Pennington Publishing Blog

I recently responded to this FB post from a middle school teacher inquiring about reading skills for ELA teachers and their students. I’ve been there and asked the same question! I was teaching high school ELA and students were simply not equipped to read and write at anywhere near grade level.

Help! I have quite a few students in my grade 7 ELA class this year who can barely read and write. Our SPED teacher’s caseload is full. I only had one reading class in my teacher credential program and don’t have the faintest idea about how to teach reading. However, I don’t want to simply band-aid their issues by giving them audio files of our class novels, etc. I want to make a difference in their lives and teach them how to read. 

What reading skills do I need to teach and how to I teach them? How much time will it take? I don’t know what I don’t know. Are their reading resources that don’t require extensive training? I looked into LETRS and OG training, but those are hundreds of hours and expensive, too.

Most of us have similar challenges in our ELA classes; however, you do have some extreme examples of kids who can barely read and write. You can’t send them “out” and, frankly, you shouldn’t. Why not?

The most current reading research shows the importance of language comprehension i.e., literary analysis, syntax and text structure, vocabulary/morphology, and writing. Stuff you do everyday.

But that’s not enough. Some of your kids desperately need the other side of Scarborough’s famous rope: word recognition. Phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, and fluency practice.

As a former MS reading specialist and ELA teacher, I’ve designed a program for you to focus on that word recognition piece.

Now, it’s going to take 15-20 minutes of explicit instruction every day, so if you can’t figure out meaningful independent activities for the grade-level readers to complete each day, this program is not for you.

Also, your struggling readers and writers are going to need 15-20 minutes of practice per day in class, at home, in study hall, etc.

I designed the program with no prep and no correction. No advanced training–you train as you teach this scripted program. The program is for secondary ELA teachers, not reading specialists, and their students. For example, the decodable booklets feature teenage characters and plots with comic illustrations.

Help for Students

Here’s the resource with both print and Google slide options. If you can’t get your principal to purchase, email me and I’ll get your students this program. You can preview the entire program. https://penningtonpublishing.com/products/the-science-of-reading-intervention-program-1

Not sure if the program will match the specific needs of your struggling students? Administer the free vowel sounds phonics assessment, diagnostic spelling assessment, and the individual reading fluency assessment here: https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/pennington-publishing-elareading-assessments/

*****

Mark Pennington is a former ELA teacher at the middle school, high school, and community college levels. Mark is also an MA reading specialist and author of many fine Pennington Publishing programs.

Grammar/Mechanics ELA reading intervention resources, reading skills, reading skills instruction

Skills v. Content

A key discussion point regarding reading instruction today involves those favoring skills-based instruction and those favoring content-based instruction. This is not the old phonics-whole language debate. Other than a few hold-outs, such as Stephen Krashen, most in the reading field would agree that this debate has been largely settled. The current debate involves whether teachers at all levels should be teaching the how or the what of reading.

There are, indeed, some who would restrict reading to a measurable skill-set. These would pigeon-hole reading instruction into a continuum of increasingly complex rules, while ignoring the thinking process necessary to advanced reading. Teachers of this ilk love their phonics, context clues, and inference worksheets when they are not leading their students in fluency exercises, ad nauseum, whether the students need fluency practice or not.

On the other side of the debate are those who would claim that content is the real reading instruction. These would limit reading skill instruction in favor of pouring shared cultural knowledge into learners. They favor teacher read-alouds, Cornell note-taking, and direct instruction. They argue that subject area disciplines such as English literature, science, and history often provide the best reading instruction by the content that they teach.

Both are extremes. Students need some of each to become skilled and complex readers. One need not be at the expense of the other. However, if I had to side with one group, I would lean toward the skill teachers because at least those of their persuasions are trying to impact the students’ abilities to increase their own reading competencies. We need to teach developing readers of all levels how to access information and ideas on their own. Additionally, the content side raises thorny issues, such as what should be the content poured into students and who decides what content is and is not important? Some cultural literacy is certainly fine, but I feel more comfortable in playing the equipping role, rather than the inculcating role in reading instruction.

Furthermore, many in the content-only camp are under the false assumption that reading is a basic skill, such as simple addition. Once multiple digit addition with carrying over is mastered, the skill can be applied to more complex operations such as multiplication, division, and algebra. Although learning the phonetic code and the syllabication rules certainly serve as the basic skills to enable pronunciation of  multi-syllabic words, pronunciation is not reading. Reading is ultimately about meaning-making. And meaning-making is a complex process. Indeed, reading is a skill in the same manner as writing and thinking are each skills.

Although I lean toward the skill side of reading skills instruction, I do believe that at some point the spoon-feeding of skills-based reading instruction needs to morph into providing the recipes for critical-thinking readers to create on his or her own. Having taught reading and trained teachers of reading at elementary school, middle school, high school, and college levels, I am of the opinion that teaching more advanced reading skills are necessary to get students to this level of independence and that these skills are better “taught” than “caught.” Students of all ages need both “learning to read” and “reading to learn.”

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:

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.

Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills content based reading, content reading, literacy, Mark Pennington, phonics and whole language, reading comprehension, reading debate, reading skills, reading skills instruction, Teaching Reading Strategies