Pennington Publishing Blog

Spelling is Not Genetic

In the midst of the 1980s whole language movement, California State Superintendent of Schools Bill Honig strongly encouraged principals to confiscate spelling workbooks from their teachers. Even today, spelling instruction remains a contentious topic. No other literacy skill seems to run the complete gamut of instructional implementation from emphasis to de-emphasis. Following are the 30 spelling questions, answers, and resources to help teachers get a handle on what does and what does not work in spelling instruction.

Now, with my ambitious goal of providing 30 questions, answers, and resources, I’ve got to be concise. I won’t be going deep into orthographic research (much of which is contradictory and incomplete) or into detailed instructional strategies. Also, a disclaimer is certainly needed: I am a teacher-author of several spelling programs, some of which I will shamelessly promote at the end of the article. But, to be fair, I do have some relevant expertise and experience in spelling to share. I have my masters degree as a reading specialist (in fact I did my masters thesis on the instructional spelling and reading strategies used in the the 19th Century McGuffey Readers). More importantly, I have served as an elementary and secondary reading specialist and have taught spelling at the elementary, middle school, high school, and community college levels. So, enough for the credibility portion of the article and onto why you are reading and what you hope to learn, validate, invalidate, and apply in your classroom.

Why Teach Spelling?

1. Why is spelling such a big deal? If Einstein couldn’t spell, why does it matter? Won’t spell check the best way to solve spelling problems? Whether justified or not, others will judge our students by their spelling ability. Spelling accuracy is perceived as a key indicator of literacy. And spelling problems can inhibit writing coherency and reading facility. Spell check programs do not solve spelling issues. They  just takes too long to correct frequent misspellings and cannot account for homographs.

2. Can you teach spelling? Aren’t some people naturally good or bad spellers? Isn’t it learned through extensive reading and writing? Yes, poor spellers and good spellers can be taught to improve their spelling abilities. No brain research has demonstrated a genetic predisposition for good or bad spelling. There is no spelling gene. No, spelling isn’t learned through reading and writing, but there are positive correlations among the disciplines. They are each separate skills and thinking processes and need specific instruction and practice accordingly.

Whose Job Is It to Teach Spelling and to Whom Should We Teach It?

3. Isn’t spelling the job of primary teachers? Please, God, let this be so. Yes and no. Primary teachers are responsible for much of the decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling) foundations, but intermediate/upper elementary, middle school, and high school teachers have plenty of morphological (word parts), etymological (silent letters, accent placements, schwa spellings, added and dropped connectives), and derivational (Greek, Latin, French, British, Spanish, Italian, German language influences) spelling patterns to justify teaching spelling patterns at their respective grade levels.

4. Should content teachers teach spelling? Yes. The Common Core State Standards emphasize cross-curricular literacy instruction. Upper elementary teachers in departmentalized structures, middle school, and high school teachers should certainly come to consensus regarding spelling instruction and expectations.

5. Should we teach spelling to special education students? Yes, even though spelling is primarily an auditory skill and many special educations have auditory processing challenges. These students require more practice, not less. Gone are the days when special education teachers said Johnny or Susie can’t learn spelling. however, some visual study strategies do make sense.

6. Should we teach spelling to English-language learners? Yes. We cripple our English-language learners when we solely focus on reading skills and vocabulary acquisition. Besides, Spanish has remarkably similar orthographic patterns as English.

How Does Spelling Connect to Other Literacy Skills?

7. How are spelling and phonemic awareness related? The National Reading Panel stressed the statistically significant correlation. Spelling is an auditory, not a visual skill, and so the connection between phonemic awareness, which is the ability to recognize and manipulate speech sounds is clear. Check out the author’s free phonemic awareness assessments.

8. How are spelling and reading related? Spelling (encoding) and reading (decoding) are both sides of the same coin. So many of our syllable pronunciations depend upon spelling rules. Check out this relationship in these teachable resources: Ten English Accent Rules, Twenty Advanced Syllable Rules, and How to Teach Syllabication: The Syllable Rules.

9. How are spelling and vocabulary related? Spelling is highly influenced by morphemes (meaning-based syllables) and language derivations. Read this article on How to Differentiate Spelling and Vocabulary Instruction for more.

How Should We Teach Spelling?

10. How much of a priority should spelling instruction take in terms of instructional minutes? I suggest 5 minutes for the spelling pretest (record on your phone to maintain an efficient pace and to use for make-ups); 5 minutes to create a personal spelling list; 10 minutes to complete and correct a spelling pattern sort; 10 minutes of spelling word study (perfect for homework); and 5 minutes for the spelling posttest (every other week for secondary students).

11. Should we teach spelling rules? Absolutely. Just because the English sound-spelling system works in only about 50% of spellings does not mean that there are not predictable spelling patterns to increase that percentage of spelling predictability and accuracy. Although the sound-spelling patterns are the first line of defense, the conventional spelling rules that work most all of the time are a necessary back-up. Check out the free Eight Great Spelling Rules, each with memorable mp3 songs and raps to help you and your students master the conventional spelling rules.

12. What about teaching “No Excuse” spelling words and using Word Walls? These can supplement, but not replace, a spelling patterns program. Teaching and posting the there-their-they’re words directly and emphasizing these common misspellings makes sense.

13. What about outlaw (non-decodable) spelling words? Using these words as a resource to supplement unknown words on the weekly spelling pretest is highly effective. I suggest you “kill two birds with one stone” by giving this multiple choice Outlaws Word Assessment for reading diagnosis and then the same list for spelling diagnosis.

14. What about using high frequency words to teach spelling? As a supplementary resource to the personal spelling list unknown high frequency words, such as the Dolch List, can certainly be included. But using high frequency words as weekly spelling lists involves learning in isolation. Plus these lists include both decodable and non-decodable words. Parents can certainly assess their own children and provide results to the teacher.

15. What about using commonly confused words (homonyms) to teach spelling? Some words look the same or nearly the same (homographs) or sound the same or nearly the same (homonyms) and so are easily confused by developing spellers and adult spellers alike. Check about this great list of Easily Confused or Misused Words.

16. What about teaching spelling through a Spelling Pattern Sort? Extremely valuable and a necessary instructional activity for any spelling patterns program. Closed spelling sorts based upon spelling patterns are certainly more effective than open sorts.

