Professional Documents
Culture Documents
This resource is …
a guide to helping you support and push your lower and struggling readers to meet their goals. We often see some of our lowest readers stalling
and not making the growth that would be on pace to hit their big goals by the end of the year.
When and Why should I use this?
If you currently have students that are behind or stalling in their reading growth, this guide can be used to help you problem solve around what is
holding them back and make a strategic and aligned unit plan that will meet their needs. It will to give you insight on the building blocks of literacy,
determine what foundational skills your students may be missing that are holding them back, and show you how to proactively plan to strategically
meet their needs to ensure they hit their goals by the end of the year.
How should I use this?
Use this resource to unit plan your remediation or guided reading blocks for your most struggling readers.
I. Where are you in relation to where you want to be? How far behind are your struggling readers? How much do they need to grow for the
remainder of the year to hit their goals?
II. Scope and Sequence for the building blocks of literacy in Kindergarten and First grade – including phonics and the alphabetic principle,
phonological and phonemic awareness, and reading behaviors.
III. A guide on how to analyze your student data – analyzing your reading assessment results will ensure you are planning specifically to meet the
needs of each of your students. Our struggling readers need this level of planning to ensure they are able to overcome any obstacles holding
them back.
IV. Guide on how to create rigorous and strategic guided reading or intervention unit plans that will put your students on the path to meeting their
goals.
V. A list of additional resources that can be found to support your students in all parts of literacy.
I. Where am I in relation to my goals?
If you have readers that are not on track to hitting their goals, it is helpful to re-establish your goals and benchmark them so you are clear where your
students need to be each month. For your struggling readers, determine how far away they are from their goals and divide that by the number of
months left in the school year. The answer will tell you how much your student needs to grow each month till the end of the school year to hit his/her
goal. This will help you stay focused on your goal as you plan to meet the needs of this particular student or group of students. An example is below.
A fun word problem and benchmarking example: It is the end of January and my first grade student should have moved to .67 years worth of reading
growth to be on track to hitting his big goal. However, he has only made .5 years’ worth of reading growth. How much growth must he make every
month to hit 1.5 years’ worth of growth by the end of June (5 months from now)?
Step 1: 1.5 (goal) - .5 (progress so far) = 1 years’ worth of reading growth needed by the end of the year
(If you are shooting for a mastery goal in kindergarten, take their current reading level and subtract it from your goal level. You can convert letter
levels to numbers if needed. Your result won’t be in “years’ worth of growth” but rather in “reading levels of growth” needed.)
Step 2: 1 (growth needed) ÷ 5 (months left in school) = .2 years’ worth of reading needed each month to hit his goals by the end of the year
Step 3: Establish new benchmarks
Now it’s your turn! Use your own data to determine where individual readers, or groups of readers with similar growth, are in relation to your big goal. This
will show you how much more work you have to do by the end of the year. If you have individual students or groups of students at different levels of growth
or different reading levels, you will likely need to do separate calculations for each of them.
Your next step will be to isolate the specific knowledge and skills holding students back from more growth.
1st and November December January February Mid- April May June
2nd Grade March
Often when our students are struggling and not moving, they are missing foundational skills in literacy that are needed to decode and comprehend
text. Below is the scope and sequence for these foundational skills. This can be used as a checklist or assessment to determine what your students
have and do not have. Even students that are at a Level D can be missing very basic skills that will prevent them from moving up.
