Pennington Publishing Blog

Well, at least we know how our students feel about dialectical journals… But, how should teachers feel about dialectical journals?

Teachers grapple with how to assign independent reading activities to help students interact with assigned novels or independent reading. Dialectical journals have been teacher favorites since literature-based reading pedagogy was popularized in the 1980s. KWL charts and variations upon the same theme have served as into-through-beyond activities within English-language arts, history/social science, and science courses.

At surface level, these forms of reading response seem to assist students in reaching our goals of promoting independent reading comprehension. The thought/hope has been that if we can just get students to access their own prior knowledge of content and story schema, then help students connect these to what the author has to offer, then establish a relevant and personal connection/application to the readers’ lives… students will problem-solve their way to full comprehension and reading enjoyment. The pendulum has clearly swung from the author to the reader side of the equation.

The Problem with Dialectical Journals

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After years of “teaching” this reader-centered, literature-based approach, educators are starting to see the results. Almost 60% of community college students and 30% of university students require at least one year of developmental coursework. And, yes, remedial reading is the chief subject of this remediation. http://www.communitycollegecentral.org/Downloads/Developmental_Education_TOOLKIT.pdf

Good readers may be able to put up some of this reader-centered nonsense and still engage with the text; however, students with reading difficulties desperately need comprehension strategies that will help them understand what the author has to say. The focus on personal relevance impedes comprehension. Tier I and II Response to Intervention readers confuse “What it means to me” strategies with “What the author means” strategies. The latter is much more important for developing readers (and for that matter, all readers). Some personal application within teacher-guided class discussion makes sense, but should be secondary to teaching the text itself.

In lieu of dialectical journals, teachers should help students learn and apply the five types of independent reading strategies that promote internal monitoring of the text: Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict. These SCRIP strategies promote the reader-author conversation and, thus, internal monitoring of text to help students achieve your goal: “to get them to read and understand what they are reading on their own.” Here are some SCRIP Reading Comprehension Strategies resources and bookmarks. Having a consistent language of instruction that works for narrative and expository texts is useful.

Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice reading assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. 364 pages

Reading, Writing comprehension strategies, dialectical journals, independent reading activities, KWL, reader response, reading comprehension, reading response

Much has been said about the burden that our community college system has shouldered due to the economic downturn. Unemployment certainly has led to increased enrollment in our nation’s community colleges. Some have registered for course work to improve job skills, some to earn Associates of Arts degrees or certificates, some to transfer to universities, some to meet welfare to work mandates, some to avoid unaffordable university tuition, and some because they simply have nowhere else to go. Increased enrollment in our community colleges has created an economic double-whammy for both hard-pressed state budgets and for community colleges themselves. An increasingly key factor in this double-whammy has been the cost to remediate the skill set of these new students, especially in reading.

Remedial Reading Costs: Whammy #1 On State Budgets

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The financial burden of increased community college enrollment has severely impacted already-strained state budgets and much can be attributed to the cost of remedial programs. For example…

• Community colleges are the most heavily subsidized educational institutions. In California, a similar undergraduate course in English 101 runs $108 at community college, $649 for the California State University, and $1320 for the University of California.
• Significant numbers of these new community college students are receiving state-funded financial aid.
• Most of the new community students double-dip by taking remedial course work, especially in reading, which repeats previously funded coursework in the K-12 system.
• Community college remediation represents a considerable financial and opportunity cost. Recent estimates suggest a $3.7 billion annual price tag just for the remediation of recent high school graduates who attend community colleges. http://all4ed.org/files/remediation.pdf.
• Most remedial students drop-out. Only 17% of students who enroll in a remedial reading course at a community college receive a bachelor’s degree within eight years, compared to 58% of students who take no remedial education courses. http://www.communitycollegecentral.org/Downloads/Developmental_Education_TOOLKIT.pdf The cost per community college dropout is $17,700 in federal and state financial aid and in city and state funding for the community college system. (Community College Spotlight, The Hechinger Report)

Remedial Reading Costs: Whammy #2 On Community Colleges

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Additional financial burdens due to the new wave of community college students have been placed upon the community colleges themselves. And much has been due to the remedial needs of these new students. For example…

• States have resisted increasing student fees during the economic downturn due to public pressure and the enrollment boom has exacerbated the budgetary shortfalls of community colleges.
• Community colleges have had to cut full-time staff and non-mandated coursework.
• The most expensive programs happen to be the mandated remedial programs, especially remedial reading courses, which the majority of the new students must take to prepare for transfer courses, certificate program courses, or Associates of Arts courses. A few facts will suffice: Virtually all community colleges offer remedial or developmental education. Almost 60% of community college students require at least one year of developmental coursework. http://www.communitycollegecentral.org/Downloads/Developmental_Education_TOOLKIT.pdf

Remediation, especially reading remediation, has always been a tough issue for state legislators and community colleges. Some have been reluctant to accept the reality that so many of our high school graduates or drop-outs still cannot read at the levels they need to function in society. Others recognize the problem, but play the blame game by pointing fingers at the failures of K-12 education. While the costs of providing remedial reading education are high to both state and community college budgets, the costs of not providing the resources are incalculable.

