Pennington Publishing Blog

SCRIP Comprehension Cues

Good reading habits can be developed by using specific cueing strategies. These cueing strategies assign readers a set of tasks to perform while reading to maintain interactive dialogue with the text. Students can interpret to increase comprehension.

The author of this article, Mark Pennington, has developed five comprehension cues, using the SCRIP acronym, which work equally well with expository and narrative text. The SCRIP acronym stands for Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict.

Both good and struggling readers can practice these cueing strategies to improve comprehension. Despite what many believe, reading is not a natural process; it needs to be taught, and not just caught. Teaching students to question the text they read by prompting themselves with the SCRIP strategies will help them understand and better remember what they read.

Teaching students to carry on an internal dialog while they read is critically important. Comprehension cues prompt the reader to talk to the text and the author. Check out how to get developing readers to carry on this conversation here.

Interpret to Increase Comprehension

The fourth cueing strategy in the SCRIP comprehension cues is Interpret. Interpret means to determine what an author means in a section of narrative or expository reading text. The meaning may be implied, not stated.

Reading researchers have generally described two skills of interpretation or inference: Cromley and Azevedo (2007) discuss text-to-text and background-to-text interpretations. Others label the two reading skills as coherence or text-connecting and elaborative or gap-filling.

Text-to-Text

The meaning may necessitate synthesizing two or more reading sections to arrive at what the author means. Or the meaning may be derived from breaking up what the author says and examining each part independently as in analysis.

Background-to-Text

The meaning may necessitate filling in the gaps between what the author says and what the author expects that the reader already knows. Correct interpretation can depend on the readers prior knowledge. Pre-teaching necessary prior knowledge may be necessary if the author assumes a certain vault of knowledge or experience to be able to correctly parse what the author adds to, comments upon, or argues against.

Make sure to stress that interpretations are not simply the reader’s opinions. Good interpretations derive from the textual evidence and arrive at what the author means. Interpretations can be right and also wrong.

Unlike the summary, connect , and re-think cueing strategies, in which the reader needs to divide a reading into meaningful sections for the reader to pause to summarize and make connections, the re-think and interpret strategies are applied when the reader pauses following a section which is confusing or seems inconsistent with the previous section.

Because teaching the Interpret cueing strategy is the focus of this article, let’s work through a teaching script to teach this Interpret cueing strategy.

“Interpret means to focus on what the author means. Authors may directly say what they mean right in the lines of the text. They also may suggest what they mean with hints to allow readers to draw their own conclusions. These hints can be found in the tone (feeling/attitude) of the writing, the word choice, or in other parts of the writing that may be more directly stated.”

“When you reach a confusing part of a story, an article, a poem, or your textbook, go back to re-read the last part of the section that you understood completely and then read into the confusing section. Ask yourself what the author means in the confusing section. Often what the author means is not exactly stated. The author may choose to hint at the meaning and require the reader to figure out what is really meant.”

“Additionally, an author might require the reader to figure out the meaning by putting together what is said in one portion of the reading with another. It’s just like explaining a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to someone who has never eaten one. You’ve got to explain what peanut butter is and what jelly is first. Then you can tell how the combination of the two creates a salty and sweet flavor experience.”

“Let’s take a look at a fairy tale that many of you will have read or heard about and practice how to interpret some confusing passages.”

Here is a one-page version of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” for you to download, print, and distribute to your students. Have students read, break the reading into sections, and complete the summaries, connections, and re-thinks in their heads. Direct students to answer the Interpret questions. Share out the student answers. Check out a YouTube video demonstration of the Interpret Comprehension Strategy, using “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” fairy tale to illustrate this strategy. The storyteller first reads the fairy tale without comment. Next,  the story is read once again as a think-aloud with interruptions to show how readers should re-think sections of the reading as they read to monitor and build comprehension.

If you have found this article to be helpful, check out the next comprehension strategy, “Predict,” and the resources.