“Students can… spell words that they don’t think they know how to spell by comparing words through sorts. Knowing how to spell familiar words gives the students reference points for knowing how to begin spelling new words. Here are just a few of the sorts that students can experience:

• Sort beginning sounds
• Sort Digraphs from Blends
• Sort long vowels from short vowels
• Sort words with closed syllables from words with open syllables
• Sort words that double the ending consonant before adding –ing with those that do not
• Sort prefixes and suffixes
• Sort base words and root words

Teachers can even combine a sound sort with a letter pattern sort. The list goes on and on.” Sandy Hoffman

17. How should learning styles inform spelling instruction? Good teachers always use multiple modalities instruction. But, the research and practical application of VAKT is dubious at best and has no application to spelling. Teachers gave up teaching students to trace letters years ago. Spelling is primarily an auditory skill, so if there are auditory processing challenges, special attention and additional practice will be necessary. Check out this article titled Don’t Teach to Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences for more.

18.Why aren’t the Common Core Standards more specific about spelling instruction? When establishing instructional priorities to address these spelling Standards, many teachers have placed spelling (Standard L. 2) on the back-burner. To wit, the intermediate elementary Standards: (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.2e) “Spell grade-appropriate words correctly, consulting references as needed.”) and middle school Standards: (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.7.2b “Spell correctly.”) However, the primary Standards are much more specific and the authors make a solid case in Appendix A for the importance of spelling instruction.

19. Is spelling a good subject for homework? Yes. Parents can certainly supervise spelling sorts practice, creation of the personal spelling list, and even assist the teacher with diagnostic spelling tests of supplementary spelling word lists.

What about Individualizing Spelling Instruction?

20. What about qualitative spelling inventories? Qualitative spelling inventories accurately reflect and diagnose developmental spelling stages or indicate broad spelling strengths and weaknesses; however, their lack of assessing specific sound-spelling patterns make specific teaching applications problematic.

21. Is there a comprehensive diagnostic spelling assessment? Check out the author’s free diagnostic spelling assessment. This 64 word assessment with recording matrix is comprehensive and based upon the sound-spelling patterns to be mastered in K-3rd grade.

22. How should teachers individualize spelling instruction? Give a spelling patterns diagnostic assessment. Teach to the indicated individual unmastered spelling patterns. Targeted Spelling Pattern Worksheets with formative assessments help focus instruction on diagnostically determined spelling deficits for each student. Students catch up while they keep up with grade level spelling patterns. Having students create personal spelling lists from the weekly spelling pretest is also excellent individualized instruction. Check out the author’s eighth grade Diagnostic Spelling Assessment and Diagnostic Spelling Assessment Matrix. Now, if you just had the corresponding spelling pattern worksheets to teach to these deficits…

When Should We Teach What Spelling?

23. Can spelling instruction be defined by grade levels? Grade levels may not be easily divisible by grade levels, but we do need an instructional scope and sequence for spelling instruction. Here’s a For those grades 4−8 teachers who don’t wish to re-invent the wheel, here is the comprehensive TLS Instructional Scope and Sequence Grades 4-8 of the entire Language Strand (grammar and usage, mechanics, knowledge of use, spelling, and vocabulary)., which includes spelling patterns for grades 4-8

What is the Best Way to Study Spelling?

24. What spelling review games are most effective and fun? Check out these Spelling Review Games based upon spelling patterns.

25. What about writing spelling words over and over again? No. No. No.

Does the Weekly Spelling Test Make Sense?

26. Does the weekly spelling test help students learn spelling words? Yes. The research is clear on this one: the test-study-test instructional approach results in spelling achievement. But, the weekly posttest is probably not efficient for upper elementary and older students. Biweekly posttests work well, but only if the teacher adopts a personal spelling list approach based upon weekly diagnostic assessments.

27. What kinds of spelling tests make the most sense? A Weekly Spelling Test based upon a focused spelling pattern allows the teacher to teach the spelling pattern and provide practice opportunities to their students to apply these patterns in spelling sorts.

28. Can the weekly spelling pretest be used as a diagnostic assessment to differentiate instruction? Yes. Dictate 15-20 spelling pattern words in the traditional word-sentence-word format to all of your students. After the dictations, have students self-correct from teacher dictation (primary) or display (older students) of the correct spellings.

Students create personal spelling list in this priority order.

• Pretest Errors: Have the students copy up to ten of their pretest spelling errors.
• Posttest Errors: Have students add on up to five spelling errors from last week’s spelling posttest.
• Writing Errors: Have students add on up to five teacher-corrected spelling errors found in student writing.
• Supplemental Spelling Lists: Students select and use words from other resources linked in this article.

What Criteria Should Teachers Use to Pick a Good Spelling Program?

29. Here’s a nice set of criteria based upon “A BAD SPELLING PROGRAM” and “A GOOD SPELLING PROGRAM.”

30. Give me an example of a good one!

A Model Grades 3-8 Spelling Scope and Sequence

Differentiated Spelling Instruction

Preview the Grades 3-8 Spelling Scope and Sequence tied to the author’s comprehensive grades 3-8 Language Strand programs. The instructional scope and sequence includes grammar, usage, mechanics, spelling, and vocabulary. Teachers and district personnel are authorized to print and share this planning tool, with proper credit and/or citation. Why reinvent the wheel? Also check out my articles on Grammar Scope and Sequence, Mechanics Scope and Sequence, and Vocabulary Scope and Sequence.

FREE DOWNLOAD TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING AMERICAN ENGLISH AND CANADIAN ENGLISH SPELLING PROGRAMS. Check out these grades 3-8 programs HERE. Administer my FREE comprehensive Diagnostic Spelling Assessment with audio file and recording matrix. It has 102 words (I did say comprehensive) and covers all common spelling patterns and conventional spelling rules. It only takes 22 minutes and includes an audio file with test administration instructions. Once you see the gaps in your students’ spelling patterns, you’re going to want to fill those gaps.

Get the Diagnostic Spelling Assessment, Mastery Matrix, and Sample Lessons FREE Resource:

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What would you recommend for teaching grammar and these Anchor Standards for Language to primary students? I get this question quite often. Debbie’s post below is in response to my article, “Why Daily Oral Language (D.O.L.) Doesn’t Work.”

Hi Mark,

I hope you will respond to this via email.
What do you suggest for teaching grammar skills in 1st grade? I am moving from 3rd/4th, where I was lucky enough to read your article years ago and dumped DOL at that time. With success. I am moving to 1st grade next year and am not sure what effective grammar teaching/learning looks like at that level.
Thank you for any feedback. I have a principal who supports getting rid of DOL even though only a few of us have done that. I think he would be happy to see something more effective replace it in primary grades.

Thanks again,

Debbie

Beginning now in kindergarten, the Common Core Language Strand Standards start getting extremely rigorous and very quickly. Middle school and upper elementary teachers are constantly shocked when they discover that what they once introduced as a new Standard at their respective grade levels is now introduced in, say, first grade. For  example, check out this first grade Language Standard (1d):

Use personal, possessive, and indefinite pronouns (e.g., I, me, my; they, them, their; anyone, everything).

