Grade 6 Reading: goals and how we get there

A grade 6 reading student at Learn To Be does three things:

1. Reads at adult speed.
2. Works through the 6th Grade Reading course, and reads real books about real things.
3. Reads a little every day (at home!).

The goals

By the end of grade 6, a student:

• Reads 150 words per minute or better out loud, and keeps that speed through whole chapters.
• Still knows all the words and word parts from earlier grades instantly.
• Learns more of the words school uses, like analyze, evidence, and claim.

From here, the next step is not more speed. It is more difficult books.

We are building flashcard decks for letters, common words, and vocabulary. Until then, practice them by reading out loud.

Reading speed

Reading speed is how many words a student reads correctly in 1 minute, out loud.

To check it: pick a book at your student's level. Time them reading out loud for 1 minute. Count the words they read correctly. Check at the start of the year, and again every few weeks.

The grade 6 target is 150 or better. If your student is far below the target for their grade, find the grade they are ready for in this table and use that page.

The courses

6th Grade Reading has 38 lessons. Each lesson is a short science or history passage to read and talk about together. This is the "read to learn" part.

• Do one or two lessons each session. Read the passage together, then talk about it.
• If the passages are too hard, use 5th Grade Reading first.

If your student guesses at words or reads slowly, start with the Early Reading Program first, no matter the grade. It has 1,745 lessons and teaches phonics: how to sound out words. There is no placement test. To find where to start, skim forward through the lessons until your student stumbles. Start there. Its Tutor Toolkit, a card on the course page, has guidance for tutors.

The reading list

True topics

Read books and articles about these topics, and talk about them together. This is also your student's science and history.

• Ancient Greece and Rome: The Lasting Ideas
• The Enlightenment
• The French Revolution
• Industrialism, Capitalism, and Socialism
• Independence Movements in Latin America
• World Geography: Deserts, Rainforests, and Rivers
• Plate Tectonics
• Astronomy: Gravity, Stars, and Galaxies
• Energy
• The Human Body: Circulation and Immunity

Novels to read

The student reads these, mostly on their own between sessions. Talk about each chapter together in your session.

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
• The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
• A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
• Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
• The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
• Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
• The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
• Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
• Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

A typical session

1. Warm-up read-aloud, about 10 minutes. The student re-reads something familiar out loud. This builds speed and confidence.
2. Course lessons. This is the main part of the session. Do one or two 6th Grade Reading lessons together. If your student is on the Early Reading Program, do those lessons instead. Do not move on until the student masters the lesson.
3. Real reading together. Read a book from the reading list. Read it together and talk about it.

Between sessions (at home)

Daily practice happens at home, not in your session. A little every day works better than a lot once a week.

Tell the parent:

"Every day, have your child sign in at learntobe.org and do their reading lessons. Then have them read out loud to you for 10 minutes from a book they can read easily. This is the one thing that helps most."

Show the parent and the student how to sign in and find the course during your first session.

Other resources

• IXL. If your student has an IXL account through our pilot, its diagnostic shows the grade level your student works at in English language arts. Use it as an extra check, not instead of the course. See How should tutors use IXL?

Related

• All grade goals