Listen attentively to different types of sounds. Identify, name, and write all 26 alphabet Levels Pre-AA and AA
Listen to rhymes letters How to hold a book right-side up
Recite rhymes Print progresses from left to right
Anticipate rhyming words (when singing or The cover and what information it contains
reciting rhymes) Where the title is located and what information it gives
Generate rhyming words readers
Hear and distinguish between short and long What authors and illustrators do
words How to use the numbers at the bottom of the page
Hear and count words in sentences Words are bounded by spaces
Clap syllables in familiar words Words are made of letters and some words are longer
than others
The length of the word tells us something about how
long it is to say
Sentences begin with capital letters and end with
punctuation marks, including periods, exclamation
marks, and questions
Stage 2
All of the above, plus: Identify, name, and write all 26 alphabet Level A
Recognize and use sentences to express a letters AND produce letter sounds to be Differentiates print from pictures
complete thought taught in the following order (see the Holds book correctly/turns pages LR
Recognize that a sentence is made up of a Elementary Literacy text for this scope & Reads words with correct directionality
combination of individual words sequence) Emergent 1-1 correspondence
Recognize that a sentence is meaningful Locates known and new words
because of its words and the order in which /p/
Remembers/uses language patterns
they are spoken /s/
Makes connections to book
Put syllables together to make a word /ă/ as in pat
Recognize that words contain individual sounds /t/ Level B
Repeat individual sounds /l/
Controls 1-1 correspondence across 2 lines of text
Isolate initial sounds /b/
Notices/interprets details in pictures
/i/ as in tip
Isolate ending sounds Talks about ideas in the text
/d/
Isolate remedial sounds Remembers and uses language patterns
/k/
Determine which word in a group has an “odd” Group Two Uses sight word knowledge to check on reading
sound /m/ Uses 1-1 correspondence to check on reading
Delete particular sounds in a word /r/ Uses first letter cues to read known and new words
Add particular sounds to a word /ĕ/ as in pet Begins to self-monitor
Segment sounds—pull apart each sound in a /f/ Rereads to confirm or figure out new words
word /g/
/n/ Level C
/k/ Begins to track print with eyes, using finger at
/u/ as in bug points of difficulty
Group Three Correctly utilizes punctuation
/h/ Uses picture details to figure out difficult words
/j/ Uses 1-1 matching to check on reading
/w/ Solves some new words independently
/ŏ/ as in hog Quickly recognizes and correctly uses known words
/v/ Searches for understanding while reading
/y/
Group Four Level D
/z/ spelled z, _s, zz
Remembers language patterns and repeating events
/s/ spelled ss, ce
over longer stretches of time
/ch/ spelled ch, tch
/th/ Self-corrects, using visual information
/sh/ Controls directionality and 1-1 correspondence with
/wh/ eyes, using finger only at points of difficulty
Remembers details from the text and pictures
Pays close attention to words and their structural
features (for example, endings)
Solves new words using knowledge of sound/letter
relationship and word parts (decoding)
Searches for understanding while reading
* Reading levels correspond to F&P AND Reading A to Z. A correlation chart can be found at http://www.readinga-z.com/correlation-chart.php
II. Analyzing Your Student Data to Meet Your Students’ Needs
If you are struggling to figure out what is holding a student back from moving up levels or learning basic reading skills, the best place to look first is your
assessments.
Now that you know what your students are struggling with and what is holding them back from progressing, you now can plan more strategically to meet
their needs. Unit planning is the most effective way to do this as it gives a full scope of what your students need to know to move up to the next level.
Using the literacy scope and sequence above and your data analysis, you can now create a unit plan. This unit plan can be used for lessons during guided
reading or intervention time. This guide to unit planning is based on the idea that you will be spending AT LEAST 15-20 minutes a day with this particular
student or group of struggling readers in a guided reading or intervention group. If you have groups of struggling readers or individual struggling readers
with unique needs, you will probably need to create multiple unit plans to ensure that you are differentiating for all students who need that extra support.
Step 1: Prepare your objectives – Take the list of skills that you have pulled from your data analysis and place them in order, scaffolded from the most
foundational to the more complex. Use the scope and sequence at the beginning of this document to help you determine the correct order to teach these
ideas.