Having taught English extensively at both the middle and high school levels (as well as serving as an elementary reading specialist), I will assure you that secondary teachers still “introduce” instruction in these three pronoun usages.

One approach I would recommend is simple sentence diagramming. Learning the functions of the parts of speech in the context of sentence structure by seeing their visual representations and manipulating the word choices and sentence structure makes a lot of sense. Check out “Does Sentence Diagramming Make Sense?” and “How to Teach Sentence Diagramming” to understand the whys and hows of this traditional approach to grammar.

But for those of you thinking that some primary students would not have the fine motor skills to draw traditional sentence diagrams… I would wholeheartedly agree. However, if teachers draw or tape the lines, sentence diagramming makes a whole lot of sense. Use blue tape on tables or on individual whiteboards to draw the sentence diagram.

For example, you could use simple fill in the blank sentence diagrams and pre-printed cards to manipulate on the big whiteboard (for the teacher) and on tables or individual whiteboards for students.  Use blue tape for the horizontal and vertical lines or printed sheets of paper if kids are advanced enough to write out the words with pencil or dry erase markers.

Check out this instructional approach to learning the functions of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and simple adverbs and how these parts of speech serve as sentence subjects, predicates, objects, and modifiers:

Tom eats.

Tom eats cake.

Tom eats yummy cake.

Tom often eats yummy cake.

Tom ate.

Tom ate cake.

Tom ate yummy cake.

Tom often ate yummy cake.

Tom will eat.

Tom will eat cake.

Tom will eat yummy cake.

Tom often will eat yummy cake.

Lots of word-building possibilities with this instructional approach as well:

She sips.

She sips milk.

She sips her milk.

She sips her cold milk.

She loudly sips her cold milk.

He slurps, drinks (sight word), gulps, chugs, tastes.

Boys, Girls, They (sight word), Men, Women (sight word) slurp, drink (sight word), gulp, chug, taste juice, tea, Coke, smoothies, water (sight word).

Boys, Girls, They (sight word), Men, Women (sight word) slurp, drink (sight word), gulp, chug, taste their juice, tea, Coke, smoothies, water (sight word).

Boys, Girls, They (sight word), Men, Women (sight word) slurp, drink (sight word), gulp, chug, taste their tasty, yucky, big, little (sight word), icy juice, tea, Coke, smoothies, water (sight word).

Boys, Girls, They (sight word), Men, Women (sight word) slurp, drink (sight word), gulp, chug, quietly, happily, sadly, slowly, quickly taste their tasty, yucky, big, little (sight word), icy juice, tea, Coke, smoothies, water (sight word).

This instructional approach is also great for sentence building (think “add on an adjective or adverb”), vocabulary development (think “add on a prefix or suffix”), reading (think outlaw words, vowel sounds, r-controlled, and consonant blends, and spelling (think plurals and inflections). Plus, students are learning all of these skills  in the writing context.

*****

Pennington Publishing Grammar Programs

Teaching Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics (Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and High School) are full-year, traditional, grade-level grammar, usage, and mechanics programs with plenty of remedial practice to help students catch up while they keep up with grade-level standards. Twice-per-week, 30-minute, no prep lessons in print or interactive Google slides with a fun secret agent theme. Simple sentence diagrams, mentor texts, video lessons, sentence dictations. Plenty of practice in the writing context. Includes biweekly tests and a final exam.

Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Interactive Notebook (Grades 4‒8) is a full-year, no prep interactive notebook without all the mess. Twice-per-week, 30-minute, no prep grammar, usage, and mechanics lessons, formatted in Cornell Notes with cartoon response, writing application, 3D graphic organizers (easy cut and paste foldables), and great resource links. No need to create a teacher INB for student make-up work—it’s done for you! Plus, get remedial worksheets, biweekly tests, and a final exam.

Syntax in Reading and Writing is a function-based, sentence level syntax program, designed to build reading comprehension and increase writing sophistication. The 18 parts of speech, phrases, and clauses lessons are each leveled from basic (elementary) to advanced (middle and high school) and feature 5 lesson components (10–15 minutes each): 1. Learn It!  2. Identify It!  3. Explain It! (analysis of challenging sentences) 4. Revise It! (kernel sentences, sentence expansion, syntactic manipulation) 5. Create It! (Short writing application with the syntactic focus in different genre).

Get the Diagnostic Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Assessments, Matrix, and Final Exam FREE Resource:

Get the “To Be” Verbs Posters FREE Resource:

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Having recently written and edited two articles for teachers: Teaching Fact and Opinion: When, What, and How and The Difference between Facts and Claims, I thought I’d meld these critical reading skills with the facts of the resurrection narrative and the common counterclaims made against the resurrection in a lesson plan. Just in time for Easter!

Target Audience for this Lesson

Although a religious story, the resurrection narrative is certainly part of our shared cultural literacy. My bias as an educator is that we would certainly do a disservice to our students by failing to teach the theological distinctives and key literary works of the world religions. However, that being said, the lesson may be most appropriate for high school church youth groups, college parachurch organizations, Christian schools, Christian homeschoolers, or adult Sunday School classes. See what you think.

Lesson Plan

Instructional Objectives: Learners will demonstrate the ability to define the key terms: fact and claim and recognize textual examples in narrative text.

Learners will demonstrate the ability to recognize and apply elements of narrative sequencing to re-order text.

Methodology

1. The teacher will define fact and claim and provided supporting examples.
2. The teacher will call upon individual learners to provide their own examples of fact and claim example sentences as guided practice.
3. The teacher will provide guided practice with whole group response to identify fact and claim example sentences.
4. Learners will re-sequence the facts presented in the resurrection story from chapters 15 and 16 of the Gospel According to Mark (NIV). The Gospel According to Mark was chosen from the four gospels because of its brevity and widely-accepted status as the earliest of the four gospel manuscripts. Additionally, the 14 verses perfectly fit our matching assessment as you will see.
5. In a matching assessment learners will apply the lesson to identify the facts and claims from the resurrection narrative embellished with 12 counterclaims. The 12 counterclaims represent common challenges to the traditional interpretation of the resurrection story. Students will write down the capital letters, which represent the facts from the resurrection narrative in proper sequential order.

Direct Instruction

Anticipatory Set Opener

What is the difference between these types of sentences?

• Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April of 1865 by John Wilkes Booth.
• Booth assassinated the President to keep African-American slaves from gaining U.S. citizenship.

