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*Effective reading instruction involves a combination of powerful instructional settings. This post is the first in our "What is...?" series, where we define each instructional context that makes up a coherent literacy system.

What is guided reading?

Guided reading is a small-group instructional context in which a teacher supports each reader's development of systems of strategic actions for processing new texts at increasingly challenging levels of difficulty. During guided reading, students in a small-group setting individually read a text that you have selected at their instructional reading level. You provide teaching across the lesson to support students in building the in-the-head networks of strategic actions for processing increasingly challenging texts. Through guided reading, students learn how to engage in every facet of the reading process and apply that literacy power to all instructional contexts.

Why is guided reading important?

As an instructional context, guided reading:

Supports readers in expanding their processing competencies (in-the-head systems of strategic actions)

Provides a context for responsive teaching - teaching that is grounded in the teacher's detailed knowledge of and respect for each student, supporting the readers' active construction of a processing system

Allows students to engage with a rich variety of texts

Helps students learn to think like proficient readers

Enables students to read more challenging texts with support.

"In guided reading, you meet students where they are and lead them forward with intention and precision." -Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell

What does guided reading look like?

A small group of students who are at a similar point in their reading development are seated across from you at a small kidney-shaped table. Each student reads, softly or silently, the same text individually. You guide a discussion of the text meaning and make teaching points based on your observations of the students' reading strengths and needs.
Steps in the guided reading process:

1. Gather information about the readers to identify emphases.

2. Select and analyze texts to use.

3. Introduce the text.

4. Observe children as they read the text individually (support if needed).

5. Invite children to discuss the meaning of the text.

6. Make one or two teaching points.

7. Engage children in letter/word work activity.

8. Extend understanding through writing about reading (optional).

9. Reflect on the lesson and plan the following lesson.

Becoming an effective teacher of guided reading takes time and effort; but the benefits are worth it. As you teach students, you will have the satisfaction of seeing them apply today what you taught yesterday; you will notice behavioral evidence that they are taking on new understandings; and you will see them expand their competencies and move to higher levels of texts.

To learn more about the Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ Guided Reading Collection, click the link below.
~The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Team
Check out the entire "What is?" blog series:

1. What is Guided Reading?

2. What is Interactive Read-Aloud?

3. What is Shared Reading?

4. What are Reading Minilessons?

5. What is Independent Reading?

6. What are Book Clubs?

7. What is Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study?

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What is guided reading? Why is guided reading important? And what does guided reading look like in the classroom?

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*Effective reading instruction involves a combination of powerful instructional settings. This post is the next in our "What is...?" series, where we define each instructional context that makes up a coherent literacy system.

What are book clubs?

During book clubs, students meet in small, heterogeneous groups to discuss a book that they have all read or listened to. Through sharing their thinking, they build a richer understanding than any one student could gain from independent reading alone.

Why are book clubs important?

As an instructional context, book clubs:

Deepen readers' appreciation and understanding of a common text

Extend students' thinking as they process and interpret the perspectives and opinions of their peers

Expand students' ability to express their ideas orally using academic language

Provide an authentic context for applying norms for listening and speaking.

"As students bring together much of their learning during book clubs, they find themselves in control." - Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell

What do book clubs look like?

Book clubs bring a small group of students together to talk about a book each has chose (from a limited selection). Students may sit in a circle of chairs or on the rug, but without a table between them. There are no barriers to communications. You facilitate the group to support development of effective discussion skills, to lift the level of discussion, and to promote a deep understanding of the writer's and illustrator's craft.
Structure of a book club:

1. Before Reading - Introduce the titles from the set of selections to the class. Form book club groups based on students' preferences. Make a schedule so students know when they will meet.

2. Independent Reading of the Book - Students read the text individually. If particular students are not able to read the text independently, you may need to read the text to them or make an audio-recording available.

3. Book Club Discussion - When all students in a group have finished reading or listening to the book, bring them together for a discussion. Discussion is facilitated by the teacher, but the goal over time is for students to initiate the talk, respond to others in the group, and add to each other's ideas using evidence from the text or personal experiences to build a rich understanding.

4. Group Evaluation - At the end of the discussion, students self-evaluate their book club on characteristics such as turn-talking and preparation. They talk about what they will work on.

The amount of support you provide for the discussion will vary. At first, you will be providing a higher level of support, but as children gradually take over the discussions, your support will lessen and students will find that the experience of exchanging ideas with their peers and co-constructing richer understandings of texts is genuinely rewarding.

To learn more about the Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ Book Club Collection, click the link below.
~The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Team Check out the entire "What is?" blog series:

1. What is Guided Reading?

2. What is Interactive Read-Aloud?

3. What is Shared Reading?

4. What are Reading Minilessons?

5. What is Independent Reading?

6. What are Book Clubs?

7. What is Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study?

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Effective reading instruction involves a combination of powerful instructional settings. This post is the next in our "What is...?" series, where we define each instructional context that makes up a coherent literacy system. What are book clubs? During book clubs, students meet in small, heterogeneous groups to discuss a book that they have all read or listened to.

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Our free printable writing resources make it easy to start your book publishing project and align with educational standards, including Common Core. Whether your class is brainstorming, editing or needs a check-list for your final drafts - we have printable worksheets for every step of the writing process. Select your grade level then click on the documents below to view, print or download.

Worksheets Grades K - 1 | Worksheets Grades 2 - 3 | Worksheets Grades 4 - 5 | Lesson Plans Grades K - 12

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Free Lesson Plans | Creative Writing Worksheets for Students

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Studentreasures provides free creative writing worksheets for elementary students to help teachers create wonderful classbooks with their class. Download worksheets, lesson plans,and more!

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To teach struggling beginning readers, we need to know them well as readers. Examining multiple running records over time helps us notice patterns in the children's responses. These patterns in turn help us decide what to emphasize in our teaching, and which books to choose to support the instructional needs. Beyond examining how children use meaning, structure, and visual sources of information while reading (See Guided Reading Module 1), we can further analyze their running records using the " Additional Considerations " chart*. This chart will guide us in analyzing three important areas related to a child's developing system of processing text: Tolds from the teacher, High Frequency Words, and Monitoring.
*The chart is an adaptation for classroom teachers based on the research study by Lea McGee and Mary Fried, Development of Children's Problem-Solving Activities at Point of Difficulty, presented at the 2011 National Reading Recovery & K-6 Literacy Conference. See Fried, M., Using Running Records to Inform Teaching Decisions (2013). The Journal of Reading Recovery, 13(1), 5-15. Example 1: Watch and Discuss
EXAMPLE 1: Watch and Discuss

In Example 1, Dr. CC Bates (Associate Professor, Literacy Education, Clemson University, and Director, Reading Recovery and Early Learning Training Center for South Carolina), and Maryann McBride (Reading Recovery Teacher Leader, Clemson University), talk through how they use each step of the chart to gain more insight about teaching a first grader who has progressed through Reading Recovery to reading at a level 10/11 at Chastain Road Elementary School, Liberty, SC (Pickens County School District).

Supporting Documents: Example 1 Additional Considerations Chart, Example 1 Running Records, Example 1 Book Texts

STEP 1: TOLDS (The teacher tells the child the word.)

STEP 2: HIGH FREQUENCY WORDS

STEP 3: MONITORING (noticing when you're right or wrong in your own reading)

CONCLUSION: USING THE ANALYSIS

Supporting Documents: Summary and Recommendations ( page 3 of Additional Considerations Chart)
How does the analysis of Tolds, High Frequency Words, and Monitoring help a teacher plan next steps for a struggling reader?
EXAMPLE 2: Try It!

BEFORE viewing the video clips:

1. Examine the book texts and running records for a first grader reading at a level 4. Use the blank Additional Considerations Chart to record the Tolds, High Frequency Words, and Monitoring for each category of the chart, and summarize your findings on page 3.

2. Compare your observations with those on the chart completed by Maryann McBride, Reading Recovery Teacher Leader, and Alana Gray, Reading Recovery Teacher at Mauldin Elementary School, Simpsonville, SC (Greenville 1 School District).

Supporting Documents: Example 2 book texts, Example 2 running records, blank Additional Considerations Chart, Example 2 Completed Additional Considerations Chart

CONCLUSION: USING THE ANALYSIS

Supporting Documents: Summary and Recommendations (page 3 of Example 2 Additional Considerations Chart)

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To teach struggling beginning readers, we need to know them well as readers. Examining multiple running records over time helps us notice patterns in the children's responses. These patterns in turn help us decide what to emphasize in our teaching, and which books to choose to support the instructional needs.

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Interactive Read Aloud Lesson Plan: How-to for the Elementary Classroom

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An interactive read aloud lesson plan is a powerful teaching tool in the elementary classroom. Learn how to create one for your students!

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One of my favorite times of the day in the classroom was when we had our interactive read aloud! I loved having my students close to me on the carpet, their eyes and minds focused on the book we were reading. I loved picking out a book with vivid pictures and characters I thought they would love. But I also wanted to make that time purposeful and teach them a reading skill. How do we do that? By designing our interactive read aloud lesson plans ahead of time!

Why is planning your read aloud lessons important?

Taking the time to intentionally create your read-aloud lesson plans ahead of time elevates the effectiveness of your read aloud. When you plan it before you read it, you know the story, and you know what reading skills the book lends itself to.

Additionally, you are able to anticipate places where student comprehension might break down. Planning out your read aloud also allows you to be more purposeful and specific in what you are teaching your class both in person or teaching virtually.

I'll admit sometimes it's so easy to think, "Oh I have read this book so many times before, I could probably work on predicting with this story." I would think and do this occasionally when I felt like I didn't have the time to plan out my read aloud.

The problem with "winging it" is you aren't clear exactly where to stop while reading, and you might not know what specific sentence stems you want to use. I ran into this time and time again. I found out the truth was I didn't have time to not plan my read aloud.

You can read more about how planning makes your read aloud so much more powerful HERE in this blog post!

How to Plan an Interactive Read Aloud in 3 Simple Steps

Not sure how to write great read-aloud lesson plans? Let me give you 3 steps to help you plan yours!

Step 1: Choose a book with intentionality.

First, pick a book you want to read aloud to your class. This could be any book you are wanting to read to them. You are going to read through the book one time for enjoyment. After you finish reading the book, think about what reading skills the book naturally lends itself to.

What did you find yourself doing as you were reading the book?

Are there places in the story where students could make a prediction?

Would this be a good book for making connections?

Could students work on visualizing while reading this book?

You might have to go back through the story and look at a few places in the book. You will want to look for four to five places in the story where both you and your students could practice the selected reading skill.

Step 2: Write notes for yourself on the sticky notes throughout the book.

Now, it's time to do the powerful work! Grab a pen and a sticky note. You are going to write down the reading skill you are teaching and how you will do it.

Are you going to do a teacher think aloud here?

Are students going to turn and talk?

Put that information at the top. I also always put the page number in case the sticky note falls out of the book later on. If that happens, you know exactly where it goes for future use.

Then, in the middle of your sticky note, you are going to write what you will say. That way you won't have to stop and think in the middle of your read aloud, what you want to say. It's already there.

Here's another example of what to write in the say portion: "Readers, let me tell you what I see in my mind here. I can see the boy and Jeremy having a good time. Also, I can see them talking, laughing, and having fun together. I can see them talking about what they want to do next. Thumbs up if you can see this too."

Step 3: Place the sticky notes in the book!

Finally, go back into the story and put the sticky notes on the pages where you will work on those specific skills. You'll want to stick them in a place where you aren't covering up the text or pictures. That way you won't have to move them later!

Freebie to Make Creating Read Aloud Lesson Plans Easier

Want a free sticky note template to help you plan your read aloud? Here's the format I used above to help plan my read alouds!

Another bonus tip: If you keep your sticky notes in the book, you will have this read aloud planned and ready to go for next year!

Diving Deeper into Interactive Read Aloud Lesson Plans

Not sure exactly how to teach questioning, making connections, or making predictions? Check out these blog posts for help:

Do you not have the time to plan a read aloud every day? Do you want interactive read aloud lessons that teach specific reading skills planned out for you? Not a problem! We have a growing bundle of interactive read alouds with planned lessons. It includes:

7 Units {Making Connections, Making Predictions, Visualizing, Asking Questions, Inferring, Determining Importance (Coming Feb. 15), Synthesizing (Coming Mar. 15)}

Interactive Read Aloud Notes & Reading Strategy Notes

Example Teaching Schedule

Reading Strategy Anchor Chart

Reader's Toolbox Strategy Tool

5-7 Detailed Lesson Plans Per Unit

Digital Components: Digital Resource Guide and Links for digital anchor charts and assessment page

Grab yours today to be set for the year. Do you have any tips that help you save time on planning your interactive read alouds? I'd love to hear them!

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How to Create Interactive Read Aloud Lesson Plans in 3 Simple Steps | Mrs. Richardson's Class

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One of my favorite times of the day in the classroom was when we had our interactive read aloud ! I loved having my students close to me on the carpet, their eyes and minds focused on the book we were reading. I loved picking out a book with vivid pictures and characters I thought they would love.

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The following resources have been created or recommended by members of the CalTPA community.

Research

Website Resources

Inclusive Education for Educator Preparation , a website collaboration between the CSU Office of Educator Preparation and the Bechtel Foundation designed to assist programs in the preparation of future educators with a focus on inclusive practices, including foundational knowledge related to MTSS, UDL, Culturally Responsive Teaching, TPEs, and High Leverage Practices

Video Resources

CalTPA Flash , an example of CalTPA candidate support created by Meredith Fellows, former CalState Teach faculty advisor, featuring a series of recorded video conversations with Nathan Binkinz, one of her CalTPA candidates, illustrating how he prepared for each step of CalTPA Cycles 1 and 2.