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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 Cues FREE Resource:

Literacy Centers, Reading, Study Skills inference, interpret, Mark Pennington, reading comprehension, reading comprehension worksheets, Sam and Friends Phonics Books, SCRIP Comprehension strategies, Teaching Reading Strategies

SCRIP Comprehension Cues

Unfortunately, there are no silver bullets to kill off reading comprehension problems. Poor comprehension tends to be self-perpetuating because a reader’s approach to acquiring meaning from text is habitual. Bad reading habits are reinforced each time a reader reads an online post, book, or magazine unless unless those bad reading habits are replaced with good  reading habits. Good reading habits can be taught and reinforced with specific cueing strategies. The cueing strategies provide readers a set of tasks to perform while reading to maintain active dialogue with what the author says and means. Students need to learn to re-think to increase reading comprehension.

The author of this article, Mark Pennington, has developed five cueing strategies, using the SCRIP acronym, which work equally well with expository and narrative text. The SCRIP acronym stands for Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict.

To improve reading comprehension, both good and struggling readers can practice these cueing strategies. Reading is not a natural process; it needs to be taught, not just caught. Developing readers do not have a priori understanding about how to understand and remember what they read. Thus, teachers and parents play a crucial role in helping to develop good readers.

Teaching students to carry on an internal dialog while they read is vitally important. Cueing strategies prompt the reader to dialog with the text and the author. Check out how to get developing readers to carry on this conversation here.

Re-Think to Improve Comprehension

The third cueing strategy in the SCRIP comprehension cues is Re-Think. Re-Think means to look at a section of reading text (narrative or expository) from a different point of view to see if a different meaning is intended by the author, other than the one intitially understood by the reader. It requires and re-thinking.

People who play board games are accustomed to looking at things from different perspectives. In Boggle®, Risk®, Settlers of Catan®, or Scrabble®, players know that seeing things from the opposite side of the game really changes how the player understands or plays the game.

Unlike the summary and connect cueing strategies, in which the reader needs to divide a reading into meaningful sections for the reader to pause to summarize and make connections, the Re-think strategy has the reader pause when the text following the section is confusing or seems inconsistent with the previous section.

Since teaching the Re-think cueing strategy is the focus of this article, let’s work through a teaching script to teach this Re-think cueing strategy.

“Re-think means to re-read a section of the text to look at things from a different point of view. When you start reading text which seems different than what you have been reading or if you get confused, don’t keep on reading in the hope that you will catch on to what was meant. The author may actually be saying something different than what you first thought. Or first impressions aren’t always accurate. When we look from another point of view, we oftentimes find a different truth.”

“When you reach that point in a reading text, go back to re-read the last part of the section that you completely understood and then read into the confusing section. Ask how the author may mean something different than what you first thought. In other words, re-trace your steps. Your mom helps you do this when you lose something. She asks, ‘When was the last time you remember having it? What did you do next?’ Do the same in your reading when you get lost; go back to the point where you weren’t lost and then re-read the confusing text.”

“Also, when you re-read be especially alert to overlooked transition change words, such as although, but, and however or negative words or prefixes, such as not or un. These words or word parts can be extremely important to a correct understanding of what the author intends to mean.”

“Let’s take a look at a fairy tale that many of you will have read or heard about and practice how to re-think some confusing passages.”

Here is a one-page version of “Little Red Riding Hood” for you to download, print, and distribute to your students. Have students read, break the reading into sections, and complete the summaries and connections in their heads. Direct students to answer the Re-think questions. Share out the summaries, connections, and Re-Think answers. Check out a YouTube video demonstration of the Re-think Comprehension Cue, using “Little Red Riding Hood“ fairy tale to illustrate this strategy. The storyteller first reads the fairy tale without comment. Next,  the story is read once again as a think-aloud with interruptions to show how readers should re-think sections of the reading as they read to monitor and build comprehension.

If you have found this article to be helpful, check out the next comprehension strategy, “Interpret,” and the resources to teach this cueing strategy.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Cues FREE Resource:

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.

Reading, Study Skills cueing strategies, Mark Pennington, reading comprehension, Sam and Friends Phonics Books, SCRIP Comprehension strategies, Teaching Reading Strategies

One of the true joys and responsibilities of parenthood is teaching your child to read. But wait… isn’t that the teacher’s job? Of course it is, but the best approach is always an effective and complementary home-school partnership. As a parent of three boys, an MA Reading Specialist, and an author of numerous reading textbooks, I have a few practical tips to help you teach your child to read and read well. And the tips work equally well with four-year-old and fourteen-year-old readers.