Answers: The first sentence is a fact. Lincoln’s assassination is a fact attested to by eyewitnesses and medical experts. Statements were recorded in newspapers and in government documents. The second sentence is a claim since it provides a reason for the assassination. The claim is supported by evidence: John Wilkes Booth attended a speech given by Lincoln in March of 1865 in which Lincoln discussed the subject of citizenship.

Let’s work at developing a precise definition of these terms: fact and claim.

Here’s our first definition.

Fact: Something done or said that meaningfully corresponds to reality.

What is a fact?

• A fact is something that could be verifiable in time and space. Example: The wall was painted blue in 2016. Explanation: The fact would certainly be verifiable if the school office files contained a similar shade of blue paint chip, attached to a dated 2016 receipt for blue paint and a painting contractor’s 2016 dated invoice marked “Paid in Full.”
• A fact is an objective reflection of reality. Example: If a classroom’s walls are blue, then someone must have painted them that color. Explanation: A fact exists independent of our sensory experience.
• A fact must be reasonable. Examples: A leaf floated from the top of the tree to the ground. (fact) Green threes floated down up sky the through. (not a fact) Explanation: The first sentence is reasonable in that it makes sense in terms of our experience, our knowledge of deciduous trees, the law of gravity, and language. The second sentence is not a fact because it has mixed categories of meaning, e.g., “green” and “threes,” “down” and “up” and is syntactically (the order of words) nonsensical, e.g., “sky the through.”

What isn’t a fact?

• A fact is not definition. Examples: It’s a fact that blue is a mix of green and yellow or 2 +2 = 4 and If A = B and B = C, then A = C.” Explanation: Definitions simply state that one thing synonymously shares the same essence or characteristics of another thing. Much of math deals with meaningful definitions, called tautologies, not facts, per se.
• A fact is not opinion. Example: It’s a fact that the wall color is an ugly shade of blue. Explanation: Again, a fact does not state what something is (a definition). A fact does not state a belief. In contrast, an opinion is a belief or inference (interpretation, judgment, conclusion, or generalization).
• A fact is not a scientific theory. Example: The universe began fifteen billion years ago with the “Big Bang.” Explanation: “Facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them.” Stephen Jay Gould
• A fact cannot be wrong.  Example: He got his facts about the blue wall all wrong. Explanation: We really mean that he did not state facts or that he misapplied the use of those facts.
• A fact is not the same as truth.  Example: It’s a fact that the classroom walls are blue. Explanation: This is known as a category error. We can state the fact that the walls were painted blue or the fact that someone said that they are blue, but this is not the same as stating a truth. There is no process of falsification with facts, as there is with truth. For example, we could not say “It’s not a fact that the classroom walls are black.” Similarly, in a criminal court case, if a defendant pleads not-guilty to the charge that he or she murdered someone, the prosecution must falsify this plea and prove the truth of the guilty charge via evidence, such as facts, in order to convict the defendant.
• A fact is not a phenomenological representation of reality. Example: The walls appear blue during the day, but have no color at night. Explanation: Just because the blue color appears to disappear at night due to the absence of light, does not mean that this describes reality. To say that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west describes how things appear from our perspective, not what factually occurs.

Guided Practice: Ask students to share examples of “done” and “stated” facts.

Here’s our second definition.

Claim: An assertion of belief about what is true or what should be.

What is a claim? What is a counterclaim?

• A claim can be a judgment. Example: Undocumented immigrants who maintain clean criminal records should be not be deported from our country. Explanation: A claim can weigh evidence and reach a conclusion based upon that evidence.
• A claim can be an inference. Example: The recent missile tests indicate that the country has developed the means to attack neighboring countries. Explanation: The test results regarding missile capabilities can be logically applied to hypothetical situations.
• A claim can be an interpretation of evidence. Example: The fact the DNA tested on the murder weapon matches the blood type of the defendant means that the defendant could have fired the weapon that killed his wife. Explanation: The interpretation that the physical evidence links to the defendant is a claim. The fact supports the claim.
• A claim can express a point of view. Example: The election of that candidate would be horrible for the country. Explanation: A point of view expresses an arguable position and frequently considers contrasting points of views by stating counterclaims and refutations.
• A claim can be supported by research, expert sources, evidence, reasoning, testimony, and academic reasoning. Example: The new research on cancer cures is promising. Explanation: Specific research and quotations from medical authorities may offer convincing evidence.
• A counterclaim argues against a specific claim. Example: Others contend that the opposite point of view is true. Explanation: Acknowledging the opposing assertion(s) of belief shows an understanding of other points of view.

What isn’t a claim or a counterclaim?

• A claim is not an opinion. Examples: Mr. Sanchez is the best teacher in the school (opinion). Mr. Sanchez’ students perform above the school average on standardized tests (claim). Explanation: The former opinion cannot be proven to be true. The latter claim could be proven to be true with test evidence and data comparisons.
• A claim is not evidence. Example: In the book, Walk Two Moons, Phoebe was self-centered when she demanded the best bed at the sleepover. Explanation: In an argumentative essay claims can be stated in the thesis and/or topic sentences. For the balance of the essay, the writer uses reason or evidence (which may include facts) and analysis to support the claim(s).
• A claim is not description. Example: The sunset’s shades of yellow, red, and orange were quite remarkable. Explanation: Description does not assert a truth as a claim does.

Guided Practice: Ask students to share examples of claims.

Guided Practice Whole Group Response: Is it a Fact or a Claim?

• My mom told me, “We moved to this city in 2002.” FACT
• I learned to read and write as a child. FACT
• Teachers should assign more homework to students. CLAIM
• He said he was not interested in the story. FACT
• Police officers need more training in how to handle high speed chases. CLAIM
• The candidate you support for Congress is less qualified than the one I favor. CLAIM

Individualized Practice and Application

Context (Connecting to Prior Knowledge)

Some 2000 years ago, Jesus was arrested by the Jewish Council and turned over to Roman authorities to carry out the death sentence by crucifixion.

Directions

Read the following mixed-up (out of sequence) story, which includes the 14 facts (verses) from the resurrection narrative as told in Chapters 15 and 16 in The Gospel According to Mark (NIV) and the 12 common counterclaims against the resurrection. Take out a piece of paper and list the capital letters representing the verses which tell the story in proper sequence.