CalTPA Playlist , a series of online teaching and other support webinars on the CTC's YouTube Channel

CDE Distance Learning Playlist , a series of distance learning support webinars on the CDE's YouTube Channel

Online Teaching Channel , a series of online teaching tutorials created by Lara Ervin-Kassab of San Jose State University

Educational Technology Resources

CUE , a non-profit professional association whose mission is to inspire innovative learners by fostering community, personalizing learning, infusing technology, developing leadership, and advocating educational opportunities for all. CUE membership is free.

CUE Craft , free personalized lesson tool kits designed to offer engaging, edtech infused learning experiences that create greater work efficiency for teachers and can improve student learning outcomes.

CUE Craft video presentations , eight curated videos featuring educational technology teacher/leader experts demonstrating strategies and resources you can learn from as you develop your own activities where students are using educational technology to enhance their learning.

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) , a passionate community of global educators who believe in the power of technology to transform teaching and learning, accelerate innovation, and solve tough problems in education and home to the ISTE Standards for Students, Educators, Education Leaders, and Coaches .

Flipgrid , a digital message board website that allows teachers to pose topics and students to post video responses

Mentimeter , an easy-to-use presentation software that can help teachers create fun and interactive presentations

Padlet , an online virtual "bulletin" board, where students and teachers can collaborate, reflect, and share links and pictures in a secure location

Quizizz , an online student engagement and assessment tool that allows teachers and students to create and use one another's quizzes

Screencastify , a Chrome browser extension that records your screen, face, voice, and more

Seesaw , a student engagement platform that allows students to take pictures, draw, record videos, and more to capture learning in a portfolio

Socrative , a cloud-based student response system that allows teachers to create simple quizzes via classroom computers or their own smartphones

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The following resources have been created or recommended by members of the CalTPA community.

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The Melissa Institute
Literacy Website

The Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment is a non-profit organization dedicated to the study and prevention of violence through education, community service, research support and consultation.

Did you know that 85% of youth in trouble with the law have reading difficulties?

The Institute's mission is to prevent violence and promote safer communities through education and application of research-based knowledge.

What is the connection between violence prevention and a literacy website?

Evidence shows that students who do not learn to read on level by 3rd grade are much more likely to develop low self-esteem, drop out of school, and engage in antisocial and aggressive behavior. To help prevent this spiral of failure The Melissa Institute has introduced The Balanced Literacy Diet website to support educators in developing effective and engaging literacy programs across the elementary grades.

The good news is that literacy failure is preventable!

With the support of The Melissa Institute this website was developed by university-based literacy experts and school-based practitioners - literacy specialists, classroom teachers as well as district and school administrators. The Balanced Literacy Diet framework is designed to provide a comprehensive multifaceted internet resource to support the development of research-informed reading and writing instruction in schools. It is a free website for use by educators everywhere.

Thank you...

We want to thank all of the generous contributors who have made the development of this website possible.

We also want to express a particular debt of gratitude to the many educators who have opened their hearts to this project and shared their time and expertise so that others can benefit from their wisdom.

We hope to continue to add to the website, so if you find it a useful resource we hope you will support us in our efforts to make it even better.

Donations to the Melissa Institute via credit card are possible through our Secure Server.

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BALANCEDLITERACYDIET :: Balanced Literacy Diet

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The Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment is a non-profit organization dedicated to the study and prevention of violence through education, community service, research support and consultation. The Institute's mission is to prevent violence and promote safer communities through education and application of research-based knowledge.

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World's most popular online marketplace for original educational resources with more than four million resources available for use today.

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*Effective reading instruction involves a combination of powerful instructional settings. This post is the next in our "What is...?" series, where we define each instructional context that makes up a coherent literacy system.

What is independent reading?

During independent reading, students read books of their choosing for a sustained period of time. Minilessons, brief conferences, and opportunities to share thinking support students' engagement with books and increase their competencies.

Why is independent reading important?

As an instructional context, independent reading:

Offers the opportunity to develop habits, attitudes, and tastes as a reader

Builds students' mileage and stamina as readers

Allows students to exercise full control of the reading process

Provides opportunities to share thinking about books with other readers through discussion and writing about reading

Allows readers to apply independently what they have learned through whole-group minilessons, guided and shared reading lessons, and book clubs.

"A key factor of independent reading is choice." - Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell

What does independent reading look like?

Each reader selects a book from a rich, well-organized collection of books in the classroom. Books are not organized by level in your classroom library but, rather, according to categories such as author, illustrator, theme, series, genre, etc. Students are free to choose any text for independent reading based on their personal interests, though you support learning how to make good choices through individual reading conferences and whole-group minilessons. Students share their thinking through discussion and writing, as you come alongside readers to support thinking through brief conferences.
Supporting student choice:

1. Book Talks - Introduce new books through very brief book talks as you add them to your classroom library collection. Your short introduction may include talking about the writer, illustrator, and genre; providing a brief "teaser" of the plot or interesting facts; and showing a few particularly engaging illustrations.

2. Reading Minilessons - Short minilessons on the topic of choosing "just-right" books for independent reading can be valuable for your whole class at the beginning of the year. These minilessons, which are provided for you in The Reading Minilessons Book, can help children learn and apply techniques for choosing books, such as reading a little of a book at the beginning and in the middle and then asking themselves, Am I interested in the topic or the kind of story? Did I understand it? Were there too many difficult words? Can I read it smoothly?

3. Independent Reading Time - Students choose the books they want to read. They then read silently or, for emergent readers, very softly. Students also write and draw about their reading in a reader's notebook.

4. Conferring with Individual Students - The goal of conferring is to listen to a student's responses to a book and to promote further thinking. During the conference, you may listen to a student read, teach for specific strategic actions, talk about an entry the student made in a reader's notebook, and more. The conference enables you to understand how a reader is processing a text and provide customized instruction that will help the individual student refine and extend his reading competencies.

Opportunities for independent reading in the classroom:

Self-select books to read from the classroom library

Revisit books read during Interactive Read-Aloud

Revisit books read during Shared Reading

Reread books read during Guided Reading

Read interactive writing, shared writing, and poems displayed in the room

Independent reading offers the opportunity for students to develop tastes as readers and to read a large number of self-selected books on their own. It is as students read, enjoy, and interact with texts that they choose that they will become lifelong readers.

To learn more about the Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ Independent Reading Collection, click the link below.
Check out the entire "What is?" blog series:

1. What is Guided Reading?

2. What is Interactive Read-Aloud?

3. What is Shared Reading?

4. What are Reading Minilessons?

5. What is Independent Reading?

6. What are Book Clubs?

7. What is Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study?

Fri, Feb 15, '19

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What is independent reading? Why is it important? And what does it look like in the classroom?

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*Effective reading instruction involves a combination of powerful instructional settings. This post is the next in our "What is...?" series, where we define each instructional context that makes up a coherent literacy system.

What is shared reading?

During shared reading, you and your students read aloud an enlarged version of an engaging text that provides opportunities for your students to expand their reading competencies. The goals of the first reading are to ensure that students enjoy the text and think about the meaning. After the first reading, students take part in multiple, subsequent readings to notice more about the text. They discuss the text, and you select teaching points based on their needs.

Why is shared reading important?

As an instructional context, shared reading:

Provides enjoyable, successful experiences with print for all students

Promotes the development of all aspects of the reading process

Builds language skills and enhances vocabulary

Provides opportunities to engage in expressive, meaningful, fluent reading

Builds understanding of various types of texts, formats, and language structures

Builds a community of readers

"Shared reading enables all children, regardless of their reading levels, to have enjoyable literacy opportunities every day." - Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell

What does shared reading look like?

Students sit together as a whole group and, following your first reading, engage in an oral reading of a common text. They use their voices to interpret the meaning of a text as they read in unison with others. Alternatively, students are assigned parts to read.
Structure of a shared reading lesson:

1. Introduce the Text - Engage students' interest in the text with a few opening words.

2. Model Reading of the Text - Read the text to students at a good pace with a focus on enjoyment and understanding. Have a brief discussion.

3. Read the Text Together - Have students read the whole text or selected parts with you.

4. Discuss the Text - Guide conversation about the meaning and language of the text, and invite students to share their thinking.

5. Teaching Points - Select a specific part or parts of the text to revisit to make teaching points. This can be accomplished over a number of subsequent readings.

6. Repeated Readings - Revisit the text again on subsequent days, making additional teaching points and supporting students in gaining independence in processing the text.

Shared reading is an enjoyable experience for your classroom community and an important opportunity for children to "step up together" into more challenging texts while also beginning to notice and acquire the processes they need to read texts independently.

To learn more about the Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ Shared Reading Collection, click the link below.
~The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Team Check out the entire "What is?" blog series:

1. What is Guided Reading?

2. What is Interactive Read-Aloud?

3. What is Shared Reading?

4. What are Reading Minilessons?

5. What is Independent Reading?

6. What are Book Clubs?

7. What is Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study?

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Shared reading is an enjoyable experience for your classroom community and an important opportunity for children to "step up together" into more challenging texts.

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Use identity charts to help students consider the many factors that shape their own identity and that of groups, nations, and historical and literary figures.

Advisory

English & Language Arts

History

Social Studies

Using the strategies from Facing History is almost like an awakening.

- Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

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Use identity charts to help students consider the many factors that shape their own identity and that of groups, nations, and historical and literary figures.

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EDUC 1300: Effective Learning Strategies - Simple Book Publishing

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EDUC 1300: Effective Learning Strategies

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of this chapter, you will be able to: Explain how reading in college is different from reading in high school. Identify common types of reading tasks assigned in a college class. Describe the purpose and instructor expectations of academic reading. Identify effective reading strategies for academic texts using the SQ3R System. Explore

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Explaining privilege to children through a race | The School That Tried To End Racism

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Video 34: Repeated Reading (REL Southeast)

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Why Correct Spelling Is Important

Correct spelling is still important. The National Commission on Writing for America's Families, Schools, and Colleges (2005) reported that 80 percent of the time an employment application is doomed if it is poorly written or poorly spelled. Here are other examples of situations where spelling is important:

Writing so others can read and understand

Recognizing the right choice from the possibilities presented by a spell checker

Looking up words in a dictionary

Filing alphabetically

Playing word games like Scrabble®

And even though word processing software includes spell checkers, students still need to become proficient spellers.

Spell Checkers Do Not Catch All Errors

Since the advent of word processing and spell checkers, some have argued that spelling instruction is no longer all that important. But spell checkers do not catch all errors. One study (Montgomery, Karlan, and Coutinho, 2001) reported that spell checkers usually catch just 30 to 80 percent of misspellings overall, partly because they miss homophone errors. A spell checker would find no errors in this sentence: "To miles is two far too go."

Another problem is that students who are very poor spellers do not produce the close approximations of target words necessary for the spell checker to suggest the right word.

Spelling Is Important for Reading

Research has shown that learning to spell and learning to read rely on much of the same underlying knowledge-such as the relationships between letters and sounds-and, not surprisingly, that spelling instruction can be designed to help children better understand that key knowledge, resulting in better reading (Ehri, 2000).

Catherine Snow et al. (2005, p. 86) summarize the real importance of spelling for reading as follows: "Spelling and reading build and rely on the same mental representation of a word. Knowing the spelling of a word makes the representation of it sturdy and accessible for fluent reading."

Spelling Is Important for Writing

Research also bears out a strong relationship between spelling and writing: Writers who must think too hard about how to spell use up valuable cognitive resources needed for higher level aspects of composition (Singer and Bashir, 2004). Writing is a mental juggling act that depends on using basic skills with automaticity (e.g., handwriting, spelling, grammar, and punctuation) so that the writer can focus on topic, organization, word choice, and audience needs. Poor spellers may restrict what they write to words they can spell, with inevitable loss of verbal power, or they may lose track of their thoughts when they get stuck trying to spell a word.

Spelling Needs to Be Explicitly Taught

The National Reading Panel Report (2000) did not include spelling as one of the five essential components of comprehensive literacy instruction. The report implied that phonemic awareness and phonics instruction had a positive effect on spelling in the primary grades and that spelling continues to develop in response to appropriate reading instruction.

However, more recent research challenged at least part of the National Reading Panel's assumption. In a longitudinal study, Scientific Studies of Reading (2005), a group of researchers found that, although students' growth in passage comprehension remained close to average from first through fourth grade, their spelling scores dropped dramatically by third grade and continued to decline in fourth grade (Mehta, Foorman, Branum-Martin, & Taylor, 2005). Clearly, we should not assume that progress in reading will necessarily result in progress in spelling.

​ Read Naturally programs for teaching spelling or that support spelling

Regular vs. Irregular Spelling Patterns

The spelling of words in English is more regular and pattern-based than commonly believed. About 50% of English words have regular spelling patterns. That means that the letters used to spell these words predictably represent their sound patterns. For example, the words bad, back, and bake all follow reliable, regular spelling patterns.

Another 37% have only one error if they are spelled on the basis of sound-symbol correspondences alone. Typically, that error would occur in spelling a vowel sound. The schwa sound is an example. If a student wants to spell the word temperature and knows that all vowels sometimes make the schwa sound (ə), that student knows that the sound alone will not help him to spell the word. The specific vowel needed for the third syllable in temperature must be learned in order to spell the word correctly.

The remaining 13% must be learned as irregular words (e.g., ocean), and many of these words could be spelled correctly if other information was taken into account, such as word meaning and word origin (Hanna, Hanna, Hodges, and Rudorf, 1966).

Spelling Strategies

How many words do we need to teach in our spelling instruction? The average person uses perhaps 10,000 words freely and can recognize another 30,000 to 40,000 words. Fortunately, to be an effective speller, a student does not have to be able to correctly spell all the words in his or her listening, reading, and speaking vocabulary. A basic spelling vocabulary of 2,800 to 3,000 well-selected words should form the core for spelling instruction (E. Horn, 1926; Fitzgerald, 1951; Rinsland, 1945; T. Horn & Otto 1954; Monson, 1975).

When choosing the words to include in spelling instruction, focus on regular spelling patterns, high-frequency words (both regular and irregular words), and frequently misspelled words.

