waterford early reading program™ 4...is intended to be a quick reference for teachers who have...

Overview

Waterford Early Reading Program™ 4.4

Copyright © Waterford Institute, Inc.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Developed by Waterford Research Institute, Salt Lake City, Utah.Waterford Research Institute is a nonprofit research center whose mission is to enable every child to receive the finest education possible by providing high-quality educational models, programs, and software.

Published and distributed by Pearson, Chandler, Arizona.Pearson is committed to providing innovative, research-based digital learning solutions that elevate the art and science of teaching and inspire children to reach their greatest potential.

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Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4026-0787-5

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Overview

Waterford Early Reading Program™ 4.4

i

ContentsTheCompleteWaterfordEarlyReadingProgram��2

HowDoIUseThisGuide?�� 2IntentofWaterfordEarlyReadingProgram�� 2WhatAretheStandardsWaterfordEarlyReadingProgramIsBuiltOn?�� 3RecommendedUsage�� 4

TheCoursesDefined��6WaterfordEarlyReadingProgram�� 6ReadingPlacement�� 6MouseandMore�� 6KeyboardingtoReadandWrite�� 7Writing�� 7UsingtheNavigationBar�� 9

ScopeandSequence��10WaterfordEarlyReadingProgramScope�� 10WaterfordEarlyReadingProgramSequence�� 15

OverviewoftheCourseware:WaterfordEarlyReadingProgram��24ActivityTreeIcons�� 24ReadingPlacement�� 24PhonologicalAwarenessInstructionalStrand�� 30PhonicsInstructionalStrand�� 44ComprehensionandVocabularyInstructionalStrand�� 82LanguageConceptsInstructionalStrand�� 100FluencyInstructionalStrand�� 112

OverviewoftheCourseware:KeyboardingtoReadandWrite��116Materials�� 116TipsforClassroomManagement�� 117ScopeandSequenceofSkills�� 118ActivitiesOverview�� 119

OverviewoftheCourseware:Writing��122ManagingtheCourseware�� 122WritewithMe�� 122

WaterfordEarlyReadingProgramReports��130ReadingClassPlacementReport�� 130ReadingIndividualPlacementReport�� 131ClassSummaryReport�� 132IndividualReport�� 134ReadingGroupGenerator�� 136KeyboardingClassSummaryReport�� 137

StudentBookDistribution��138LevelOne�� 138LevelTwo�� 141LevelThree�� 147

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RationaleandResearch��152WaterfordEarlyReadingProgram�� 152KeyboardingtoReadandWrite�� 157Writing�� 158

Standards��160

FrequentlyAskedQuestions��164

Bibliography��168

Acknowledgments��172

2 TheCompleteWaterfordEarlyReadingProgram

The Complete Waterford Early Reading Program

HowDoIUseThisGuide?This guide presents an overview of Waterford Early Reading Program™, a comprehensive, research-based curriculum designed to teach children to read, write, and keyboard. By providing a summary of the entire program, this book is intended to be a quick reference for teachers who have students in different Waterford courses. If you have questions about Reading Level One, Level Two, or Level Three that are not answered in this guide, consult the expanded teacher materials for those courses. If you have questions about Waterford School Manager™ see How Do I . . . ?, the online help system available in Waterford School Manager.

IntentofWaterfordEarlyReadingProgramWaterford Early Reading Program is made up of the following core courses:

• Reading Level One—prepares students for beginning reading instruction by teaching print concepts, phonological awareness, letter recognition, some letter sounds, and simple decoding.

• Reading Level Two—teaches phonics, including letter sounds, word recognition, and reading comprehension.

• Reading Level Three—takes students from beginning reading to fluent reading with an emphasis on spelling and comprehension.

Taken in sequence, these courses provide an innovative continuum of instruction tailored to each student’s needs. Students’ literacy skills do not always correlate with traditional grade levels, and teachers may be unsure where to place their students.

Reading Placement is used to place a student in the appropriate level and unit of the reading courseware. It measures the student’s ability and places the student in each of the instructional strands.

In addition, the following supplemental courses are available to further develop the skills necessary for reading success.