Developing a Literate Home Environment

Plenty of research studies demonstrate a positive correlation between skilled readers and their literate home environments. Having books and other print media visible and readily accessible in the home fosters a certain reading atmosphere. Discussing books while driving to school or waiting in the doctor’s office builds comprehension and vocabulary. Modeling reading in the home shows the value you place on literacy. Reading a newspaper after dinner, rather than watching a re-run of The Big Bang Theory, says something to your child.

Reading to Your Child

Reading to your child, regardless of age or reading level, certainly makes a difference. Reading out loud helps model expression and attention to punctuation. Reading out loud also provides an opportunity to model “talking to the text.” Practicing reading as a reader-author dialogue will help your child understand and retain textual information far better than readers who simply passively read the printed words.

Try modeling my SCRIP Comprehension Strategies to teach this interactive reading: Summarize means to put together the main ideas and important details of a reading into a short-version of what the author has said. Connect means to notice the relationship between one part of the text with another part of the text. Re-think means to re-read the text when you are confused or have lost the author’s train of thought. Interpret means to focus on what the author means. Frequently authors suggest what they mean and require readers to draw their own conclusions. Predict means to make an educated guess about what will happen or be said next in the text. Good readers check their predictions with what actually happens or is said next.

Getting Your Child to Read on Their Own

Although watching and listening to an expert about how to use a tool has some value, learning to use that tool on our own is the goal. Teaching your child to be an effective independent reader requires consistent and sufficient practice, but also a bit of teaching know-how.

First, let’s address the reluctant reader problem. Waiting for your child to want to read will produce a long wait for many parents. Although you would love your child to be avid reader, few children fit into that category. None of my three boys liked to read, but all did. They were required to read throughout the year (summers and vacations too), sometimes by their teachers and sometimes by me for thirty minutes reading, five days per week. Over the years all three boys read an amazing amount of books. Sometimes we permitted comic books, magazines, and newspapers, but mostly books. And our boys read both expository and narrative texts. We did offer some free choice, but not always, and independent reading requirement continued until they got their drivers’ licenses. All three boys are now avid readers as adults.

Next, let’s discuss how to select books for independent reading. As I mentioned, we did offer some free choice, but within certain parameters. Knowing that independent reading is the most efficient means of vocabulary acquisition, I suggest that parents should strive to help their children select books at close to the 5% unknown word level. In other words, a child should know and be able to define or explain the meaning of most all, but not all words on a given page. The 5% unknown word recognition level provides enough unknown vocabulary words to enable reader acquisition through context clues, but not too many unknown words to interfere with comprehension. Some dictionary use makes sense, but a readily parent can help with essential words as well.

Lastly, let’s get real. Without accountability your child will not read or will not read well. Teaching your child to read at home does require some monitoring. A daily discussion of the reading during dinner or on the way to the soccer game, using the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies as discussion prompts, will ensure careful reading and promote comprehension development as well. And what better way to keep the lines of communication open with your child than to discuss the world of ideas within the pages of a book? Teaching reading to your child may be an important parental responsibility, but it is also a true joy that will turn your child into a lifelong reader.

Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, is adaptable to various instructional settings, and is simple to use–a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instruction. The program provides multiple-choice diagnostic reading and spelling assessments (many with audio files), phonemic awareness activities, blending and syllabication activities, phonics workshops with formative assessments, 102 spelling pattern worksheets, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages recorded at three different reading speeds and accessed on YouTube, 644 reading, spelling, and vocabulary game cards, posters, activities, and games.

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Each of the above resources is included for teachers to review components of my two reading intervention programs. Click on the provided links to view video overviews and to download sample lessons.

Teaching Reading Strategies

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

Pennington Publishing provides two reading intervention program options for ages eight–adult. The Teaching Reading Strategies (Intervention Program) is a full-year, 55 minutes per day program which includes both word recognition and language comprehension instructional resources (Google slides and print). The word recognition components feature the easy-to-teach, interactive 5 Daily Google Slide Activities: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spelling Independent Practice 4. Heart Words Independent Practice 5. The Sam and Friends Phonics Books–decodables 1ith comprehension and word fluency practice for older readers The program also includes sound boxes and personal sound walls for weekly review.  The language comprehension components feature comprehensive vocabulary, reading fluency, reading comprehension, spelling, writing and syntax, syllabication, reading strategies, and game card lessons, worksheets, and activities. Word Recognition × Language Comprehension = Skillful Reading: The Simple View of Reading and the National Reading Panel Big 5.