Teaching Regular Spelling Patterns

Since 50% of the words children read and spell have regular spelling patterns (and another 37% are very close), it is smart to directly teach children the regular spelling patterns in our writing system. Students are introduced to sound/spelling patterns early through reading instruction, and then they study them again during spelling instruction.

Words with a regular spelling pattern should be taught using letter-sound correspondences-as sound-out words. Researchers found that the most successful approaches were based on structured spelling instruction that explicitly teaches speech sounds that are represented by the letters in printed words (Graham, 1999; Berninger et al., 2000; Swanson et al., 1999). The student identifies the individual sounds in a word and then chooses the correct letter (or letters) to represent each sound. Sometimes the sound is represented by more than one letter (e.g., sh).

Research shows that ongoing spelling instruction based on the sounds of language is effective and produces good results. Students benefit from direct, systematic instruction that moves them along a continuum from the easiest sound/spelling patterns to the most difficult. Instruction is most effective when words with common features are grouped together in the lessons.

Here is a simple sequence of phonics elements for teaching sound-out words that moves from the easiest sound/spelling patterns to the most difficult:

1. Consonants & short vowel sounds

2. Consonant blends & digraphs

3. Long vowel/final e

4. Long vowel digraphs

5. Other vowel patterns

6. Syllable patterns

7. Affixes

Teaching Spelling of High-Frequency Words

Eight words account for 18% of all the words students use in their writing, 25 words account for 33%, 100 words for 50%, 300 words for 65%, 1000 words for 86%, 2,000 words for 95%, and 3,000 words for 97% (Fry, Fountoukidis, & Kress, 2000; Horn, 1926; Otto & McMenemy; 1966, Rinsland, 1945). It is smart to make these words a high priority in spelling instruction.

To require a student to master a spelling vocabulary significantly larger than 3,000 words is out of harmony with research. After several hundred words have been learned, the law of diminishing returns begins to operate (Allred, 1977). So, if students master about 3,000 words, they have about 97% of the words they will need.

The following list includes the first 200 high-frequency words.

Spelling List: First 200 high-frequency words

The column on the left-hand side lists the high-frequency words that have irregular spelling patterns in their order of frequency. The other columns list high-frequency words with regular spelling patterns, organized by common vowel spellings. Use this list to remember to emphasize the high-frequency words with regular spelling patterns as you teach the various vowel patterns.

Learning Irregular High-Frequency Words
​Irregular high frequency words should be taught as spell-out words -teaching them in the order of their frequency. Spell-out words should be taught using word-specific memory-say the word, spell the word, say the word again.

When a student studies words with irregular spelling patterns independently, the student should practice a word by saying the word, saying and writing each letter, and then saying the word again. The student should then check the spelling against a correct model and practice again-as many times as necessary.

Learning Regular High-Frequency Words
High frequency words with regular spelling patterns should be taught as sound-out words in lessons with the same patterns. Sound-out words should be taught by listening for each sound in a word and then writing the letter (or letters) that correspond to each sound.

Since some high frequency words have regular spelling patterns that are taught much later in a spelling program, those words should be taught as spell-out words earlier and then reviewed as sound-out words when their spelling pattern is taught later.

Teaching Spelling of Frequently Misspelled Words

A small number of words-about 300-account for more than half the words students misspell in their writing. A Research in Action project reviewed 18,599 written compositions of children in grades 1-8 (Cramer and Cipielewski, 1995). The researchers noted spelling errors in these compositions and compiled the results. They found that a small set of common words tend to be misspelled over and over. These words are misspelled by students at primary, intermediate, and middle school levels.

The researchers compiled this list of commonly misspelled words:

Spelling List:​ The 100 Most Frequently Misspelled Words Across Eight Grade Levels

If you look down this list you will notice these recurring spelling problems:

Homophones: Homophones-words that sound the same but are spelled differently-constitute about 20 percent of the misspelled words (e.g., there spelled their).

Apostrophes: Words that contain an apostrophe make up about 10 percent of the misspelled words, some of which are also homophones (e.g., you're spelled your, it's spelled its).

Separation/Joining Errors: Another highly predictable spelling problem involves words that lend themselves to inappropriate separation or joining (e.g., because spelled be cause, a lot spelled alot).

Errors in Compound Words: Another common spelling problem is the misspelling of compound words by wrongly separating them, or less commonly, by wrongly joining an open compound or joining a compound with a hyphen (e.g., outside spelled out side, ice cream spelled icecream, baby-sit spelled babysit, etc.).

Words that primary grade students misspell are in many instances the same words intermediate and middle school students continue to misspell. When researchers closely examined the 25 most frequently misspelled words at each grade level they noted a startling amount of overlap across grade levels from one through eight.

At the same time, an examination of a typical spelling curriculum shows that many of these frequently misspelled words are taught fairly early in the spelling curriculum. Unfortunately, many of these words are taught only once within the span of an eight-year spelling curriculum.

Teaching these words one time in a spelling series that covers six or eight grade levels is not adequate for many students to learn these words. Teachers should implement a system for reviewing and recycling these words until students demonstrate mastery. Students should be monitored and held accountable for correctly spelling these words in their daily work. Words that continue to be misspelled should be recycled into the next spelling lesson.

Using the Test-Study-Test Technique to Teach Spelling

Evidence from research shows that the test-study-test technique is the single most effective strategy in spelling instruction. This involves having the student (under the teacher's direction) correct his or her own errors immediately after taking a spelling pretest.

Following each word or at the end of the pretest, the teacher spells each word, emphasizing each letter as the student points to each letter being pronounced. Using a colored pencil, the student puts a dot under the incorrect part of a word and then writes the word correctly off to the side.

The test-study-test method allows the student to:

See which words are difficult,

Locate the part of the word that is troublesome, and

Correct errors.

The student can then focus on the difficult parts of specific words when studying for the final test (Allred, 1977; Darch et al., 2000; Hall, 1964; Hibler, 1957; Morton, Heward, & Alber, 1998).

Read Naturally Programs for Teaching Spelling or That Support Spelling

Teaching Spelling With Signs for Sounds

​ Read Naturally's Signs for Sounds is a research-based spelling program for beginning and developing spellers and readers. Signs for Sounds provides systematic, explicit phonics instruction to teach students how to spell words with regular spelling patterns (sound-out words) and a systematic strategy for teaching students how to learn to spell high frequency words with irregular spelling patterns (spell-out words). In addition, the flexible lesson design prompts teachers to recycle frequently misspelled words from week to week until those difficult words are mastered.

Learn more about how Signs for Sounds uses research-based strategies to teach spelling:

Other Programs That Support Spelling

The following programs do not focus on spelling but include spelling activities as part of a broader scope of instruction:

Read Naturally® GATE
Teacher-led instruction for small groups of early readers. Focuses on phonics, high-frequency words, and fluency instruction with additional support for phonemic awareness and vocabulary. A spelling step provides students with practice writing short words with the featured sounds.
Learn more about Read Naturally GATE
Read Naturally GATE samples

Word Warm-ups®
A mostly independent program with audio support on CDs that develops automaticity in phonics and decoding. Focuses on phonics with additional support for phonemic awareness and fluency. In an optional spelling activity, the teacher (or software) dictates words with the featured pattern and the student spells them.
Learn more about Word Warm-ups (reproducible masters with audio)
Learn more about Word Warm-ups Live (web application)
Word Warm-ups samples

Bibliography

Allred, R. (1977). Spelling: The application of research findings. Washington DC: National Education Association.

Berninger, V. W., Vaughan, K., Abbott, R. D., Brooks, A., Begay, K., Curtin, G., Byrd, K., & Graham, S. (2000). Language-based spelling instruction: Teaching children to make multiple connections between spoken and written words. Learning Disability Quarterly, 23(2), 117-135.

Cramer, R. & Cipielewski, J. (1995). Research in action: A study of spelling errors in 18,599 written compositions of children in grades 1-8. Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman.

Darch, C., Kim, S., Johnson, S., & James, H. (2000). The strategic spelling skills of students with learning disabilities: The results of two studies. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 27(1), 15-27.

Ehri, L. (2000). Learning to read and learning to spell: Two sides of a coin. Topics in Language Disorders, 20(3), 19-49.

Fitzgerald, J. (1951). The teaching of spelling. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company.

Fry, E. B., Fountoukidis, D. L., & Kress, J. E. (2000). The Reading Teacher's Book of Lists, 4th ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Graham, S. (1999). Handwriting and spelling instruction for students with learning disabilities: A review. Learning Disability Quarterly, 22(2), 78-98.

Hall, N. (1964). The letter marked-out corrected test. Journal of Educational Research, pp. 58, 148-157.

Hanna, P. R., Hanna, J. S., Hodges, R. E., & Rudorf, E. H., Jr. (1966). Phoneme-grapheme correspondences as cues to spelling improvement. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Hibler, G. (1957). The test-study versus the study-test method of teaching spelling in grade two: Study 1. Unpublished masters thesis, University of Texas.

Horn, E. (1926). A basic vocabulary of 10,000 words most commonly used in writing. Iowa City: University of Iowa.

Horn, T., & Otto, H. (1954). Spelling instruction: A curriculum-wide approach. Austin: University of Texas.

Mehta, P. D., Foorman, B. R., Branum-Martin, L., & Taylor, W. P. (2005). Literacy as a unidimensional construct: Validation, sources of influence and implications in a longitudinal study in grades 1-4. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9(2), 85-116.

Monson, J. (1975). Is spelling spelled rut, routine, or revitalized? Elementary English, 52, 223-224.

Montgomery, D. J., Karlan, G. R., and Coutinho, M. (2001). The effectiveness of word processor spell checker programs to produce target words for misspellings generated by students with learning disabilities, Journal of Special Education Technology, 16(2).

Morton, W. L., Heward, W. L., & Alber, S. R. (1998). When to self-correct?: A comparison of two procedures on spelling performance. Journal of Behavioral Education, 8(3), 321-335.

National Commission on Writing for America's Families, Schools, and Colleges. (2005). Writing: A Powerful Message from State Government. New York: College Board.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769), Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, pp. 13-14.

Otto, W., & McMenemy, R. (1966). Corrective and remedial teaching. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.

Rinsland, H. (1945). A basic vocabulary of elementary school children. New York: Macmillan.

Singer, B., and Bashir, A. (2004). Developmental variations in writing. In Stone, C.A., Silliman, E. R., Ehren, B. J., and Apel, K. (eds.), Handbook of language and literacy: Development and disorders, pp. 559-582. New York: Guilford.

Snow, C. E., Griffin, P., and Burns, M. S. (eds.) (2005). Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading: Preparing Teachers for a Changing World. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Swanson, H. L., Hoskyn, M., & Lee, C. (1999). Interventions for students with learning disabilities: A meta-analysis of treatment outcomes. New York: Guilford Press.

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Correct spelling is important. Spelling strategies: Teaching spelling patterns of regular words, high-frequency words, and frequently misspelled words.

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The Importance of Vocabulary Development

According to Steven Stahl (2005), "Vocabulary knowledge is knowledge; the knowledge of a word not only implies a definition, but also implies how that word fits into the world." We continue to develop vocabulary throughout our lives. Words are powerful. Words open up possibilities, and of course, that's what we want for all of our students.

​ Teaching words and vocabulary-learning strategies with Read Naturally programs

Key Concepts

Differences in Early Vocabulary Development

We know that young children acquire vocabulary indirectly, first by listening when others speak or read to them, and then by using words to talk to others. As children begin to read and write, they acquire more words through understanding what they are reading and then incorporate those words into their speaking and writing.

Vocabulary knowledge varies greatly among learners. The word knowledge gap between groups of children begins before they enter school. Why do some students have a richer, fuller vocabulary than some of their classmates?

Language rich home with lots of verbal stimulation

Wide background experiences

Read to at home and at school

Read a lot independently

Early development of word consciousness

Why do some students have a limited, inadequate vocabulary compared to most of their classmates?

Speaking/vocabulary not encouraged at home

Limited experiences outside of home

Limited exposure to books

Reluctant reader

Second language-English language learners

Children who have been encouraged by their parents to ask questions and to learn about things and ideas come to school with oral vocabularies many times larger than children from disadvantaged homes. Without intervention this gap grows ever larger as students proceed through school (Hart and Risley, 1995).

How Vocabulary Affects Reading Development

From the research, we know that vocabulary supports reading development and increases comprehension. Students with low vocabulary scores tend to have low comprehension and students with satisfactory or high vocabulary scores tend to have satisfactory or high comprehension scores.

The report of the National Reading Panel states that the complex process of comprehension is critical to the development of children's reading skills and cannot be understood without a clear understanding of the role that vocabulary development and instruction play in understanding what is read (NRP, 2000).

Chall's classic 1990 study showed that students with low vocabulary development were able to maintain their overall reading test scores at expected levels through grade four, but their mean scores for word recognition and word meaning began to slip as words became more abstract, technical, and literary. Declines in word recognition and word meaning continued, and by grade seven, word meaning scores had fallen to almost three years below grade level, and mean reading comprehension was almost a year below. Jeanne Chall coined the term "the fourth-grade slump" to describe this pattern in developing readers (Chall, Jacobs, and Baldwin, 1990).

Incidental and Intentional Vocabulary Learning

How do we close the gap for students who have limited or inadequate vocabularies? The National Reading Panel (2000) concluded that there is no single research-based method for developing vocabulary and closing the gap. From its analysis, the panel recommended using a variety of indirect (incidental) and direct (intentional) methods of vocabulary instruction.

Incidental Vocabulary Learning
Most students acquire vocabulary incidentally through indirect exposure to words at home and at school-by listening and talking, by listening to books read aloud to them, and by reading widely on their own.

The amount of reading is important to long-term vocabulary development (Cunningham and Stanovich, 1998). Extensive reading provides students with repeated or multiple exposures to words and is also one of the means by which students see vocabulary in rich contexts (Kamil and Hiebert, 2005).

Intentional Vocabulary Learning
Students need to be explicitly taught methods for intentional vocabulary learning. According to Michael Graves (2000), effective intentional vocabulary instruction includes:

Teaching specific words (rich, robust instruction) to support understanding of texts containing those words.