• Mouse and More—is a short tutorial that automatically runs before a student’s assigned curriculum begins. It teaches students how to use the mouse and other features common to all courses. Mouse and More has several language options for students learning English.

• Keyboarding to Read and Write—teaches students how to keyboard by touch—without looking at their fingers. Keyboarding supports Reading courses by having students keyboard many high-priority words and some literature from Reading Level Two to improve their reading and writing abilities. Depending on which other courses you want to assign and how much time you have available for student sessions, you should run Keyboarding concurrently with Level Two and Level Three.

• Writing—is not a sequence of activities; it is a menu with writing activities, illustration programs, and a word processor. It allows you to devote more classroom time to writing when you choose.

WhatAretheStandardsWaterfordEarlyReadingProgramIsBuiltOn? 3

The Complete Waterford Early Reading Program

Waterford School Manager allows you to create the combination of the previous courses that best suits your students and classroom setup.

WhatAretheStandardsWaterfordEarlyReadingProgramIsBuiltOn?NATIONALREADINGPANELWaterford Early Reading Program is based on nationally recognized guidelines for reading instruction and scientific research. In 2000, the National Reading Panel issued a report entitled Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction, based on the No Child Left Behind Act. The panel reviewed over 10,000 studies to determine what makes high quality, effective reading instruction, particularly in the critical years from kindergarten through third grade. The findings of the report have become guidelines for educators, curriculum developers, and school administrators interested in providing the most effective and robust literacy instruction for young learners.

The National Reading Panel determined that early reading instruction has five critical components (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2001). They include

• Phonemic awareness—the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words

• Phonics—knowledge of the relationship between letters and sounds in spoken language (graphophonemic knowledge) that allows children to read and spell words

• Fluency—the ability to read text accurately, quickly, with expression, and with correct phrasing

• Vocabulary—knowledge of words required to communicate and comprehend spoken and written language

• Text comprehension—the ability to obtain and construct meaning from written language (RAND Reading Study Group, 2001)

Waterford Early Reading Program incorporates those components as follows:

• Phonological Awareness Instructional Strand• Phonics Instructional Strand• Fluency Instructional Strand• Comprehension and Vocabulary Instructional Strand• Language Concepts Instructional Strand. This strand teaches readiness skills, structure of language, and language

conventions.

COMMONCORESTATESTANDARDSFORENGLISHLANGUAGEARTSIn 2010, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) presented Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies and Science. These standards present the new best

4 TheCompleteWaterfordEarlyReadingProgram

practices for literacy instruction. The instructional strands in Waterford Early Reading Program support many of the objectives.

RecommendedUsageWaterford Early Reading Program is a continuum that helps students progress from emergent to fluent reading. Students will be placed in a level that matches their reading ability as determined by Reading Placement, or teachers will assign students to a level manually.

It is recommended that students use the program daily to ensure adequate progress within a school year. Kindergarten students should use Waterford Early Reading Program for a minimum of 15 minutes each day. First- and second-grade students should use the program for a minimum of 30 minutes each day. These minimum times are the default session times in Waterford School Manager, and the default session time is determined by grade level, not by course level. For example, a kindergarten student who progresses from Level One to Level Two during the school year will still have a default session time of 15 minutes. Students in first and second grade should have spent 72 hours in Waterford Early Reading Program by the end of the school year. Students in kindergarten should have spent 36 hours in Waterford Early Reading Program by the end of the school year.

Keyboarding to Read and Write and Writing should also be used in conjunction with Waterford Early Reading Program. Keyboarding to Read and Write should be added to students’ curriculum by the time they reach Unit Six of Level Two. Keyboarding should run daily for a minimum of 10 minutes to a maximum of 15 minutes. After the first 5 sessions, the minimum time can be decreased to 8 minutes.

When Keyboarding to Read and Write is added to a student’s curriculum in Reading Level Two, the Reading session time could be lowered to 22 minutes. The 22 minutes and the 8 minutes for Keyboarding comprise the recommended 30 minutes. As the student progresses in Level Three, adjust the Keyboarding session time accordingly. For example, if a student is progressing quickly through Level Three, Keyboarding time could be increased.