This is especially true in our economic downturn. According to the Sacramento Bee, “Unemployment for 21-25 year-olds without a college degree hovers at 25%, while those with college degrees are at 8% (December 11, 2011).” Although not the job-guarantee as in years past, community colleges and university training certainly remain gateways to economic opportunities. For students seeking accelerated degree programs, there are many options beyond the traditional community college-state university route. For example, check out Averett College for great degree programs!

The author of this article has taught remedial reading courses at all levels: elementary, middle school, high school, and community college. Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is also the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice reading assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. 364 pages

Reading, Study Skills college reading labs, community college, reading intervention, remedial reading, remedial reading courses, response to intervention, RTI

No matter which school-wide model of reading intervention is used at the middle or high school levels, the problem of proper reading placement is common to all. School counselors, administrators, and/or data processors making student course schedules typically have little reliable data upon which to make these placements. Using longitudinal standardized test data and input from elementary or middle school teachers can serve as initial placement criteria, but this is far from a perfect process. More on this initial screening here.

Once student schedules have been set, it is frequently a logistical nightmare to make changes. Class sizes, other course placements (such as with math levels), and parent input all are part of the decision-making process. Every set-in-stone any placement process will have exceptions. New students and student transfers throughout the year come to mind. Administrators who value the importance of reading will ensure the flexibility of the process to prioritize student needs over programmatic concerns.

Once school has started in the fall, it does make sense to have a “weeding out” and “weeding in” assessment process in place to confirm proper placement for reading intervention. This is important for already-placed and yet-to-be-placed students.

Now, an initial caveat is in order before I address this important issue of finding out what students know and don’t know. I do buy into the Response to Intervention (RTI) model that minimizes tracking and promotes differentiated instruction. Most all students should be in heterogeneously mixed Tier I classes in which well-trained teachers differentiate literacy instruction. However, some mix of push-in, pull-out instruction makes sense for Tier II and III students.

Secondary Reading Program Placement Assessments

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Now as to the assessments themselves… Why waste time and money on an achievement test that purports to determine reading levels when diagnostic assessments will provide teachers with both the sorting data and the data that can be used to differentiate instruction? Killing two birds with one stone makes sense. So, which initial diagnostic assessments are needed to double-check initial placements and place new students?

I suggest whole-class diagnostic assessments in phonics (decoding) and spelling (encoding) and individual oral fluencies from brief passages found in the grade-level literature (narrative) and history or science (expository) textbooks. The phonics and spelling diagnostics will cover the word identification side of the ledger and the fluencies will measure the word recognition side. Secondary teachers shouldn’t shy away from creating their own oral fluencies which are representative of their instructional textbooks. It’s really not rocket science. After all, teachers need to know whether students can read their books or not.

How much time will these screening assessments take to administer and record?

The comprehensive phonics test linked above takes 15 minutes to administer and 1 minute per student to correct and record on an assessment matrix. The comprehensive spelling test linked above takes 25 minutes to administer and 2 minutes per student to correct and record. Both tests can be corrected and recorded by responsible student aides, paraprofessionals, or parents. I recommend 30 second fluencies for each narrative and expository passage, so 1 minute to administer and record per student. Recording matrices are provided in the above links.

Now, of course these assessments are not the only ones we should use in reading intervention (Tier II and III) classes, but they will more than suffice as a Harry Potter sorting hat.

Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice reading assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. 364 pages

Reading reading intervention, reading program placement, reading resources, remedial reading, response to intervention, RTI, secondary reading programs, Tier I

Writers of the new Common Core State Standards have clearly gone out of their way to assure educators that the Standards establish the what, but not the how of instruction.

From the Common Core State Standards introduction:

“The Standards are not a curriculum. They are a clear set of shared goals and expectations for what knowledge and skills will help our students succeed. Local teachers, principals, superintendents and others will decide how the standards are to be met. Teachers will continue to devise lesson plans and tailor instruction to the individual needs of the students in their classrooms.”