Teaching word-learning strategies that students can use independently.

Promoting the development of word consciousness and using word play activities to motivate and engage students in learning new words.

Research-Supported Vocabulary-Learning Strategies

Students need a wide range of independent word-learning strategies. Vocabulary instruction should aim to engage students in actively thinking about word meanings, the relationships among words, and how we can use words in different situations. This type of rich, deep instruction is most likely to influence comprehension (Graves, 2006; McKeown and Beck, 2004).

Student-Friendly Definitions

The meaning of a new word should be explained to students rather than just providing a dictionary definition for the word-which may be difficult for students to understand. According to Isabel Beck, two basic principles should be followed in developing student-friendly explanations or definitions (Beck et al., 2013):

Characterize the word and how it is typically used.

Explain the meaning using everyday language-language that is accessible and meaningful to the student.

Sometimes a word's natural context (in text or literature) is not informative or helpful for deriving word meanings (Beck et al., 2013). It is useful to intentionally create and develop instructional contexts that provide strong clues to a word's meaning. These are usually created by teachers, but they can sometimes be found in commercial reading programs.

Defining Words Within Context

Research shows that when words and easy-to-understand explanations are introduced in context, knowledge of those words increases (Biemiller and Boote, 2006) and word meanings are better learned (Stahl and Fairbanks, 1986). When an unfamiliar word is likely to affect comprehension, the most effective time to introduce the word's meaning may be at the moment the word is met in the text.

Using Context Clues

Research by Nagy and Scott (2000) showed that students use contextual analysis to infer the meaning of a word by looking closely at surrounding text. Since students encounter such an enormous number of words as they read, some researchers believe that even a small improvement in the ability to use context clues has the potential to produce substantial, long-term vocabulary growth (Nagy, Herman, and Anderson, 1985; Nagy, Anderson, and Herman, 1987; Swanborn and de Glopper, 1999).

Sketching the Words

For many students, it is easier to remember a word's meaning by making a quick sketch that connects the word to something personally meaningful to the student. The student applies each target word to a new, familiar context. The student does not have to spend a lot of time making a great drawing. The important thing is that the sketch makes sense and helps the student connect with the meaning of the word.

Applying the Target Words

Applying the target words provides another context for learning word meanings. When students are challenged to apply the target words to their own experiences, they have another opportunity to understand the meaning of each word at a personal level. This allows for deep processing of the meaning of each word.

Analyzing Word Parts

The ability to analyze word parts also helps when students are faced with unknown vocabulary. If students know the meanings of root words and affixes, they are more likely to understand a word containing these word parts. Explicit instruction in word parts includes teaching meanings of word parts and disassembling and reassembling words to derive meaning (Baumann et al., 2002; Baumann, Edwards, Boland, Olejnik, and Kame'enui, 2003; Graves, 2004).

Semantic Mapping

Semantic maps help students develop connections among words and increase learning of vocabulary words (Baumann et al., 2003; Heimlich and Pittleman, 1986). For example, by writing an example, a non-example, a synonym, and an antonym, students must deeply process the word persist.

Word Consciousness

Word consciousness is an interest in and awareness of words (Anderson and Nagy, 1992; Graves and Watts-Taffe, 2002). Students who are word conscious are aware of the words around them-those they read and hear and those they write and speak (Graves and Watts-Taffe, 2002). Word-conscious students use words skillfully. They are aware of the subtleties of word meaning. They are curious about language, and they enjoy playing with words and investigating the origins and histories of words.

Teachers need to take word-consciousness into account throughout their instructional day-not just during vocabulary lessons (Scott and Nagy, 2004). It is important to build a classroom "rich in words" (Beck et al., 2002). Students should have access to resources such as dictionaries, thesauruses, word walls, crossword puzzles, Scrabble® and other word games, literature, poetry books, joke books, and word-play activities.

Teachers can promote the development of word consciousness in many ways:

Language categories: Students learn to make finer distinctions in their word choices if they understand the relationships among words, such as synonyms, antonyms, and homographs.

Figurative language: The ability to deal with figures of speech is also a part of word-consciousness (Scott and Nagy 2004). The most common figures of speech are similes, metaphors, and idioms.

Once language categories and figurative language have been taught, students should be encouraged to watch for examples of these in all content areas.

Teaching Words and Vocabulary-Learning Strategies With Read Naturally Programs

Take Aim at Vocabulary: Build Vocabulary in the Middle Grades

These intentional vocabulary learning strategies can be efficiently and effectively implemented using Read Naturally's program Take Aim! at Vocabulary. Take Aim is appropriate for students who can read at least at a fourth grade level. Take Aim is available in two formats:

The semi-independent format provides differentiated instruction for students working mostly independently.

The small-group format is designed for small-group instruction-up to six students.

Each Take Aim level teaches 288 carefully selected target words in the context of engaging, non-fiction stories. The target words are systematically taught using the research-based strategies described above. The intensive and focused lesson design helps students learn the target words and internalize the skills and strategies necessary for independently learning unknown words.

Learn more about how Take Aim teaches vocabulary and word-learning strategies:

Splat-O-Nym: Vocabulary Word Game for iPad

Read Naturally also offers a Splat-O-Nym app for iPad that teaches vocabulary using game-based technology. Splat-O-Nym quizzes students with synonym questions, antonym questions, and meaning-from-context questions and awards points for correct answers.

Learn more about the Splat-O-Nym app:

Other Programs That Support Vocabulary Development

These other Read Naturally programs do not focus on vocabulary but include activities that support vocabulary development:

Read Naturally® Live
Cloud-based software that develops fluency and phonics and also provides support for vocabulary with audio-supported definitions of key words.
Learn more about Read Naturally Live

Bibliography

Anderson, R. C., & Nagy, W. E. (1992). "The vocabulary conundrum," American Educator, Vol. 16, pp. 14-18, 44-47.

Baumann, J. F., Edwards, E. C., Boland, E., Olejnik, S., & Kame'enui, E. (2003). "Vocabulary tricks: effects of instruction in morphology and context on fifth grade students' ability to derive and infer word meanings," American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 447-494.

Baumann, J. F., Edwards, E. C., Font, G., Tereshinski, C. A., Kame'enui, E. J., & Olejnik, S. (2002). "Teaching morphemic and contextual analysis to fifth-grade students." Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 37, pp. 150-176.

Baumann, J. F., Kame'enui, E. J., & Ash, G. E. (2003). "Research on vocabulary instruction: Voltaire redux," in J. Flood, D. Lapp, J. R. Squire, and J. M. Jensen (eds.), Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts, 2nd ed., Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 752-785.

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life. Robust vocabulary instruction, New York: Guilford Press.

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing words to life. Robust vocabulary instruction, 2nd ed., New York: Guilford Press.

Biemiller, A. & Boote, C. (2006). "An effective method for building meaning vocabulary in the primary grades," Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 98, No. 1, pp. 44-62.

Chall, J. S., Jacobs, V. A., & Baldwin, L. E. (1990). The reading crisis: Why poor children fall behind, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cunningham, A. E. & Stanovich, K. E. (1998). "What reading does for the mind," American Educator, Vol. 22, pp. 8-15.

Graves, M. F. (2000). "A vocabulary program to complement and bolster a middle-grade comprehension program," in B. M. Taylor, M. F. Graves, and P. Van Den Broek (eds.), Reading for meaning: Fostering comprehension in the middle grades, New York: Teachers College Press.

Graves, M. F. (2004). "Teaching prefixes: As good as it gets?," in J. Baumann & E. Kame'enui (eds.), Vocabulary instruction, research to practice, New York: Guilford Press, pp. 81-99.

Graves, M. F. (2006). The vocabulary book, New York: Teachers College Press, International Reading Association, National Council of Teachers of English.

Graves, M. F. & Watts-Taffe, S. M. (2002). "The place of word consciousness in a research-based vocabulary program," in A. E. Farstrup and S. J. Samuels (eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction, Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Hart, B. & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children, Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.

Heimlich, J. E. & Pittleman, S. D. (1986). Semantic mapping: Classroom applications, Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Kamil, M. L. & Hiebert, E. H. (2005). "Teaching and learning vocabulary: Perspectives and persistent issues," in E. H. Hiebert and M. L. Kamil (eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

McKeown, M. G. & Beck, I. L. (2004). "Direct and rich vocabulary instruction," in J. Baumann & E. Kame'enui (eds.), Vocabulary instruction, research to practice, New York: Guilford Press, pp. 13-27.

Nagy, W. E., Anderson, R. C., & Herman, P. A. (1987). "Learning word meanings from context during normal reading," American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 24, pp. 237-270.

Nagy, W. E., Herman, P. A. & Anderson, R. C. (1985). "Learning words from context," Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 233-253.

Nagy, W. E. & Scott, J. A. (2000). "Vocabulary processes," in M. L. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, P. D. Pearson, and R. Barr (eds.), Handbook of reading research, Vol. 3, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769), Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, pp. 13-14.

Scott, J. & Nagy, W. (2004). "Developing word consciousness," in J. Baumann & E. Kame'enui (eds.), Vocabulary instruction, research to practice, New York: Guilford Press, pp. 201-215.

Stahl, S. A. (2005). "Four problems with teaching word meanings (and what to do to make vocabulary an integral part of instruction)," in E. H. Hiebert and M. L. Kamil (eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Stahl, S. A. & Fairbanks, M. M. (1986). "The effects of vocabulary instruction: A model-based meta analysis," Review of Educational Research, Vol. 56, pp. 72-110.

Swanborn, M. S. & de Glopper, K. (1999). "Incidental word learning while reading: A meta-analysis," Review of Educational Research, Vol. 69, pp. 261-285.

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Vocabulary development supports reading and increases comprehension. Students need to be explicitly taught words and vocabulary learning strategies.

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Comprehension: The Goal of Reading

Comprehension, or extracting meaning from what you read, is the ultimate goal of reading. Experienced readers take this for granted and may not appreciate the reading comprehension skills required. The process of comprehension is both interactive and strategic. Rather than passively reading text, readers must analyze it, internalize it and make it their own.

In order to read with comprehension, developing readers must be able to read with some proficiency and then receive explicit instruction in reading comprehension strategies (Tierney, 1982).

​ Strategies for reading comprehension in Read Naturally programs

​General Strategies for Reading Comprehension

The process of comprehending text begins before children can read, when someone reads a picture book to them. They listen to the words, see the pictures in the book, and may start to associate the words on the page with the words they are hearing and the ideas they represent.

In order to learn comprehension strategies, students need modeling, practice, and feedback. The key comprehension strategies are described below.

Using Prior Knowledge/Previewing

When students preview text, they tap into what they already know that will help them to understand the text they are about to read. This provides a framework for any new information they read.

Predicting

When students make predictions about the text they are about to read, it sets up expectations based on their prior knowledge about similar topics. As they read, they may mentally revise their prediction as they gain more information.

Identifying the Main Idea and Summarization

Identifying the main idea and summarizing requires that students determine what is important and then put it in their own words. Implicit in this process is trying to understand the author's purpose in writing the text.

Questioning

Asking and answering questions about text is another strategy that helps students focus on the meaning of text. Teachers can help by modeling both the process of asking good questions and strategies for finding the answers in the text.

Making Inferences

In order to make inferences about something that is not explicitly stated in the text, students must learn to draw on prior knowledge and recognize clues in the text itself.

Visualizing

Studies have shown that students who visualize while reading have better recall than those who do not (Pressley, 1977). Readers can take advantage of illustrations that are embedded in the text or create their own mental images or drawings when reading text without illustrations.

Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Narrative Text

Narrative text tells a story, either a true story or a fictional story. There are a number of strategies that will help students understand narrative text.

Story Maps

Teachers can have students diagram the story grammar of the text to raise their awareness of the elements the author uses to construct the story. Story grammar includes:

Setting: When and where the story takes place (which can change over the course of the story).

Characters: The people or animals in the story, including the protagonist (main character), whose motivations and actions drive the story.

Plot: The story line, which typically includes one or more problems or conflicts that the protagonist must address and ultimately resolve.

Theme: The overriding lesson or main idea that the author wants readers to glean from the story. It could be explicitly stated as in Aesop's Fables or inferred by the reader (more common).

​ Printable story map (blank)

Retelling

Asking students to retell a story in their own words forces them to analyze the content to determine what is important. Teachers can encourage students to go beyond literally recounting the story to drawing their own conclusions about it.

Prediction

Teachers can ask readers to make a prediction about a story based on the title and any other clues that are available, such as illustrations. Teachers can later ask students to find text that supports or contradicts their predictions.

Answering Comprehension Questions

Asking students different types of questions requires that they find the answers in different ways, for example, by finding literal answers in the text itself or by drawing on prior knowledge and then inferring answers based on clues in the text.

Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Expository Text

Expository text explains facts and concepts in order to inform, persuade, or explain.

The Structure of Expository Text

Expository text is typically structured with visual cues such as headings and subheadings that provide clear cues as to the structure of the information. The first sentence in a paragraph is also typically a topic sentence that clearly states what the paragraph is about.

Expository text also often uses one of five common text structures as an organizing principle:

Cause and effect

Problem and solution

Compare and contrast

Description

Time order (sequence of events, actions, or steps)

Teaching these structures can help students recognize relationships between ideas and the overall intent of the text.

Main Idea/Summarization

A summary briefly captures the main idea of the text and the key details that support the main idea. Students must understand the text in order to write a good summary that is more than a repetition of the text itself.

​K-W-L

There are three steps in the K-W-L process (Ogle, 1986):

1. What I Know: Before students read the text, ask them as a group to identify what they already know about the topic. Students write this list in the "K" column of their K-W-L forms.

2. What I Want to Know: Ask students to write questions about what they want to learn from reading the text in the "W" column of their K-W-L forms. For example, students may wonder if some of the "facts" offered in the "K" column are true.

3. What I Learned: As they read the text, students should look for answers to the questions listed in the "W" column and write their answers in the "L" column along with anything else they learn.