Step 2: Determining weekly outcomes – You should plan to spend around 10 minutes at the beginning of each guided reading block and/or intervention
time with these struggling readers doing phonics and/or phonemic awareness activities that will build skill in areas you have pinpointed as deficits. The
next 10 or so minutes should be spent on the reading behaviors and skills the students are missing to move up to the next level. Each week you should
have a set of clear outcomes for these 2 areas. From your list pick 2 concrete skills (1 from phonics/phonemic awareness and 1 from reading behaviors)
and plug them into the unit plan below.
Step 3: Sketch out daily level activities – Using the following resources to guide you, sketch out at the daily level how you plan to ensure your students
will meet these weekly outcomes and how you plan to assess these outcomes.
Reading Behaviors:
Phonics/Phonemic
Awareness:
Reading Behaviors:
Phonics/Phonemic
Awareness:
Reading Behaviors:
Phonics/Phonemic
Awareness:
Reading Behaviors:
Guided Reading/Intervention Unit Plan (example)
Phonics/Phonemic
Awareness: isolating remedial
sounds and short vowel u
Reading Behaviors:
Uses first letter cues to read known
and new words
Phonics/Phonemic
Awareness: segmenting CVC
words and short vowel review
Reading Behaviors:
Rereads to confirm or figure out new
words
Help! My student isn’t making progress in reading!
This guide was developed for students reading on levels AA-Z, and as such not every assessment or cause will be relevant to your readers. Please use your best judgment
when deciding what is applicable to your students, and contact your PD if you have questions.
(a) Pre-A (b) A-E (c) F-K (d) L-P (e) Q-Z
Consider the following: Consider the following: Consider the following: Consider the following: Consider the following:
* Does the student understand the * Does the student know the alphabet * Does the student know basic sound- * Does the student read rapidly enough * Does the student understand advanced
alphabetic principle? letter names and sounds? spelling patterns? for their level (fluency)? conventions of print?
How can I check? p. 2 How can I check? p. 2 How can I check? p. 3 How can I check? p. 4 How can I check? p. 4
* Does the student know the alphabet * Does the student have phonemic * Does the student read rapidly enough * Does the student read expressively * Can the student use comprehension
letter names and sounds? awareness? for their level (fluency)? enough for their reading level (fluency?) strategies to understand what they’re
How can I check? p. 2 How can I check? p. 2 How can I check? p. 4 How can I check? p. 4 reading?
* Does the student have phonemic * Does the student know basic sound- * Does the student read expressively * Does the student understand advanced How can I check? p. 5
awareness? spelling patterns? (ch, th, ee etc.) enough for their reading level (fluency)? conventions of print? * Does the student understand the vocab-
How can I check? p. 2 How can I check? p. 3 How can I check? p. 4 How can I check? p. 4 ulary in their books?
* Does the student understand * Is the student reading at home and * Does the student understand advanced * Can the student use comprehension How can I check? p. 5
basic conventions of print? during independent reading time? conventions of print? strategies to understand what they’re * Does the student retain what they read as
How can I check? p. 3 How can I check? p .3 How can I check? p. 4 reading? they progress throughout the book?
* Is the student showing effort to * Is the student reading just-right books? * Can the student use comprehension How can I check? p. 5 How can I check? p. 5
learn the alphabet and the sounds? How can I check? p. 3 strategies to understand what they’re * Does the student understand the vocab- * Can the student pull apart word parts?
How can I check? p. 3 reading? ulary in their books? (suffixes, prefixes, roots)
How can I check? p. 5 How can I check? p. 5 How can I check? p. 5
* Does the student understand the vocab- * Does the student retain what they read as * Is the student reading at home and
ulary in their books? they progress throughout the book? during independent reading time?
How can I check? p. 5 How can I check? p. 5 How can I check? p. 3
* Does the student retain what they read as * Can the student pull apart word parts? * Is the student reading just-right books?
they progress throughout the book? (suffixes, prefixes) How can I check? p. 3
How can I check? p. 5 How can I check? p. 5 * Is the student reading wide genres?