If you only have time for a half-year (or 30 minutes per day) program, the The Science of Reading Intervention Program features the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities, plus the sound boxes and personal word walls for an effective word recognition program.

PREVIEW TEACHING READING STRATEGIES and THE SCIENCE OF READING INTERVENTION PROGRAM RESOURCES HERE for detailed product description and sample lessons.

Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary dyslexia, independent reading, reading comprehension, reading programs, reading strategies, reading to your child, reluctant readers, teaching reading

Well, at least we know how our students feel about dialectical journals (reading response journals or double-entry journals)… But, how should teachers feel about dialectical journals?

Teachers grapple with how to assign independent reading activities to help students interact with assigned novels or independent reading. Dialectical journals have been teacher favorites since literature-based reading pedagogy was popularized in the 1980s. KWL charts and variations upon the same theme have served as into-through-beyond activities within English-language arts, history/social science, and science courses. These activities remain popular with “balanced literacy” practitioners, who see the need for some accountability and, in doing so, part from their non-accountability “free voluntary reading” colleagues.

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

The Problem with Dialectical, Reader Response, or Double-Entry Journals 

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After years of “teaching” these reader-centered approaches to independent reading, educators are starting to see the unfortunate results. Almost 60% of community college students and 30% of university students require at least one year of developmental coursework. And, yes, reading is the chief subject of this remediation. It’s time to re-think how we get students to practice and develop reading comprehension.

Good readers emphasize the author’s text, not the reader, in the author-reader relationship. Reader-response such as analysis, making connections within the text, inferences, and summarizing. Struggling readers desperately need to focus on and understand what the author has to say, and only incidentally what they bring as readers to the text. The near-exclusive focus by some reading-response theorists and practitioners on personal relevance impedes comprehension. Tier I and II Response to Intervention readers confuse “What it means to me” strategies with “What the author means” strategies. The latter is much more important for developing readers (and for that matter, all readers). Some personal application within teacher-guided class discussion makes sense, but should be secondary to teaching the text itself.

Where did teachers get the notion that the reader is the priority in the author-reader relationship? My take is that our university professors tended to over-emphasize the reader side of the coin in a misinterpretation of Louise Rosenblatt’s Reader-Response Theory. Nowhere does Dr. Rosenblatt downplay the centrality of the author-produced text in the reading process. For reader-response theorists, the focus in on interaction. It’s the give and take interplay between the author’s words and the reader’s input. The outcome of this transaction produces the meaning of the text.

In lieu of reader-centered dialectical journals (reader response journals or double-entry journals), teachers should provide the training to help their students interact

Independent Reading Accountability

with the text. Developing the internal reading monitor of talking to the text through self-generated questions and comments makes much more sense than keeping a personal reaction journal. But what about accountability? Marginal annotations, online book discussions, literature circles, parent-student discussions to name a few.

Help students learn and apply the five types of independent reading strategies which promote internal monitoring of the text: Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict. These SCRIP strategies promote the reader-author conversation and, thus, internal monitoring of text to help students achieve any teacher’s independent reading goal: “to get students to read and understand what they are reading on their own.” Following are FREE SCRIP Reading Comprehension Strategies lessons, model readings, and bookmarks.

FREE DOWNLOAD TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies includes class posters, five lessons to introduce the strategies, and the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

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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.

Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Writing comprehension strategies, dialectical journals, independent reading activities, KWL, Mark Pennington, reader response, reading comprehension, reading response

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

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

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

Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, is adaptable to various instructional settings, and is simple to use–a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instruction. The program provides multiple-choice diagnostic reading and spelling assessments (many with audio files), phonemic awareness activities, blending and syllabication activities, phonics workshops with formative assessments, 102 spelling pattern worksheets, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages recorded at three different reading speeds and accessed on YouTube, 644 reading, spelling, and vocabulary game cards, posters, activities, and games.