How much time your students spend in Writing is up to you. It is an excellent way to encourage daily writing, and is the perfect place to teach your students how to create published works from rough drafts.

RecommendedUsage 5

6 TheCoursesDefined

WaterfordEarlyReadingProgramEach day of Waterford Early Reading Program™, students receive an instructional period on the computer. Waterford Early Reading Program is arranged into five instructional strands. The five instructional strands are then grouped by level. The five instructional strands are

• Phonological awareness—teaches how to hear, distinguish, and manipulate sounds in spoken words.

• Phonics—teaches alphabet recognition, letter–sound correspondences, word recognition, and decoding skills.

• Comprehension and vocabulary—teaches word meanings explicitly and implicitly and strategies for comprehending or deriving meaning from text.

• Language concepts—teaches print concepts, grammar, mechanics of written and spoken language, reading readiness skills, and writing.

• Fluency—teaches how to read text accurately and quickly with appropriate expression. Instruction in this area begins in Level Three once the student has a sufficient grasp of reading running text.

ReadingPlacementReading Placement assesses students to determine where they should be placed in Waterford Early Reading Program. The tool measures students’ ability, and then automatically places them at an appropriate starting point in each instructional strand. Waterford School Manager™ assigns the placement tool to run before the first session of Waterford Early Reading Program. You can assign students manually to a level if you do not want to use Reading Placement.

MouseandMoreMouse and More teaches students the skills they need to use the computer. In Mouse and More, students learn that:

• The cursor can be different shapes• Clicking the mouse button will make events happen on the screen• Moving the mouse in the air will not change the cursor position

Students practice clicking various objects on the screen and moving them to new locations.

In Mouse and More, students also practice using the Navigation Bar—a row of buttons at the bottom of the screen. These buttons appear in most activities to help students maneuver through the courseware. For more information about the Navigation Bar, see page 9.

Mouse and More plays automatically before the first assigned course begins. If you would like your students to skip this activity, you can manually unassign this activity.

The Courses Defined

KeyboardingtoReadandWrite 7

If you assign Spanish or Chinese as a student’s primary language, Mouse and More is assigned to the student in Spanish or Mandarin Chinese. Mouse and More can also be reassigned in English once students complete it in their primary language. (To do so, change the student’s primary language to English.)

KeyboardingtoReadandWriteKeyboarding to Read and Write teaches students to keyboard by touch. Learning to keyboard helps students learn to read. As they progress through the courseware, their reading, writing, and keyboarding skills will improve.

OBJECTIVESKeyboarding to Read and Write is designed for first- and second-grade students; however, older children will benefit from the courseware as well. This program is designed to:

• Teach students to keyboard by touch• Teach students basic word processing techniques• Guide students gradually in composing at the keyboard• Reinforce skills learned in Waterford Early Reading Program

WritingWriting provides a menu of writing activities and illustration programs for emergent readers and writers, and a word processor for advanced readers and writers. It is designed to provide students with additional writing opportunities at the teacher’s discretion.

Writing is an open-ended course, not a defined sequence. Through the Write with Me activities and the Word Processor, Writing introduces students to writing with a word processor.

WRITEWITHMEWrite with Me is a group of computer activities specially designed for emergent readers and writers who do not have keyboarding skills. Students write by clicking an on-screen keypad with the mouse or by using the keyboard. As students explore writing in Write with Me, they are directed through a scaffolded set of writing activities to create a final published product. Besides writing, students can select available artwork or draw pictures to accompany text. Synthesized speech is also available to read students’ writing to them.

Using Write with Me is a fun and creative way to get students excited about writing and producing their own work. Each activity in Write with Me allows students the opportunity to explore writing in a unique environment. Students can:

• Create an alphabet book with letters and pictures in ABC Book• Write a book about themselves in Me by Me• Make all-occasion cards in Card Maker• Create signs in Sign Studio• Write a letter, note, or book report in Things to Do• Freely create books or stories in Free Choice

8 TheCoursesDefined

OBJECTIVESWrite with Me is designed to help students:

• Recognize letters, words, and spaces between words• Develop a working knowledge of the alphabetic principle• Learn color names• Understand print directionality• Become familiar with basic word processing functions, such as cut, paste,

save, scroll, print, exit, and clip art

WORDPROCESSORWord Processor is a simplified word processor designed to help students develop word processing and writing skills. Word Processor includes the following features: save, open (retrieve), print, font selection, alignment, cut, copy, paste, pagination, clip art, borders, and background music.

