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You are welcome to print copies for non-commercial use, or a limited number for educational purposes, as long as credit is given to Reading Rockets and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact the author or publisher listed.

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Differentiated instruction is based on the premise that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in relation to individual and diverse students. This brief looks at how differentiation strategies applied to reading can be designed to help students learn a range of skills including, phonics, comprehension, fluency, word prediction, and story prediction.

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Digital
Running Records
on Raz-Plus

With our online running record tool, Raz-Plus or Raz-Kids members can:

Assign a Benchmark Book from Levels aa-J

Assign a Benchmark Passage from Levels aa-Z2

Listen to students' recordings from reading aloud a book or passage.

Score all student recordings using an online running-record tool.

Listen to students' recordings of retellings.

Score retellings using an online rubric.

See quiz questions missed and a report on which comprehension skills to support or re-teach with each student.

Reward students' progress through awarding stars to spend in the RAZ Rocket.

Track your students' progress over time.

Reading A-Z provides a three-part assessment process to help you place students in instructionally appropriate level texts.

Find out at which level to start a student.

Determine when a student is ready to move to the next level.

Part 1: Students read Benchmark Passages or Benchmark Books (Levels aa-J), and you capture their reading behavior on Running Records.

Part 2: Students retell the text, and you use Retelling Rubrics to score their comprehension.

Part 3: Students take an oral or written Comprehension Quick Check Quiz, and each question's answer tells what skill it assessed to help you identify comprehension skills for additional practice.
Part 1: Start with Benchmark Passages & Running Records orBenchmark Books & Running Records (Levels aa-J). Select a passage or book that best approximates a student's reading level. Use the running records that accompany each passage or book to score a student's reading behavior. (Initially you may have to take more than one running record to determine a student's instructional level.) To assess a student's instructional level in Spanish, use printable versions of theSpanish Benchmark Passages, or Pasajes estándar.

ReviewAbout Running Records to learn about the details of taking, marking and scoring a running record.

Parts 2 & 3: Retelling Rubrics and Comprehension Quick Check Quizzes provide details about a student's understanding and comprehension of the Benchmark Passage or Book.

Retelling Rubrics provide details that identify strengths and weaknesses students might have comprehending fiction or nonfiction texts; including analysis of text structures.

Benchmark Passages andBenchmark Books (Levels aa-J) have multiple-choice Comprehension Quick Check Quizzes and answer keys. Use the skill tags on the answer key to see comprehension strengths and opportunities for additional instruction.

The three-part process establishes a baseline of your students' levels. Assign leveled books from Reading A-Z's extensive collection for guided practice at students' instructional levels. Allow students to choose books below their instructional levels for independent practice.

How Do I Monitor Students' Reading Progress?
Use Benchmark Books or Benchmark Passages and their associated resources for progress monitoring as students' reading at their instructional levels improves.

Assessment Schedule
Students who are not progressing at the expected rate should be assessed even more frequently than the Assessment Schedule suggests.

The scores your students achieve on running records, retellings, and comprehension quizzes give you valuable information about their reading behavior and comprehension. Use it to inform your instruction in addition to placing students and monitoring their progress.

Use the chart below along with the other information you learn from the three-part assessment process to determine if students are ready to move up a level.

Scores

For Raz-Plus members, results from the printable running records can be entered to display in a student's Reading Rate report in your Kids A-Z management hub. That way, you have not only the digital running records and assessment information, but also the results from printable running records-all in one place.

How Do I Match Learning A-Z Levels to Other Leveling Systems?
For your convenience, Learning A-Z correlates its levels to other leveling systems. If you've already placed students in levels according to another system, please reference theLevel Correlation Chart to determine how another system's levels best match Learning A-Z's levels.

The correlations are not official levels assigned by the other leveling systems, but rather an approximate correlation based on a comparison of attributes in books assigned official levels by both the other leveling system and Learning A-Z.

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With our online running record tool, Raz-Plus or Raz-Kids members can: Assign a Benchmark Book from Levels aa-J Assign a Benchmark Passage from Levels aa-Z2 Listen to students' recordings from reading aloud a book or passage. Score all student recordings using an online running-record tool. Listen to students' recordings of retellings.