Also get the accompanying Sam and Friends Guided Reading Phonics Books. These 54 decodable eBooks (includes print-ready and digital display versions) have been designed for older readers with teenage cartoon characters and plots. Each book introduces focus sight words and phonics sound-spellings aligned to the instructional sequence found in Teaching Reading Strategies. Plus, each book has a 30-second word fluency to review previously learned sight words and sound-spelling patterns, five higher-level comprehension questions, and an easy-to-use running record. Your students will love these fun, heart-warming, and comical stories about the adventures of Sam and his friends: Tom, Kit, and Deb. Oh, and also that crazy dog, Pug.

Teaching Reading Strategies and Sam and Friends Guided Reading Phonics Books

Or why not get both programs as a discounted BUNDLE? Everything teachers need to teach an assessment-based reading intervention program for struggling readers is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for students reading two or more grade levels below current grade level, tiered response to intervention programs, ESL, ELL, ELD, and special education students. Simple directions, YouTube training videos, and well-crafted activities truly make this an almost no-prep curriculum. Works well as a half-year intensive program or full-year program.

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

Reading Fluency Norms Grades 1-6

Hello all! I have a question for you all. I have had students in the past that were speed readers. They may have read with 99% accuracy, but did not comprehend material. What recommendations do you have for teaching kiddos to slow down? I have thought about having them tape record themselves, but other than that, I am not sure how else to help show them the importance of reading fluently (which doesn’t mean being a speed reader!!). http://www.proteacher.net/discussions/showthread.php?t=345167

I did respond to this teacher, but I reserved the cathartic confession for my own blog. I am well aware that I have become part of the problem described above by this conscientious teacher. As a whole language trained MA reading specialist who converted to a systematic explicit phonics advocate in the early 1990s, I jumped onto the fluency bandwagon. I supervised fluency labs and trained teachers in how to differentiate fluency instruction. I emphasized repeated reading practice at the student’s optimal reading level and helped teachers develop workable formative assessments to monitor fluency progress. These were and are good instructional practices.

Of course, supervising principals love to see progress monitoring charts and fluency timings are easily measured components. It would naturally follow that teachers would teach to these tests. Teachers are motivated by the concrete and gravitate toward the self-validation of seeing a student go from “Point A to Point B.” Parents like to see numbers on charts, as well (especially when the numbers for their child trend upwards). In short, everyone got on the reading fluency bandwagon.

The problem is one of emphasis. While reading fluency is highly correlated with reading comprehension, fluency is all too often confused with comprehension itself. True that reading fluency is an important ingredient in reading comprehension, but also true that cream is an important ingredient of ice cream, but it is not ice cream. Additionally, because reading comprehension is not easily or accurately measured, it gets left off of the progress monitoring charts. If a reading comprehension score is used, it is all too often a criterion-referenced, standards-based assessment measurement from the year before that provides questionable data at best. So, teachers teach to the data that makes sense and tend to under-emphasize the non-quantifiable. Students get taught a lot of cream, but not the ice cream they need. Don’t get me wrong; the cream is important, and fluency assessment does make sense.

Grades 2-8 Reading Fluency Norms

Now, having confessed to my part of the problem of Good Fluency, but Poor Comprehension, it would seem appropriate to offer penance. What I should have done and strive to do in my trainings and reading intervention program, The Science of Reading Intervention Program, is to emphasize a more balanced instructional approach in which reading fluency is treated as but one of the key ingredients of reading instruction.

Timothy Rasinski shares many of my concerns regarding reading fluency instruction in an important article: Reading Fluency Instruction: Moving Beyond Accuracy, Automaticity, and Prosody. Dr. Rasinski highly recommends balancing repeated reading practice with meaningful oral expression. He suggests Readers Theater and poetry as two venues for this practice and cites validating reading research.

I would add on two concurrent instructional practices: Think-Alouds and my SCRIP Reading Comprehension Strategies. Each strategy emphasizes internal self-monitoring of text and the latter has some great free bookmarks to download.

One necessary caveat… fluency instruction without systematic explicit phonics instruction is like using low fat cream. It doesn’t make the kind of ice cream we would want in our cones. To mix metaphors, we need to treat the wound (or better yet prevent the injury), not just band-aid it. This is especially important with Tier II and Tier III Response to Intervention.

FREE DOWNLOAD TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies includes class posters, five lessons to introduce the strategies, and the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

Looking for a two-minute expository fluency assessment that will also help you determine optimal instructional reading levels?