And more:

“By emphasizing required achievements, the Standards leave room for teachers, curriculum developers, and states to determine how those goals should be reached and what additional topics should be addressed. Thus, the Standards do not mandate such things as a particular writing process or the full range of metacognitive strategies that students may need to monitor and direct their thinking and learning. Teachers are thus free to provide students with whatever tools and knowledge their professional judgment and experience identify as most helpful for meeting the goals set out in the Standards.”

And more:

“Teachers will continue to devise lesson plans and tailor instruction to the individual needs of the students in their classrooms.” http://www.corestandards.org

In other words, despite the fact that the Standards put all of us on the same page, in terms of grade-level expectations, teachers retain the autonomy to teach how they see fit.

Cyclical Instruction

The Common Core State Standards validate the need for review, as well as the cyclical nature of instruction by identifying the skills needed to scaffold higher level instruction and practice. These directions appear throughout the document:

“The following skills, marked with an asterisk (*) are particularly likely to require continued attention in higher grades as they are applied to increasingly sophisticated writing and speaking.”

Teachers advised to skip review of previous grade-level standards and concentrate on the grade-level standards that will be tested, now have firm legs to stand upon when they say “No” to administrators only interested in achieving AYP goals.

Common Core DI (Differentiated Instruction)

Implicit in the mandated review is the need for effective diagnostic assessments to determine what and how much requires re-teaching to establish a solid foundation for grade-level instruction. Using data to impact instructional decisions will help teachers decide which content and skills are best reviewed whole-class and which content and skills are best addressed via small group or individualized instruction.

For example, if initial diagnostic assessments indicate that the whole class needs review of subjects and predicates, whole class instruction and guided practice will certainly be the most efficient means of review; thereafter, if the formative assessment on subjects and predicates shows that half a dozen students have not yet mastered these concepts, small group instruction or targeted individual practice makes sense. However, if initial diagnostic assessments indicate that only half a dozen students have not yet mastered subjects and predicates, it would certainly be advisable to begin with differentiated instruction, rather than waste the time of students who have already mastered these concepts.

Common Core RTI (Response to Intervention)

Again, from the Common Core State Standards introduction:

“The Standards set grade-specific standards but do not define the intervention methods or materials necessary to support students who are well below or well above grade-level expectations. No set of grade-specific standards can fully reflect the great variety in abilities, needs, learning rates, and achievement levels of students in any given classroom. However, the Standards do provide clear signposts alongthe way to the goal of college and career readiness for all students.”

http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf

Common Core ELL (English Language Learners)

“It is also beyond the scope of the Standards to define the full range of supports appropriate for English language learners and for students with special needs. At the same time, all students must have the opportunity to learn and meet the same high standards if they are to access the knowledge and skills necessary in their post–high school lives.”

http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf

The author of this article, Mark Pennington, publishes user-friendly teaching resources to differentiate instruction in the fields of reading/ELA. Visit www.penningtonpublishing.com for free resources, including 13 diagnostic reading/ELA assessments.

Grammar/Mechanics, Reading, Writing Common Core, Common Core State Standards, differentiated instruction, EL, English language learners, ESL, response to intervention

Teaching the elements of plot can be a challenging task. Knowing story structure is critically important to comprehension development. Without story schema, independent reading is hodge-podge and non-sensical. Using a common story builds upon prior knowledge, especially when using the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies. Fairy tales are ideal for this purpose.

Here’s my fractured fairy tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The two-age story includes all plot elements (character-setting-problem/situation-internal and external conflict-complications-climax-falling action-resolution), as well as examples of  foreshadowing, direct and indirect characterization, and a twist. Ideal for middle and high schoolers, maybe for some upper elementary, but it’s quite twisted, so use some judgment here. Altering the rhetorical stance or changing up the ending is a great writing application to follow this lesson.

Attached is the story, ready for your plot diagram. Also attached is a matching quiz of the plot elements found in the story. Goldilocks Story  Goldilocks Quiz

When not writing twisted fairy tales, Mark Pennington authors such texts as Teaching Reading Strategies, Teaching Grammar and Mechanics, Teaching Essay Strategies, and Teaching Spelling and Vocabulary.

Reading elements of plot, plot diagram, reading comprehension, story structure

Nothing in the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has worried English-language arts teachers more than “The Great Shift.” This shift changes the emphasis of reading and writing in K-12 English-language arts (ELA) classrooms from the literature and narrative to the informational (to explain) and argumentative (to persuade) genres.

