About

Susan Stevens is not a doctor of anything, but she hopes to make all her reading students doctors of reading!  She developed the Dr. Goodreader chart in 2005 with fellow teacher, Rakitia Delk, in an attempt to help students use fix-up strategies when they read.  They then wrote a curriculum designed to teach the chart and the fix-up strategies.  When they began the self-monitoring unit, they set their over-arching goal:  Students will use metacognition (thinking about their thinking) when they read.

When they introduced and taught the chart–in 3rd and 5th grade–it worked!  Students could pinpoint reading problems and work to solve them.  Instead of hearing, “I don’t get it!”,  Sue and Rakitia began to hear questions like, “I don’t get it when Grandpa Beebe speaks (in Misty of Chincoteague).”  When students can pinpoint their reading “clunks”, and have strategies lined up to solve them, they rapidly improve in their ability to read.  Since that time, the Dr. Goodreader chart has been taught in 1st through 5th and continued in Middle School.

Susan has taught for 32 years and done many workshops on reading, writing, and storytelling internationally. Contact her at drgoodreader@gmail.com