* Can the student pull apart word parts? * Is the student reading at home and How can I check? p. 6
(suffixes, prefixes) during independent reading time? * Does the student understand sophisticated
How can I check? p. 5 How can I check? p. 3 literary devices?
* Is the student reading at home and * Is the student reading just-right books? How can I check? p. 6
during independent reading time? How can I check? p. 3
How can I check? p. 3 * Is the student reading wide genres?
* Is the student reading just-right books? How can I check? p. 6
How can I check? p.3
2. Next look here: Go through the possible causes and eliminate them one by one.
Does the student know the alphabet letter names and sounds?
The alphabet letter names: M, B, L are “em, bee, el,” etc. The alphabet sounds: M, B, L are “mmm, bb, lll”
HOW TO CHECK: Obtain or make flashcards that have all the letters of the alphabet—one letter per flashcard. Make one set of upper case flashcards and another set of lower
case flashcards. First, tell the student that you want him or her to say the name of the letter when you show him/her the card. Do one or two letters as an example (then put them
back in the stack to make sure you test those letters). Go through the flashcards, making sure that you do not go in alphabetical order. Then do the same for the sounds of the
letters. Do both the uppercase and lowercase flashcards. Record the results.
ANOTHER WAY TO CHECK: Give the E-CLAS or the CORE phonics assessment (available at http://www.scholastic.com/dodea/Module_2/resources/dodea_m2_tr_core.pdf)
IF THE STUDENT STRUGGLES TO IDENTIFY ALL LETTER NAMES AND SOUNDS GO TO PAGE 7 TO START REMEDIATING
ANOTHER WAY TO CHECK: Give the beginning sections of the E-CLAS or visit this website: http://teams.lacoe.edu/DOCUMENTATION/classrooms/patti/k-
1/teacher/assessment/tools/tools.html
IF THE STUDENT STRUGGLES TO COMPLETE ANY OF THESE TASKS, GO TO PAGE 7 TO START REMEDIATING.
2. Continued. . .Next look here: Go through the possible causes and eliminate them one by one.
Is the student showing effort to learn the alphabet and the sounds?
A student who is invested should show effort to learn the alphabet and the sounds.
HOW TO CHECK: Observational.
IF A STUDENT IF NOT DEMONSTRATING EFFORT, GO TO PAGE 8 TO FIND IDEAS FOR INVESTING BEGINNING READERS.
Does the student understand basic sound-spelling patterns? (ch, th, ee, etc.)
Basic sound-spelling patterns include: the “i_e” pattern in pike, time, line; the “ai” pattern in wait, pain, nail; the “ch” digraph in much, cheese, child; the “ng” digraph in sing,
long; etc.
HOW TO CHECK: Use a spelling inventory such as the McGuffy Spelling Inventory or the Words Their Way Spelling Inventory (both available at the TFA Office). Once the
student takes the spelling inventory, catalogue which sounds they spell correctly and which sounds they do not.
ANOTHER WAY TO CHECK: Use the E-CLAS or the CORE Phonics Survey (available at http://www.scholastic.com/dodea/Module_2/resources/dodea_m2_tr_core.pdf)
YET ANOTHER WAY TO CHECK: Look at the student’s running record and note if he or she missed any spelling patterns consistently.
IF THE STUDENT DOES POORLY WITH ANY OF THESE TASKS, GO TO PAGE 8 TO FIND IDEAS FOR REMEDIATING SOUND-SPELLING PATTERNS.
Does the student read rapidly enough for his or her reading level (fluency)?
Reading sufficiently quickly is a pre-requisite for good reading comprehension.
HOW TO CHECK: Give the student a text on his or her independent reading level. Set a timer for one minute. Ask the student to read as quickly as possible without making
any mistakes. When the timer goes off, count the total number of words the student read in the passage. Then, subtract the number of words the student skipped or read incorrectly. The
result is the student’s WPM (words per minute). Then, see if the student is reading at an appropriate fluency for his or her reading level. If the student has low fluency for his or her reading
level, it may be preventing the student from advancing into higher reading levels.
