SuccessMaker Reading Strands Aligned to Science of Reading

SuccessMaker: Built on Reading Science Research

Successful literacy programs should incorporate systematic phonics instruction along with authentic texts in order to ensure that children become successful readers. Research has demonstrated that there are several essential skills that children must learn in order to become successful readers (see Fooreman & Torgesen, 2001; Gambrell, Morrow, & Pressley, 2007; National Reading Panel (NRP), 2000; Snow, 2002). Specifically, children must be able to decode words quickly and accurately, read with fluency, activate vocabulary knowledge, and utilize comprehension strategies to understand the text they are reading (Vacca & Vacca, 2007). Children in the lower grades (i.e., K-3) should receive extensive instruction on emergent reading skills such as phonological awareness, word recognition, fluency, and vocabulary development, whereas reading instruction in the upper grades (i.e., grades 4+) should focus more on comprehension and vocabulary development to better understand increasingly difficult texts.

Program Strand: Phonological Awareness

SuccessMaker Reading builds a solid Phonological Awareness foundation through focused instruction and practice aimed at improving children's understanding and awareness of spoken sounds in words. A variety of interactive and engaging activities are embedded in the course to build students’ Phonological and Phonemic Awareness. For example, students interact with words, letters, and sounds in activities by blending phonemes into words or segmenting words into phonemes. Through varied instruction and practice, students will be able to identify words in a set that begin with the same sound (e.g., map, mat, and maze all have a /m/ at the beginning), identify the initial and final sound in a word (e.g., the beginning sound of cat is /k/, the ending sound is /t/), blend sounds into words (e.g., what word is /v/ /a/ /n/? – van), and segment words into sounds (e.g., how many sounds in the word big? – /b/ /i/ /g/), all of which are considered essential skills for helping children understand and use the alphabetic system to read and write.

Program Strand: Phonics

SuccessMaker Reading provides focused, systematic phonics instruction and practice using various interactive, engaging activities that address a number of skills including letter-sound associations, syllabification, consonant blending, onsets and rimes, and word analysis. For example, students are exposed to onsets and rimes in sorting activities by categorizing words based on sound patterns. Students are then able to integrate and apply learned phonics skills in context during decodable reading passages.

Program Strand: Vocabulary

SuccessMaker Reading comprehensively and systematically embeds focused vocabulary instruction and practice through text passages and interactive practice activities that introduce high frequency and grade-level appropriate words as well as reinforce effective word learning strategies. Target words were selected based on their difficulty (e.g., irregular, multisyllabic, and multiple meaning words) and criticality with regards to text passage comprehension. Students interact with vocabulary words in a variety of activity structures including matching and cloze procedures in addition to word building, replacement, and identification. Students are also indirectly exposed to key words from text passages that are hyperlinked to the glossary. The glossary provides definitions and semantic (e.g., synonyms and antonyms) or contextual (e.g., sentences, visual representations, or audio clips) examples as appropriate.

Program Strand: Comprehension

SuccessMaker Reading addresses reading comprehension skills and strategies by embedding focused instruction and practice throughout the online adaptive learning system. Targeted skills and strategies are introduced and modeled during focused instruction to explain why the strategy helps comprehension, and when and how the strategy should be utilized during reading. Narrative and expository text passages written using the Lexile® Framework (i.e., a scale that measures student reading ability and text difficulty) are provided to enable students to apply the newly learned skills and strategies in context. Students can independently read the text. Educators may also choose to turn on the Read-to- Me audio functionality for individual or groups of students to have the passage read aloud, offering a proficient model of fluency. Graphic organizers and other print materials are also provided to support and extend student learning.