Helpful Hints

Apply the definitions of a fact to keep the verses found in the resurrection story and a claim to delete these sentences from the story. Also pay attention to narrative elements, context clues, syntax (the order of words and sentences), transitions, and punctuation. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to know the basic story…

Note: Click on this PDF document for printing… The Resurrection Narrative Page 1

The Resurrection Narrative: Facts and Claims

(A) Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. (B) Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid. (C) Jesus’ body was stolen to validate his followers’ beliefs. (D) It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, (E) Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. (F) Jesus was resurrected as a spirit, not in bodily form. (G) But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. (H) So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. (I) Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb (J) “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. (K) The empty tomb is a symbol of life conquering death, not a historical reality. (L) Jesus did not actually die, but feinted, and was buried alive. He recovered in the tomb and came out alive−thus creating the illusion of resurrection. (M) The disciples of Jesus were confused and returned to the wrong tomb, which was empty. (N) and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” (O) But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” (P) Mass hallucination, caused by deep grief, caused many to witness the resurrected Jesus. (Q) The gospel writers (and other New Testament writers who comment on the resurrection) are not eye witness testimony, but are based upon oral tradition and composed at least twenty-five years after the resurrection event. (R) When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. (S) As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. (T) When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. (U) The gospel writers embellished details not in the original oral account and added detail to the story over time. (V) The gospel writers included legendary elements to the basic story of Jesus’ death in keeping with the literary conventions and superstitious world view of the time. (W) The gospel writers (and other New Testament writers who comment on the resurrection) and/or later church scribes edited the resurrection story with additions and deletions to harmonize accounts and establish the resurrection as historical fact. (X) The gospel writers (and other New Testament writers who comment on the resurrection) provide contradictory evidence and omit such key elements of the story so as to question the reliability of the historical accounts. (Y) Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. (Z) The editorial comments of the gospel and letter writers apply circular reasoning and beg the question (assuming what has not been proven) to support the resurrection and accompanying religious doctrine recorded in the New Testament.

Note: Click on this PDF document for printing… Answers Page 2

Answers

DEATHBRINGSJOY

The Gospel According to Mark 15 and 16

(D) ⁴² It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, (E) ⁴³ Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. (A) ⁴⁴ Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. (T) ⁴⁵ When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. (H) ⁴⁶ So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. (B) ⁴⁷ Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.

(R) 16 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. (I) ² Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb (N) ³ and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

(G) ⁴ But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. (S) ⁵ As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

(J) ⁶ “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. (O) ⁷ But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

(Y) ⁸ Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

New International Version (NIV) Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® All rights reserved worldwide.

Common Claims vs. the Resurrection

• Jesus’ body was stolen to validate his followers’ beliefs.
• Jesus was resurrected as a spirit, not in bodily form.
• The empty tomb is a symbol of life conquering death, not a historical reality.
• Jesus did not actually die, but feinted, and was buried alive. He recovered in the tomb and came out alive−thus creating the illusion of resurrection.
• The disciples of Jesus were confused and returned to the wrong tomb, which was empty.
• Mass hallucination, caused by deep grief, caused many to witness the resurrected Jesus.
• The gospel writers (and other New Testament writers who comment on the resurrection) are not eye witness testimony, but are based upon oral tradition and composed at least twenty-five years after the resurrection event.
• The gospel writers embellished details not in the original oral account and added detail to the story over time.
• The gospel writers included legendary elements to the basic story of Jesus’ death in keeping with the literary conventions and superstitious world view of the time.
• The gospel writers (and other New Testament writers who comment on the resurrection) and/or later church scribes edited the resurrection story with additions and deletions to harmonize accounts and establish the resurrection as historical fact.
• The gospel writers (and other New Testament writers who comment on the resurrection) provide contradictory evidence and omit such key elements of the story so as to question the reliability of the historical accounts.
• The editorial comments of the gospel and letter writers apply circular reasoning and beg the question (assuming what has not been proven) to support the resurrection and accompanying religious doctrine recorded in the New Testament.
• Attached are the answers, the resurrection narrative from The Gospel According to Mark (NIV), and the common claims against the resurrection.

Debriefing and Closure

Discuss results of the matching test. You may also wish to ask students what evidence (including facts) would be needed to support the claims. For further study you might also have students read the resurrection story in the other three gospels according to Matthew 28:1−10, Luke 24:1−44, and John 20: 1−29 to compare and contrast the accounts.  You may also wish to analyze the nature and quality of the facts from Mark 16:9−20, which the earliest manuscripts do not include. Finally, you might assign research into the claims against the resurrection, their counterclaims, and their refutations.

Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. 

Reading, Writing arguments against the resurrection, claim, claims against the resurrection, counterclaims to the resurrection, evidence that demands a verdict, fact, reading skills, resurrection, sequencing

My district has decided to “speed pilot” two reading intervention programs for our secondary schools: Language!® Live is the re-vamped Language!® program from Voyager Sopris with new contributing author Louisa Cook Moats; and Read 180 Next Generation is the thoroughly revised offering from mega publisher Scholastic/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt with new contributing authors Kevin Feldman and Kate Kinsella. The latter uses the Read 180 Foundational Reading Assessment. At my middle school we have one pilot teacher for each program. Training has been extensive from these two eager publishers because Elk Grove Unified is the third largest district in California and a district-wide adoption would be quite a plum for either of the two companies.

So I’ve been able to check out these two programs to compare to my own. A bold move given that my cost per class of 25 students is about $20 per student, whereas the cost per class for each of the two comparative programs is closer to that of a well-equipped Lexus. I started my comparisons with the screening and placement assessments in Read 180. Of course, as a publisher (check out my program advert to the right of the article, you would expect bias. See what you think.)

Our school has always struggled with screening and placement for our “support” classes. As a large middle school with about 1100 students, we have five “feeder” elementary schools and lots of transfer students. Program scheduling is a nightmare. We have used a variety of assessments, teacher recommendations, and decision-making tools to place students with mixed results. Since teachers have done “their own thing” in the “support” classes for years, the “curriculum” and instruction has only haphazardly matched the student needs indicated by the placement tools. Since the placement criteria has been a “moving target,” misplacement of students has been an ongoing concern. Our principal makes all transfer decisions and, fair to say, these are rare. Once students are placed in a “support” class, they remain all year. So if the district adoption of either the Read 180 or Language Live! program would mean that screening and placement assessments and exit criteria would be honored at our school, we might be moving onto the right track. Or will we? This article will focus on the Read 180 Next Generation Foundational Reading Assessment.

Read 180 Foundational Reading Assessment

As described in a companion article, READ 180 and Phonemic Awareness, the first part of the Foundational Reading Assessment (designed by Dr. Richard K. Wagner as a K-2 test and published as such for another program) consists of a short random sample 12 rhymes, initial, final, and medial sounds (3 each). I can hear kindergarten teachers cringing at the sample size and components. The take-away from my article is that the test assesses only part of what constitutes phonological or phonemic awareness and is not teachable because it is not comprehensive.

