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Session 2-Words at First Sight Participants' Guide  (1)

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Session 4-Understanding the Unseen Participants’ Guide (1).docx

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NEW Session 3-Mastering Meaning Participants Guide

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Session 2-Words at First Sight Facilitator Slides with Notes

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Full Printable PDF Schedule *Participants will need to order books on their own. You can order online, or you can receive 30% off + free shipping through Corwin Press by emailing Angela Reynolds at Angela.Reynolds@corwin.com with a subject line: MRESA Book Study Order Request. Metro RESA is not responsible for book orders, or any issues arising from book orders. This will be the responsibility of participants to reach out to companies to order and for any further questions or concerns surrounding orders.

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metro regional educational service agency

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Fall 2025 Resources - Metro Regional Educational Service Agency

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Fall 2025 Resources - Metro Regional Educational Service Agency

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Z IS FOR MOOSE, by Kelly Bingham, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky

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Z is for Moose | Story Read Aloud | Hello Kindergarten

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3 Common Misconceptions About Phonics Instruction

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Uncover the truth about phonics! Explore three common misconceptions surrounding phonics instruction in this blog.

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Learn about the several misconceptions about reading fluency, including speed, accuracy, rate, independent reading, repeated reading, and reading instruction.

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Literacy Shorts Literacy Shorts | Clarifying Conversation: Sight Word Vocabulary

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In this Literacy Short, the Georgia Department of Education provides clarity when it comes to teaching sight words and building literacy skills with elementary students.

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Quad Text Sets: Building Background Knowledge by Scaffolding Comprehension - GaDOE Community

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Research consistently underscores the critical role background knowledge plays in reading comprehension. However, literacy instruction has traditionally

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GaDOE Word Analysis Grade-Level Resources

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GaDOE Word Analysis Grade-Level Resources

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Experienced teachers know that true literacy is much more than just being able to sound out the letters on the page. Skilled readers need to be able to master both what the words are and what they mean. To do this successfully, they bring together various skills like vocabulary, language structure, and verbal reasoning. The Scarborough's Reading Rope model can help educators better understand what it truly takes to create skilled readers.

What is Scarborough's Reading Rope?

Source: Brainspring

Dr. Hollis Scarborough invented the concept of the Reading Rope in the early 1990s. She used it to help parents understand the various skills their children needed to master to become proficient readers. Originally, she twisted together a model made of pipe cleaners to demonstrate her point.

In 2001, the model was published in the Handbook of Early Literacy Research (Neuman/Dickinson). Reading teachers immediately saw how useful it was, and it became a staple for educating new teachers and parents alike.

Scarborough's Reading Rope contains two main sections: Word Recognition and Language Comprehension. Each of these comprises several smaller strands. Woven together, these strands become the rope that represents complete skilled reading. All the components are interconnected and interdependent. If just one strand is weak, it affects the rope (and the reader) as a whole.

Lower Section: Word Recognition

Source: Payne STEAM Academy on Twitter

The lower section of Scarborough's Reading Rope focuses on word recognition skills. These are the skills we tend to think of most when we talk about teaching kids how to read. Imagine a kid sounding out the letters on a page or putting together phonics sounds and syllables. These are the basics of word recognition.

Phonological Awareness

Put simply, phonological awareness is about understanding that words are made up of sounds. Kids learn to speak without ever needing to see a written word. But when they learn reading, they need to recognize that the sounds they make with their mouths correspond with the words they see on the page. This is a very early skill that sets the stage for what follows.

Learn more: Phonological Awareness/Massachusetts Department of Education

Decoding

Decoding is what we picture when we see beginning readers: kids sounding out the words letter by letter. It includes things like phonics, letter blends, silent letters, and more. Kids proficient at decoding can sound out all the words they see on a page, even if they don't know what the words mean.

Try it: Effective Decoding Strategies and Activities for Emerging Readers

Sight Words

Some words are used so frequently that it makes more sense to teach kids to recognize them on sight. This is an extremely common method used in pretty much every early elementary classroom today. Learn more about sight words here.

Try it: Fun Sight Word Activities That Work

Upper Section: Language Comprehension

Source: @teachloveread

Word recognition on its own doesn't create fluent readers. If kids don't know what the words themselves mean, they're not really reading. Furthermore, understanding the meaning of words on their own isn't really useful. Fluent readers understand the text they're reading as a whole, drawing meaningful conclusions and finding important takeaways. The upper strands of Scarborough's Reading Rope are incredibly key in creating strong readers.

Background Knowledge

This strand of the rope is where cross-curriculum learning can really come into play. Kids reading a novel set in World War II Germany will get a lot more out of it when they understand more about WWII in general. For teachers, this means placing reading choices in context. Use reading (at any age) as part of a larger lesson on any topic. Kids will develop a deeper understanding and improve literacy skills at the same time.

Try it: Ways To Build Background Knowledge-and Make Reading Skills Soar

Vocabulary

Building a rich vocabulary means kids can enjoy reading a wider variety of books. When you have to stop every few sentences to look up a word, you're likely to give up on reading a lot faster. Even worse is when kids don't stop to find out the meaning of a word, since they'll have "read" something without understanding it fully-or at all.

Try it: Meaningful Vocabulary Activities for Every Grade

Language Structure

When we talk about language structure, we generally mean syntax (the order of words) and semantics (the meaning of the text). English has a lot of rules for the patterns and order of words, known as syntax. Semantics delves deep into how words and phrases combine to create meaning and how an author's word choice affects that meaning. It's a complicated topic, which good readers continue to consider throughout their lives.