Get the The Pets Fluency Assessment FREE Resource:

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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.

Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills comprehension strategies, fluency assessments, Mark Pennington, oral expression, oral reading, read naturally, Readers Theater, reading comprehension, reading fluency

SSR Doesn’t Work

Following are 5 reasons that Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) Doesn’t Work.

1. Reading Research Does Not Support SSR

2. There is Not Enough Class Time for SSR

3. Free Choice Reading in SSR Does Not Maximize Reading Development

4. SSR is Not Teaching, Nor is it Effective Practice

5. SSR Does Not Hold Students Accountable for Reading

I’m an ELA teacher and passionate about getting students to read. However, I’m also an MA reading specialist, so I’m also interested in what works and doesn’t not work to improve their reading skills. I do believe that reading practice, including independent reading, is vital to reading improvement. In fact, after you read the rest of the article, you might check out my plan that increases the amount of independent reading in this partner article: Independent Reading Homework. So why am I writing this article?

First, let’s get on the same page about what most of us mean when we talk about SSR. SSR does have a variety of pseudonyms: FVR (Free Voluntary Reading, DEAR (Drop Everything And Read); DIRT (Daily Individual Reading Time); SQUIRT (Sustained Quiet Un-Interrupted Reading Time), WEB (We Enjoy Books), and USSR (uninterrupted sustained silent reading). I’m sure there are more. Essentially, SSR is based upon these assumptions:

• Reading is a skill which improves with practice.
• Students should be allowed to select their own books to read.
• SSR should not include instructional accountability.
• SSR is best accomplished within the classroom with the teacher as a silent reading model.

Now, of course, not every teacher implements the program in the same way; however, even with teacher tweaks, SSR just is not an effective use of class time. Why so? Here are 5 reasons Why Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) Doesn’t Work.

1. Reading Research Does Not Support SSR

According to the Report of the National Reading Panel (2000), the experimental design studies on SSR indicate no statistically or educationally significant differences between those students who do SSR and those students who do not.

According to noted reading researcher, Dr. Timothy Shanahan in his August 13, 2017 article:

NRP did conclude that there was no convincing evidence that giving kids free reading time during the school day improved achievement — or did so very much. There has been a lot of work on that since NRP but with pretty much the same findings: either no benefits to that practice or really small benefits (a .05 effect size — which is tiny). Today, NRP would likely conclude that practice is not beneficial rather than that there is insufficient data. But that’s arguable, of course.

In a February 12, 2022 article, Shanahan updates his comments:

When I look at the average effect size of various instructional routines for teaching decoding, fluency, and comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000), I come up with .40 approximately. The same kind of exercise within classroom independent reading is .05-.10 (Yoon, 2003). That means that the payoff from teaching is 400-800% better than the payoff from having kids go it alone. https://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/why-dont-you-encourage-reading-practice#sthash.0ETMRY3S.oUhjeOyh.dpbs

In a related article, “Straight Talk with Stephen Krashen,” Dr. Krashen comments on the NRP data regarding SSR:

The NRP comment addresses a position that nobody has ever held (or ever stated, to my knowledge). No, SSR is not a comprehensive reading program. Nobody ever said it was. It is used for a few minutes each period, e.g. 10-15 minutes. That is how SSR has always been done. The NPR says SSR is not for those who haven’t developed “critical alphabetic and reading skills.” Again this is an attack on the position nobody has ever held. SSR is not designed to help beginning readers. It is for those who can already do some independent reading.

My take regarding reading research is that we should prioritize our instruction to focus on the instructional strategies that both experimental design and correlational studies support. In other words, let’s teach what works for sure. To devote significant class time to an instructional strategy with a questionable research base should give educators pause, especially when there is an alternative which achieves better results than SSR advocates purport to achieve.

2. There is Not Enough Class Time for SSR

There just are not enough minutes in the day to achieve the results desired by proponents of SSR. For example, to achieve year to year vocabulary growth, elementary students need to read a minimum of one million pages; secondary students need to read a minimum of two million pages. Do the math. Many secondary teachers only have four hours of class time per week. No conscientious secondary teacher would allot half of instructional time to SSR. In other words, an hour of SSR per week is just not going to make much of a dent in the amount of independent reading that students need to achieve significant reading growth. The “some is better than none” response is just not acceptable.