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How Literacy Coaching Can Improve Instruction

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How Districts Can Use Literacy Coaching to Improve Classroom Instruction

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Literacy coaching is an ongoing, iterative process that helps the teacher master a full range of strategies to accommodate a diverse set of student needs. Coaching requires ongoing evaluation to measure its effectiveness, but when done correctly, it can increase teacher understanding and student eng…

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Scholastic Phonics Resources

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Activities, games, and lessons that help students learn early reading, spelling, and verbal skills

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How to teach Phonics: A Step-by-Step Guide

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In this blog, Rosie sets out a step-by-step guide to phonics: a method which teaches children to read by identifying the individual sounds in a word and blending them together.

Before reading the following step-by-step guide to teaching phonics, it is advisable to read the previous article in this series, which introduces readers to the key principles and terminology of the method.

Step 1 - Letter Sounds

Most phonics programmes start by teaching children to see a letter and then say the sound it represents. Children are often taught the letters S,A,T,P,I,N first, so that they can sound out a wide variety of words (e.g. sat, pin, pat).

Children should also begin to learn how to write these letters using the correct formation.
Tip: There are a host of songs and videos available on Youtube to support learning letter sounds.
Step 2 - Blending

Children are taught how to blend individual sounds together to say a whole word. They will start with CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words such as sit, pan, tap, before moving on to CCVC words (e.g. stop, plan) and CVCC words (e.g. milk, past).
Tip: Invest in a set of magnetic letters for the fridge. Children can arrange different combinations of letters to form words.
Step 3 - Digraphs

Once the children have learnt individual letter sounds, they will start learning to read and write digraphs. They will learn consonant digraphs (e.g. ch, sh, ng) and vowel digraphs (e.g. ea, oo, ai). Then they will move on to sounding out whole words such as hair, moon, chin etc.

Alongside this, children should be introduced to 'tricky words' (also called common exception words). These are common words that don't follow the normal phonics rules (e.g he, she, was, they, all).
Tip: Purchase a set of phonics flashcards. Collins do a good version of these, available at https://collins.co.uk/products/9780008201050. You can use these to play games (e.g. which sound is missing?) and to make new words.
Step 4 - Alternative graphemes

Once children are confident with the above, they will start learning more graphemes. They will learn that one sound can be represented by different graphemes. For example, the 'ai' sound (rain) can be represented as 'ay' (day), 'a_e' (make), 'eigh' (eight) and 'a' (apron). Alternative pronunciations for graphemes will also be introduced, e.g. 'ea' in sea, head and break.
Tip: Reading to your child is key. It is important that your child continues to listen to and (most importantly) enjoy stories while they are learning phonics. When you're reading aloud to your child, ask them to read one sentence per page. They will enjoy using their phonics skills to decipher new words.
Step 5 - Fluency and Accuracy

By this point, children should be able to read many familiar words automatically and sound out unfamiliar words. They should be able to spell words phonetically, but not necessarily correctly.

The aim now is to support children to become more fluent readers and accurate spellers. Children will begin to learn more complex spelling rules such as prefixes, suffixes and silent letters. They should continue to practise reading on a daily basis to develop speed, fluency and comprehension.
Good luck! With plenty of practice and praise, your child should be reading in no time.

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In this blog, Rosie sets out a step-by-step guide to phonics: a method which teaches children to read by identifying the individual sounds in a word and blending them together. Before reading the following step-by-step guide to teaching phonics, it is advisable to read the previous article in this series, which introduces readers to the key principles and terminology of the method.

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Ranked #1 by K-5 Teachers*

Reading A-Z Ranked #1 by Teachers

Already being used in nearly half of the school districts in the U.S. and Canada and 155+ countries worldwide, discover how Reading A-Z's affordable, easy-to-use teacher resources fill the teaching gaps left by many reading education programs.

"I absolutely love Reading A-Z! I can't see being without it now that I've used it."
Nancy Harp, 3rd Grade Teacher
Prairieland Elementary School - Normal, IL
More Testimonials

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Ranked #1 by K-5 Teachers* Already being used in nearly half of the school districts in the U.S. and Canada and 155+ countries worldwide, discover how Reading A-Z's affordable, easy-to-use teacher resources fill the teaching gaps left by many reading education programs. "I absolutely love Reading A-Z!

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How Can I Coach a Resistant Teacher (Part 1)

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GROWTH

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

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Instantly access over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids on Epic

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Get unlimited access to 40,000 of the best books, audiobooks, videos, & more for kids 12 and under. Try it free.

