Rita Wirtz' Reading Champs
Ready ... Set ... TEACH!

A guide to dynamic lesson planning
for championship reading skills.

This a new Reading Champs project site and is currently under construction:
This page was most recently updated on March 16, 2009

INTRODUCTION TO Ready-Set-Teach RST/001

Teaching Reading: The Great Debate RST/002

Important Reading Fundamentals RST/003

Basic Reading Skills RST/004

How To Get Great Results RST/005

RST—005:
HOW TO GET GREAT RESULTS

Let's review some of the more important factors for successfully teaching reading:

• Phonemic awareness: Students learn to manipulate the sounds in words. Phonemic awareness means students can play with the phonemes; basic units of speech that make up words. Reading research identifies the importance of this skill as a predictor of reading achievement. This is the critical stage of learning when an understanding of letter-sound relationships is identified. Instruction begins with learning consonant sounds and with alphabet recognition necessary to give a name to a sound. Teaching simultaneously, or shortly afterward, students learn how to build words.
• Phonics: Students begin in a print awareness state. They recognize that thought can be written. They look at the print—first the letters; then they come to recognize the concept of “words” and the spaces between words. Finally, they begin to understand how to handle, and work with, books.
• Vocabulary: Students begin to understand syllables and parts of words. This is also the time when work begins with onsets and rimes (which define word families) to recognize new words. This is also the period in reading skills development where students develop a variety of strategies to monitor and self-correct errors as they read. Three of the most important of these are semantics (“Does this make sense?”), syntactics (“Does this sound right to you?”), and graphophonics (Print and sound symbols correspond. “Does this look right to you?”).
• Text comprehension: The goal of reading instruction is to move a reader from a state of dependence to independence. The stage when the student becomes fluent is referred to as automaticy. This means the decoding process becomes automatic so the reader can devote more time to comprehension of the text rather than figuring out what each word means. Instruction in this area begins fairly early with the use of word walls and flash cards (“What is this word?. What does it mean?)
  Building comprehension means that readers predict, understand, and remember what they read. To do this, they need to learn specific strategies which build comprehension. Readers must be engaged and involved in the reading process.
• Rate Building, Fluency, and Literacy: Competence and fluency involve a maturing of the vocabulary. To accomplish this, students should be involved in a rich language environment and learn through direct vocabulary instruction as well as being engaged in strong exposure through wide reading. Students should be encouraged to learn from 2000 to 4000 words per year.
  To become truly literate, students need to read widely, and constantly. Then need to be surrounded with print. They need to be read to, and read with, to fully experience the joy of reading. When they become fluent, and reading becomes automatic, they are confident!

There are five key components identified in the federal Reading First Initiative and are critically important for meeting or exceeding state standards in California as well as many other states. They also consider the importance of instruction across the continuum and are widely applicable; far outside the domain of the K-3 classroom teacher. In the following links, each of these factors is discussed in an individual Reading Champs Coach's Instructional Handbook.

Phonemic Awareness: Publication RST02

Phonics: Publication RST08

Fluency: Publication RST09

Vocabulary and Spelling: Publication RST06

Comprehension: Publication RST07

Reference: Reading Coach’s Desk Companion: Pp. 23, 35, 39, 63.

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Common Sense Mini-lessons (CSML) for Reading Champs

NOTE: All session titles (below) displaying a link and date are available for purchase as .pdf downloads.

Common Sense Mini-lesson 3-ring Organizer CSML-000	Consonants That Sound the Same CSML-010	Remaining Special Sounds CSML-020	Multiple Meanings of Words CSML-030	Structural Features of Texts CSML-040
Teaching and Learning Procedures CSML-001	Remaining Single Consonants CSML-011	Structural Analysis Analyzing Word Parts CSML-021	Figurative Language and Idioms CSML-031	Text Preview and Review CSML-041
Directed Reading Activities CSML-002	Consonant Blends CSML-012	Word Families CSML-022	Technical Vocabulary CSML-032	Predicting and Questioning CSML-042
Phonemic Awareness (Teaching Sounds) CSML-003	Consonant Digraphs CSML-013	Compound Words CSML-023	Spelling Rules CSML-033	Selecting Main Ideas CSML-043
The Alphabet (Learning Letters) CSML-004	Short Vowels CSML-014	Prefixes and Suffixes CSML-024	Basic English Grammar CSML-034	Organizing Ideas and Sequencing CSML-044
Recognizing Sight Words CSML-005	Long Vowels CSML-015	Contractions CSML-025	Word Study: Miscues CSML-035	Finding Important Details/Clarifying CSML-045
Cueing Process CSML-006	Vowel Teams CSML-016	Syllabication CSML-026	Corrections and Interventions CSML-036	Making Inferences Drawing Conclusions CSML-046
Systematic Phonics Sequence CSML-007	Special "E" CSML-017	Plurals/Possessives CSML-027	Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) CSML-037-X	QARs CSML-047
Sounding Out New Words CSML-008	"R-controlled" Vowels CSML-018	Word Origins CSML-028	Building Comprehension CSML-038	Fluency and Rate Building CSML-048
Teaching New Sounds and Letters CSML-009	Diphthongs CSML-019	Using the Dictionary CSML-029	Using KWLW CSML-039	Respond to Literature: Writing Connection CSML-049
CSML Learning Skills Supplements and Learning Connections
Understanding Learning CSML-050	Take Any Test and ACE It! CSML-101-A	Gardner's Learning Styles CSML-102-X	300 Sight Words (in two fonts) CSML-103-A	The Essay Learning Writing CSML-110
		Reading Wall Alphabet Cards IVEFTP-200LP		Mastering Math Multiplication IVEFTP-MA-003
FREE READY ... SET ... TEACH! PROGRAM CONCEPT HANDBOOKS
INTRODUCTION TO Ready-Set-Teach RST-001	Teaching Reading: The Great Debate RST-002	Important Reading Fundamentals RST-003	Basic Reading Skills RST-004	How To Get Great Results RST-005
Find top quality trade book and manipulatice resources providing age-rated Reading Champs Recreational Reading for ages 6 months through 12 years through Usborne Books at Home

     The preceding table provides an index to individual instructional Mini-lessons to assist reading champs coaches and students in home-school and other self-directed instructional programs handle initial learning and unit review activities. Each title represents a single instructional unit which is intended to:

• Encourage phonemic awareness
• Teach basic phonics
• Build vocabulary (including correct spelling)
• Read for meaning
• Increase reading rate and fluency

Titles are available for purchase, as separate Reading Champs Common Sense Mini Lesson (CSML) Instructional Handbooks, either as downloadable .pdf documents (on the Internet for between $1.95 and $6.95 each) or as binder-formatted hard copies (by mail) at $4.00 to $8.95 each including handling and USPS delivery.
     The Mini-lesson 3-ring Organizer with CSML-050 and the first five mini-lessons as full color hard-copies is regularly available for $26.35 including handling and USPS delivery within the United States. International deliveries of the binder and four lessons are available for an additional $7.00 postage and handling.

RST/005-090320

Copyright 2007, 2008, 2009  Rita M. Wirtz, M.A. and Donald E. Werve, Jr., M.Ed. -- All rights reserved