Exploring Professional Supports: SIPPS Beginning Level

SIPPS® (Systematic Instruction in Phonological Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words) develops
the word-recognition strategies and skills that enable students to become independent and
confident readers and writers. SIPPS Beginning Level is developmentally appropriate for
kindergartners and first-graders starting as nonreaders and moving through the first
developmental level of reading. The focus of instruction is the alphabetic phase with emphasis
on continuous blending of single-syllable words with short vowels and learning high-frequency
sight words.

Collaborative Classroom materials are designed to support your professional learning as you
teach the programs. Use this list to become familiar with all the supports in the SIPPS Beginning
Level materials.

Explore the Introduction in the Teacher’s Manual…

☐ Read the SIPPS Beginning Level Introduction on page viii.

What key words or phrases help you understand the program and the way it is structured?

☐ Review the “Distinctive Features: Content, Instruction, and Materials” on pages x–xi.

What is important to know to teach a SIPPS lesson?

☐ Review the “Daily Lesson Components” on pages xii–xvi.

Instructional Routines
Phonological Awareness
Phonics and Decodable Words
Sight Words
Practice Routines
Rereading a Story
Reading a Story
Guided Spelling and Segmentation
Fluency Practice

How do the instructional routines work together in a complete lesson?

☐ Read about the story characteristics on page xi.

How might the characteristics of the stories support students’ fluency development?

☐ Review the suggestions and best practices in “Supporting English Language Learners” on page
xxii–xxiii.

How might you use this information to support the students?

Explore the Instructional Self-Checks…

☐ Read the self-checks on pages 83, 100, and 171.

What are the important considerations for maintaining and improving fidelity of instruction?

Incremental Instructional self-checks provide guidance for evaluating the consistency and fidelity of
instruction. Use self-stick notes to mark the location of the self-checks and to remind you to take
the time to reflect on your instruction.

Lesson 5, page 83
Lesson 9, page 100
Lesson 15, page 152
Lesson 19, page 171
Lesson 25, page 227
Lesson 35, page 311
Lesson 45, page 394

Explore the Mastery Tests…

☐ Use the scope and sequence on page 561 to locate the mastery tests, and mark them with self-
stick notes in your Teacher’s Manual.

☐ Read the mastery test section on pages 103–105

How might the interpretation information (“To Consider” and “Analysis of Errors”) support your
planning for instruction and guiding students to achieve mastery?

Explore the Instructional Routines…

☐ Read “Introduction to Lessons 1–10” on page 2.

How is the summary of the content in this series of lessons helpful in planning instruction?
☐ Read the routine for “Reading Stories without Decodable Words,” Lessons 1–11 on pages 490–
491 and “Reading Stories with Decodable Words,” Lessons 12–55 on pages 491–494.

How are these two routines similar? How are they different?

Mark Lesson 12 with a self-stick note to remind yourself to review the new reading routines to
accommodate decodable words.

☐ Read the routine for “Guided Spelling Routine for Dictation of Sounds and Sight Words,”
Lessons 1–12, pages 495–496, “Guided Spelling Routine for Dictation of Decodable Words,”
Lessons 12–55, pages 497–499 and “Guided Spelling Routine for Sentence Dictation,” pages 499–
504.

How are these routines similar? How are they different? How do the routines for dictation of words
support sentence dictation?

Mark lesson 12 with a self-stick note to remind you to review the new spelling routine to
accommodate decodable words.

☐ Read the “Silent Blending” section of the “Reading a Story” support in Lesson 41, pages 359–
360.

How is silent blending similar to and different from the oral blending routine? How will you evaluate
whether your students are ready for this step?

Mark Lesson 41 with a self-stick note to remind you to modify the reading routine for silent
blending.

Explore the Appendices…

☐ Skim and scan the routines located in “Appendix A: Routines.”

How might you use this information to prepare for instruction?

☐ Read the Background information for each routine located in “Appendix A: Routines.”

What information did you glean from the background information that will inform your planning?

☐ Skim and scan the following appendices

 Appendix B: Fluency Practice

o Focus on Monitoring Individual Students
 Appendix C: Assessment and Placement
o Focus on Interpreting the Assessment Results, Further Assessment and Intervention
for Sight Words, and Assessment and Instruction for Letters
 Appendix D: Mastery Tests
 o Focus on Passing Criterion, Interpretation, and Intervention
 Appendix G: Sight Word Index

In what ways might you use this information?

Explore the Little Blue Books.

☐ Skim and scan a variety of the Little Blue Books. Select one book each from lesson for Lessons
1–10, 11–20, 21–30, 31–40, 41–50, and 51–55.

What do you notice about the design of the books? What do you notice about the way the text
changes across the books?

Explore the CCC Learning Hub…

☐ Go to the CCC Learning Hub (ccclearninghub.org) and select SIPPS Beginning Teacher’s Manual.
Explore the following resources.
 Digital Teacher’s Set
 General Resources
 Navigation to select resources
 SIPPS level resources
 SIPPS Assessment app
 Tutorials
How might each of these support your planning for instruction?

☐ Go to the General Resources and locate the Sight Word Dictionary (use L. 31–40), Sight Word
Dictionary (use L. 41–55), and Spelling-Sound Wall Cards.

How might these resources support students’ independence across the day?

We recommend that you print the items out and distribute them to the students to use as a
resource during SIPPS lessons and across the day.

☐ Go to the General Resources and watch the Beginning Lesson 49 Classroom Video (which
includes the Read a Story Chart routine from Lesson 15).

What did you notice in the instruction that might inform your planning?

☐ Go to the Resource Filters and use the dropdown menu to locate the Routines Appendix (scroll
to the end of list), and click Search. Select two or three routines and watch the animation and the
teacher-facing video of the routine.

How might the animation of and teacher-facing video of each routine inform your instruction?