Fountas Approxim
and Pinnell ate WPM
Level Range
E, F, G 20-40
H, I 40-70
J, K 70-90
L, M, N 90-110
O, P 110-130
Q, R 120-135
S, T 130-150
U, V, W 130-160
IF THE STUDENT IS READING TOO SLOWLY FOR HIS OR HER READING LEVEL, SEE PAGE 8 FOR IDEAS ON REMEDIATION.
Does the student read expressively enough for his or her reading level (fluency)?
Reading with good expression is important for supporting a student’s comprehension.
HOW TO CHECK: Do a running record with the student. Pay particular attention to the student’s pauses, hesitations, repetitions, and attention to punctuation (periods, commas,
question marks, exclamation marks). If there is dialogue, note if he or she uses different voices for different speakers, or tries to differentiate the dialogue from the text.
IF THE STUDENT DOES NOT READ EXPRESSIVELY, SEE PAGE 9 FOR IDEAS ON REMEDIATION.
2. Continued. . .Next look here: Go through the possible causes and eliminate them one by one.
Can the student use comprehension strategies to understand what they’re reading?
Comprehension strategies include: main idea, fact and opinion, context clues, using nonfiction text features, asking and answering questions, drawing on background knowledge,
retelling, self-monitoring, predicting, inferring, making connections (text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world), synthesizing, visualizing, sequencing, cause and effect, and compare
and contrast.
HOW TO CHECK: Ask the student to read a text on their reading level aloud or to themselves. Then, ask them questions that require them to use a wide variety of
comprehension strategies. If the student is reading at a low reading level (level H or below), you might choose to read a more advanced text aloud to the student and then ask him
or her questions.
IF THE STUDENT STRUGGLES WITH COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES, GO TO PAGE 9 FOR IDEAS ON REMEDIATION.
Does the student know the alphabet letter names and sounds?
The alphabet letter names: M, B, L are “em, bee, el,” etc. The alphabet sounds: M, B, L are “mmm, bb, lll”
HOW TO REMEDIATE:
• Use alphabet letter flashcards to teach students to memorize the letter names and sounds.
• Use poems and chants to help students remember the sounds associated with each letter.
• Use kinesthetic motions to help students remember the sounds associated with each letter (for example, wiggling your arm like a snake for “S”).
• Make a letter-picture chart that lists each letter and pictures of things that begin with that letter.
• Teach your lessons in the IBRDS sequence: Introduce the letter-sound correspondence, blend words with the letter-sound correspondence, read sentences with the
correspondence and other words the students can decode, decodable text reading (if you don’t have decodable text, read more sentences), spelling.
• For more ideas: pp. 62-68 in the Elem Literacy Text
Does the student understand basic sound-spelling patterns? (ch, th, ee, etc.)
Basic sound-spelling patterns include: the “i_e” pattern in pike, time, line; the “ai” pattern in wait, pain, nail; the “ch” digraph in much, cheese, child; the “ng” digraph in sing,
long; etc.
HOW TO REMEDIATE:
• Use sound-spelling pattern flashcards to help students memorize patterns
• Associate sound-spelling patterns with a kinesthetic motion or a picture.
• Teach your lessons in the IBRDS sequence: Introduce the sound-spelling pattern, blend words with the sound-spelling pattern, read sentences with the pattern and
other words the students can decode, read decodable text with the pattern (if you don’t have decodable text, read more sentences), spell words with the pattern.
• For more ideas: pp. 66-70 in Elem Literacy Text; Words Their Way by Donald Bear, et. al.; Making Words by Patricia Cunningham
Does the student read rapidly enough for his or her reading level (fluency)?
Reading sufficiently quickly is a pre-requisite for good reading comprehension.
HOW TO REMEDIATE:
• Model good oral reading frequently through read-alouds and shared reading.