Additionally, all instruction is reductive: teachers cannot add on without taking away. Should elementary teachers give up teaching science or social studies to add on SSR? Of course not. Furthermore, with the increasing rigor of the language and writing strands of the ELA/Reading Common Core State Standards, both elementary and secondary teachers will be hard-pressed to teach the grade level standards and differentiate instruction as mandated.

3. Free Choice Reading in SSR Does Not Maximize Reading Development

Free choice reading is an essential tenet of SSR proponents. However motivating self-selected reading may be, there are significant downsides. Students often choose books with reading levels far below or far above own their reading levels and so do not experience optimal reading growth. Additionally, students will often select only one author or genre. Fine for recreational reading, but certainly not appropriate for all reading instruction.

I asked Dr. Shanahan for his thoughts on the importance of free choice reading:

4. SSR is Not Teaching, Nor is it Effective Practice

Yes, incidental learning does take place when students are in engaged in SSR. Some SSR advocates go so far as to claim that “Free reading appears to be the source of much of our reading ability, our writing style, much of our vocabulary knowledge, our spelling ability, and our ability to handle complex grammatical constructions (Krashen, 1993; Elley, 1991, 1998).

However, having a credentialed teacher model silent reading while 36 students choose to read or not read independently does not avail students of that teacher’s expertise. It’s not a question of which is better: a teacher-centered or student centered classroom. It’s an issue of educational priorities, efficiency, and effectiveness. SSR devolves the responsibilities and applications of reading strategies, comprehension or vocabulary development, and literary analysis to children. I’m not saying a teacher should exclusively assume the role of “sage on the stage,” but a “guide on the side,” should guide, not merely model.

Additionally, SSR is not appropriate for all students. SSR does not magically differentiate instruction. For example, some students (even secondary learners) need oral fluency practice, not independent silent reading. Other students already read extensively at home and do not need more independent reading time. Students need targeted reading practice, not incidental practice.

Dr. Timothy Shanahan (2022) comments,

I don’t oppose encouraging students to practice their reading. However, as a but I do believe in making instructional time as productive as possible. Just sending kids off to read is not likely to pay off as the other alternatives There has been a lot of research into the kinds of practice that improves performance.

…Effective practice, for instance, is purposeful, intentional, or deliberate. It doesn’t include just aimless engagement in an activity. Effective practice focuses on what it is the student is trying to improve.

5. SSR Does Not Hold Students Accountable for Reading

Reading researchers Von Sprecken and Krashen concluded that children were more likely to read during SSR when certain conditions were in place: When there was access to interesting reading in the classroom and students are not required to bring their own reading material, when teachers read while students are reading, and when teachers made efforts to promote and discuss certain books the researchers found that 90% of students were reading. Even in a class in which none of these conditions were met, however, Debra Von Sprecken and Stephen Krashen found that only 80% of the students were reading when observed. (California Reader, 1998, 32(1): 11-13) Not many teachers I know would be satisfied with a classroom instructional strategy in which from 4 to 9 of their 36 students (10-20%) did not participate.

It is true that many teachers “band-aid” this component of SSR and both the International Reading Association and important reading researchers part ways with SSR purists with regard to accountability. For example, Fountas and Pinnell suggest keeping records on student reading (2001). Nancy Atwell’s Reading Workshop includes the following: “monitoring the type and the number of books students read; they may also administer assessments, keep reading checklists, and ask questions or encourage student discussion about books.” (Atwell, 2007; Gambrell, 2007; Reutzel, Jones, Fawson, & Smith, 2008). Manning and Manning (1984) found that coupling SSR with peer discussions or teacher conferences led to improvements in reading achievement compared to a control group.” But these “band aids” avoid the fact that SSR necessitates such tweaking to even approach meaningful reading instruction.

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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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One of the true joys and responsibilities of parenthood is teaching your child to read. But wait… isn’t that the teacher’s job? Of course it is, but the best approach is always an effective and complementary home-school partnership. But not every five, six, or seven year old learns to read at school. In the late 1980s I was earning my masters degree as a reading specialist. One of my most fascinating professors, John McFadden, confessed to our class that he didn’t learn to read until he was in the third grade. His teachers’ “look-say” method of reading instruction did not work for him. When his parents hired a tutor who taught phonics, he learned to read in a matter of months and by the end of third grade was reading at levels higher than the rest of his classmates.