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GROWTH

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Courtney Freadman Prof Dev Presentation.pptx

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GROWTH

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Organization Joined

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Mission

The mission of the Massachusetts Reading Association is to promote literacy for all learners through professional development, research, publications, and advocacy. MRA serves educators across the state with 10 local councils that meet throughout the school year and one special interest council for higher education literacy educators. The MRA Board, made up of local and special interest council members and other literacy professionals, meets six times during the school year. Throughout the year MRA committees and local/special interest councils offer workshops, presentations and other events. The largest of these events, the MRA Annual Conference, takes place in April and features nationally known literacy speakers as well as home grown expertise presented by local educators. All members are encouraged to become involved with MRA through their local or special interest council and with the state-wide MRA board. MRA board members explore their specific areas of interest or expertise through involvement with board committees.

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Home " Massachusetts Reading Association

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The mission of the Massachusetts Reading Association is to promote literacy for all learners through professional development, research, publications, and advocacy. MRA serves educators across the state with 10 local councils that meet throughout the school year and one special interest council for higher education literacy educators.

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Let's say you're a pretty solid math student.

You've mastered multiplication. You decimate decimals. Fractions are frictionless.

Then, one day, your teacher starts a new unit: algebra. Now you're struggling. Why? It's a big step up - and you didn't have all the resources, concepts, logic and problem-solving skills you needed to ace the big test.

There's a certain flow in a well-designed curriculum. It connects not just between units in a class, but also over years of education and between the subjects students take. When students learn skills foundation-first and build up, and when teachers reinforce those skills across grades and classes, that's what we call vertical alignment.

(Not to be confused with horizontal alignment, of course, which describes consistent standards. What students learn between classes, schools, districts and states or provinces should, essentially, be equal.)

Vertical alignment is the how and the when of what we teach. It's about linking lessons, skills and assessments together as a holistic experience. It helps us prioritize, focus, reinforce and place learning in new contexts. It helps schools make better decisions faster - and helps learners apply those skills in new ways.

No doubt about it, it's a big and complicated task to do. You'll be comparing and coordinating lots of moving pieces, from grade-level standards to unit content throughout the student journey. So we're here to tell you what you can expect from a vertically aligned curriculum, and how you can bring cohesion into the classroom.

Level up your learning

Let's start by breaking down how vertical alignment supports student success.

Reducing unnecessary repetition

Many subjects share the same foundational knowledge. But when teachers design curriculums independently, they don't know what's going on in other classrooms. So it's quite common for students to re-learn the same material across grades and subjects.

Vertical alignment requires teachers to think beyond their classroom walls and collaborate with their colleagues. Together, they can organize around a better curriculum that focuses on developing those skills further, rather than repeating them over and over at the same level.

Addressing gaps in learning

Quite the opposite of repetition, you also don't want to miss teaching any core skills. A vertically aligned curriculum helps you identify where students are currently struggling, and where they need extra attention.

Similarly, when you compare your curriculums side-by-side, you can see where you're thin on lessons, or where timing doesn't match up between the basics and the next level of learning.

Making knowledge more meaningful

Imagine your students are learning about Africa in geography class. Now imagine they're learning African folklore in English Language Arts; studying the animals of the Serengeti in science; solving word problems that reflect life on the continent in math.

That connectivity gives students more depth because they can apply their knowledge in many ways, from many different perspectives.

Setting clear expectations

Vertical alignment is an exercise in coordination and planning. Curriculum maps need to be built ahead of time to make sure students learn skills in the right order.

Not only does it let teachers plan around what students should know before they arrive for the day's class, it provides a way for students (and their parents) to know ahead of time what they'll be learning and track progress throughout the year.

Sparking professional growth

Student development depends on teacher development. Let's not forget that vertical alignment brings teachers together to talk about what's working (and what's not working) in their classrooms.

The nature of collaboration means teachers get to see what other teachers are doing. It gives them opportunities to share ideas and pick up new approaches to try.

Making decisions faster

Are students struggling with one topic in particular? Is there a gap that plagues your learning experience? Vertical alignment doesn't just help suss out where you can improve as an institution - it helps you prioritize those gaps so you can focus on filling them.

It means being more nimble, too. Taking out the guesswork and looking at the big picture helps drive direction and make better decisions.

Your first steps to vertical alignment

Before we get started, we recommend brushing up on curriculum maps. After all, they're a central piece of the vertical alignment puzzle.

All ready? Good. Let's begin.

1. Bring your data together

Administration, regulators and teachers alike need to share what's happening today, identify areas where there are common goals and find gaps in the current process. For that, you'll want to compare some key data points as things stand today:

Targeted standards - knowing what your objectives are before you begin (and when you need to reach them) will help you map the best way to get there, at the right time.