After all of the students have read the text, the teacher leads a discussion of the questions and answers.

Printable K-W-L chart (blank)

Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers provide visual representations of the concepts in expository text. Representing ideas and relationships graphically can help students understand and remember them. Examples of graphic organizers are:
Tree diagrams that represent categories and hierarchies Tables that compare and contrast data Time-driven diagrams that represent the order of events Flowcharts that represent the steps of a process​
​

Teaching students how to develop and construct graphic organizers will require some modeling, guidance, and feedback. Teachers should demonstrate the process with examples first before students practice doing it on their own with teacher guidance and eventually work independently.

Strategies for Reading Comprehension in Read Naturally Programs

Several Read Naturally programs include strategies that support comprehension:

Read Naturally Intervention Program

Strategies for Reading Comprehension

Prediction Step

Retelling Step

Quiz / Comprehension Questions

Graphic Organizers

One Minute Reader Live:
A component of web-based Read Live for supplemental, independent reading that develops fluency with support for vocabulary and comprehension.

Take Aim at Vocabulary: A print-based program with audio CDs that teaches carefully selected target words and strategies for independently learning unknown words. Students work mostly independently or in teacher-led small groups of up to six students.

Main idea

Literal

Vocabulary

Inference

Vocabulary: Clarify target words

Vocabulary: Study word parts and review target words

Vocabulary: Apply the target words

Bibliography

Honig, B., L. Diamond, and L. Gutlohn. (2013). Teaching reading sourcebook, 2nd ed. Novato, CA: Arena Press.

Ogle, D. M. (1986). K-W-L: A teaching model that develops active reading of expository text. The Reading Teacher 38(6), pp. 564-570.

Pressley, M. (1977). Imagery and children's learning: Putting the picture in developmental perspective. Review of Educational Research 47, pp. 586-622.

Tierney, R. J. (1982). Essential considerations for developing basic reading comprehension skills. School Psychology Review 11(3), pp. 299-305.

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To improve comprehension, students must have some reading proficiency and receive explicit instruction in skills and strategies for reading comprehension.

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What Is Fluency?

Fluency is the ability to read "like you speak." Hudson, Lane, and Pullen define fluency this way: "Reading fluency is made up of at least three key elements: accurate reading of connected text at a conversational rate with appropriate prosody or expression." Non-fluent readers suffer in at least one of these aspects of reading: they make many mistakes, they read slowly, or they don't read with appropriate expression and phrasing.

​ Developing reading fluency with Read Naturally Strategy programs

Key Concepts

Why Is Fluency Important?

For many years, educators have recognized that fluency is an important aspect of reading. Reading researchers agree. Over 30 years of research indicates that fluency is one of the critical building blocks of reading, because fluency development is directly related to comprehension.

Here are the results of one study by Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, and Jenkins that shows how oral reading fluency correlates highly with reading comprehension.

To interpret this type of correlation data, consider that a perfect match would be 1.0. As you can see, oral recall/retelling, fill in the blank, and question answering are all above 0.6, which indicates there is a strong correlation. But oral reading fluency is by far the strongest, with a .91 correlation.

Many researchers, including Breznitz, Armstrong, Knupp, Lesgold, and Pinnell, have found that fluency is highly correlated with reading comprehension-that is, when a student reads fluently, that student is likely to comprehend what he or she is reading.

Why are reading fluency and reading comprehension so highly correlated? Dr. S. Jay Samuels, a professor and researcher well known for his work in fluency, put forth a theory called the automaticity theory. According to Dr. Samuels, people have a limited amount of mental energy. If you want to multitask or to become proficient at a complex task such as reading, you first need to master the component tasks so you can do them automatically. For example, a reader who must focus his or her attention on decoding words may not have enough mental energy left over to think about the meaning of the text. However, a fluent reader who can automatically decode the words can instead give full attention to comprehending the text. To become proficient readers, our students need to become automatic with text so they can pay attention to the meaning.

See also:

Challenges Faced by Non-Fluent Readers

Students become fluent by reading. Some students learn to read fluently without explicit instruction. For others, however, fluency doesn't develop in the course of normal classroom instruction.

Research analyzed by the National Reading Panel suggests that just encouraging students to read independently isn't the most effective way to improve reading achievement. Too often, simply encouraging at-risk students to read doesn't result in increased reading on their part. During sustained silent reading, at-risk readers may get a book with mostly pictures and look at the pictures, or they choose a difficult book so they will look like everyone else and then pretend to read.

Even if at-risk students do read, they read more slowly than the other students. In a 10-minute reading period, a proficient reader who reads 200 words a minute silently could read 2,000 words. In the same 10 minutes, an at-risk student who reads 50 words a minute would only read 500 words. This is equal reading time but certainly not an equal number of words read.

These students need to read more, but just asking them to read on their own often doesn't work. The National Reading Panel has concluded that a more effective course of action is for us to explicitly teach developing readers how to read fluently, step by step.

Research-Proven Fluency Strategies

How do we explicitly teach students to read fluently? The National Reading Panel found data supporting three strategies that improve fluency, comprehension, and reading achievement-teacher modeling, repeated reading, and progress monitoring.

Teacher Modeling

The first strategy is teacher modeling. Research demonstrates that various forms of modeling can improve reading fluency. Examples of teacher modeling include:

Teacher-assisted reading

Peer-assisted reading

Audio-assisted reading

Teacher modeling involves more than just listening to someone else read. Students must be actively involved 100 percent of the time and in a multisensory way.

Teacher modeling teaches word recognition in a meaningful context, demonstrates correct phrasing, and gives students practice tracking across the page. A child can benefit from teacher modeling once he or she knows at least 50 sight words and has a good sense of beginning sounds.

The reading rate of the model reader is important. Christopher Skinner, a reading researcher, found that students who read lists of words with him slowly were more fluent with the words than students who read with him at a faster rate. The slower rate enables students to learn new words and clarify difficult words. As students learn more words, they naturally become more fluent.

Another form of modeling is the neurological impress method. In the neurological impress method, a proficient and a struggling reader read together from a passage, with the more able reader reading near the rate of the struggling reader. Heckelman (1969) showed that after 29 15-minute sessions, 24 seventh- through ninth-grade boys, who were an average of 3 years behind in reading, gained an average of 1.9 years in reading based on the Oral Gilmore and the California Achievement Test.

Repeated Reading

Another technique that research has shown significantly builds reading fluency is repeated reading. In fact, the National Reading Panel says this is the most powerful way to improve reading fluency. This involves simply reading the same material over and over again until accurate and expressive.

In the 1970s, LaBerge and Samuels studied what happens when students read passages over and over again. They found that when students reread passages, they got faster at reading the passages, understood them better, and were able to read subsequent passages better as a result of the repeated reading.

Repeated reading is a form of mastery learning. The students read the same words so many times that they begin to know them and are able to identify them in other text. Besides helping students bring words to mastery, repeated reading changes the way students view themselves in relation to the act of reading.

Progress Monitoring

People who play video games are presented with a specific goal and with immediate, relevant feedback about their progress toward that goal. This combination of having a goal and getting feedback on progress can be very motivating.

Progress monitoring takes advantage of this combination to motivate students to read. You give students a specific, individual reading goal, and you tell them exactly how you're going to know they've met it. Then, you give them the means to measure how they're doing. Finally, you make it simple enough that they'll know they've met their goal even before you do. This progress monitoring is what motivates students to practice reading the same story over and over until achieving mastery.

​Developing Reading Fluency With Read Naturally Strategy Programs

The research-based Read Naturally Strategy combines these three strategies into highly effective programs that accelerate reading achievement. Students become confident readers by developing fluency, phonics skills, comprehension, and vocabulary while reading leveled text. The time-tested intervention programs engage students with interesting nonfiction stories and yield powerful results.

Learn more about the Read Naturally Strategy
Research basis for the Read Naturally Strategy

The Read Naturally Strategy is available in a variety of formats:

Choosing the right Read Naturally Strategy program

One Minute Reader®
Structured, supplemental reading program for developing literacy skills independently. Available in these formats:
One Minute Reader Live (component of web-based Read Live for supplemental reading at school)
One Minute Reader books/audio CDs (for a school-to-home checkout program)

Bibliography

Armstrong, S. W. (1983). The effects of material difficulty upon learning disabled children's oral reading and reading comprehension. Learning Disability Quarterly, 6, pp. 339-348.

Breznitz, Z. (1987). Increasing first graders' reading accuracy and comprehension by accelerating their reading rates. Journal of Educational Psychology, 79(3), pp. 236-242.

Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., Hosp, M. K., & Jenkins, J. R. (2001). Oral reading fluency as an indicator of reading competence: A theoretical, empirical, and historical analysis. Scientific Studies of Reading, 5(3), pp. 239-256.

Heckelman, R. G. (1969). A neurological-impress method of remedial-reading instruction. Academic Therapy Quarterly, 5(4), pp. 277-282.

Hudson, R. F., H. B. Lane, and P. C. Pullen. (2005). Reading fluency assessment and instruction: What, why, and how. Reading Teacher 58(8), pp. 702-714.

Knupp, R. (1988). Improving oral reading skills of educationally handicapped elementary school-aged students through repeated readings. Practicum paper, Nova University (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 297275).

LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, pp. 292-323.

Lesgold, A., Resnick, L. B., & Hammond, K. (1985). Learning to read: A longitudinal study of word skill development in two curricula. In G. Waller & E. MacKinon (eds.), Reading research: Advances in theory and practice. New York, NY: Academic Press.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Pinnell, G. S., Pikulski, J. J., Wixson, K. K., Campbell, J. R., Gough, P. B., & Beatty, A. S. (1995). Listening to children read aloud: Data from NAEP's integrated reading performance record (IRPR) at grade 4 (NCES Publication 95-726). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics.

Samuels, S. J. (2002). Reading fluency: Its development and assessment. In A. E. Farstrup & S. J. Samuels (eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction, 3rd ed., pp. 166-183. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Samuels, S. J. (1997). The method of repeated readings. The Reading Teacher, 50(5), pp. 376-381.

Samuels, S. J. (2006). Towards a model of reading fluency. In S. J. Samuels and A. E. Farstrup (eds.), What research has to say about fluency instruction. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Samuels, S. J. (1997). The method of repeated readings. The Reading Teacher, 50(5), pp. 376-381.

Skinner, C. H., Logan, P., Robinson, S. L., & Robinson, D. H. (1997). Demonstration as a reading intervention for exceptional learners. School Psychology Review, 26(3), pp. 437-447.

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What is fluency? Reading at a conversational rate with accuracy and expression. Why is fluency important? Fluency directly correlates to comprehension.

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The National Reading Panel recommends systematic and explicit phonics instruction. Children progress through a sequence of phonics skills as they learn to read.

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What Is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonological awareness is an umbrella term that includes four developmental levels:

Word awareness

Syllable awareness

Onset-rime awareness

Phonemic awareness

Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken language words can be broken into individual phonemes-the smallest unit of spoken language.

Phonemic awareness is not the same as phonics-phonemic awareness focuses on the individual sounds in spoken language. As students begin to transition to phonics, they learn the relationship between a phoneme (sound) and grapheme (the letter(s) that represent the sound) in written language.

To develop phonological awareness, kindergarten and first grade students must demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).

​ Read Naturally programs that develop phonemic awareness

Why Phonemic Awareness Is Important

First of all, phonemic awareness performance is a strong predictor of long-term reading and spelling success (Put Reading First, 1998). Students with strong phonological awareness are likely to become good readers, but students with weak phonological skills will likely become poor readers (Blachman, 2000). It is estimated that the vast majority-more than 90 percent-of students with significant reading problems have a core deficit in their ability to process phonological information (Blachman, 1995).

In fact, phonemic awareness performance can predict literacy performance more accurately than variables such as intelligence, vocabulary knowledge, and socioeconomic status (Gillon, 2004). The good news is that phonological awareness is one of the few factors that teachers are able to influence significantly through instruction-unlike intelligence, vocabulary, and socioeconomic status (Lane and Pullen, 2004).

Many students (75%) enter kindergarten with proficient phonemic awareness skills. The 25% of students who have not mastered these skills are from all socio-economic backgrounds and need explicit instruction in phonemic awareness. When instruction is engaging and developmentally appropriate, researchers recommend that all kindergarten students receive phonemic awareness instruction (Adams, 1990).

Phonological Awareness Skills

The following table shows how the specific phonological awareness standards fall into the four developmental levels: word, syllable, onset-rime, and phoneme. The table shows the specific skills (standards) within each level and provides an example for each skill.

Less Complex

​

More Complex

Word Awareness

Syllable Awareness

Onset-Rime Awareness

Phoneme Awareness

Sentence Segmentation
Tap one time for every word you hear in the sentence:

Rhyme Recognition
Do these two words rhyme: ham, jam? (yes)

Isolation
What is the first sound in fan? (/f/)
What is the last sound in fan? (/n/)
What is the middle sound in fan? (/a/)

​

Rhyme Generation
Tell me a word that rhymes with nut. (cut)

Identification
Which word has the same first sound as car: fan, corn, or map? (corn)

Categorization
Which word does not belong: mat, sun, cat, fat? (sun)

Categorization
Which word does not belong? bus, ball, house? (house)

Blending
Listen as I say two small words: rain ... bow.
Put the two words together to make a bigger word. (rainbow)

Blending
Put these word parts together to make a whole word: rock*et. (rocket)

Blending
What word am I saying? /b/ ... /ig/? (big)

*Blending
What word am I saying
/b/ /ĭ/ /g/? (big)

Segmentation
Clap the word parts in rainbow. (rain*bow)
How many times did you clap? (two)

Segmentation
Clap the word parts in rocket. (roc*ket)

Segmentation
Say big in two parts.

