Pennington Publishing Blog

Are you ready for RtI? Response to Intervention is the collaborative model of decision-making and curricular intervention regarding students with special instructional needs. Although RtI sprang from Special Education in the early 2000s as an alternative screening and delivery mechanism to the then-predominant “discrepancy between ability and achievement” model, the approach gained legitimacy after the revisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 2004. Since then, the RtI model has gained buy-in from influential educational authors and general education stakeholders as a comprehensive approach to identify students needing intervention via research-based diagnostic assessments, to provide flexibly tiered instruction to meet their instructional needs, and to monitor their progress. Students who do not show a positive response to such interventions are tested to determine if they qualify for special education services.

Of course, the RtI model presupposes collaboration from all stakeholders in a school and/or district. All-too-often, this presupposition has doomed RtI at some school sites and in some districts from the get-go. Jumping into RtI and the three-tier instructional delivery model without first addressing legitimate concerns and before gaining stakeholder consensus has given a black-eye to a promising means of delivering a truly first-class education to all children. A related article, “Ten Reasons Teachers Avoid RtI Collaboration,” details the most common concerns regarding RtI and its collaborative model. Following is an anonymous survey, using these ten reasons, to be administered at the opening exploration of RtI implementation to gauge RtI readiness of a teaching staff and its administration.

How Would You Rate Your Educational Modus Operandi (M.O.) on this 1-5 Likert Scale?

1. Autonomous (I basically do my own thing)-Collaborative (I plan and implement instruction according to grade-level team or department consensus)
2. Not Confident of Abilities (I either don’t have the requisite skills set or knowledge that my colleagues seem to have)-Confident of Abilities (I more than hold my own compared to my colleagues)
3. Job Insecurity (I am often worried about retaining my job)-Job Security (I never worry about retaining my job)
4. Castle-keeper (I am very protective about maintaining my program)-Open House (I am open to changing my program or courses I teach)
5. Content focused (I exclusively teach grade-level standards and content)-Process/Skills focused (I focus instruction on process objectives and skills acquisition)
6. Concerned about Standardized Test Results (I am often worried about the results of my students’ standardized test scores)-Unconcerned about Standardized Test Results (I am never worried about the results of my students’ standardized test scores)
7. Lazy, Burned-out, or Checked-out (I often feel this way)-Motivated (I am extremely motivated to improve the quality of my instruction)
8. Anti-Change (I am resistant to trying new instructional approaches)-Pro Change (I am ready to try new instructional approaches)
9. Adverse to Differentiated Instruction (I do not differentiate, adjust, or individualize instruction)-In favor of Differentiated Instruction (I want to differentiate, adjust, or individualize instruction)
10. Has No Support or Curricular Resources to Differentiate Instruction (I do not have the support, time, or curricular resources to modify instruction)-Has Support and Curricular Resources to Differentiate Instruction (I do have the support, time, or curricular resources to modify instruction)

The author of this article, Mark Pennington, is an MA reading specialist, middle school teacher, and 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. Included in this flexible curriculum are 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. In short, 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, Study Skills, Writing reading intervention, reading program placement, reading resources, remedial reading, response to intervention, RTI, RTI collaboration, rti implementation, secondary reading programs, Tier I

If your school and/or district is moving toward a Response to Intervention (RtI) model, knowing the ten reasons why some teachers and administrators avoid RtI collaboration will help those committed to the RtI process make fewer mistakes and get more buy-in from stakeholders.

Teachers and administrators tend to be individualists, and school structures tend to reinforce this personality trait. Collaboration is simply easier for some and harder for others. Knowing why collaboration is difficult or downright threatening for individual staff members will help an RtI team address the individual concerns of its stakeholders. Dealing head-on with these stumbling blocks in the beginning stages of the RtI process will get everything “on the table” and prevent future problems during implementation.

RtI teams that avoid this necessary step and rush into structural and curricular decision-making for the sake of efficiency or meeting imposed timetables will deal with these individual concerns down the road anyway. Once the RtI model has been implemented, it is much more difficult and less efficient to backtrack and address individual concerns. Those RtI teams which take the time to address stakeholder concerns tend to have a much better track record in moving a staff toward the collaborative culture so necessary to effectively implement RtI.

