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Decoding

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Reading - Instruct Reading - Encourage

students to look at each children to look away
letter and connect the from the words
letters to sounds when (pictures, context clues)
reading.

Sight Words - Use letter

Sight Words - Whole
– sound connections to
word memorization of
teach BOTH regularly and
“sight words”.
irregularly spelled words

Spelling – Activities that

Spelling – Memorizing
focus the child on letter
letters, letter shapes,
– sound relationships
shape of the word
when spelling. Ex: Tap
(rainbow writing, word
the sounds, then write
searches, writing words
the letters to represent
10X each)
each sound.

Teach phonics explicitly ,

with many opportunities to
Teach phonics through
practice reading and
discovery, incidental
writing words with the
instruction, and using
phonics patterns in
leveled texts.
isolation and in context
(decodable texts).

Follow a scope and

sequence of skills, using Randomly teach phonics
high quality instructional patterns
materials.

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Vocabulary

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Explicitly teach
vocabulary words before
and after reading a text. Instruct students to look
Teach the sounds, up all vocabulary in a
spelling, meaning, and dictionary or glossary.
use of the words. Use
pictures and gestures to
aid in learning the
meaning.

Model using new

vocabulary in context,
through both oral and
written language. Then
have students use the
vocabulary in discussion
and writing.
Tell students to write
words in a sentence after
looking them up in a
dictionary.

Choose vocabulary Choose vocabulary

words from texts the words randomly or from
students are reading. a list.

Academic Talk – Use

Use simple language and
sophisticated language
words to make things
daily in conversations
easier for the child to
and interactions with
understand.
students.

Complex Texts – Read Read aloud or have

aloud and have children children read only texts
read challenging texts with simple language or
with academic language leveled texts.
and complex vocabulary.

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Comprehension

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Help students to work

with grade level, Use leveled texts at their
challenging, complex “independent level”
texts.

Ask questions based on

the text, having students
find the answers from
Ask “text to self”
within the text(s) first.
questions to start.
Then move to
connecting the text to
their lives, experiences.

Use text sets (multiple

Using unrelated texts to
texts on the same topic)
practice reading
to maximize vocabulary
skills/strategies or
and background
identify text features or
knowledge growth and
genres
build comprehension

Group students based on

Group students by
need for scaffolding of the
reading level.
complex text. Differentiate
Differentiate the level of
the scaffolding for each
the text.
group.

Model the use of multiple

strategies (summarizing,
Teach students one
questioning, predicting,
strategy at a time to use
monitoring) to gain both
in disconnected texts.
knowledge and meaning
from texts in a text set.

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Fluency

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Oral reading, with

Sustained silent reading
teacher guidance,
or drop everything and
modeling, and
read
immediate feedback.

Repeated reading of
Reading texts at a "good
decodable texts (in
fit" level.
phonics instruction) and
grade level texts with
Single reads of a text.
teacher support

Read aloud strategies such

as cloze reads, echo Round robin reading of
reading, and partner texts in whole or small
reading. groups.

A
Accuracy

Automaticity

Access Meaning

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Assessment
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Use efficient, valid and
reliable screeners that
assess essential literacy
skills 3 times a year.
Use data from informal
diagnostic assessments
(intervention based
diagnostics) that target
specific reading skills to
plan instruction.
Use brief, curriculum-based
measures to progress
monitor interventions every
2-3 weeks.
Make changes to
interventions based on
the progress monitoring
data (time, intensity, type
of intervention).
1-minute Oral Reading
Fluency CBM. Analyze data
for accuracy (percentage of
words read correctly),
fluency (number of words
read), and comprehension
(retell).
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Benchmark assessments
that do not have validity and
reliability data to validate
their use and monopolize
significant amounts of
instructional time.
Only use formal
diagnostic data for
IEP planning
Use reading levels to
plan interventions
Only assess students 3
times a year (screeners)
Progress monitor using
time-consuming
assessments (more than
2-5 minutes)
Keep students in the
same interventions all
year, without making
changes based on the
progress monitoring
data.
Running records that are
based on the 3 Cueing
System or assessments
that assign students to a
reading level