A response to one of my recent posts reflects this worry:

“…taking away (or throwing it into the ‘narrative’ category) creative writing is going to kill creativity in our country. I wish they would realize that creative writing goes hand-in-hand with critical-thinking and problem-solving… I went to a workshop this spring in which one of the writers of the CC standards said MOST of the non-fiction reading/writing would come in the history and science classes… But they do not make that clear enough in the standards. If that is what they want, then they need to speak up soon before ELS teachers stop teaching literature all together! (And if that is the case, I will be getting out of teaching).”

So, what’s all the fuss?

Common Core Content Area Reading

Citing the Distribution of Literary and Informational Passages by Grade in the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress NAEP framework, the introductory pages of the Common Core State Standards call for the following distributions of text: 50% literary/50% information (4^th grade); 45% literary/55% information (8^th grade); 30% literary/70% information (12^th grade).

Secondary ELA teachers are quick to point to the CCSS reading footnote:

² As with reading, the percentages in the table reflect the sum of student writing, not just writing in ELA settings.

Common Core Content Area Writing

Similarly, the CCSS introduction follows the NAEP lead in the Distribution of Communicative Purposes by Grade in the 2011 NAEP Writing Framework, but with more explicit direction than with respect to the reading distribution.

“It follows that writing assessments aligned with the Standards should adhere to the distribution of writing purposes across grades outlined by NAEP.” (CCSS Introduction p. 5)

And “the Standards aim to align instruction with this framework.” (p. 5) So, what are these writing distributions? 30% to persuade/35% to explain/35% to convey experience (4^th grade); 35% to persuade/35% to explain/30% to convey experience (8^th grade); 40% to persuade/40% to explain/20% to convey experience (12^th grade).

Again, secondary English teachers are quick to point to the CCSS writing footnote, which is more explicit than the reading footnote and provides a useful example:

¹ The percentages on the table reflect the sum of student reading, not just reading in ELA settings. Teachers of senior English classes, for example, are not required to devote 70 percent of reading to informational texts. Rather, 70 percent of student reading across the grade should be informational.

It should be noted that “The Great Shift” actually introduces a greater curricular change for elementary teachers. In response to the guidelines of the National Reading Panel, most elementary teachers spend 90-120 minutes daily in reading instruction (primarily literature), while reductively integrating writing, social studies, and science instruction. There is just so much time in the day. But, elementary teachers can adjust reading and writing assignments to reflect this shift more easily than their secondary colleagues.

Indeed, the challenges for secondary teachers to conform to the change in emphasis in the CCSS standards will be many. And since “The Great Shift” has been introduced in the ELA standards of the CCSS, the initiative of how to respond has been clearly dumped in the lap of English teachers. If follows that if the strategic goals of ELA teachers will be to spread the wealth (pain) of the CCSS mandates to include other content area teachers, a discussion of tactical options will be advisable.

Tactics for Developing Common Core Reading and Writing

• It’s time to discuss curriculum with history/social studies and science colleagues. Let’s add on visual and performing arts friends as well.
• Recognize and validate the fact that content area colleagues have full curricular plates already and reading/writing add-ons will not be universally welcomed.
• Make the Common Core State Standards the “bad guys,” not ELA teachers.
• Recognize the expertise of content area colleagues. They are probably better informational (to explain) readers than are ELA teachers. Writing may or may not be a different matter.
• Make peace with excerpts, articles, abstracts, abridged versions, editorials, etc. Non-fiction does not have to come in 300 plus page volumes. Content area teachers will be willing to compromise and add small bites throughout their curriculum.
• Cherished class novels may have to go.
• Be willing to give up pet instructional language and adopt universal language of reading and writing instruction across the curricular areas.
• Be willing to relinquish control. What if history/social studies teachers handled the bulk of persuasive writing? What if science teachers handled the bulk of informational/explanatory writing? Would the world end?
• Consider a humanities-based, interdisciplinary approach. We are simply too comfortable in our content area castles.
• Support staff development and include outside “experts.” Yes, “a prophet is without honor in his own country.”
• Support; don’t criticize. Baby steps are important here. It’s preachy, but needs to be said.

I welcome additional tactics.

Pennington Publishing provides two curricular writing resources aligned to the Common Core State Standards. Both are appropriate to help teachers differentiate writing instruction for upper elementary, middle school, and high school students: Teaching Essay Strategies and Teaching Grammar and Mechanics.

Reading, Writing Common Core State Standards, content area reading, content area writing, reading standards, writing across the curriculum, writing standards

Most of us would agree with reading researchers that vocabulary development is critically important to improving reading comprehension (e.g., Anderson & Freebody, 1981; Baumann, Kame‘enui, & Ash, 2003). However, not all vocabulary instruction is effective or efficient.

