Pennington Publishing Blog

Sam and Friends Guided Reading Phonics Books

As an MA reading specialist and English-language Arts teacher, I know the value of independent reading. Despite our wonderful instruction in Greek and Latinates, context clues, and vocabulary in literature, students make their greatest vocabulary gains through independent reading at their instructional levels. Not to mention gains in reading comprehension. Teachers are understandably reluctant to allocate much class time to independent reading. Teachers are also unconvinced that their students really will read independently for homework.

However, learning how to teach students to select readings at their instructional level and providing accountability within the home and class community can improve students’ success rates and achieve our goals of turning teacher-dependent readers into truly independent readers. We might just even create a few life-long readers in the process.

Certainly we can go too far in pinpointing what students can and cannot read. The straight jacket approach of the AR program comes to mind. As C.S. Lewis once said… the neat sorting-out of books into age ranges, so dear to publishers, has only a very sketchy relation with the habits of any real readers. Those of us who are blamed when old for reading childish books were blamed when children for reading books too old for us. No reader worth his salt trots along in obedience to a time-table (1952 essay On three ways of writing for children, collected in Of Other Worlds Harvest Books 2002).

Even so, students can learn to self-guide their own reading selections. Following are articles, free resources (including reading assessments), and teaching tips regarding how to develop an effective independent reading program from the Pennington Publishing Blog. Also, check out the quality instructional programs and resources offered by Pennington Publishing.

Independent Reading

Why Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) Doesn’t Work

https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/why-sustained-silent-reading-ssr-doesn%E2%80%99t-work/

O.K. So my title is a good hook. I’m an ELA teacher, so you’d expect no less. However, I’m also an MA reading specialist, so you’d expect me to be passionate about getting students to read and read well. I do believe that independent reading is vital to reading improvement. So why am I writing an article titled Why Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) Doesn’t Work? SSR just is not an effective use of class time. Why so? Here are 8 reasons Why Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) Doesn’t Work.

Straight Talk with Stephen Krashen on SSR

https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/straight-talk-with-stephen-krashen-on-ssr/

In response to my article titled “Why Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) Doesn’t Work,”Dr. Stephen Krashen responded numerous times. Given the richness of Dr. Krashen’s gracious responses to my persistent challenges and questions, I felt it would be helpful to post the unedited exchange.

Independent Reading Homework

https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/independent-reading-homework/

I developed an independent reading program based upon “reading discussions.” Students read at home and lead a literary discussion with their parent for three-minutes per day, four days per week to offer flexibility to families. I devolved the accountability for these assignments to the student-parent partnership. In other words, parents grade their children on the quality of the discussion and I count the points.

How to Select Books for Independent Reading

https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/how-to-select-books-for-independent-reading/

Teachers, students, and parents recognize the importance of independent reading. No thinking activity better builds content knowledge, improves vocabulary, or exposes the learner to the world and its ideas. The practical question is which reading materials most efficiently help readers access this world of knowledge? Because reading is an interactive process, the abilities and interests of the readers must also be considered to maximize the learning process.

Level Books with Word Recognition

https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/level-books-with-word-recognition/

Put aside the Lexiles, the DRA, F&P/GRL, and ATOS levels and let go of the Lucy Calkins and guided reading assessment-re-tells. Use word recognition. The five and ten-finger methods for book selection are quick, accurate, and easy to apply. Also get a wonderful FREE resources to boost your students’ reading comprehension.

The 18 Reasons Not to Use Accelerated Reader

https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/the-18-reasons-not-to-use-accelerated-reader/

Accelerated Reader (AR) is a simple software concept that was at the right time (late 1980s) and right place (public schools during a transition from whole language to phonics instruction) that has simply grown into an educational monolith. Following are short summaries of the most common arguments made by researchers, teachers, parents, and students as to why using AR is counterproductive. Hence, The 20 Reasons Not to Use Accelerated Reader.

Schoolwide Independent Reading Program

https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/schoolwide-independent-reading-program/

I take a balanced approach and recommend such in the development of a schoolwide Independent Reading Program (IRP). On the one hand, we want our students to become lifelong readers. We want them to intrinsically enjoy reading and choose to read on their own. However, I do see the value in some marketing and promotion of a schoolwide Independent Reading Program (IRP). Students work well when pursuing goals and everyone likes rewards. No, I’m certainly not advocating the AR program: See my The 18 Reasons Not to Use Accelerated Reader article.

High Fluency Low Reading Comprehension

https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/high-fluency-low-reading-comprehension/

What can we, as parents and teachers, do for children with high fluency, but low reading comprehension? Check out the six actions steps designed to address this problem and download the helpful instructional strategies and free resources.

Independent Reading: The Meeting of the Minds

https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/independent-reading-the-meeting-of-the-minds/

Using the format of  the old television show, Meeting of Minds, some of the greatest thinkers from different eras to discuss the subject of independent reading in the classroom.