OBJECTIVESWord Processor will help students:

• Learn basic word processing functions• Understand the process of writing using the keyboard• Achieve a higher level of motivation to write

MANAGINGTHECOURSEWAREBecause writing is an integral part of reading, Write with Me activities and Word Processor are combined into a single course in the form of a simple menu. This allows teachers to assign students more writing time. Teachers can give a writing topic, then allow students to write about it using the Writing features.

UsingtheNavigationBar 9

UsingtheNavigationBarThere are several buttons your students need to be familiar with in order to navigate through the courseware. These buttons appear in a gray bar at the bottom of the screen. This gray bar is the Navigation Bar. The following buttons appear in the Navigation Bar throughout the courseware:

GoOn:click to go on to the next activity in the sequence or return to a menu.

Read:click to have the text on screen read aloud.

PlayAgain:click to replay the last activity.

Print:click to print the picture or story created in the activity, certificates, progress information, and worksheets.

Repeat:click to hear the last instruction spoken again.

Menu:click to end the current activity and return to the previous menu. (The Menu button appears only when students are using Play and Practice.)

10 ScopeandSequence

Scope and Sequence This Scope and Sequence provides an overview of the skills students will learn and a sense of the order of activities students will see in Waterford Early Reading Program™.

The Scope details the concepts students will learn in Waterford Early Reading Program. It is arranged by instructional strands. The Sequence is the order students will view the objectives. The sequencer provides individualized instruction by choosing those activities that would most benefit the student.

WaterfordEarlyReadingProgramScope

introducedandpracticed practicedandevaluated reviewed

Objectives LevelOne

LevelTwo

LevelThree

Phonological awareness Identify rhyme

Depending on students’ progress, objectives are introduced, practiced,

evaluated, and reviewed in Level One, Level Two, and/or

Level Three.

Identify the number of syllables in words

Blend onset and rime to make words

Identify initial sounds

Blend individual phonemes to make words

Identify final sounds

Segment words by individual phonemes

Phonics

GraphophonemicKnowledge

Identify letters in own name

Identify letters of alphabet, both capital and lowercase

Distinguish between capital and lowercase letters

Recognize consonant sounds (/b/, c: /k/, /d/, /f/, g: /g/, /h/, /j/, /k/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /p/, /kw/, /r/, /s/, /t/, /v/, /w/, /x/, /y/, /z/)Recognize consonant sounds (c: /s/, g: /j/, s: /z/)

Recognize short vowel sounds (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/)Identify beginning consonant blends (st-, sk-, sl-, bl-, br-, pl-, cl-, cr-, gr-, pr-, tr-, fr-, dr-, fl-, sm-, sn-, sw-, sp-, sc-, str-, scr-, thr-, spl-)Identify ending consonant blends (-st, -mp, -nt, -nd, -lk)

Identify digraphs (ck, ch, tch, sh, th, wh)

Recognize long vowels and their spelling (/ā/: a_e, ai, and ay; /ē/: ee and ea;/ ī/: i_e; /ō/: o_e and oa; /ū/: u_e)

WaterfordEarlyReadingProgramScope 11


Objectives LevelOne

LevelTwo

LevelThree

Identify additional ending consonant blends (-nk, -ng, -ld, -nge, -nce, -dge)

Identify additional digraphs (/f/: ph and gh, /ng/)

Recognize other spellings for long vowels (/ō/: -ost, -old, and -oll;/ ī/: -ind and -ight)Identify additional vowel sounds and associated spellings (/e/: ea, /aw/: aw, /o/: all, /�/: ew and ue, /oi/: oi and oy, /ow/: ou and ow, /ō/: ow, / ī/: igh)Identify r-controlled vowels (ar, er, ir, ur, or)

Recognize silent consonants in words (kn-, gn-, wr-, gh-, -dge)

Identify schwa sound

Spelling

Spell high-frequency words (Power Words)

