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The Six Shifts Where Science of Reading Meets Balanced Literacy. We provide resources, professional development, and literacy audits for busy literacy educators like you.

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"A team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently. Students can complete the activities in small groups, pairs, or individually."

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently. Students can complete the activities in small groups, pairs, or individually.

Accompanying these Student Center Activities is a Teacher Resource Guide that offers important insights on differentiated instruction and how to use the Student Center materials.

Component

Name of the reading component: Phonological Awareness (PA), Phonics (P), Fluency (F), Vocabulary (V), or Comprehension (C). Each component is color coded: PA is purple, P is orange, F is red, V is green, C is blue.

Subcomponent

Name of the reading subcomponent, which is a subskill of the component.

Activity Name

Activity Number

The letters correspond with the reading component (PA, P, F, V, or C). The numbers are listed in ascending order within each component. The activities are sequenced from simple to more complex within each component and subcomponent.

Student Icon

The suggested number of students for the activity. One student icon indicates that students may work independently or with a small group. Two student icons indicate that the activity requires students to work in pairs. Two student icons with a plus sign indicate that the activity requires two or more students.

Objective

States the goal of the activity, which is aligned with the subcomponent.

Materials

Materials are located on the pages that follow the Activity Plan. Most materials are non-consumable to be prepared and used repeatedly (e.g., word cards can be laminated). Some materials are consumable and will need to be duplicated for each student doing the activity. Other materials, such as counters, are commonly found in most classrooms.

Activity Statement

One sentence explanation of the purpose of the activity and what students do to complete the activity.

Activity Steps

The first step describes how to setup the center. The second step begins with: The student, Students, Working in pairs, or Taking turns depending on the number of students needed to complete the activity. The second step also starts the series of steps to complete the activity. The next steps explain what the student does to complete the activity. The last step lists one of three accountability methods: Self-check, Peer evaluation, or Teacher evaluation.

Example

A visual of the activity and key materials.

Extensions and Adaptations

Suggestions that extend or provide an adaptation for additional practice on the skill addressed in the activity. Materials for the extensions and adaptations are included after the pages that align to the Activity Plan.

Users may use the FCRR Student Center Activities resources as long as modifications are not made, the resources will only be used for non-profit educational purposes, and the copyright belong jointly to the Florida Department of Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research. These resources may not be used for any commercial purposes. These resources on our site may be linked to but not reposted, reproduced, modified, or copied to other sites. For questions about the use of these resources, please contact The Florida Center for Reading Research at fcrr@fcrr.org.

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently.

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Amplify partners with K-12 teachers to make learning rigorous and riveting for every student. Learn more about our curriculums & assessments.

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Reading 101 Learning Module on Reading Comprehension

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Reading 101 Learning Module on Reading Comprehension

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This course module includes in-depth information, classroom strategies, assignments, and additional resources on teaching reading comprehension.

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Explore reading basics as well as the key role of background knowledge and motivation in becoming a lifelong reader and learner. Watch our PBS Launching Young Readers series and try our self-paced Reading 101 course to deepen your understanding.

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There are 4 types of vocabulary:

1. Listening

2. Speaking

3. Reading

4. Writing

These can be conceptual, sight, or high frequency words!

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Vocabulary plays a fundamental role in the reading process and is critical to reading comprehension. Children learn the meanings of most words indirectly, through everyday experiences with oral and written language. Other words are learned through carefully designed instruction.

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This course module includes in-depth information, classroom strategies, assignments, and additional resources on teaching vocabulary.

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Explore reading basics as well as the key role of background knowledge and motivation in becoming a lifelong reader and learner. Watch our PBS Launching Young Readers series and try our self-paced Reading 101 course to deepen your understanding.

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Phonological Awareness:
“The ability to recognize and manipulate the spoken parts of sentences and words” (Reading Rockets)

Examples:

Rhyme Identification

Alliteration Recognition

Blending Onsets-Rimes

Segmenting Sentences

Identifying Syllables

Phonemic Awareness:
“The ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words” (Reading Rockets).