(/b/ ... /ig/)

*Segmentation
How many sounds in big? (three)
Say the sounds in big.
(/b/ /ĭ/ /g/)

Deletion
Say mat.
Now say mat without the /m/. (at)

Substitution
The word is mug.
Change /m/ to /r/.
What is the new word? (rug)

*Integrated instruction in phoneme segmenting and blending provides the greatest benefit to reading acquisition (Snider, 1995).

Instruction should be systematic. Notice the arrow across the top. The levels become more complex as students progress from the word level to syllables, to onset and rime, and then to phonemes.

Notice the arrow along the left-hand side. Students progress down each level-learning increasingly more complex skills within a level.

For example, look at the Phoneme Awareness column. Students learn to isolate, identify, and categorize phonemes first. Then students are taught to blend phonemes to make a word before they are taught to segment a word into phonemes-which is typically more difficult. The most challenging phonological awareness skills are at the bottom: deleting, adding, and substituting phonemes.

Blending phonemes into words and segmenting words into phonemes contribute directly to learning to read and spell well. In fact, these two phonemic awareness skills contribute more to learning to read and spell well than any of the other activities under the phonological awareness umbrella (National Reading Panel, 2000; Snider, 1995).

So, as we plan phonological awareness instruction, our goal is to systematically move students as quickly as possible toward blending and segmenting at the phoneme level.

Consonant Phonemes

There are two types of consonant phonemes:

Continuous sounds*

A sound that can be pronounced for several seconds without any distortion.

/f/ * /l/ * /m/ * /n/ * /r/ * /s/ * /v/ * /w/ */y/ * /z/ * /a/ * /e/ * /i/ * /o/ * /u/

Stop sounds

A sound that can be pronounced for only an instant. Avoid adding /uh/.

/b/ * /d/ * /g/ * /h/ * /j/ * /k/ * /p/ * /t/

*Blending words with continuous sounds is easier than blending words with stop sounds.

The continuous sounds can be pronounced for several seconds without distortion. The stop sounds can be pronounced only for an instant. It is important to avoid adding /uh/ to a stop sound as it is pronounced-which confuses students. As new phonological awareness skills are introduced, using continuous sounds may be easier at first.

Read Naturally Programs That Develop Phonemic Awareness

Funēmics: A Phonemic Awareness Program for Small Groups

Read Naturally's Funēmics is a systematic, program for pre-readers or struggling beginning readers that teaches all of the phonological awareness standards. Each lesson builds on skills taught in previous lessons, adding just a few elements at a time. With minimal preparation, teachers or aides present scripted instruction to small groups of students, using an interactive display (with brightly illustrated pages and interactive widgets) viewed on a tablet or whiteboard. Fun ēmics is entirely pre-grapheme.

Learn more about how Fun ēmics teaches phonological awareness skills:

Read Naturally® GATE+: A Systematic, Direct-Instruction Phonics Program for Beginning Readers

Teach phonemic awareness, phonics, and other foundational reading skills to beginning readers with Read Naturally GATE+'s explicit reading instruction. This motivating program provides scripted, interactive phonemic awareness and phonics exercises based on scientific research. Students master high-frequency words and decoding skills as they improve their fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary.

Other Programs That Support Phonemic Awareness

The following programs do not focus on phonemic awareness but include phonemic awareness activities as part of a broader scope of instruction:

Signs for SoundsTM
Teacher-led, small-group instruction for teaching regular phonetic spelling patterns and high-frequency words through spelling. Focuses on spelling and phonics with additional support for phonemic awareness.
Learn more about Signs for Sounds

Bibliography

Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Blachman, B. A. (2000). Phonological awareness. In M. L. Kamil, P. B. Rosenthal, P. D. Pearson, and R. Barr (eds.), Handbook of reading research, 3, pp. 483-502. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Blachman, B. A. (1995). Identifying the core linguistic deficits and the critical conditions for early intervention with children with reading disabilities. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Learning Disabilities Association, Orlando, FL, March 1995.

Gillon, G. T. (2004). Phonological awareness: From research to practice. New York: The Guilford Press.

Lane, H. B., and P. C. Pullen. (2004). A sound beginning: Phonological awareness assessment and instruction. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

National Institute for Literacy. (1998). Put reading first. <http://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/PRFbooklet.pdf>

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Snider, V. A. (1995). A primer on phonemic awareness: What it is, why it's important, and how to teach it. School Psychology Review, 24(3), pp. 443-456.

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Phonemic awareness ability is a strong predictor of reading success. Students must develop an understanding of spoken words, syllables and sounds (phonemes).

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What is a Jigsaw?
The jigsaw is known as a cooperative learning strategy. Jigsaw involves each student as part of a "home" group that becomes a specialist or expert on one aspect of a topic. "Students meet with members from other groups who are assigned the same aspect, and after mastering the material, return to the "home" group and teach the material to their group members (Reading Rockets, 2012). The jigsaw strategy involves each student's part acting as a piece of the overall final product, or the puzzle. This strategy can be integrated in a variety of content areas. An example of this strategy in math when students are learning about fractions might include groups focusing on adding fractions, subtracting fractions, multiplying fractions, and dividing fractions (Manis, 2012). Jigsaw is beneficial for all students because it promotes self-guided learning in which each student takes ownership while working as part of a team.

A jigsaw generally involves:

Introducing the strategy and topic

Assigning each student to a "home group" of 3-5 students with a range of abilities

Dividing the segments or readings among the students

Creating "expert groups" consisting of students across "home groups"

Having students discuss main points of their segments

Providing questions to help "expert groups" gather information

Bringing students back into their "home groups"

Asking each student to present segment to "home group"

This graphic is a visual representation of what a jigsaw might look like with 16 students. Students in Team 1 all read the same article, for example, and they become the expert on their article. Then each team is split up and they are now in a mixed group with students from other original groups.

This picture is a group of older students in their home group at the same image. They are discussing what they see on the image, and then later they will share their findings with their expert group. These students are also given a graphic organizer, and they put important information on their organizer that they want to share with their expert group. Using a graphic organizer is a good idea for a jigsaw because it helps students organize their thoughts, and keeps them on task if they have something to write down.

Content Area Examples
Science- This could be adapted by reading an article about a science related topic. Although it doesn't deal with reading, another possible way to do something like a jigsaw in a science classroom, is to do it with science experiments. For example if students are learning about water, one group could conduct an experiment about the boiling point. This group would then report their findings to other groups whom are conducting different experiments about water.

Math- Jigsaw could be adapted for a math lesson by the teacher assigning each student to a paragraph or two. Then the students may summarize to the class what they had read. Once they are done summarizing the unit, the teacher can assign each student to a math problem from the unit. Each student can go up to the board and solve the problem and explain their strategy as to how they solved the problem.

History- This could be adapted by the teacher assigning each student to a page in their history book. The students will then read their page and take note of main ideas or keywords. Then, the teacher will call the class back as a whole group, and in order, the students will summarize their page. This strategy could be done with a newspaper or an article as well. It is hard for students to stay engaged while reading a history book. This strategy will help them stay engaged by not having to read the whole chapter, but still learn all the material.

Reading- Jigsaw is a great strategy for students to use to stay engaged in the reading and really understand what is being read. The teacher can assign each student to a different part in the book or story. The students will get up in front of the class and present their part by summarizing what they read.

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What is a Jigsaw? The jigsaw is known as a cooperative learning strategy. Jigsaw involves each student as part of a "home" group that becomes a specialist or expert on one aspect of a topic....

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Quizizz | Free Online Quizzes, Lessons, Activities and Homework

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Motivate every student to mastery with easy-to-customize content plus tools for inclusive assessment, instruction, and practice. Engage students with Quizizz today!

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This article provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and offers classroom-based examples from different grade and subject levels.

This article written for Colorín Colorado provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and includes:

what a language objective is

steps that teachers can take to create language objectives

how to implement language objectives in a general education classroom

how to align objectives to content and language standards

ideas and resources on how to support teachers as they become familiar with this practice

how to use language objectives in distance learning environments.

Language Objectives: An Overview
Mrs. Shell has been teaching eighth grade math for twelve years. She has deep content area knowledge and wants to provide all of her students with authentic activities and tasks to relate the significance of the mathematical concepts that she teaches to their lives. Mrs. Shell has always felt successful at teaching her classes but this year has been different. Her sections include students with more diverse backgrounds than previous years, particularly more English learners. As Mrs. Shell was beginning to feel frustrated with her inability to reach all her students because of their needs, she learned about one way to make her content more comprehensible to all her students - creating and posting objectives that tell the students not just what content concepts they will learn in each lesson, but also the academic language they will need to learn and use to meet the state's math standards. With this knowledge, Mrs. Shell is now confident that she not only knows what to teach, but also how to teach it so that all her students can be successful.

Generally speaking, academic English is the language of schooling and the language that helps students acquire and use the content area knowledge taught in schools (Anstrom, DiCerbo, Butler, Katz, Millet, & Rivera, 2010).

Teaching content to ELs: The challenge

In my work supporting general education and ESL/bilingual teachers who provide sheltered instruction for English learners (ELs), I have met many teachers like Mrs. Shell. While these teachers want to provide effective instruction for their ELs, often they don't see themselves as language teachers and so they aren't sure where to begin with their students.

These teachers aren't alone, however, and they are facing a challenge shared by teachers across the country. We know that for school-age students, academic language is crucial for school success (Francis, Rivera, Lesaux, Kieffer, & Rivera, 2006). In addition, research allows us to state with a fair degree of confidence that English learners best acquire English when language forms are explicitly taught and when they have many opportunities to use the language in meaningful contexts (Goldenberg, 2008).

Yet while the explicit instructional support that ESL and bilingual teachers provide is essential to English learners' academic language development, English learners receive a majority of their instruction from general education and content area teachers who may not have experience teaching academic language development.

The question becomes then: What do general education classroom teachers need to do in order to support the academic English development of language learners in both face-to-face and virtual environments, especially when English learners are one of many types of students they serve?

Teaching content to ELs: The solution

One principle that teachers of English learners can begin to apply immediately is creating and posting language objectives for their lessons (whether in the classroom or online in a virtual space. Many teachers are familiar with using content objectives to identify what students will learn and be able to do in the lesson. However, they are less likely to include language objectives that support the linguistic development of their students.

Implementing language objectives can be a powerful first step in ensuring that English learners have equal access to the curriculum even though they may not be fully proficient in the language. This is because the second language acquisition process requires opportunities for the language learner to be exposed to, practice with, and then be assessed on their language skills (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

To this end, language objectives:

articulate for learners the academic language functions and skills that they need to master to fully participate in the lesson and meet the grade-level content standards (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

are beneficial not only for language learners but for all students in a class, as everyone can benefit from the clarity that comes with a teacher outlining the requisite academic language to be learned and mastered in each lesson.

Now let's take a closer look at some examples and how to write language objectives.

Back to top

Writing Language Objectives

Interview with Dr. Jennifer Himmel

Learn more about language objectives in this podcast interview with Dr. Himmel from Teaching Multilingual Learners, produced by Tan Huynh.

What is a language objective?

Language objectives are lesson objectives that specifically outline the type of language that students will need to learn and use in order to accomplish the goals of the lesson. Quality language objectives complement the content knowledge and skills identified in content area standards and address the aspects of academic language that will be developed or reinforced during the teaching of grade-level content concepts (Echevarria & Short, 2010).

These objectives involve the four language skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing), but they can also include:

Below are examples of language objectives for different content areas and grade levels. They come from the Common Core State Standards for Math and English Language Arts (2012) and state standards in New York and California.
Sources:
How do I create effective language objectives?

Dr. Cindy Lundgren discusses the process of writing language objectives in this excerpt from her Meet the Expert interview.

Language objectives are directly correlated to content objectives. Once a teacher determines the lesson topic from the appropriate content standards, the teacher will want to begin thinking about the academic language necessary for English learners to complete the tasks that support the content objectives. This identification of the academic language embedded in the lesson's content will become the basis for the lesson's language objectives.

You can use the following guidelines to start thinking about appropriate language objectives for the lesson:

1. Decide what key vocabulary, concept words, and other academic words students will need to know in order to talk, read, and write about the topic of the lesson. Those words might be taught as a language objective. They should include technical terms, such as ecosystem, and terms like distribution that have different meanings across content areas. Other terms to highlight are those that language learners may know in one context, such as family (as in parents, siblings, etc.), but that have a different use in science (e.g., family of elements in the periodic table).

2. Consider the language functions related to the topic of the lesson (e.g, will the students describe, explain, compare, or chart information). See your state English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards for examples of these functions for English language arts, math, science, and social studies for all English proficiency levels and grade-level clusters.

3. Think about the language skills necessary for students to accomplish the lesson's activities. Will the students be reading a textbook passage to identify the stages of mitosis? Are they able to read a text passage to find specific information? Will they be reporting what they observe during a scientific demonstration to a peer? Do they know how to report observations orally? Acquiring the skills needed to carry out these tasks might be the focus of a language objective.

4. Identify grammar or language structures common to the content area. For example, many science textbooks use the passive voice to describe processes. Additionally, students may have to use comparative language to analyze two related concepts. Writing with the passive voice or using comparative phrases might be a language objective.

5. Consider the tasks that the students will complete and the language that will be embedded in those assignments. If students are working on a scientific investigation together, will they need to explain the steps of the procedure to one another? The language objective might focus on how to explain procedures aloud.

6. Explore language learning strategies that lend themselves to the topic of the lesson. For example, if students are starting a new chapter in the textbook, the strategy of previewing the text might be an appropriate language objective.

(Adapted from Short, Himmel, Gutierrez, & Hudec, 2012. Used with permission.)

Aligning Language Objectives and Standards

English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards

Developing appropriate language objectives for lessons involves becoming familiar with a state's content area and ELP standards. Whereas the content standards will provide the topic of the lesson and what exactly the students should be doing with that topic (e.g., solving problems, creating models, ranking ideas), the English language proficiency or development standards help to identify language skills and functions that students should be working on to achieve academic language fluency. These ELP standards can help to identify:

English Language Arts (ELA) standards

Other resources in addition to the ELP standards are a state's English Language Arts standards or the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History, Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (CCSS). The English Language Arts and Literacy CCSS might be especially useful to teachers of English learners due to its attention to literacy across the content areas.