The next component of the assessment is the Letter-Word Identification Strand, which includes 10 items designed to measure students’ knowledge of uppercase and lowercase letter names and 20 items designed to measure students’ sight word knowledge. The last component, the Word Attack Strand, includes “40 total items, specifically 10 items designed to measure students’ ability to identify letter sounds and 30 nonword items designed to measure students’ decoding skills” (SRI College and Career Technical Guide).

Sight Words

“A total of 20 sight word items were developed using the 100 most frequent words from Fry’s (2000) 1000 Instant Words. The distractor items were other high-frequency sight words or common decodable words.”

Criticism

Sight words are, by definition exceptions to the rules. Random sampling presupposes that the components are representative of the whole. How can there be external validity when the sample does not match the group? It’s a bit like tasting 6 of the 31 (the same percentage) ice cream flavors at Baskin Robbins and claiming that students either like or don’t like all ice cream based upon the results. Missing 20 out of 20 sight words indicates that the student does not know those 20 sight words. It does not mean that the student does not know the remaining 80. My Teaching Reading Strategies program assesses and provides instruction to remediate all 100 of the most frequently used sight words. That makes more sense.

Why have sight words as part of a screening and placement test in the first place. Knowledge of sight words is not a reliable indicator of reading difficulties. And why 20 test items when there are only 30 phonics sound-spellings (a much more reliable indicator). The ratio is completely out of whack. Plus, as any remedial reading teacher will tell you, the easiest reading remediation is memorizing those 100 words.

Phonics

“A total of 30 nonword items were developed, representing the full range of commonly taught phonics skills. All targets and distractors were nonwords or obscure English words that are unlikely to be known. In addition, all targets and distractors follow conventions of English spelling, and care was taken to avoid Spanish words, slang, and nonwords that sounded like real words.”

Criticism

While my Teaching Reading Strategies program includes the same sound-spellings as the 30 nonword items, my program includes 52 vowel sound-spellings and 50 consonant sound-spellings in the nonword format. Phonics tests are necessary as screening and placement assessments for reading intervention, but why not test everything that needs to be taught with corresponding activities and worksheets? The tests take only 12 minutes to give and can be graded on Scantrons® or Grade Cam®. Audio files are provided with the program. Why not check out these assessments yourself?

Finally, the little known fact about the READ 180 Next Generation program is that students who fail the Foundational Reading Assessment will need to be assessed and placed in another program: SYSTEM 44 Next Generation. This program is a separate program and is extremely expensive. The publishers claim that READ 180 and SYSTEM 44 can be taught concurrently in the same classroom, but none of our pilot teachers throughout our district is doing so. Fair to note that the Language!® Live program and Teaching Reading Strategies each provide the instructional resources to teach the full range of student pre-reading and reading needs within the same program.

*****

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic ELA and Reading Assessments FREE Resource:

Reading Mark Pennington, phonics, Read 180, reading assessment, reading instruction, reading intervention, reading programs, remedial reading, RTI, Teaching Reading Strategies

My district has decided to “speed pilot” two reading intervention programs for our middle schools and high schools: READ 180 Next Generation from Scholastic Houghton Mifflin Harcourt with new authors Kevin Feldman and Kate Kinsella and Language!® Live from Voyager Sopris with contributing author Louisa Cook Moats. I teach at a large middle school and we have one pilot teacher for each program. Training has been quite thorough, especially from the well-funded READ 180 reps.

Although I am the only reading specialist on staff, I decided not to pilot either of the two programs. However, I do have a vested interest in getting to know both READ 180 and Language!® DISCLAIMER: I am the author and publisher of my own assessment-based reading intervention program: The Science of Reading Intervention Program.

I do use my own program with a seventh grade support class, so I can compare programs and results with those of the students in the READ 180 and Language!® at the same school with the same placement criteria. I’ll not pretend to have created an experimental design to determine if there are statistically significant differences between my program and the others. Of course I am biased, but I can present a few observations and allow teachers to draw their own conclusions.

I decided to start my comparisons with the screening and placement assessments for each program. As a reading specialist, I’m always concerned about using assessments to deny or provide services. Plus, as a matter of equity I’m very invested in the placement process: I hate to see a child overlooked who needs to learn to read but I’m equally distraught to see a student misplaced into a program who does not need to be there.

I decided to start my analysis with the READ 180 program. Specifically, in this article I’m taking a look at the phonological awareness component from one of the two assessments in the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI): The Foundational Reading Assessment. The second assessment is the Reading Comprehension Assessment. In my first article on these two reading intervention programs, I noted my concern that no encoding (spelling) test was included as part of the screening and placement assessments for READ 180. Jane Fell Greene’s encoding test has always been part of the competing Language!® program.

I emailed Dr. Richard K. Wagner, author of the READ 180 assessment (originally developed as the iRead Screener for another program). I asked him “If you were to add a print component that would ameliorate some of the limitations of the computer-based format, what would that include? I was hoping that you would have added an encoding test and a timed fluency assessment at the students’ Lexile levels.

Rick kindly responded: “What you say makes sense.”

Now onto the specifics of what is actually on the READ 180 Foundational Reading Assessment. This computer-based assessment includes a total of 82 possible items, divided into three strands: Phonological Awareness, Letter-Word Identification, and Word Attack.

Let’s look at the first two of the three strands. In my next article I’ll tackle the word attack component. The Phonological Awareness Strand has 12 total items. First, let’s look at two definitions to get us on the same page:

Phonological awareness refers to a general recognition of speech sounds. “When that insight includes an understanding that words can he divided into a sequence of phonemes, this finer-grained sensitivity is termed phonemic awareness” (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998, p. 51).

Phonemic awareness is the recognition that words are made up of speech sounds (phonemes) and that these phonemes can be segmented (pulled apart), blended (put together), or substituted, added, or subtracted from one word to the next to create new words. It also refers to the understanding that the phonemes combine to form distinct syllables and words.

It doesn’t take a reading specialist to understand that phonological awareness precedes phonemic awareness. However, what teachers need to know to properly screen and place students is student mastery of the basic phonemic awareness skills. This data we do not get from the Foundational Reading Assessment. If teachers have to assess for proper placement (we do), why not kill two birds with one stone and assess to inform instruction as well?

Three of the test items in the phonological awareness assessment measure students’ rhyme identification skills. Students see an image and hear a word read aloud. They then see three more images and hear three more words. One of the words matches the beginning, middle, or end sound of the first word, or rhymes with the word. The test design certainly makes sense, but why only three rhymes? Rhyming is a critical component of phonemic awareness and is one of the earliest developmental stages of pre-reading. Rhyming is usually taught at home, in nursery school, and in kindergarten.