The Weekly Vocabulary Word List

In many classrooms the predominant means of vocabulary instruction is weekly vocabulary word list. Pass it out on Monday; have students look up and write down definitions, make flashcards, do a crossword puzzle, do a word sort, write context clue sentences, etc. Then test on Friday. The problem is that this approach does not work. It’s ineffective and inefficient.

It’s ineffective.

Students memorize the list for the Friday test and forget half of them by the next week. “Rote memorization of words and definitions is the least effective instructional method resulting in little long-term effect (Kameenui, Dixon, Carine 1987).”

It’s inefficient.

Even if students were to remember all of the, say 20 words, on the weekly vocabulary word list for the entire school year, they would only have mastered 600 words. But, the American lexicon is over 800,000 words. The SAT® word bank is over 30,000. 600 words won’t make a dent in those numbers.

According to reading research, students need to learn 3,000 new words per year just to make year-to-year grade level progress (Honig 1983). So learning only 600 words is a very small drop in a very big bucket. But it is a bucket we desperately need to fill-especially for educationally disadvantaged students, whose “word poverty” (Louisa C. Moats) dooms them to the “Matthew Effect” (Keith Stanovich) in which the poorer tend to get poorer.

To teach students 3,000 words a year, students would have to learn 17 words each school day (3,000 words over 178 school days). However, classroom intervention studies suggest that only 8 to 10 words can be retained through direct instruction in one week (Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986). That works out to about 300 words per year-hardly enough.

So, if vocabulary word lists are ineffective and inefficient. What does work to teach those 3,000 words per year?

Three Effective and Efficient Methods of Vocabulary Instruction

1. Independent Reading

Let’s use Luis as our example. Reading 30 minutes per day for homework at a rate of 200 words per minute, for a total of 132 days (4 days per week in a typical school year), means that Luis would be exposed to 792,000 words (30 x 200 x 132). If Luis reads text at the recommended 5% unknown words* level of word recognition recommended by reading researchers (Stahl, 1999), this means that he would be exposed to 39,600 unfamiliar words per year (792,000 x .05). Because students learn between 5 and 10 percent of previously unknown words in a single reading (Stahl, 1999), Luis will have learned between 1,980 and 3,960 new words at home! Not to mention reading in class.

*That 5% unknown words level is critically important. If students read texts below their current reading levels, even lots of reading won’t result in measurable vocabulary growth (Carver, 1994).

2. Greek and Latin Word Parts

Reading researchers suggest that learning Greek and Latin word parts is an effective and efficient method for acquiring vocabulary (e.g., Anglin, 1993; Biemiller & Slonim, 2001). Over 50% of all academic vocabulary contains one or more Greek or Latin prefix, root, or suffix. Unlike memorizing vocabulary word lists, memorizing word parts produces enormous pay-offs because one prefix, root, or suffix may be a component of hundreds of words. Learning these word families provides significant utility for the reader, especially those word parts with the highest utility.

Just 9 prefixes constitute 75% of words with prefixes (White, Sowell, & Yanigihara, 1989). Comprehensive frequency studies have not been completed on roots; however, there is general consensus as to utility of a few hundred roots. There is less agreement on the value of teaching suffixes. Suffixes can often have vague meanings such as “the state of”; suffixes are often merely inflectional forms; they also tend to vary spellings. However, some study of suffixes that have specific meanings is certainly warranted. Check out a great list of Greek and Latin word parts for instruction here.

3. Tier One, Two, and Three Words (Beck et al., 2002)

Some words do not need to be taught. Tier One Words are high utility words that will become part of a student’s lexicon incidentally through oral language or reading. Tier Three Words are rare, specific-to-the-subject words that can sometimes be learned through effective application of context clues.

But some words do need to be taught. When reading a literature selection, certain words that are important to building comprehension or understanding of the text are essential to learn, especially if these words are used in a variety of forms, in other contexts or subjects of study, or are precise uses of generally-understood concepts. These are Tier Two Words.

For example, examine this sentence: The happy child was fortunate to have such a sunny disposition.

Tier One Words: happy, child, sunny

Tier Two Word: fortunate

Tier Three Word: disposition

The approach would be to assume that the reader knows the Tier One Words and leave the reader to use context clues to derive a basic understanding of the Tier Three Word. The Tier Two Word would be the word that deserves the instructional attention.

Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice reading assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. 364 pages

Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary context clues, Greek and Latin, prefixes, roots, SAT words, suffixes, syllables, vocabulary, vocabulary word lists