words
*you can understand what you are reading
*you enjoy the book
*you may have some background information  on the subject
*you can read the book with smooth fluency but there are some choppy places
*your reading rate is just right- not too slow and not too fast
*you can figure out the tricky words and still get the meaning of the story

CHALLENGING
*many of the words are too hard to decode (failed a five finger test)
*you don't know what the tricky words MEAN
*your reading becomes choppy more than it is fluent
*you don't have any prior knowledge of the subject
*there are often a lot of words on the page
*often the font is small
*you lose focus as you are reading
*you are not enjoying the book because you have to do too much word work
*your thinking is confused
*your reading rate slows way down

Source: http://ayearofmanyfirsts.blogspot.com/2012/11/five-finger-rule.html
​Thanks to Beth Newingham's Third Grade Web Site
[http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/]

Navigating the Non-Fiction Section
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