Ten Reasons Teachers Avoid RtI Collaboration

1. Autonomy-Teachers and administrators choose education as a career because they crave some measure of control over decision-making. Educators develop their own teaching/leadership styles and philosophies to reflect their personal values. As a result, educators tend to actively or passively resist outside imposition or control. RtI collaboration certainly threatens this autonomy.
2. Fear-All teachers and administrators share one trait in common. They know their own limitations. The fear is that others will discover these limitations and not accept them as valued professionals. No teacher or administrator wants to be recognized as incompetent. The fear is that RtI collaboration will expose individual limitations.
3. Job Security-Finding out limitations can be perceived as potential “dings” on performance evaluations for both teachers and administrators. Additionally, the RtI model may expose overlap or redundancy and this may threaten jobs. Because sharing resources is a key ingredient in the RtI recipe, RtI collaboration may identify underutilized resource personnel.
4. Castles-Individual fiefdoms protect job security. Our individual educational castles, created to address and protect student needs, tend to make collaboration challenging or even undesirable. Those who keep the keys of their respective castles may be loath to give these up. Sharing isn’t just a problem in kindergarten. Each school and district has its own fiefdoms and the RtI collaboration model requires open castles and transparency.
5. Content Queens and Kings-Many teachers, especially at the secondary level, entered the teaching professional because of their genuine love of their respective disciplines. Any moves away from content-centered instruction toward process or skill-centered instruction threaten their roles. Those content-centric teachers and administrators focus on content standards, but may ignore the balanced approach of the new Common Core State Standards. Sharing responsibility for teaching content with others or taking on process or skill instruction may be their concerns regarding the RtI collaboration model.
6. Test Madness-A disease endemic to many educators, but frankly more to administrators than teachers. And with good reason. Administrators are directly judged by standardized test results. And now, several states have made the move toward evaluating teachers by the test results of their students. Of course, those supporting such evaluations tend to beg at least two questions relevant to the RtI process: 1. Are standardized tests capable of accurately measuring RtI student achievement? and 2. Will teachers teach all non-tested content and process standards and continue to teach to diagnostic student needs when their jobs and salaries may be affected by the test results? Test-crazed-cultures may encourage educators to take short-cuts and teach to results, not to student needs. This is not to say that an effective RtI model and optimal standardized test results are necessarily mutually exclusive. However, test madness remains a reason why some avoid RtI collaboration.
7. Lazy, Burned-out, or Checked-out Teachers and Administrators-Let’s face it. Most sites have their share, but not as many as the public may perceive. All educators go through professional cycles of interest and lack thereof. Some will own up to their feelings; others will not. Psychologists remind us that motivation is a cyclical process. Effective practice with expert coaching leads to achieving personal goals. Achieving personal goals leads to self-satisfaction. Self-satisfaction leads back around to a positive association with practice. Teacher and administrator interest can be re-kindled with the right practice, but RtI collaboration does push to the initial practice step and those lazy, burned-out, or checked-out teachers and administrators will resist until they begin the cycle.
8. Anti-Change Agents-Many teachers and administrators gravitate toward the status-quo. “I’ve/We’ve always done it this way” or “This is how I was taught and it worked for me” or “I tried that, but it didn’t work for me/us” or “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” or “What goes around, comes around” or “This too shall pass” guide a tremendous amount of educational decision-making. We are all products of our own experiences, and change challenges our established comfort zones. Anti-change agents can be particularly adverse to RtI collaboration.
9. Fear of Differentiation-Adjusting instruction to student needs provokes resistance. No teacher feels under-worked. Adding on the task of changing instructional delivery to meet the diagnostically-determined needs of students is overwhelming to most. No wonder that tracking and pull-out programs are key features of most educational institutions. However, ask any teacher whether it would be ideal to teach to each student as his or her levels of need and you would receive a universal Yes. Dealing with the Myths of Differentiating Instruction can be helpful, but there is just no doubt that those who avoid differentiated instruction are reticent to support RtI collaboration.
10. No Support or Curricular Resources-Teachers and Administrators are all-too-often expected to do “more with less.” No wonder that the RtI model, which demands resources of time and student-centered curriculum leads to frustration and an unwillingness to whole-heartedly support RtI collaboration.

The author of this article, Mark Pennington, is an MA reading specialist, middle school teacher, and 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. Included in this flexible curriculum are 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. In short, 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, Study Skills, Writing reading intervention, reading program placement, reading resources, remedial reading, response to intervention, RTI, RTI articles, RTI collaboration, rti implementation, secondary reading programs, Tier I

So your district is starting to implement a Response to Intervention (RtI) model in its elementary, middle, and high schools. Number One on the agenda is to pull together district personnel, administrators, and teachers to research and recommend adoption of a reading intervention program… You google “Reading Intervention Programs” and find this article. Welcome!