As an MA Reading Specialist and educational author, I’ve done all of the “prep” work necessary for parents to hold up their end of the home-school partnership in these Teach Your Child to Read tools and resources. You don’t have to be a reading expert; you’ve got back-up 🙂 These reading resources reflect a comprehensive and balanced approach to help you teach your child to read. Your child’s teacher will have her own instructional reading methods and they will, no doubt, be beneficial. She might be a phonics fanatic, sight words zealot, or rimes words revolutionary; however, every child is different. All three of my boys certainly were… and they required somewhat different approaches. But all three were reading first and second grade reading books by age four. I’ve found that the best approach to teaching reading at home is a balanced, flexible, but comprehensive approach, that “touches all bases” and meets the needs of the individual child. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Now, one important reminder. As you teach your child to read, don’t forget to read to your child daily. Set an expectation that daily reading is what we do in this family. Read whether your child wants to or not. Many parents make the mistake of thinking that they will “turn their child off to the love of reading” if they “force” them to read. Nonsense. Keep at it, whether they enjoy it or not.

Read a variety of books at a variety of reading levels. I highly recommend pattern and rhyming books, but don’t limit your reading to “how to read” books. Children need to work on vocabulary and comprehension development, as well.  Stop and ask questions of your child about the reading and encourage your child to ask questions as well. Keep the focus on the text and pictures, not on things outside of the book.

Teach print awareness by methodically teaching your child how to open up the book and pacing your reading with your index finger, left to right as you read. Model “talking to the text” by inserting your own comments occasionally. Children need to perceive reading as a dynamic author-reader dialog, not as a passive activity.

Phonemic Awareness

Despite all of the age-old controversy over reading readiness and when you should teach your child to read, the best indicator is when your child has developed most of the skills of phonemic awareness. These six phonemic awareness assessments will give you the best guidance. Of course, the alphabet is a critical component of getting ready to read and spell. Check out this updated alphabet song! For those areas yet un-mastered, here are phonemic awareness activities that will help your child master these pre-reading skills.

Phonics and Spelling

Recent research is clear that the most efficient way to teach reading is through a systematic, explicit approach to teach our alphabetic code: in other words decoding (phonics) and encoding (spelling). If your child’s school uses sound-spelling cards for instruction, get a copy of these and use them to teach the sound-spellings. If not, use my wonderful Animal Sound-Spelling Cards and these activities to teach all of the sound-spellings. There is even a catchy song to play in the car that will help your child rehearse the card names, sounds, and spellings. Now, if your child is already reading, but has phonics and spelling gaps, it makes sense to “gap-fill,” rather than “start from scratch.” Have your child take the Vowel Sounds Phonics Assessment and the Consonant Sounds Phonics Assessment and practice those specific animal cards and consonant blend cards with the activities.

Every effective outcome in life must have a plan, and this is especially true when you teach your child to read. Here is a systematic plan for introducing  all of the sound-spellings in the order that reading research suggests. Here is how to teach your child to put together (blend) the sound-spellings into words.

Sight Words

Some teachers over-emphasize this instructional component. I was raised on the “Dick and Jane” series that used the look-say method, but I also had “Dr. Seuss,” and more decodable texts. Balance is key. However, it certainly makes sense to teach the most-often used non-phonetic sight words. These are often called Outlaw Words, because they don’t follow the phonics rules. I would avoid having your children spend oodles of time memorizing high utility, non-phonetic sight words. We don’t want our children to have to memorize every word. We want them to use the alphabetic code when at all possible and then adjust to sight words when absolutely necessary. Here is an Outlaw Word Assessment for children who are all ready reading, Outlaw Word Game Cards to begin introducing to beginning readers, and some great Outlaw Word activities.

Comprehension

Reading is not pronouncing or memorizing words. Reading is meaning-making. Reading is understanding and making use of what an author says. To teach your child to read, you need to teach reading comprehension strategies that will help your child begin to self-monitor understanding of the text. The SCRIP comprehension bookmark will help you teach your child how to understand what he or she reads.

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.

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