Additional resources to consult, especially if a state is a member of the WIDA consortium, are the Model Proficiency Indicators (MPIs) outlined in their ELP standards. The MPIs outline what an English learner at a specific level of English language proficiency can do in a language domain (e.g., listening) by addressing the language functions embedded in an example topic for that content area with appropriate scaffolds or support (Gottlieb, Cranley, & Cammileri, 2007). Classroom texts and other materials (e.g., science investigations, primary source documents) are other good sources to consult when preparing a lesson.

Getting Started

How can I get started?

Careful lesson planning

In creating measureable and student-friendly language objectives that support the content objectives, it is important that learner tasks in the lesson are aligned with the objectives. It is not enough to have well-written objectives that promote language acquisition if the lesson is lacking in tasks that support the objectives. If the language objective for a middle school social studies lesson is for the students to orally retell the key characteristics in a historical event using sequential language, it is important that the teacher previews sequential language with the students, such as providing sentence stems or frames, and builds into the lesson some structured pair work so the students have an opportunity to retell the event to a peer. Therefore, careful lesson planning is another essential step in preparing effective language objectives.

Collaboration

It is also useful for content area and ESL/bilingual teachers to plan lessons together, as we saw with the 7th grade science lesson scenario involving Mr. Zhang and Mr. Lewis. In this co-planning scenario, each teacher used his expertise to better integrate content and language instruction for the language learners. This type of collaboration can help a teacher like Mr. Zhang learn more about the second language acquisition process of his students and can help a teacher like Mr. Lewis become more familiar with the grade-level content expectations that his English learners encounter in content area classes.

How do I know which language objectives are best for my students?

The language objective that the teacher selects will depend on what the English learners in the class need most at that point in the year and what language is most important to understanding the content concepts. If the students have already spent a good deal of time working with new vocabulary, then the teacher might consider having students use that vocabulary to develop their writing skill by writing a summary of the process they followed.

Conversely, the teacher might want to help students become more proficient with a particular type of graphic organizer in order to develop more strategic language learning. As all teachers know, teaching is a dynamic and complex process that requires a multitude of decisions to be made. However, the advance planning required in creating language objectives allows teachers to better anticipate the academic English needs of all students thus increasing the comprehensibility of the lessons.

It is important for teachers to realize that even though their lesson may include all four language skills (it is good if they do, since the language skills reinforce one another), they do not need to post a language objective for every language-related item addressed in the lesson. Teachers address many instructional needs in a 50- or 60-minute class period. Rather than highlighting all language uses in a particular lesson, it is important for the teacher to think about what is non-negotiable in that lesson.

In other words, the teacher should keep the perspective of the English learner in mind and ask, "Of all of the skills and functions addressed in my lesson, which is most important for helping students meet the grade-level standard and develop their language proficiency?" These objectives then must be measureable (i.e., can you see or assess the student's mastery of that objective?) and written in language that accounts for the linguistic and cognitive development of the students.

How can I make language objectives "student-friendly"?

Both of the above objectives are measurable, but both also take into account appropriate developmental stages of the students. Teachers of young students (e.g., PK or K) may even want to consider further adapting the objectives. For example, we have seen kindergarten teachers use symbols such as a pencil to symbolize "write" and a mouth to symbolize "talk" when they post their objectives for the children to see. We have also seen teachers of young learners rely on pictures to show the key terms they want the students to use or to convey the topic of the lesson (e.g., a picture of a ruler and of hands to discuss standard and non-standard measurement).

One way that teachers can ensure that their language objectives are measureable and student-friendly is by using appropriate verbs. Because language objectives should provide students with practice in the four language skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking, verbs related to those skills might include, but are not limited to, the following:

List

Retell

Summarize in writing

Record

Read

It is also important to not equate low language proficiency with limited cognitive ability. Therefore, teachers will want to make sure that the language objectives they create also reflect tasks that fall on the higher end of Bloom's Taxonomy and use verbs (e.g., orally justify) accordingly.

As noted above in the guidelines to creating language objectives, language functions are also a potential source for language objectives. Verbs related to language functions might include:

When should I share language objectives with students?

To help students take ownership of their learning and provide explicit direction to students, especially the English learners who are processing content in a new language, it is important that objectives be stated at the beginning of the lesson and reviewed with the students at the end of the lesson to allow them to assess if they have met the objectives (Echevarria, Vogt & Short, 2008).

How this happens may differ according to the grade level and content area of the class. Some teachers like to have the students choral read the objectives, while teachers of older students sometimes have them record the language objectives in their journal in addition to asking an individual student to read them aloud. Some teachers, such as those who teach science, like to reveal the objectives later in the lesson, perhaps after the warm up or exploratory activity, so that they can maintain an inquiry-based approach (Echevarria & Colburn, 2006).

Should I differentiate language objectives based on my students' language proficiency?

Although all teachers have students of varying language proficiency and skill levels in their classes, it is not necessary to differentiate language objectives by creating and posting multiple language objectives that reflect these proficiency levels. Rather, teachers should have one language objective that is appropriate for all students to meet. To provide the appropriate differentiation, the teacher would provide different scaffolds (e.g., adapted text, visuals, sentence frames) for students to use in order to reach the objectives.

For example, an appropriate language objective for an upper elementary language arts class might be for the students to be able to orally list text features found in a non-fiction book. For lower proficiency language learners, the teacher may give them a word bank from which to choose the text features; therefore, the students are meeting the same objective but with the appropriate amount of linguistic support from the teacher.

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Using language objectives in a distance learning environment

While teachers like Ms. Shell understand that the characteristics of good teaching for English learners does not change in a virtual environment, they do understand that instruction will necessarily need to look different in order to account for the challenges that distance learning presents for many learners.

Accordingly, teachers will need to think through how to:

Presenting language objectives

Many different ways exist for teachers to present language objectives in remote learning. For example, teachers might:

begin every virtual class by orally reading and presenting the content and language objectives in their Google slides and then asking students to briefly summarize in the chat box the activities they will be doing in that lesson to meet those objectives.

post the objectives at the top of a shared digital document that serves as a capture sheet for the lesson. A teacher might then ask learners to self-assess their progress towards meeting those objectives at the end of the document.

use live or recorded videos, especially when working with English learners with lower English proficiency. These videos can include props, for example ears to signify a listening objective.

use realia, such as rocks, if one of the lesson's language aims is for students to orally describe different types of sedimentary rocks.

Monitoring student understanding and engagement

Teachers in distance learning environments must also carefully consider how they will assess learner understanding and engagement throughout the lesson. Given the challenges virtual learning platforms present towards capturing data on learner comprehension (e.g., paralinguistic cues such as facial expressions, gestures, posture) teachers working in virtual environments know that it is more important than ever to ensure that students clearly understand the content and linguistic aims for each lesson.

Using comprehension checks and assessing progress

It is also essential that students understand how teachers will measure their progress towards meeting each objective. Towards this aim, teachers must build in multiple comprehension checks throughout the lesson that align to the lesson's objectives. Teachers can:

At the conclusion of a lesson, teachers can assess student progress towards meeting objectives via:

tickets out that are submitted digitally

the recording of a Flipgrid or use of another video platform where learners respond to a prompt that requires learners to use the academic language highlighted in the lesson's objectives.

Teachers can respond to the submitted tickets out or video with feedback that explicitly targets the students use of the language. When appropriate, teacher can provide learners with additional resources and/or support towards mastering that particular language skill or function. Teachers might also use that linguistic data to inform mini-lessons conducted to small groups of English learners during office hours or intervention time.

Next Steps

How can I learn more?

For more information on the SIOP Model, see Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

Although language objectives can be implemented in any lesson design approach, they are especially congruent with sheltered instruction and the SIOP Model. Since language objectives ensure that teachers meet the unique linguistic needs of English learners, they are sometimes easier to implement in the context of instructional practices espoused by the SIOP Model.

Practices that focus on explicit academic language teaching include:

Below are other resources that can help you learn more about creating language objectives and about integrating academic language into content area classes.

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Final Thoughts

We realize that it takes teachers some time to become very comfortable with creating language objectives, but our experience has shown that the implementation of language objectives can bring immediate benefits to instruction. Some immediate benefits include teachers understanding more concretely that they are both a content area and language teacher - as one teacher said in a CAL SIOP Model workshop, "I now see myself as a math teacher AND a language teacher".

We have also observed that when teachers consciously plan to meet the academic English needs of their learners, they end up with better planned learner tasks, and students begin to have more ownership of their content area and language learning. When it comes to building proficiency in academic English, as many teachers in our workshops remind us, "If you want to see it, you have to teach it." Therefore, if teachers want to see language development, language objectives are a great first step in helping teachers explicitly teach it.

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Recommended Resources

Further reading

Short, D., Himmel, J., Gutierrez, S., & Hudec, J. (2012). Using the SIOP Model: Professional development for sheltered instruction. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M.E., & Short, D. (2010). The SIOP Model for teaching mathematics to English learners. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Echevarria, J., & Short, D. (2011). The SIOP Model: A professional development framework for a comprehensive school-wide intervention. Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) Brief. http://www.cal.org/create/resources/pubs/professional-development-framework.html

Himmel, J., Short, D., Richards, C., & Echevarria, J. (2009). Using the SIOP Model to improve middle school science instruction. Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) Brief. http://www.cal.org/create/resources/pubs/siopscience.html

Short, D., Vogt, M., & Echevarria, J. (2010a). The SIOP Model for teaching history-social studies to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Short, D., Vogt, M., & Echevarria, J. (2010b). The SIOP Model for teaching science to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Vogt, M.E., Echevarria, J., & Short, D. (2010). The SIOP Model for teaching English language arts to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Jennifer Himmel is the Project Director for the National Center for English Language Acquisition at the Manhattan Strategy Group. She previously served as the SIOP Manager at the Center for Applied Linguistics, a non-profit organization for language education research, policy, and practice in Washington, DC. She has served as a curriculum developer and research associate for the U.S. Department of Education funded project, Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) that is investigating academic achievement of ELLs in grades 4th-8th, and as a language testing specialist for the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs® language proficiency test. She currently manages the SIOP Model professional development service line and provides technical assistance and professional development in sheltered instruction to districts and schools.

Video Clips: Language Objectives

How to Write Language Objectives: Tips for ELL Educators

In this video from Syracuse, NY, Jesus Ortiz, a bilingual teacher, learns how to write a language objective from Areli Schermerhorn, a peer evaluator with expertise in ELL and bilingual education.

Dr. Cynthia Lundgren explains language objectives

In this excerpt from her Meet the Expert interview, Dr. Cynthia Lundgren explains the value of writing language objectives when teaching English learners.

Anstrom, K., DiCerbo, P., Butler, F., Katz, A., Millet, J., & Rivera, C. (2010). A review of the literature on academic English: Implications for K-12 English language learners. Arlington, VA: The George Washington University Center for Equity and Excellence. Education.www.ceee.gwu.edu.

Echevarria, J., & Colburn, A. (2006). Designing lessons: Inquiry approach to science using the SIOP Model. In A. Lathman & D. Crowther (Eds.), Science for English language learners (pp.95-108). Arlington, VA: National Science Teachers Association Press.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. (2008). Making content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP Model. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Echevarria, J., & Short, D. ( 2010). Programs and practices for effective sheltered content instruction. In California Department of Education (Ed), Improving education for English learners: Research-based approaches. Sacramento, CA: CDE Press.

Francis, D., Rivera, M., Lesaux, N., Kieffer, M., & Rivera, H. (2006). Practical guidelines for the education of English language learners: Research-based recommendations for instruction and academic interventions. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction. www.centeroninstruction.org/files/ELL1-Interventions.pdf

Goldenberg, C. (2008). Teaching English language learners: What the research does-and does not-say. American Educator, Summer 2008, pp. 13-44.

Gottlieb, M., Cranley, E., & Cammilleri, A. (2007). Understanding the WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards: A resource guide. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, on behalf of the WIDA Consortium.

Short, D., Himmel, J., Gutierrez, S., & Hudec, J. (2012). Using the SIOP Model: Professional development for sheltered instruction. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (2007). WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, on behalf of the WIDA Consortium http://www.wida.us/standards/elp.asp

You are welcome to print copies or republish materials for non-commercial use as long as credit is given to Colorín Colorado and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact [email protected] .

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Language Objectives: The Key to Effective Content Area Instruction for English Learners

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A Framework for Anti-Bias Education

The Social Justice Standards are a road map for anti-bias education at every stage of K-12 instruction. Comprised of anchor standards and age-appropriate learning outcomes, the standards provide a common language and organizational structure educators can use to guide curriculum development and make schools more just and equitable.

Divided into four domains-identity, diversity, justice and action (IDJA)-the standards recognize that, in today's diverse classrooms, students need knowledge and skills related to both prejudice-reduction and collective action. Together, these domains represent a continuum of engagement in anti-bias, multicultural and social justice education. The IDJA domains are based on Louise Derman-Sparks' four goals for anti-bias education in early childhood.

Each of the IDJA domains has learning outcomes and school-based scenarios organized by grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12.

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Reading to our kids is one of the most important things we parents can do. And if you're raising bilingual kids, good books in Spanish are a must! While I dearly love our stash of picture books in Spanish and English, I love finding original Spanish titles, written by native-speaking authors.

As a non-native Spanish speaker myself, raising bilingual kids, I love knowing these books will expose my kids to that authentic voice and culture I can't always provide. We can curl up with a good book, and all of us pick on the rich language together.

Even though many translations from English are excellent, some aren't. Authentic Spanish picture books tend to have a more lyrical, natural feel to them. It's not always easy to find authentic Spanish titles, but with lots of digging, I've found quite a few treasures here. Many books listed here are bilingual, but you'll see that they were Spanish first, by a native author.