If I were designing the assessment, I would include 10 rhymes: one for each of the five short and five long vowel sounds. That would be an assessment that would properly screen, help place, and ultimately provide useful data for the teacher to teach to… in other words, assessment-based instruction. Yes, that is the format for my Rhyming Assessment in my program. The test is a simple five-minute whole class audio assessment.

The balance of the Phonological Awareness Strand test includes students’ abilities to identify initial, final, and medial sounds (only three test items for each). These elements of phonemic isolation are important pre-reading skills, and teachers need to know exactly what their students do and do not know for both program placement and for instruction. My phonemic isolation assessment has 10 teachable components on the five-minute whole class audio assessment.

And, most importantly, why isn’t phonemic segmentation, phonemic blending, and syllable awareness part of the assessment? These kindergarten−first grade pre-reading skills are essential skills to assess. And, no, READ 180 does not include separate diagnostic assessments for these elements of phonemic awareness. My does. Each of these three assessments has the usual five-minute whole class audio assessment.

The second component of the Foundational Reading Assessment tests letter name and letter sound knowledge items. The test uses a sample of 5 items assessing lowercase letter name knowledge and 5 assessing uppercase. Last I checked, there are 26 letters in our alphabet. Additionally, 10 letter sound items are included.

Interestingly, the publishers have taken the step to test the validity of their assessments to those of the University of Oregon’s Dibels Next assessments; however, Dibels Next assesses all 26 upper case and lower case letters. Knowing which letters students know and don’t know allows the teacher to teach to those deficits. Again, the READ 180 program does not provide assessment-based instruction with its screening assessments. Sampling has its drawbacks; teachers need teachable data.

The little known fact about the READ 180 program is that students who fail the Foundational Reading Assessment will need to be assessed and placed in another program: SYSTEM 44. This program is a separate program and is extremely expensive. The publishers claim that READ 180 and SYSTEM 44 can be taught concurrently in the same classroom, but none of our pilot teachers throughout our district is doing so. Fair to note that the Language!® Live program and my program each provide the instructional resources to teach the full range of student pre-reading and reading needs within the same program.

READ 180 and Language!® use adaptive computer technology to teach individual student deficits. Technology is wonderful; however, there are limitations. Most teachers I know prefer to control what needs to be taught, when it needs to be taught, and how it needs to be taught—not trust the machine and a canned reading program to “fix ‘em.” This is especially important in teaching phonemic awareness. Since phonemic awareness is an auditory, not a visual skill set, the face to face teacher to student instruction is essential.

*****

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic ELA and Reading Assessments FREE Resource:

Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary Language Live reviews, Language!, Mark Pennington, phonemic awareness, Read 180, Read 180 reviews, System 44, Teaching Reading Strategies

As money has finally started to creep back into education, districts are now turning their attention and dollars into purchasing reading intervention programs. My district has decided to “speed pilot” two reading intervention programs for our secondary schools: Language!® Live is the re-vamped Language!® program from Voyager Sopris with new contributing author Louisa Cook Moats; and READ 180 Next Generation is the thoroughly revised offering from mega publisher Scholastic/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt with new contributing authors Kevin Feldman and Kate Kinsella. At my middle school we have one pilot teacher for each program. Training has been extensive from these two eager publishers because our district, Elk Grove Unified, is the third largest district in California and a district-wide adoption would be quite a plum for either of the two companies.

I am not one of the pilot teachers; however, I am curious. So now my DISCLAIMER: I sell my own reading intervention program: The Science of Reading Intervention Program. I developed the program in three instructional settings: grades 4−6 as a district elementary specialist; middle school as a “support” teacher; and high school as a co-teacher of a remedial reading class with a special education teacher.

As my colleagues have been piloting, I’ve been able to log-in as a student and check out these two programs to compare to my own. A bold move given that my cost per class of 25 students is about $15 per student, whereas the cost per class for each of the two comparative programs is closer to that of a well-equipped Lexus. But, you get what you pay for… right? Well, you do get a lot of bells and whistles.

I’ll begin with the screening and placement assessments for the programs. First I’ll start with the READ 180 program. This article will begin to tackle just one of the two assessments in the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI): The Foundational Reading Assessment. The other assessment is the Reading Comprehension Assessment. As a reading specialist, I always gravitate to phonemic awareness, decoding, and encoding materials, so I’ll start there.

My first ah, ha was the lack of a spelling test as part of the screening and placement assessments. The Language!® program has one; my program has one. What gives?

I will say from my own 25+ years of teaching remedial reading that a student’s ability to encode (spell) certainly has helped me properly place students in instructional programs to target their individual needs. I would go as far as saying that a spelling test (Jane Fell Greene’s encoding test, the Qualitative Spelling Inventory developed by Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, and Johnson (2000), or my own comprehensive Diagnostic Spelling Assessment) provides essential information for program placement.

I did a little digging to see if a spelling assessment was part of the READ 180 companion program for beginning readers: SYSTEM 44. Nope. The Scholastic Phonics Inventory® has letter name recognition, sight word recognition, and nonword decoding, but there is no accompanying spelling test.

I decided to email the assessment author, Dr. Richard K. Wagner, and Rick kindly replied twice to my questions. Not to put words into his mouth, but I seemed to get support for my view that using spelling as a screening assessment makes sense.

Now READ 180 does provide individualized assessment and spelling instruction as part of its program, but not as part of its screening and placement. I will give my take (Spoiler Alert: It’s not the best Yelp review) on this spelling “instruction” in a related article.

But why use screening and placement assessments solely to determine whether students qualify for some form of tiered reading intervention? In other words why waste time giving separate placement and diagnostic assessments? Why give a test that provides nothing to teach to?

*****

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic ELA and Reading Assessments FREE Resource:

Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary anguage Live reviews, Language Live, Mark Pennington, Read 180, Read 180 reviews, Teaching Reading Strategies

English-Language Arts and Reading Intervention Articles and Resources 

Bookmark and check back often for new articles and free ELA/reading resources from Pennington Publishing.

• Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics
• Vocabulary and Morphology
• English-language Arts Standards
• English-language Arts Instruction
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• Spelling
• Structural Analysis/Syllabication/Oral Language
• ELA/Reading Assessments
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• Assessment-based Individualized Instruction/Differentiated Instruction
• Critical Thinking
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• Test Preparation
• Developmental Characteristics
• Professional Development
• Close Reading
• Reading Comprehension

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Pennington Publishing’s mission is to provide the finest in assessment-based ELA and reading intervention resources for grades 4‒high school teachers. Check out curriculum written by teachers for teachers and their students at Pennington Publishing. Enter discount code 3716 to save 10% off any programs.