• Teach your students phrasing—consider using phrased text lessons (pp. 87-88 of Elem Literacy Text).
• Repeated readings: this can be done using choral reading (everyone chants the same text at the same time), echo reading (the teacher reads the sentence, then the
students read the same sentence), reader’s theater (the students rehearse their lines over and over again), books on tape (students listen repeatedly to the same book-
on-tape while tracking in the text), and stopwatch timing (students practice a passage repeatedly and time with a stopwatch to track improvement).
• For more ideas, see pp. 84-92 in the Elem Literacy Text; Great Leaps program
3. Continued. . . Finally, look here: Now that I’ve identified the problem, what should I do about it?
Does the student read expressively enough for his or her reading level (fluency)?
Reading with good expression is important for supporting a student’s comprehension.
HOW TO REMEDIATE:
• Model good oral reading frequently through read-alouds and shared reading.
• Teach your students phrasing—consider using phrased text lessons (pp. 87-88 of Elem Literacy Text).
• Repeated readings: this can be done using choral reading (everyone chants the same text at the same time), echo reading (the teacher reads the sentence, then the
students read the same sentence), reader’s theater (the students rehearse their lines over and over again), and books on tape (students listen repeatedly while tracking
in the text).
• Teach explicit lessons on using punctuation when reading. (Some teachers have their students tap the table each time they read a period.)
• A student can read a passage into a tape recorder, and you can then play the tape back so that they can monitor their own expressiveness.
• For more ideas, see pp. 84-92 in the Elem Literacy Text; Great Leaps program
Can the student use comprehension strategies to understand what they’re reading?
Comprehension strategies include: main idea, fact and opinion, context clues, using nonfiction text features, asking and answering questions, drawing on background knowledge,
retelling, self-monitoring, predicting, inferring, making connections (text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world), synthesizing, visualizing, sequencing, cause and effect, and compare
and contrast.
HOW TO REMEDIATE:
• Teach comprehension strategy lessons, using a strategy of the week, or a strategy of the month.
• Be sure that the books you use to teach comprehension strategies are well-suited to those strategies.
• Focus on comprehension strategies during guided reading.
• Teach your students to self-monitor their comprehension using reading logs, post-its, or graphic organizers.
• For more ideas, see pp. 116-131 of Elem Literacy Text; Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis; Mosaic of Thought by Zimmerman and
Keene.
3. Continued. . . Finally, look here: Now that I’ve identified the problem, what should I do about it?
Does the student retain what they read as they progress throughout the book?
When students first begin to read longer books with chapters, they often find it difficult to synthesize and recall events over a long text.
HOW TO REMEDIATE:
• Teach students tools for retaining and sort the information they accumulate while reading a book. For example, teach them to keep a running list of characters, with
notes about each character.
• Teach students to use a post-it on each page, every few pages, or each chapter to re-tell or summarize what they’ve read so far.
• Teach students take meaningful notes as they read and to go back through their notes when they’re confused.
Can the student pull apart word parts?
A student who can pull apart word parts can more easily pronounce new words and make educated guesses about their meanings. For example, a student who knows the suffix
-itis can figure out that scleritis is a disease by knowing the meaning of the –it is suffix; they understand that underappreciate means “less than appreciate.”
HOW TO REMEDIATE:
• Explicitly teach the student prefixes, suffixes, or roots that are appropriate for the student’s grade level. (To help you determine grade-level-appropriateness, look at
pages 79-81 of the Elementary Literacy Text). You can also find a list of prefixes, suffixes, and roots at http://www.betterendings.org/homeschool/Words/Root
%20Words.htm .
• Teach word parts using the IBR sequence: Introduce the word part, blend words with the word part, and read sentences.
• Select word parts that you are encountering in grade-level reading.
• For more ideas, see pp. 70-71 of the Elem Literacy Text; Words Their Way by Donald Bear, et. al.