Learn more: Language Structures: Reading Comprehension/Surrey Schools ONE

Verbal Reasoning

When it comes to Scarborough's Reading Rope, verbal reasoning refers to understanding when and how words are being figurative and literal. It includes things like metaphors, analogies, idioms, and figurative language. Kids pick up some of these things as they grow, but classroom instruction can be helpful too.

Try it: Figurative Language Anchor Charts That You Literally Need Right Now

Literacy Knowledge

Kids gain literacy knowledge by exposure to a wide array of genres and styles. This is why a strong curriculum covers fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in all their forms. Generally speaking, the more types of reading a child encounters, the more advanced their literacy knowledge becomes.

Learn more: Literary Genres/California Department of Education

How can teachers use Scarborough's Rope?

Source: Brainspring

Many teachers find Scarborough's Reading Rope useful in two main ways. First, it helps teachers themselves identify where struggling readers may need more help. For instance, a student may be very good at sounding out the words on the page but lack the vocabulary or verbal reasoning to make sense of what they're reading. Once they identify the weak strands, a teacher can make adjustments or offer enrichment to help that student succeed.

Second, teachers can (and should) share this model with parents. It can help them understand why their child is struggling or why teachers use such a variety of methods in the classroom. It's a good tool to reinforce that reading at home is essential to building the literacy skills kids need in school and throughout their lives.

Scarborough's Reading Rope Resources

Try these free resources to learn more about this valuable literacy model.

How has Scarborough's Reading Rope enhanced your teaching of reading? Come share your thoughts in the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE on Facebook.

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What Is Scarborough's Reading Rope and How Do Teachers Use It?

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Scarborough's Reading Rope is a model of the many strands of language comprehension and word recognition that weave into proficient reading.

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The One and Only Ivan - Official Book Trailer

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Read Aloud Childrens Books And Fun Stuff

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Barack and Michelle Obama read The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds | YouTube Books for Kids

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What and Why of Comprehension Strategies

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What and Why of Comprehension Strategies

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What and Why of Comprehension Strategies

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Planning for explicit strategy instruction

After you have chosen a strategy to teach, think about how the strategy works. Collect several passages from reading materials that you are using in your classroom. Assess the passages for opportunities to model the comprehension strategy. Put these passages on an overhead transparency or slide. Prepare to introduce the strategy, including a description of the strategy, why it is important, and when it should be used.

Teaching procedures for explicit strategy instruction

Phase 1: Explicit training and teacher modeling

Activate students' prior knowledge of the topic addressed in your selected passages. "Let's look at the title of this chapter and a few of the subheadings. What do you think this passage is going to be about?"

Name and describe the comprehension strategy you expect students to learn. "Good readers monitor their comprehension continuously as they read. We're going to discuss and practice using this strategy to make sure you are using it when you read. When you monitor your comprehension, you frequently ask yourself whether what you are reading makes sense to you. If you decide it doesn't make sense, you stop and figure out what the problem is and how to fix the problem."

Explain why the strategy helps comprehension and when to use the strategy. "We use comprehension monitoring to help us keep track of how well we are understanding what we read. You should monitor your comprehension while you are reading, particularly when you are reading materials on a topic you don't know much about or if the reading is difficult for you."

Model or demonstrate how to use the strategy by thinking aloud with the passages you have selected. For visible strategies, such as word mapping or graphic organizers, think aloud about your reasoning processes as you complete the map or organizer. Begin reading the passage, pause at several points and ask yourself,
"Is this making sense?"
Next, pause at a place where struggling readers might have difficulty and again ask,
"Is this making sense? I'm not sure. I don't know what this second sentence means."
Identify what the comprehension problem is by saying, "I don't know what the author means by 'the matter was not completely digested.' What was this 'matter,' and why wasn't it 'digested?'"

Read back over previous sentences that provide clues. Use the clues to make a good guess about what the phrase you don't understand means. "Maybe the word 'matter' means the argument. I think this is true because the previous paragraph talks about the argument between the parents. Now if the argument was not digested, that could mean that it wasn't done or over. That sounds like the best possibility."

You can also read forward in the text to look for meaning clues.

Repeat teacher modeling with the other passages.

Phase 2: Guided practice

Begin to turn responsibility for the strategy over to the students by providing opportunities for students to practice the strategy with you. For example, after you demonstrate the comprehension monitoring strategy, you can ask individual students to try out reading and thinking aloud.

Prompt students to pause and ask whether the passage makes sense. Have them check whether it is making sense by occasionally prompting them to summarize or predict.

Ask students to continue reading and thinking aloud in small groups or pairs. Monitor the groups closely to ensure that they are practicing the strategy, not just reading aloud to one another.

Phase 3: Independent practice

Continue turning over responsibility to students by asking them to read independently in class and use the strategies that you have taught.

Ask students to keep a written log of their strategy use. Periodically ask students to share their logs with the class and lead a discussion about how students are using strategies. For example, have students keep a log of places where they used comprehension monitoring to identify difficulties and the problem-solving strategies that they used to help them overcome the difficulties.

Continue to support students as they learn new strategies by circulating and reinforcing strategy use on an individual basis.

Every few weeks, re-teach strategies that you have taught previously and remind students to use them in their reading.

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Use explicit strategy instruction to make visible the invisible comprehension strategies that good readers use to understand text. Support students until they can use the strategies independently. Recycle and re-teach strategies throughout the year.

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Learn about the most common text features, the purpose of each, and how explicit instruction in identifying and using text features can support comprehension and strengthen student writing.