Reading Intervention Program Questions

Which program should your district choose? What criteria should be agreed upon in the selection process? How (or can you) evaluate the success or track-record of the program? Does a one-size-fits-all approach make sense for the students you plan to serve? Which students need to be served? Is your district considering a Tier I, Tiers I and II, or Tiers I, II, and III model? Does your district have the financial and support resources necessary to match the scope of its instructional plan? What levels of reading expertise does your district have at its disposal? How well-trained are the teachers who will teach the program? Will the structure of the schools and their programs accommodate the type of reading intervention needed?

But, those questions are only one-half of the equation. Your side of the equation. The other half needs to be considered, as well, to make an informed and practical decision about which reading intervention program should merit adoption. The publisher’s side of the equation.

The Reading Intervention Program Publishing Merry-Go-Round

Following is a somewhat-cynical, but valuable, description of the reading intervention publishing process. Disclaimer: the author of this article has his own reading intervention program to sell, so keep this in mind. So, how do publishers create and market a reading intervention program and get your district to buy it?

Most all of the “big-boy” publishers (and that categorization is gender-accurate, if you look at who runs these publishing houses) already have many reading intervention programs in their catalogs. However, publishers need something new to create “buzz” and sell product. They hire a few well-respected, but lowly paid university professors to “author” (repackage) the materials. Grad students and per-hour staff writers re-work and re-package in-print and out-of-print materials. The design team ramps up and creates an attractive product. Ta dah! A new reading intervention program.

Next, the publishers jump through all the hoops to get their reading intervention programs adopted by the state. With well-placed lobbyists and state department of education employees with their hands in the deep pockets of these publishers, the hoops are less challenging.

Next, the publisher plans an aggressive marketing campaign to promote their innovative “new and improved” program. The publisher secures a prominently featured row of exhibit booths at the International Reading Association conference to launch the product. Then, the publishers get to work on the school districts. I’ll stop here, because you are involved in this part of the process and will know everything you need to know once you place that call to their program (sales) representatives.

A few comments on this latter half of the reading intervention program adoption equation…

Notice that the practitioners (teachers) have very little to do with developing the latest reading intervention fad. Despite the fact that veteran teachers have years of experience in “trial and error” reading instruction, teachers are rarely consulted in the development of new reading programs. Reading programs are publisher-developed and profit-driven. Programs are delivered as “faits accompli” to districts for approval and purchase. Textbook adoption committees, which include teachers, are left to rubber-stamp programs, ostensibly following pilot teacher recommendations. Actually, districts follow the leads of other districts and the bigger the publisher, the more “resources” are brought to bear in the decision-making. The entire process is carefully guided by publisher representatives.

Here’s another approach. Consider purchasing an economical, data-driven, program developed by an MA Reading Specialist in the classroom. A reading intervention program designed by a teacher for teachers. A reading intervention program that values the expertise of teachers. A reading intervention program that truly allows the teacher to differentiate instruction according to the individual needs of students.

Teaching Reading Strategies provides teachers of remedial upper elementary, middle school, high school, and adult students all the resources they need to turn their students into fluent readers in the shortest amount of instructional time. The instructional design and resources are perfect for Tiers I, II, and III placements. English language-learners will benefit from the design of this program–especially those who have begun reading in their primary languages. Students with learning disabilities, such as auditory and visual processing problems, will get the targeted and flexible instruction they need to address these challenges.

Rather than starting each learner from “scratch” with hours of repetitive practice, like traditional remedial reading programs, the whole-class diagnostic assessments pinpoint individual reading strengths and deficiencies. Teachers simply record the assessment results and then use the prescribed resources to help students remediate their deficiencies. Students see direct benefit and pay-off in each lesson. Instead of tedious practice in a reading skill already mastered, students feel challenged each day and learn quickly in what social psychologist, Lev Vygotsky, termed their “zone of proximal development.” Students become constructive partners in the learning process because they monitor their own progress. As a by-product, students improve self-esteem, classroom behavior, and motivation to learn.