Because this is such an extensive list of children's titles in Spanish, I've broken it into sections. You can crab a coffee or tea and browse away, or click on a title below to jump directly to that section.

AUTHENTIC SPANISH BOOKS FOR KIDS

For more book lists and suggestions, be sure to see my Spanish children's books page.
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If you'd like to take this list to the library or print and save for later, you can also grab it as a free download.

AUTHENTIC POETRY/MUSIC IN SPANISH FOR KIDS

1. ¡Pío Peep!: Traditional Spanish Nursery Rhymes - This is just our favorite collection of traditional rhymes and illustrations in Spanish, and an essential for every Spanish-language kids' library. The English translations are beautifully arranged as well.

2. De Colores and Other Latin American Folksongs for Children - From the beloved children's singer José Luis Oroczo, here you'll find the best songs, hand games, and rhymes in Spanish.

3. Arrorro, Mi Nino - A sweet collection of lullabies and rhymes for bedtime, compiled from 14 different countries.

4. Mama Goose: A Latino Nursery Treasury - This is a collection of 68 rhymes, jump-rope songs, fingerplays, proverbs, riddles, birthday songs, and more that can go along with Pío Peep, from the same author and illustrator. Authentic Books in Spanish

5. Little Chickies / Los Pollitos - Perfect for little hands, this lift-the-flap board book from Canticos recounts the beloved song Los Pollitos Dicen.

6.Little Elephants / Elefantitos - From the same Canticos series, this board book is a sweet introduction to the classic song Los Elefantes Se Balanceaban.

7. Muu, Moo!: Rimas de animales/Animal Nursery Rhymes - Another treasure from Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy, this collection features animal rhymes and poetry, both traditional and originals from the authors.

8. Todo es canción: Antología poética - Featuring all original poetry, this delightful collection is organized by themes that will be helpful for teachers, especially (numbers, vowels, food, nature, etc.)Authentic Books in Spanish

9. Arroz con leche: canciones y ritmos populares de América Latina - This is another collection of Latin-American rhymes and songs for children, with gorgeous illustrations for children.

10. Little Mice / Ratoncitos - Another sweet board book from Canticos, introducing babies to the fingerplay Cinco ratoncitos de colita gris.

11. - This board book is a gentle introduction to the traditional song. Although the text is bilingual, this is from the Lil Libros series, which feature authentic Spanish-language picture books for kids.

12. Chumba la Cachumba - An old song about skeletons who come out of their graves at certain hours during the night. My Amazon Picks.

ALPHABET BOOKS IN SPANISH

1. Guatemala ABCs - This is just one book from a delightful series that introduces different Spanish-speaking countries through the alphabet.

2. Mi primer abecedario - Designed for young pre-readers to learn about the alphabet and its sounds, with a page for each letter.

3. ABeCedarios: Mexican Folk Art ABCs in English and Spanish - The bold, beautiful illustrations in this board book feature one animal per letter of the alphabet, in the style of traditional folk art.

4. De la A a la Z Peru - From another wonderful series that tells about Latin American countries through the ABCs in Spanish. Authentic Books in Spanish

5. Olinguito, de La A a la Z! - An introduction to the ABCs, in the context of a cloud forest in the Andes.

6. El Abecedario De Don Hilario - This is a tradtional authentic book in Spanish for the ABCs.

7. Gathering the Sun: An Alphabet In Spanish And English - Told through poetry and the ABCs, this beautiful book invites us into the day-of-day of farm-workers.

8. ¡Todos a Comer! A Mexican Food Alphabet Book - Learn the alphabet in Spanish through an exploration of Mexican food and cooking. Authentic Books in Spanish

FICTION BOOKS IN SPANISH FOR KIDS

1. Última parada de la calle Market - CJ wonders why he and grandma ride the bus instead of having a car, or why they get off on the last stop- the "dirty part of town"? Grandma's beautiful answers, along with award-winning illustrations, make this a must-read for kids.

2.La luz de Lucía - The youngest in a family of fireflies, Lucía is too little to shine like the others - until one night in the dark forest.

3. Juan Bobo Busca Trabajo - A funny book about a famous Puerto Rican folk hero who goes out to look for work.

4. Raúl y la iguana - Raul finds an iguana and wants to keep him as a pet - but is that a good idea? My Amazon Picks

5. Alma y como obtuvo su numbre - Alma has a lot of names and wonders why, until her dad sits down to tell her the story behind all her names.

6. La jaula dorado - A boy searches for just the right gift for his grandmother.

7. Tejedora del Arcoiris - Ixchel tries to learn her family's long-held tradition of weaving on her own, when her mother is too busy to teach her.

8. Viva la tortuga! - The journey of a mother sea turtle, who crosses the ocean to lay her eggs on a faraway beach. My Amazon Picks.

9. El papalote - A mother and her children find out that making and flying a kite isn't so easy!

10.El Flamboyán Amarillo - From celebrated author Geogrina Lázaro, this classic tells about a flowering walk and a boy who discovers it.

11. Nochecita - A sweet bedtime story about searching for night-time.

12.Instrucciones para que el hipopotamo duerma solo- What if you had a pet like a hippopotamus, and he wanted to sleep on your bed? This funny story is a gentle way to talk about being big enough to sleep in your own bed. My Amazon Picks.

13. Me gustaria tener... - A story with rhyming text about silly things animals might do.

14. Mango, Abuela, y Yo - When Mía's grandmother comes to live with her family, she finds they speak different languages. Slowly, they each begin to learn a little bit of Spanish and English, with the help of a pet parrot.

15. El mejor es mi papá - In a faraway land, the animals say why their dad is best, in this warm story about fathers and their children.

16. Coco: Miguel y la gran armonía - Newberry author Matt de la Peña brings us an original story based on the characters from the movie Coco. My Amazon Picks.

17. El cabello maravilloso de Dalia - This imaginative tale begins when Dalia wakes up one morning with her hair standing straight up, and ends as a celebration of nature through the eyes of a little girl.

18. Domingo en el mercado - A little girl and her father go to market one Sunday, only to find that a ferocious bull has entered the market!

19. Hija - A book written for parents and their lively daughters, with wonderful illustrations.

20. Marisol McDonald no combina - Marisol delights in unusual combinations that not everyone understand - a peanut butter and jelly burrito, for example, or her red hair and brown skin. This is a lovely book for children who come from a mix of heritages.
Spanish Children's Fiction

FOLKTALES, CLASSICS, & LEGENDS

1. La Lagartija y el Sol - Once in Ancient Mexico, the sun disappeared. All the animals must search the land looking for it, but only one small animal would not give up.

2. Cuentos que contaban nuestras abuelas - A collection of 12 classic folktales from the Spanish-speaking tradition and world.

3. El gallo de bodas - in this Cuban folktale, a rooster gets dirty on the way to a wedding, and enlists the help of everyone to get clean again.

4. Los perros mágicos de los volcanos - The Magic Dogs of the Volcanos show up wherever people tell stories in El Salvador, and this is an original story for children about them. My Amazon Picks

5. Ratoncito Perez, Cartero - In the Hispanic tradition, Perez the Mouse visits children when they lose their first tooth.

6. El sombrero del tío Nacho- When Uncle Nacho receives a new hat, he wants to get rid of the old one. But it won't stay away! (Nicaragua)

7. De oro y esmeraldas: mitos, leyendas y cuentos populares de latinoamérica - Another beautiful anthology of classic tales from Lartn America, from award-winning illustrator and author Lulu Dalcre.

8. De como dicen que fue hecho el mar - How the ocean was made, from an old Taino myth. My Amazon Picks

9. La flor de oro: Un mito taíno de Puerto Rico - a retelling of an indigenous creation myth, about the birth of Puerto Rico.

10. María tenía una llamita - An endearing retelling of Mary Had a Little Lamb, set in the Andes mountains.

11. El rey colibri: una leyenda Guatemalteca - A Guatemalan legend about a young chief who is transformed into a quetzal.

12. El secreto de la llama: una leyenda Peruana - A Peruvian retelling of the Great Flood story, in which a llama saves the people. My Amazon Picks
Related: Spanish Christmas Books for Kids
AUTHENTIC SPANISH BOOKS FOR KIDS ABOUT TRADITIONS

1. Los tamales de Ana - Ana and her family make tamales every year, for Christmas. Throughout the years, even as Ana gets older, her older sister still gets to do the hardest parts- will Ana ever get to be in charge?

2. El espíritu del Tío Fernando - A boy remembers his favorite uncle as he prepares for Day of the Dead with his favorite uncle.

3. La Guagua de Pan de Manuela - Manuela is an Ecuadorian Indian who is preparing typical foods with her mom to celebrate All Soul's Day. (Includes recipes.)

4. Piñatas y flores de papel: Fiestas de las Américas en inglés y español - A bilingual overview of holidays children celebrate across the Americas. My Amazon Picks

5.The Birthday Book / Las Mañanitas - Introduce the traditional birthday song in Spanish with this lift-the-flap board book.

6. ¡Ya llegan los reyes magos! - An introduction to the Christmas tradition of the Three Kings, from the perspective of a child.

7. ¡Qué montón de Tamales! - As María's family prepares tamales for Noche Buena, she accidentally loses her mother's ring in the masa. The kids decide the only way to find it is by eating their way through all the tamales!

8. ¡Qué cosas dice mi abuela! - A little tells about his day, which turns out to be a delightful introduction to classic Spanish-language sayings. Authentic Spanish Picture Books

IMMIGRATION-RELATED SPANISH PICTURE BOOKS

1. La Frontera: El viaje con papá - A young boy and his father make the difficult journey from Mexico to cross the border into the US, where they hope to make a new life.

2. Xochitl, la Nina de las flores - Xochitl missed her garden in El Salvador, and begins a nursery with her family to sell the flowers on the street.

3. Del norte al sur - José and his father going to Mexico to visit his mamá after she had to move back to México. This book covers a very difficult subject with a tender book, perfect for kids.

4. Soñadores - Caldecott-winning artist Yuyi Morales recounts the story of leaving her childhood home in Mexico to make a new life in the United States, as a young girl. My Amazon Picks
Related: Peru Books for Kids
AUTHENTIC SPANISH BOOKS FOR KIDS ABOUT CULTURE & GEOGRAPHY

1. En Alas del Condor - Stories about the history and culture of Spanish-speaking places, for children.

2. El Chocolate de Abuela - When abuela visits from Mexico, she always brings stories and treasures from her travels, which share rich traditions and customs of Mexico.

3. Esperando el Biblioburro - A true story of a teacher and librarian who created a mobile library on two donkeys to travel through the mountains and bring books to children in rural Colombia.

4. La Isla - Rosalba goes on an imaginary journey to the Caribbean with her grandmother, who takes her through a tour of old stories and places on the island. My Amazon Picks

5. Mi isla y yo - A beautiful introduction in Spanish for kids to island biodiversity, through an exploration of Puerto Rico.

6. Vuelo del quetzal - Learn about the land, places, and animals found throughout Latin America, through the eyes of the quetzal, and with beautiful illustrations.

7. Cuadros de Familia - An introduction to Mexican-American culture, through the day-to-day life of the author's family.

8. Ojos del Jaguar - Learn about the pre-Colombian civilizations throughout Latin America, written in a way that kids will understand and enjoy. My Amazon Picks

9. La Ñusta Diminuta - A tiny Incan princess tries to save her people from a terrible drought, and introduces us to Incan culture and history along the way.

10. ¿Qué puedes hacer con un rebozo? - Learn about the traditional Mexican shawl as a young girl plays with one and imagines all the things she can do with one.

11. Cuauhtémoc: Shapes - Formas - For very young readers, this is a board book that teaches shapes through the context of the city of Tenochtitlan, along with Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor.

12.Un día más y otras historias - Indigenous tales about about now-endangered animals throughout South America.

13. ¿Dónde está el coqui? - An exploration of Latin American and Caribbean lands and animals, guided by a little frog, the Coqui. My Amazon Picks

Note: Maguaré is also an amazing online resource for authentic online books in Spanish for kids! My Amazon Picks
Free Downloadable Authentic Picture Books in Spanish for Kids
BIOGRAPHIES IN SPANISH FOR KIDS

1.Anti Princesas 1: Frida Kahlo para chicas y chicos - A colorful combination of illustrations and photos explores of the life of Frida Kahlo, for children.

2. Viva Frida - A Caldecott Honor book that introduces young readers to one of the most famous artists, Frida Kahlo.

3.Conoce a Pablo Neruda - Learn about the famous poet and politician, including a look into his playful childhood.

4. Pasando páginas: La historia de mi vida - An autobiography written by Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latino on the U.S. supreme court.My Amazon Picks

5. Tito Puente, Rey del Mambo - A colorful overview of the life of musician Tito Puente.

6. Me llamo Celia - Young readers can get to know Celia Cruz's life story in this vibrant picture book.

7. Me Llamo Gabito - The life of renowned author Gabriel García Marquez, told through imagery borrowed from his own works.

8. Guadalupe: Primeras Palabras - Very young readers can learn about famous Hispanic people as well! This is just one biography in board book form, available from the Lil' Libros series. My Amazon Picks

9. Violeta Parra para chicas y chicos

10. Lado a lado, La historia de Dolores Huerta y Cesar Chávez- Discover the two important people who fought for farmworkers' rights, and how their early lives led into their life work.

11. Conoce a Gabriela Mistral- Learn how a quiet young girl grew up to be first Latin American writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

12. Me llamo Gabriela - Another beautiful and inspiring look into the childhood and life of Gabriela Mistral.
My Amazon Picks

What other authentic Spanish children's books do you love? Let me know in the comments below!

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Authentic Spanish Books for Kids: The Ultimate Guide

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This huge list of favorite books give you the best of authentic Spanish books for kids, all written by native speakers!

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Online guided reading program with interactive ebooks, downloadable books, and reading quizzes.

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Our library provides effective, research-based classroom strategies to help strengthen your students' skills in phonological awareness, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing.

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Writing Strategies For Kindergarten Students Writing Informational Paragraphs