Examples:

Blending Sounds

Segmenting Words

Deleting Sounds in Spoken Words

Manipulating Sounds in Spoken Words

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Basics: Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

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Before children learn to read print, they need to become aware of how the sounds in words work. They must understand that words are made up of individual speech sounds, or phonemes. A child's skill in phonological and phonemic awareness is a good predictor of later reading success or difficulty.

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Reading 101 Learning Module on Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

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Reading 101 Learning Module on Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

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This course module includes in-depth information, classroom strategies, assignments, and additional resources on teaching phonological and phonemic awareness.

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Explore reading basics as well as the key role of background knowledge and motivation in becoming a lifelong reader and learner. Watch our PBS Launching Young Readers series and try our self-paced Reading 101 course to deepen your understanding.

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Comprehension:
* The ultimate goal of reading*- We read to understand; but when we can’t decode (phonics), fluently read (fluency), and understand what the words we read mean (vocabulary), we will not attain comprehension

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Comprehension is the reason for reading. If readers can read the words but do not understand or connect to what they are reading, they are not really reading. Good readers are both purposeful and active, and have the skills to absorb what they read, analyze it, make sense of it, and make it their own.

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Explore reading basics as well as the key role of background knowledge and motivation in becoming a lifelong reader and learner. Watch our PBS Launching Young Readers series and try our self-paced Reading 101 course to deepen your understanding.

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Science of Reading: The Podcast, hosted by Susan Lambert, delivers the latest insights from researchers and practitioners in early reading. Listen today!

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Hosted by Pam Austin, these discussions will feature dialogues with experienced educators, inspiring thought leaders, social media influencers, and leading education innovators.

Hosted by Pam Austin, these discussions will feature dialogues with experienced educators, inspiring thought leaders, social media influencers, and leading education innovators.

Invaluable Content

Excellent podcast for all things literacy. Up to date instructional practices based on current research. Educational practitioners interviewed are truly experts in their fields.

Highly recommend.

Laura Stewart on handwriting

Excellent interview. Great insight and resources. I'm going to incorporate Laura's points into a study skills/note taking unit.

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Hosted by Pam Austin, these discussions will feature dialogues with experienced educators, inspiring thought leaders, social media influencers, and leading education innovators.

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Dimensions of Literacy for ISF - Essential Agreements (Dec. 2022)

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Fluency:
Being able to read a passage with automaticity and accuracy, appropriate speed, and appropriate prosody and expression.

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Even when students recognize many words automatically, their oral reading still may be expressionless, not fluent. To read with expression, readers must be able to divide the text into meaningful chunks. Readers must know to pause appropriately within and at the ends of sentences and when to change emphasis and tone. For example, a reader who lacks fluency may read, probably in a monotone, a line from Bill Martin Jr's Brown Bear, Brown Bear as if it were a list of words rather than a connected text, pausing at inappropriate places:

A fluent reader will read the same line as:

Brown bear/
Brown bear/
What do you see?/

The difference between fluency and automaticity

Although they terms automaticity and fluency often are used interchangeably, they are not the same thing.

Automaticity is the fast, effortless word recognition that comes with a great deal of reading practice. In the early stages of learning to read, readers may be accurate but slow and inefficient at recognizing words. Continued reading practice helps word recognition become more automatic, rapid, and effortless.

Automaticity refers only to accurate, speedy word recognition, not to reading with expression. Therefore, automaticity (or automatic word recognition) is necessary, but not sufficient, for fluency.

Fluency instruction

Fluency is not a stage of development at which readers can read all words quickly and easily. Fluency changes, depending on what readers are reading, their familiarity with the words, and the amount of their practice with reading text. Even very skilled readers may read in a slow, labored manner when reading texts with many unfamiliar words or topics. For example, readers who are usually fluent may not be able to read technical material fluently, such as a textbook about nuclear physics or an article in a medical journal.

It is important to note that fluency instruction should be with a text that a student can read at their independent level. It is at this level where students are able to practice on speed and expression rather than decoding. The chart below describes each reading level:

Independent Level

Relatively easy for the student to read (95% word accuracy).

