Pennington Publishing Blog

Every Teacher a Teacher of Reading

Over the last dozen years, our nation’s educators have dramatically improved K-3 literacy skills. A return to phonics-based instruction, improved teacher-training, and increased funding (including lower primary class sizes) all share credit. Recent National Assessment of Educational (NAEP) fourth-grade reading scores attest to this improvement. Especially encouraging are the increases in reading performance by lower socio-economic students. Indeed, we have made solid progress in learning to read at these age levels. However, reading scores still level off in upper elementary and noticeably decline in middle school. Why are we failing at reading to learn?

Reading scores for students entering high school are particularly sobering. In high poverty schools, fewer than one-in-six students read at grade level (Perie et al., 2005). Half of freshman students have reading scores more than two grade levels below ninth grade expectations (Balfanz et al, 2002). Not until the junior and senior years of high school do we see an upward trend, and these results are significantly skewed due to high school drop-outs. Although we still have little meaningful data on who drops out and when, it does not take a Carnegie Foundation fellow to surmise that students who have dropped out of the system by this point tend to be those most challenged by lack of literacy skills.

And, even those students who remain in the comprehensive high schools on the college-track face challenges. Only have of the college-bound students taking the ACT college entrance exam were found ready to complete college-level reading assignments in core subjects such as English, history, math, and science (ACT 2005).

Why are we failing our secondary students?

The predominant educational philosophy in American schools can be summarized as this: Learn the skills of literacy in K-6 and apply these skills to learn academic content in 7-12. In other words, learning to read should transition to reading to learn. Courses have been organized in middle schools (or junior high schools) and high schools by academic areas. Even English is considered an academic content area, primarily organized by literature content standards in most school districts. Most secondary English teachers consider themselves as teachers of literature, less so that of reading or writing. Teachers have been trained and hired to reflect this secondary focus. For example, secondary teachers in most credential programs still only take one post-graduate “reading strategies” course. Clearly, this educational philosophy and its application are failing a sizeable portion of our secondary students.

What can we do to reverse this trend?

To meet the increasing demands of Twenty-First Century literacy skills, we need to abandon the current educational reading philosophy at the secondary level. Every secondary teacher needs the training to re-orient instruction and coursework to both a learning to read and a reading to learn pedagogy. Yes, every teacher a teacher of reading (and writing). Now, obviously some disciplines should shoulder less of this responsibility. No one is suggesting that geometry teachers should abandon teaching theorems and begin teaching reading fluency. Both university and school districts need to develop partnerships to improve this expertise and re-write curriculum to reflect this focus. New collaborative partnerships need to be formed, in terms of flexible cohorts with professors and adjunct district personnel teaching both pre-service and in-service professional development in literacy skills. We also have to get past our mortar and brick biases and embrace online education to accomplish these ends. This focus ongoing professional development should be key to Response to Intervention (RtI) at any secondary school.

Secondary school curriculum and instruction must be both content and process focused. And this re-orientation is not solely for students with poor literacy skills; this paradigm shift is for our “best and brightest,” as well. We already have the diagnostic tools to differentiate instruction, now we have to make the commitment to doing so. Higher level reading involves analysis, critical thinking, and problem-solving. All students need explicit instruction to master the rigorous demands of Twenty-First Century academic reading. Once this instruction is mastered, we can then more effectively return to reading to learn.

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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.

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:

Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills learning to read, Mark Pennington, NAEP, reading comprehension, reading intervention, reading strategies, reading to learn, remedial reading, secondary reading, Teaching Reading Strategies

“Oh no… another obligatory reading staff development. If the presenter says ‘every teacher a teacher of reading’ just one time, I will walk out.”

“What does this have to do with me? I teach math. Another district-mandated reading-across-the-curriculum in-service. Ho-hum. Glad I brought papers to grade.”

As an administrator, literacy coach, English-language Arts teacher, or staff developer, you know the challenge. How can you train and convince such a diverse group of colleagues, representing the full slate of academic disciplines, that staff development in reading is valuable at the middle or high school level?

As educators have addressed the issues and suggested instructional strategies to respond to the growing “achievement gap,” many have come to the point of validating reading guru Anita Archer’s comment that “the ‘achievement gap’ is chiefly a ‘literacy gap.’” Today, there is wide consensus that secondary schools need to improve delivery of reading instruction, even at the expense of content-laden curricula.

“Oh great. Another thing to cram into my course. I don’t have the time to teach everything I am supposed to teach-not to mention what I want to teach.”

As a reading specialist/staff developer, once assigned to a high school, I know how secondary teachers, and even elementary teachers (been there-done that, too) can be a tough audience during a reading-based staff development. However, I’ve found that even the most obstinate, stuck-in-the-mud teachers do care about their students. Most will care enough to be willing to try something new, if they see the direct pay-off for their students.

In my experience, to get staff buy-in, you’ve got to accomplish three fundamental goals:

1. Ensure that all teachers feel that the strategies directly apply, in some degree, to their own academic disciplines. And let’s be honest, the matter is less relevant to some.

2. Give teachers something they can use the next day, and

3. Get the staff actively involved in the presentation.

Here are three sure-fire reading staff developments that I have presented at secondary schools and a nice resource for each:

1. Train and convince every teacher to assign reading in their academic discipline for homework on a regular basis. Here’s how.

2. Train and convince every teacher to use the same language of instruction i.e., the same terminology, for teaching and practicing reading strategies. The SCRIP Comprehension Cues is a set of self-questioning prompts that students can use to promote the author-reader dialog. Beyond the memorable mnemonic, the advantage to these strategies is that they work equally well with expository and narrative text (all academic disciplines).

3. Train and convince every teacher to teach and have students use the same read-study method for expository reading. The PQ RAR method is a nice update on the “tried and true” SQ3R read-study method.

Using the same language of instruction is simply “user-friendly” for our students. Having similar instructional strategies lets students know that we do actually talk to teachers in other departments. More importantly, a staff that commits to using these strategies will significantly impact the reading performance of its students and help to bridge the “literacy gap.”

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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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Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary effective staff development, Mark Pennington, reading comprehension, reading in-service, reading staff development, reading strategies, secondary reading, secondary reading staff development, secondary staff development, staff development, staff development goals, Teaching Reading Strategies