Engagement Strategies - Track, Read, Count With Me

Overview

Use In Classroom

Personalised Learning

Resources

Overview

Track, read and count with me are three useful engagement strategies that can be used across all grades. Having students ‘track’ something or someone enables you to visibly monitor student engagement. Students can ‘track with me’ by following along a copy of the text or numbers as you read. For younger students, teachers could request students point with their finger (at the text on the board or in front of them). For older students, teachers may merely need their eyes to be following along (ensuring they are on the correct page). Tracking as the teacher reads has the added benefit of previewing text that students may not be sure of, prior to reading or counting chorally, as well as providing a model for fluency. “Track the speaker” is a specific strategy that ensures all students turn and look at the speaker as they provide a response.

‘Read with me’ and ‘count with me’ are an extension of the track with me strategy and are often used together. Students chorally read or count aloud at the same time when using this strategy.

Illustration:

Use in the Classroom

It is important that teachers initially model these strategies when using them with students, and that instructions are clearly provided. For both strategies, cue students on where to commence tracking or reading from and visually monitor this.

Example:

Everybody point to the first word. I want you to ‘track’ the words as I read.
I want you to track and read/count with me. Tracking fingers ready with my pointer. Then commence reading/counting with students.

You can vary the amount of choral responses required with read and count with me to extended text, identify parts of text or even phrases or words to ensure students are remaining engaged throughout the lesson. Teachers can also vary the volume they wish students to use i.e. whisper read/count with me.

Use with technology

A number of e-books have features pre-installed that highlight words along with the audio of the reader, enabling an added visual to support students to track along at the same time. Similar interactive technology is available to assist students track when counting.

Personalised Learning

When students with additional needs are engaging with learning by using the read, track and count with me strategy, there can be some potential barriers that need to be considered. These may include the articulation of speech, arm, hand and/or finger control, literacy and/or numeracy levels of individual students, amount of background noise or glare on board, size of the text or the directionality of text and numbers. Some students may be reluctant to speak in a group.

Some potential adjustments may include:

Pre-teach some of the key words or numbers ahead of time and provide practice time.
Read, track or count with a peer or a teaching assistant.
Use a pre-programmed text-speech technology function.
Read familiar words and numbers in lieu of complete text or number sequence.
Read, track or count using formatted mode at desk (e.g. Braille, hundreds chart, number line, larger font text) with or without a peer or teaching assistant.
Use a visual marker to indicate where to begin reading, tracking or counting.
Provide text in appropriate font size.
Seat student near a teacher to provide extra support as needed.
Provide an attention signal before asking students to read, track or count.