Also, make sure to check out Pennington Publishing’s FREE ELA and reading assessments to help you pinpoint grammar, usage, mechanics, spelling, and reading deficits. Of course, these assessments are tailored to my assessment-based instructional resources, but they will work with any resources you already use to improve learning.

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Every ELA and reading intervention teacher is interested in improving the vocabulary of their students. Most teach Greek and Latin prefixes, roots, and suffixes (Common Core Standards). But which ones should we teach. Check out this FREE resource including updated research on high frequency Greek and Latin word parts and a clever instructional resource: 25 Greek and Latin Power Words. These 25 words combine the 60 high frequency Greek and Latin prefixes, roots, and suffixes. Once you download a few of my FREE resources or use one of my FREE assessments and see their value for your students, my take is that you will be more interested in purchasing my program resources.

Get the 25 Greek and Latin Power Words FREE Resource:

Grammar/Mechanics, Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills, Writing ELA resources, free ELA lessons, free reading lessons, grammar, mechanics, pennington publishing, reading intervention, spelling, usage, vocabulary Mark Pennington

Download these FREE Diagnostic Reading and ELA Assessments, designed for students ages 8 and older.

Teachers need diagnostic assessments to determine what students know and what they do not know.  Following are FREE comprehensive reading and English-language arts assessments to provide the data teachers need to target instruction. The assessments feature comprehensive, easy-administration audio files, self-correcting Google forms (or print), and progress-monitoring matrices. Optional programs provide worksheets and instructional activities, corresponding to each assessment item. Or use your own resources.

FREE Diagnostic Reading and ELA Assessments (Click links to download and print.)

Phonics Assessments

The phonics assessments feature nonsense words and test all common sound-spellings.

FREE Vowel Sounds Phonics Assessment

Print, Google Forms, Google Sheets and 10:42 Audio File

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FREE Consonant Sounds Phonics Assessment

Print, Google Forms, Google Sheets and 12:07 Audio File

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Fluency Assessment

The fluency assessment is designed in a tiered reading level format, beginning at the first grade level and proceeding to the seventh grade level. This assessment is individually administered and is timed for two minutes.

FREE Multi-level Pets Fluency Assessment

Print

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Diagnostic Spelling Assessments

Most common spelling patterns are included in this assessment. Administer part or all of the Diagnostic Spelling Assessment (American English Version) test items, according to grade-level criteria.

• Grade 3: (#s 1‒64)
• Grade 4:  (#s 1‒79)
• Grade 5: (#s 1‒89)
• Grade 6: (#s 1‒98)
• Grade 7: (#s 1‒98)
• Grade 8: (#s 1‒102)

Most common spelling patterns are included in this assessment. Administer part or all of the Diagnostic Spelling Assessment (Canadian English Version) test items, according to grade-level criteria

• Grade 3: (#s 1‒64)
• Grade 4:  (#s 1‒79)
• Grade 5: (#s 1‒89)
• Grade 6: (#s 1‒98)
• Grade 7: (#s 1‒98)
• Grade 8: (#s 1‒106)

FREE Multi-level Diagnostic American English Spelling Assessment: Print Assessment with “Normal speed” 22:38 and “Quick version 17:26 audio file links. Recording Matrix for Progress Monitoring

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FREE Multi-level Diagnostic Canadian English Spelling Assessment: Print Assessment with “Normal speed” 18:53 and “Quick version 21:12 audio file links, recorded by a Canadian teacher. Recording Matrix for Progress Monitoring

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Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Assessments

Use this 45 item grammar and usage assessment to determine student’s knowledge of parts of speech, subjects and predicates, types of sentences, fragments and run-ons, pronoun usage, modifiers, verb tenses and verb forms.

FREE Grammar and Usage Assessment

Use this 32 item mechanics assessment to test students’ ability to apply correct usage of commas, capitalization, and all other essential punctuation.

Print and Google Forms

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FREE Mechanics Assessment (Punctuation, Capitalization, Quotations)

As an option, the grammar, usage, and mechanics assessments are combined as a Google form.

Print and Google Forms

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FREE Diagnostic Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Assessment 

Print and Google Forms

Vocabulary Assessments

The Tier 2 academic language vocabulary has been derived from the research-based Academic Word List (AWL).  The Academic Word List (Coxhead) has been ordered into grade level lists by frequency. Each grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 Academic Language Assessment includes 56 Tier 2 words. The Tier 2 words are the academic language words that are most-often generalizable across the academic domains. For example, the word analyze is used in English-language arts, social science, history, science, math, and the arts.

FREE Multi-level Diagnostic Academic Language Assessments Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 

Google Forms

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Data Recording Matrices for Progress-Monitoring

FREE Diagnostic Assessment Matrices for Progress-Monitoring

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FREE Executive Function and Study Skills Self-Assessment and Mastery Matrix

This 56-item assessment includes questions on motivation, spelling, grammar, mechanics, essay writing, memorization strategies, test-preparation and test-taking skills, reading strategies and skills, time management, active listening, organization, best research practices, and note-taking. Each item is keyed to specific lessons in the author’s Essential Study Skills and Targeted Independent Practice: Executive Function and Study Skills programs.

FREE Literacy Knowledge Self-Assessment and Mastery Matrix

This 85-word assessment includes questions on 20 narrative/sensory descriptive genres, language structures, literary elements, literary and poetic devices. Includes a mastery matrix. Each item is keyed to specific lessons in the author’s Targeted Independent Practice: Literacy Knowledge program.

Phonemic Awareness Assessments

Use these five phonemic awareness to determine reading readiness. Each of the 5 assessments is administered whole class and includes audio files.

FREE Syllable Awareness Assessment

Print and 5:48 Audio File

FREE Syllable Rhyming Assessment

Print and 5:38 Audio File

FREE Phonemic Isolation Assessment

Print and 5:54 Audio File

FREE Phonemic Blending Assessment

Print and 5:53 Audio File

FREE Phonemic Segmenting Assessment

Print and 5:21 Audio File

FREE Alphabetic Awareness Assessments

Print and Alphabet Cards

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Heart Words Assessment

This 108-word assessment tests student knowledge of high frequency words with an irregular sound-spelling (the part to learn by heart). As an option, teachers may require students to identify the irregular sound spellings by drawing hearts.

FREE Heart Words Assessment

Print

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ARE THESE DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENTS RESEARCH-BASED? These are teacher/reading specialist-created comprehensive diagnostics. None are normed. You won’t find them on What Works… As you probably know, comprehensive diagnostics need not meet research-based criteria for external validity since there is no sampling. However, each assessment is evidence-based and has internal validity/reliability. Read on!

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