Unit content- go beyond borders to examine in detail what students are already learning from across the spectrum of your school.

Assessments - alignment applies to the way you measure student learning, too, to reflect a logical and achievable progression between grades.

Course materials and resources - textbooks don't always support a vertically aligned agenda, so it's important that in-class materials line up between grades and subjects, too.

Student performance - the best way to identify gaps is by looking at trends. If students hit a wall during that week of trigonometry, there's probably something you can improve.

2. Take some time to reflect

This meeting will result in a lot of information, so don't make any decisions right away. Step back, look at what you're working with, and let it percolate. Encourage everyone to think about high-level connections between skills, knowledge and subject areas.

3. Build curriculum maps

It's time to put pen to paper (or use a tool like Chalk) to put together the first version of your new curriculum maps. Like any masterpiece, the first draft - which this is - won't be perfect. That's okay. This is the starting point from which you'll build something much better.

4. Hold workshops and collaboration sessions

It'll take a couple of sessions and iterations, but you're working towards an important goal: nailing down a fully connected curriculum. Compare your new curriculum maps side-by-side, with the same data points as above, and align as much as you can.

5. Keep communication open

A curriculum isn't a one-and-done thing. It ebbs and flows, and topics change, so your team will sometimes need to make changes on the fly - and keep everyone else on the same page. Save your curriculum maps in a shared place, and encourage professional learning communities where teachers can share tools and resources.

Vertical alignment is tough - there's no debating that. But keeping your goals in mind and putting student learning front-and-center will help you solve for x every time.

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Vertical alignment is the how and the when of what we teach. It's about linking lessons, skills and assessments together as a holistic experience. It helps us prioritize, focus, reinforce and place learning in new contexts. It helps schools make better decisions faster - and helps learners apply those skills in new ways.

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Benchmark Assessment System (BAS)

Using the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment Systems to determine student's independent and instructional reading levels, teachers are able to observe student reading behaviors one-on-one, engage in comprehension conversations that go beyond retelling, and make informed decisions that connect assessment to instruction.

What is it?

Teachers' most reliable resource to accurately and reliably identify each child's instructional and independent reading levels according to the F&P Text Level Gradient™, A-Z and document their progress through one-on-one formative and summative assessments. The Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment Systems provide teachers with precise tools and texts to observe and quantify specific reading behaviors, and then interpret and use that data to plan meaningful instruction.

Who is it for?

Identify each student's reading level during this one-on-one, student-teacher assessment conference.

Each assessment enables teachers to:

Determine students' instructional and independent reading levels

Recommend a placement level for instruction

Form initial groups for reading instruction

Plan for efficient and effective instruction

Identify students who need intervention and extra help

Monitor and report student progress across a school year and grade levels

Assess the outcomes of teaching

Inform parent conferences.

What is inside?

All components of the system are conveniently packaged in a sturdy box that includes hanging file folders in which to organize the benchmark books and Recording Forms by level for easy access.

System Components:

Leveled Assessment Books

Assessment Guide

Assessment Forms Book

Student Forms Book

The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Continuum

BAS Online Data Management System (ODMS)

Online Resources

Professional Development and Tutorial Videos

Student Folders

F&P Calculator/Stopwatch

How is it implemented?

The Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment Systems ( BAS) assessments are conducted one-on-one. In Part 1 of the assessment, the student reads aloud and talks about the system's original, precisely leveled fiction and nonfiction books, while the teacher observes and notes the reader's behaviors on carefully constructed forms. In Part 2, the teacher conducts a revealing Comprehension Conversation. Optional Part 3 uses a Writing About Reading prompt to elicit response to the text.

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What is Benchmark Assessment System (BAS) and how is BAS used?

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Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System (BAS)

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Teachers use these Traits to help students learn the specific skills necessary to make their writing really work.

Ideas: The meaning and development of the message.

Organization: The internal structure of the piece.

Voice: The way the writer brings the topic to life.

Word Choice: The specific vocabulary the writer uses to convey meaning.

Sentence Fluency: The way the words and phrases flow throughout the text.

Conventions: The mechanical correctness of the piece.

Presentation: The overall appearance of the work.

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Teachers use these Traits to help students learn the specific skills necessary to make their writing really work. Ideas: The meaning and development of the message. Organization: The internal structure of the piece. Voice: The way the writer brings the topic to life. Word Choice: The specific vocabulary the writer uses to convey meaning.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.