How to Determine Reading Levels

https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/how-to-determine-reading-levels/

Learn how to use word recognition and motivation to determine reading levels for your students or for your own children.

How to Get Students to Read at Home

https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/how-to-get-students-to-read-at-home/

Teachers and parents recognize the important role of independent reading in developing reading comprehension, vocabulary, and a lifelong love of books. Learn how to promote independent reading at home and help students achieve these desired benchmarks.

Free Whole Class Diagnostic ELA/Reading Assessments

https://penningtonpublishing.com/

Download free phonemic awareness, vowel sound phonics, consonant sound phonics, sight word, rimes, sight syllables, fluency, grammar, mechanics, and spelling assessments. All with answers and recording matrices. A true gold mine for the teacher committed to differentiated instruction!

More Articles, Free Resources, and Teaching Tips from the Pennington Publishing Blog

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.

• Free Teaching Reading Resources
• Grammar and Mechanics
• Vocabulary
• English-language Arts Standards
• English-language Arts Instruction
• Essay Resources and Lessons
• The Writing Process/Writers Workshop
• Writing Style
• Spelling
• Structural Analysis/Syllabication/Oral Language
• ELA/Reading Assessments
• Independent Reading
• Reading Intervention (RtI Resources)
• EL/ESL/ELD
• Assessment-based Individualized Instruction/Differentiated Instruction
• Critical Thinking
• Study Skills
• Test Preparation
• Developmental Characteristics
• Professional Development
• Literacy Centers
• Close Reading
• Reading Comprehension

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The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted, sounds to print instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every grades 4-adult 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, speech articulation songs, sounds to print games, and morphology walls. 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.

Click the SCIENCE OF READING INTERVENTION PROGRAM RESOURCES for detailed program description, sample lessons, and video overviews. Click the links to get these ready-to-use resources, developed by a teacher (Mark Pennington, MA reading specialist) for teachers and their students.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Cues FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic ELA and Reading Assessments FREE Resource:

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Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills accelerated reader, AR, book reports, Book Whisperer, DEAR, independent reading, independent reading level, instructional reading level, Jim Trelease, Kelly Gallagher, Mark Pennington, reading comprehension, reading grade level, reading homework, reading incentives, reading journals, reading logs, reading practice, reading programs, reading strategies, reading worksheets, SSR, sustained silent reading, Teaching Reading Strategies

Don’t Use Round Robin Reading

Every day in thousands of classrooms, students are called upon to  read out loud. Some teachers use round robin reading, in which every student takes a turn reading a section. Other teachers use popcorn reading, in which students call upon each other to read. For many teachers, these strategies are the primary means of working through a reading text with students.

Teachers who use round robin or popcorn reading stress the importance of reading out loud. They frequently bolster their support of these instructional practices with these claims:

1. Reading out loud builds comprehension because listening comprehension is generally at a higher level than silent reading comprehension.
2. Reading out loud is important fluency and decoding practice.
3. Reading out loud also helps the teacher formatively assess student pronunciation, attention to punctuation, projection, modulation, and inflection.
4. Reading out loud holds students accountable for reading along with the class, unlike silent reading.
   

   Don’t Use Popcorn Reading

5. Reading out loud is a necessary social skill. Students need to be prepared for public speaking. Adults will be called upon to read in front of audiences in meetings, business, church, etc.
6. Reading out loud can be used to address Common Core Speaking and Listening Standards.
7. Student love to read out loud and much prefer reading a story out loud together as a class than reading the story silently and independently.
8. Reading out loud is as American as apple pie. Your teachers did it and look how well you turned out!

But, upon closer analysis, round robin and popcorn reading are not effective means of reading instruction. Instead, having students read out loud with these strategies can actually be counterproductive.

First of all, let’s establish a few caveats regarding reading out loud:

• For beginning readers, reading out loud an listening to reading are essential reading practices. This article nicely summarizes the importance of read alouds for early readers.
• In guided reading settings, student reading out loud is necessary for the teacher to complete running records and inform instruction.
• When allotted practice time and assistance, reading out loud in class plays, readers theater, etc. can be positive learning experiences.
• My criticisms regarding round robin and popcorn reading refer to individual, not choral reading. Choral reading certainly has its place in reading instruction.
• Individual read alouds in whole class fluency practice can certainly be helpful. The late Dr. John Shefelbine, a mentor of mine at the California State University, Sacramento, advocated non-choral, individual reading out loud as a guided reading group or even as a whole class. In this approach, students read in “six-inch” voices at their own reading paces as the teacher walks the table or room, listening in and completing 30 second fluency timings.
• Reading one’s own writing out loud is useful. “Reading aloud helps you cultivate your internal listening skills, which in turn assists you in discovering your unique writing voice.” Reading one’s own writing out loud “sharpens your ear so that you are able to detect authentic dialogue and flowing narrative” and “is the best barometer to tell if your writing is active, flows, has good movement and is working. If you stumble over your own words, you can trust that something needs to be edited or changed” (Shakthawatt). Hearing one’s own words will inform the writer about sentence variety, punctuation, and word choice.
• In sum, reading out loud is essential in some instructional contexts, but not in round robin or popcorn style practice.

