Teaching Reading Strategies is the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum that provides teachers all the resources they need to help their students achieve significant reading growth in the shortest possible time. Designed by an MA reading specialist, this decidedly "un-canned" reading program is the perfect choice for both Tier 1 and 2 Response to Intervention. Teaching Reading Strategies works well as a half-year intensive program or a full-year program, with or without paraprofessional assistance. Teachers and reading professionals describe Teaching Reading Strategies as—
- Comprehensive. This complete remedial reading curriculum is appropriate for beginning readers and remedial readers, aged eight-adult, who are two or more years behind grade level reading. Effective for English-language learners and special education students with auditory processing difficulties.
- Flexible. Resources and activities work in the classroom or as a stand-alone reading intervention program. This is not a canned program; the teacher teaches students according to their instructional needs.
- Economical. Full individual teacher license to copy all curriculum resources. Every program component is included in the one price.
- User-friendly. Minimal teacher prep design with simple and clear procedures and instructional activities, suitable for the novice reading teacher as well as for the veteran reading specialist.
- Age-appropriate. Every resource, activity, and audio recording has been designed with older children, teenagers, and adults in mind. No cartoon illustrations, no juvenile reading content, and no mind-numbing drill and kill exercises.
- Research-based. Teaching Reading Strategies is a balanced reading curriculum, emphasizing phonemic awareness acquisition and systematic and explicit phonics instruction, coupled with extensive syllabication, fluency, and comprehension development.
Get these essential resources in Teaching Reading Strategies:
- 13 classroom-tested diagnostic reading assessments covering all reading skills—each in multiple choice format. That’s right. No individual time-consuming testing—use Scantrons® if you wish. Each of the 13 assessments is comprehensive and prescriptive. Unlike most reading assessments, none of the assessments (other than the phonemic awareness tests) is based on random sample. Everything you need to teach (or not) is assessed. For example, the Vowel Sounds Phonics Assessment covers every common vowel sound-spelling, so you can use the assessment data to effectively remediate each un-mastered component. This makes differentiated instruction easy to plan and efficient.
- Simple progress monitoring on one comprehensive reading recording matrix means easy data entry and cuts down on paperwork.
- Formative phonics assessments. Each phonetic component in the 28 phonics workshops has a simple formative assessment to ensure mastery.
Instructional Resources and Activities
- Blending activities. The sound-by-sound spelling blending instructional sequence is designed to teach all of the vowel and consonant sound-spellings in just 15 weeks of instruction.
- Sight word lists, games, workshops, and flashcard sets ready to be run off on your school printer, including the non-phonetic outlaw words, rimes, common sight-syllables, and high frequency words. Perfect for reading workshops or learning center activities.
- Syllable Transformers--the whole class syllable patterns “opener,” formatted for your SMART board™ or overhead/LCD projector. Syllable Transformers uses nonsense syllables to rehearse each sound-spelling pattern and syllable structure i.e., the syllable rules. This must-have “opener” takes just three minutes a day to achieve significant results.
- Syllabication word lists with advanced vocabulary for whole class blending practice. Accompanying syllable worksheets help students practice the syllable rules, accent shifts, and syllable blending.
- Phonemic awareness workshops. Get extensive phonemic awareness activities that perfectly correspond with the phonemic awareness assessments. Students fill in the gaps to ensure a solid foundation for learning the phonetic code.
- Phonics workshops. Get 28 small group phonics workshop activities and worksheets that exactly correspond with the vowel sounds and consonant blends phonics assessments. Each of these activities/worksheets provides practice and each phonetic component has a short formative assessment to ensure mastery. Of course, answers are provided.
- Animal Sound-Spelling Cards. These 43 colorful cards represent the sounds of each animal name and provide the common spellings of those sounds. For example, ermine, armadillo, and orca represent each of the r-controlled sound-spellings. Students practice the names, sounds, and spellings of these cards. A full set of consonant blend cards complements the Animal Sound-Spelling Cards. The cards can be used for phonics practice and interactive games and are designed with older children and teenagers in mind. The animals are photographs, not cartoons.
- Reading fluency practice. Get 43 expository animal fluency articles, each marked with words per line to help students monitor their own fluency progress. At last! Quality fluency practice in the expository (not narrative) genre. Yes, fluency timing charts are provided. Each of the 43 articles is composed in a leveled format--the first two paragraphs are at third grade reading level, the next two are at the fifth grade reading level, and the last two are at the seventh grade reading level. Slower readers get practice on controlled vocabulary and are pushed to read at the higher reading levels, once the contextual content has been established. Faster readers are challenged by the increasingly difficult multi-syllabic vocabulary. This format is perfect for differentiated fluency instruction—a classroom-tested management plan is included.
- Comprehension worksheets. The corresponding animal comprehension worksheets list content-specific comprehension questions in the margins next to the relevant text. These low-higher order thinking questions ask readers to summarize, connect, re-think, interpret, and predict (the SCRIP comprehension strategy) to promote reader dialog with the text. Students practice self-monitoring their own reading comprehension as they read. This "talking to the text" transfers to better independent reading comprehension and retention. Articles also highlight three vocabulary words to be defined, using context clues strategies. Each article describes the physical characteristics of the animal, the animal's habitat, what the animal eats, the animal's family, interesting facts, and the status of the species (endangered or not). The writing is engaging, and students (and teachers) enjoy learning about both common and uncommon animals.
Additionally, get comprehension posters, bookmarks, and context-clue practice activities. No other reading intervention program matches the resources of Teaching Reading Strategies. 364 pages