Pennington Publishing Blog

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

If you’ve never seen Brad Pitt in Moneyball, you should. For those of you unfamiliar with the story line, it’s about how Billy Beane, GM of the small-market Oakland A’s continues to produce winning teams , despite having the lowest (or close to) payroll in Major League Baseball. But what’s this got to do with reading intervention and RTI? Plenty.

You see, Billy Beane works with this old-school manager, Gene Mauch, who plies his trade with intuition, experience, and comprehensive knowledge of the game. But, the A’s are losing. Billy has a different approach that baseball purists later label as Moneyball. Fair to say, Gene is a tough sell and eventually has to go, but the bottom line is that Billy’s Moneyball starts to work and the A’s start to win. So, what is Moneyball?

Billy Bean knows he can’t compete with the big spending Yankees and Red Sox, so he tries another approach. He hires a statistician to chart and analyze every aspect of the game. His data is valid, specific, and applicable. Billy uses this data to inform trades, free agent acquisitions… even determine the batting order, much to Gene Mauch’s chagrin. Often the decisions are counter-intuitive and untraditional. They sometimes fly in the face of “the way we’ve always done it.” Moneyball isolates all the variables, including the manager himself.

Now, most of you know where I’m going with this comparison. In fact, you may be that reading teacher with all the intuition, experience, and comprehensive knowledge. I’m not suggesting that we reduce reading intervention instruction to simple statistics. Teaching is an artful science. We do teach kids. However, we do need to teach to reliable data and isolate the variables just like Billy Beane did/does with the Oakland A’s. And that variable might just be us.

To mix metaphors, each student is the snowflake. Bobby does not have the same instructional needs as does Marta. We can’t use cookie cutter approaches to reading intervention if we want to make the optimal progress each student deserves. Maybe a little Moneyball in Reading Intervention would make some sense.

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 free voluntary reading, reading intervention, reading programs, reluctant readers, remedial reading, response to intervention, SSR

On a recent teacher Facebook group, I clicked on this post. Now I’ve see this post and heard the same questions hundreds of times throughout my thirty-year career as a secondary reading specialist. You may have as well.

This is my first year of teaching and I have been given a reading class. I’m at a large urban high school and I’ve been told that the students are bright, but reluctant readers. For some of the class we will be using the Reading Plus program but for the rest of the time I have just been told to do anything that will improve their comprehension, ACT/SAT scores, high school exit exam scores, and overall reading skills. I’m not sure where to even begin with this class.

I had only one Reading instruction class in my teacher training program, but I did one semester of my student teaching program at a middle school and I taught both a literature class and a reading class. For the reading class my colleagues suggested that I do an SSR program for 30 minutes a day. I did it, but students were pretty resistant. I let students pick their own novels, magazines, comics, or newspapers to read. Some did read, but others really didn’t. I didn’t feel like I was really teaching and I doubt if their reading test scores really improved as a result of this class.

So, any advice? The Response to Intervention Coordinator was on my interview panel and said she would help me with this class, but I would like to start planning now. Should I keep doing the SSR? I have one month to plan.

It wasn’t the post that got me thinking about Backwards Reading Intervention, but the responses.

The consensus response to this frequently-posed question regarding what to teach in a reading intervention class is the advice to let students choose their own reading. This student-centered approach seems admirable, and notable authors Nancy Atwell, Donalyn Miller, and Stephen Krashen are all proponents of free voluntary reading—albeit each with a few twists of their own. However, students do not always pick what is in their best interests. Given a choice, most children will pick candy over vegetables.

I could go into quite a bit of anecdotal evidence here with respect to the drawbacks of in-class SSR/Free Voluntary Reading:** peer pressure, mismatched reading levels, trashy adolescent lit, lack of accountability, etc. But the real point I would like to make deals with the basic instructional question. How strange that a student-centered approach to learning, as advocated by many teachers and authors, does not extend to a student-centered approach to instruction. To cut to the chase, why are many reading intervention teachers so reluctant to differentiate reading instruction according to the diagnostic needs of individual students? Sit in on most elementary, middle school, high school, and community college remedial reading classes (Been there, done that), and you’ll find what I have found: We teach them the same stuff. It’s teacher-centered instruction, not student-centered instruction.

Backwards Reading Intervention

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We tend to approach reading intervention backwards. We begin with what we want to teach them and how we want to teach them, but we all-too-often ignore the them. Having taught a remedial high school reading class for four years, I eventually discovered that each student was in that class for different reasons. To achieve the progress that each student deserves, we have to begin by finding out those different reasons. The what and how of instruction should derive from diagnostic assessment.

Of course, teachers want to plan instruction; you have to teach them something. However, perhaps the best response to the teacher’s post would be one that provides the diagnostic assessments, recording matrices, instructions re: data analysis and decision-making and flexible program resources that will allow the teacher to adjust instruction according to the diagnostic needs of her students. That kind of planning makes sense. Here they are… and happy planning. You’re making a world of difference for these students. Just don’t teach backwards.

**As a disclaimer, I also let students pick their own independent reading for homework (within reasonable parameters).

*****

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.

Reading free voluntary reading, reading intervention, reading programs, reluctant readers, remedial reading, response to intervention, SSR