Instructional Level

Challenging but manageable for the reader (90% word accuracy).

Frustration Level

Difficult text for the student to read (less than 90% word accuracy).

In an effort to help teachers gain knowledge on fluency instruction, researchers have investigated two major instructional approaches related to fluency. In the first approach, repeated and monitored oral reading (commonly called "repeated reading"), students read passages aloud several times and receive guidance and feedback from the teacher. In the second approach, independent silent reading, students are encouraged to read extensively on their own.

Repeated and monitored oral reading

Repeated and monitored oral reading improves reading fluency and overall reading achievement.

Students who read and reread passages orally as they receive guidance and/or feedback become better readers. Repeated oral reading substantially improves word recognition, speed, and accuracy as well as fluency. To a lesser but still considerable extent, repeated oral reading also improves reading comprehension. Repeated oral reading improves the reading ability of all students throughout the elementary school years. It also helps struggling readers at higher grade levels.

Traditionally, many teachers have relied primarily on round-robin reading to develop oral fluency. In round-robin reading, students take turns reading parts of a text aloud (though usually not repeatedly). But round-robin reading in itself does not increase fluency. This may be because students only read small amounts of text, and they usually read this small portion only once.

Researchers have found several effective techniques related to repeated oral reading:

students read and reread a text a certain number of times or until a certain level of fluency is reached. Four re-readings are sufficient for most students.

oral reading practice is increased through the use of audiotapes, tutors, peer guidance, or other means.

In addition, some effective repeated oral reading techniques have carefully designed feedback to guide the reader's performance.

Silent, independent reading

No research evidence is available currently to confirm that instructional time spent on silent, independent reading with minimal guidance and feedback improves reading fluency and overall reading achievement.

One of the major differences between good and poor readers is the amount of time they spend reading. Many studies have found a strong relationship between reading ability and how much a student reads. On the basis of this evidence, teachers have long been encouraged to promote voluntary reading in the classroom. Teacher-education and reading-education literature often recommends in-class procedures for encouraging students to read on their own, such as Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) or Drop Everything and Read (DEAR).

Research, however, has not yet confirmed whether independent silent reading with minimal guidance or feedback improves reading achievement and fluency. The research suggests that direct instruction in reading is the best predictor of reading achievement. However, it is important for students to be given time to apply their reading skills through silent reading with a book at their independent level (read with 95% word accuracy).

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Fluency develops gradually over time and through practice. At the earliest stage of reading development, students' oral reading is slow and labored because students are just learning to "break the code" - to attach sounds to letters and to blend letter sounds into recognizable words.

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This course module includes in-depth information, classroom strategies, assignments, and additional resources on teaching fluency.

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Explore reading basics as well as the key role of background knowledge and motivation in becoming a lifelong reader and learner. Watch our PBS Launching Young Readers series and try our self-paced Reading 101 course to deepen your understanding.

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Phonics:
“Knowing the sounds of individual letters and how those letters sound when they’re combined” (National Literacy Trust).
Examples:

Matching phonemes (sounds) to graphemes (letters)-- isolated and synthesizd

Phonograms and Word Families

Knowing what letters or groups of letters make certain sounds

Decoding- being able to see the letter(s) and know what sounds they make (reading)

Encoding- being able to write the letter(s) from the sounds you hear (spelling)

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Phonics instruction teaches the relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. To read, children need to understand the alphabetic principle - the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language. Decoding is when we use letter-sound relationships to translate a printed word into speech.

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This course module includes in-depth information, classroom strategies, assignments, and additional resources on teaching phonics.

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After completing this module and successfully answering the post-test questions, you’ll be able to download a certificate of completion.

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It's time to reignite your passion for teaching! Triple R Teaching provides simple strategies and practical tips for PreK-grade 3 educators. Anna Geiger, M.Ed., will show you how to make small changes to improve how you teach literacy concepts. Look forward to episodes about Anna's transition from b...

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Workshop Progressions - We Believe... (for SY2023-24)

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Workshop Progressions - We Believe... (for SY2023-24)

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.