Teachers prefer teaching students, as opposed to teaching a “canned program.” Despite the specificity and sophistication of the Teaching Reading Strategies resources, the procedures and activities assume very little prior experience in reading instruction. The Learn How to Teach This Program in 10 Minutes gets the teacher up and running. “Prep time” is minimized to allow teaching almost “on the fly.”  For example, instructional procedures are standardized to enable students to quickly “catch on” to practicing a new skill, while using the same procedure as with previous skills. Record keeping is extensive, but efficient, and is designed to be part of instruction. Teaching Reading Strategies is the comprehensive, efficient, and user-friendly resource to differentiate remedial reading instruction.

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

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

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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

Phyllis Shlaffly’s July 21 article, posted in the Eagle Forum pieces together a number of undocumented sources commenting on the prospect of a national curriculum and the Common Core State Standards. Following is her article and my responses to her concerns and comments from the perspective of a public school teacher and educational publisher. Read more…

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Get ready for some terrific phonemic awareness activities… But first, let’s get clear on just what phonemic awareness is all about, why it is important, and how it relates to reading. Phonemic awareness is the basic understanding that spoken words are made up of individual speech sounds. We call these speech sounds phonemes. There are about 43 common phonemes in English. See my attached list, Phonemes, which includes adjustments for the Spanish phonemes in footnotes.

Why is phonemic awareness essential?

Between 20 and 40% of the population does not naturally develop phonemic awareness. Current research indicates that there may be both medical and genetic factors that contribute to this deficiency (Grossen, 1997).

When children cannot hear and manipulate the sounds (phonemes) in spoken words, they struggle learning how to attach these sounds to letters and letter combinations. Lack of phonemic awareness is the chief causal factor of reading disabilities (Adams, 1990). Phonemic awareness is the best predictor of reading success (Goldstein, 1976; Zifcak, 1977; Stanovich, 1986, 1994).

Phonemic awareness relates to reading in two ways: (1) phonemic awareness is a prerequisite of learning to read (Juel, Griffith, & Gough, 1986; Yopp, 1985), and (2) phonemic awareness is a consequence of learning to read (Ehri, 1979; Read, Yun-Fei, Hong-Yin, & Bao-Qing, 1986).

Can phonemic awareness be remediated?

Yes, but the older the child, the more challenging it is to learn phonemic awareness. See my article titled Should We Teach Phonemic Awareness to Remedial Readers? on remediating phonemic awareness to check out the reading research and instructional solutions.

What about English-language Learners?

It’s true that specific speech sounds differ among languages, and this makes phonemic awareness and phonics acquisition more challenging for English-language Learners (ELLs). However, ELLs are certainly able to transfer their phonological awareness skills from their primary language to English, and research indicates the positive benefits of phonemic awareness training (Abbot, Quiroga, Lernos-Britton, Mostafapour, and Berninger, 2002). Indeed, some primary languages, such as Spanish, share more phonemes with English than not.

Phonemic Awareness Assessments

Not all students will have mastered the same components of phonemic awareness. Thus, diagnostic assessments are a must to efficiently teach these unmastered components. After completing phonemic awareness assessments, grade and record any unmastered phonemic awareness components for each student on a progress monitoring matrix. An excellent set of six whole-class phonemic awareness assessments with recording matrix is provided free for classroom use at www.penningtonpublishing.com. These assessments have been recorded on audio CDs and are available in Teaching Reading Strategies by the author of this article.

Phonemic Awareness Instructional Sequence and Workshop Activities

Differentiate instruction, according to the diagnostic data in small group reading workshops. There is an instructional order that makes sense. I suggest that you teach your phonemic awareness workshops in this order:

1. Rhyming Awareness
2. Alphabetic Awareness (Make sure to check out the Mp3 “New Alphabet Song” found in the phonemic awareness activities packet.)
3. Syllable Awareness and Syllable Manipulation
4. Phonemic Isolation
5. Phonemic Blending
6. Phonemic Segmentation

So, you’ve read this far. Your wait is over! Here are the promised Phonemic Awareness Activities to differentiate instruction in your reading workshops. You may also wish to use the phonics materials and activities found in these articles: Phonics Games and in How to Teach Phonics.

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 on two CDs, formative assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages on eight CDs, 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. Simple directions and well-crafted activities truly make this an almost no-prep curriculum. Works well as a half-year intensive program or full-year program, with or without paraprofessional assistance.

For individual sound-spelling worksheets that correspond with the comprehensive TSV Spelling Assessment, spelling rules with memorable raps and songs on CD, spelling tests, Greek and Latin affixes/roots worksheets, syllable practice, spelling games, vocabulary games, and more to differentiate spelling and vocabulary instruction, please check out Teaching Spelling and Vocabulary.

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