However, the following criticisms of round robin reading and popcorn reading apply to all age levels and levels of reading. Plus, teachers have such effective alternatives:

1. Reading out loud builds comprehension because listening comprehension is generally at a higher level than silent reading comprehension. This is certainly true; however, the level of reading comprehension significantly increases when listening to good reading, not poor reading. You, the teacher, are the best reader in the class. Teachers, audio files or CDs, and videos provide much better modeled reading than jumping from one student to the next, interrupting the flow of the reading. Reading comprehension depends upon the connection of ideas. Imagine watching a twenty-two minute episode of your favorite sitcom with thirty different five-second commercials interrupting the show. Comprehension would obviously decrease. Plus, you probably remember from your own student experience with round robin reading that students tend to skip ahead to silently practice their reading section, rather than listening to the student currently reading. 
2. Reading out loud is important fluency and decoding practice. Except as noted above in my caveats, round robin and popcorn reading provide minimal fluency and decoding practice. With either method, in a class of 30 students each student will only receive 30 seconds of individual practice in a 15-minute reading. Plus, for fluent readers the non-fluent readers may reinforce poor reading habits, such as inattention to punctuation; for non-fluent readers, the fluent readers read at rates which the struggling readers cannot match. Furthermore, any decoding practice is certainly adhoc and text-dependent. Students need multiple examples, not isolated corrections, to improve decoding. Plus, what may be one child’s decoding need, is not necessarily that of others in the class. So much better to diagnostically assess the individual phonics strengths and deficits and teach to the results of the assessment in small group and individualized instruction with phonics workshops and with decodable readers, such as my Sam and Friends Guided Reading Phonics Books. See below for FREE diagnostic assessments.
3. Reading out loud also helps the teacher formatively assess student pronunciation, attention to punctuation, projection, modulation, and inflection. Given, but how inefficient! For example, in my Teaching Reading Strategies reading intervention program, students practice reading out loud along with YouTube modeled readings at their individual challenge levels. Teachers can easily formatively assess and teach these reading skills as they walk the room.
4. Reading out loud holds students accountable for reading along with the class, unlike silent reading. As previously mentioned with respect to round robin reading, students tend to be more concerned with their own reading, rather than that of other students. Admittedly, popcorn reading does tend to force most students to monitor where students are reading (except for Johnny who always loses his place), but knowing where another student is reading is certainly not necessarily reading for meaning.
5. Reading out loud is a necessary social skill. Students need to be prepared for public speaking. Adults will be called upon to read in front of audiences in meetings, business, church, etc. While I think this is over-stated, I will re-iterate that learning to read out loud well is important, but not necessarily for the purpose of public speaking.
6. Reading out loud can be used to address Common Core Speaking and Listening Standards. This is only incidentally true; read the Standards carefully and the explicit examples provided as to how to address them.
7. Student love to read out loud and much prefer reading a story out loud together as a class than reading the story silently and independently. Some students do ask for round robin or popcorn reading; some because they enjoy the individual attention of reading out loud; others because (except for their individual turn) round robin or popcorn are passive instructional practices, requiring minimal student effort and accountability. Ask any group of students whether they want to be called on to read in front of their peers. I do so on the first day of school each year. A few students (usually the fluent readers) raise their hand to signal “Yes”; the vast majority do not want to read publicly. For some, reading out loud is the single most-feared classroom activity. Poor readers lose self-esteem when required to read out loud. Peers can be heartless and cruel. Too often, teachers use round robin or popcorn reading to “catch” students who are inattentive, which further disrupts fluency and comprehension and only serves to humiliate students. My take is that round robin and popcorn reading actually traumatize some students and adversely affect their desire to read in school and thereafter. 
8. Reading out loud is as American as apple pie. Your teachers did it and look how well you turned out! Yes, round robin and popcorn reading are long-established instructional practices, but so was making a child stand in a corner while wearing a dunce cap. We know better now. Yes, many of your colleagues still employ round robin and popcorn reading. Some of them were taught to do so in reading methods classes as part of their teaching credential programs. To be honest, many of you who are reading this article have not considered alternative instructional strategies. That’s okay, but it’s time to do so. Re-read some of the alternative strategies I suggested above and explore more. Believe me, round robin and popcorn reading are not the only ways to get through and teach a story.

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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.

SCIENCE OF READING INTERVENTION PROGRAM RESOURCES HERE for detailed product description and sample lessons.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic ELA and Reading Assessments FREE Resource:

Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills fluency strategies, guided reading, Jim Trelease, Mark Pennington, popcorn reading, read alouds, reading comprehension, reading fluency, reading out loud, reading strategies, round robin reading, shared reading, Teaching Reading Strategies