Since reading is a complex skill with many facets, a good reading program is important to students' success. It is as important to consider how you will teach each skill as it is to think about what to teach. Once you have made decisions about the content and methodology that will best benefit your students, you can find curricular materials and activities to support your decisions.
Instructions
Scope and Sequences
1. Evaluate your students' present reading skills. An informal reading inventory (a test involving reading passages at various grade levels and responding to comprehension questions) is a very versatile tool for this task. In fact, it is recommended by Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen, researcher and professor of psychology at Florida State University, as being the most detailed and flexible of all common reading tests. Information from an informal reading inventory lends itself to error analysis to isolate specific phonics, word analysis and comprehension skills that are problematic for a given student.
2. Familiarize yourself with the skills that students in your program need to learn and the general order of their presentation. Scope and sequences resources are available from your school's curriculum company, your state or government grade level standards and benchmarks, or reputable curriculum publishers.
3. Develop a plan of periodic assessment to ensure that students are making adequate progress toward the reading goals you have set. Students who fall short of your preset benchmarks will need to participate in appropriate remedial exercises to catch up with the group.
Methods and Materials
4. Plan to accommodate an array of learning styles. The International Reading Association's position statement supports using evidenced-based instructional methods, those whose success has been demonstrated by sound research, that have been shown to be effective for teaching reading.
5. Find materials that match the needs of your learners. Develop a sequence of lessons based on these materials that will allow your students to meet the requirements of your program. These might be within a commercial curriculum or might be assembled from a variety of sources. The important point is that the materials and activities you choose should lead directly to achievement of the objectives from your chosen scope and sequences and that you should have an array of activities that will meet students' instructional needs.
6. Create periodic assessment tools that you can use to determine if your students are meeting your objectives. Plan to evaluate student progress at least three times throughout the school year, with more frequent evaluation options for students who are struggling to meet standards.
7. Design remedial lesson sequences to build the skills of struggling students identified by your periodic group assessments. End each sequence with a re-evaluation of the skills in question, so you have evidence that the student has mastered the material and is ready to return to learning in the mainstream with the majority of their peers.
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