Spell decodable words

WordIdentificationStrategies

Blend sounds into words

Identify new words by analogyRecognize high-frequency words

Make use of context

comPrehension and Vocabulary

ComprehensionStrategies

Set reading expectations, make predictions (Peek at the Story)

Connect experiences and knowledge with the text (Connect to Me)

Build background knowledge

Visualize or picture what is happening in the story (Step into the Story)

Sum up—Remember Order

Sum up—Five Ws (who, what, why, when, and where)

Organize (map) stories

Describe characters

Compare characters

Answer questions about the text Build vocabulary

12 ScopeandSequence


Objectives LevelOne

LevelTwo

LevelThree

ComprehensionSkills

Distinguish between reality and fantasy

Recall details

Make inferences, make predictions

Recognize cause and effect

Compare or contrast

Recognize logical sequence of events

Practice visual memory (recall objects from a scene)

Use context to understand a word’s meaning

Fiction

Listen to and read nursery rhymes

Listen to and read traditional stories

Listen to and read folktalesListen to and read realistic fiction

Listen to and read drama

Nonfiction

Listen to and read biography

Listen to and read instructional text (how-to)

Listen to and read informational text

Poetry

Listen to and read songs

Listen to and read rhymed verse

Listen to and read free verse

language concePts

PrintAwareness

Read sentences left to right, top to bottomUnderstand that words are separated by spaces and read one at a time in sequential orderUnderstand the concept of a letter

Understand the concept of a word

Explore the connection between pictures and text

Explore the connection between speech and text

WaterfordEarlyReadingProgramScope 13


Objectives LevelOne

LevelTwo

LevelThree

LanguageVocabulary

Understand position words (over, under, through, top, beside, bottom)

Recognize shapes and shape words

Identify colors and color words

Identify and create patterns

Understand one-to-one relationships

Recognize numbers, number words, and sets

Identify parts of the body

Sort items by categories

Recognize objects that are similar or different

Identify everyday sounds

Understand the concept of sizes and use size wordsUnderstand opposites (antonyms)

Understand synonyms

LanguageConventionsandMechanics

Use alphabetical order (by first and/or second letters)

Identify a sentence

Use capitalizationUse punctuation (period, comma, question mark, apostrophe, exclamation point, quotation marks)Identify nouns

Identify verbs

Use present and past tense

Identify adjectives

Identify adverbs

Use irregular verbs

Understand verbs that link

Identify pronouns

Identify possessive nouns and pronouns

Understand prepositions and prepositional phrases

StructuralAnalysis

Plurals (-s, -es)

14 ScopeandSequence

*Taught only in the Teacher Guide (Lessons and Resources for either Reading Level Two or Reading Level Three)


Objectives LevelOne

LevelTwo

LevelThree

-ed and -ing endings

Irregular plurals (goose, geese; mouse, mice; moose, moose)

Possessives

Contractions

Comparing adjectives ( fast, faster, fastest)

Compound words

Homophones ( pear, pair; there, their, they’re; two, to, too; hare, hair)

Prefixes, suffixes (re-, un-, -ful, -less, -er)

Changing y to i (bunny to bunnies)

Fluency

Build oral reading expression

Build oral reading speed

writing

WritingProcess

Prewrite by mapping ideas *Create a first draft *Revise by adding details and interesting words; stick to the topic *Edit a written document *Publish to share ideas with classmates *ModesofExpression

Make signs, lists, and cards * *Write stories *Write descriptively *Write in a journal * *Write a friendly narrative * *Write a letter *Write poetry * *comPuter skills

Use a mouse to point, click, and drag All objectives are introduced, practiced, evaluated, and reviewed in Reading

Level One, Reading Level Two, Reading Level Three, Keyboarding, and Writing.

Practice simple word processing skills (using the mouse and keyboard)

Understand how to use a simple illustration program

WaterfordEarlyReadingProgramSequence 15

WaterfordEarlyReadingProgramSequenceThe Waterford Early Reading Program sequencer individualizes instruction to meet the needs of each student. The sequencer determines activities to introduce, instruct, practice, and assess student performance on specific reading skills. Based on performance, the sequencer will run remedial activities to reteach and practice skills again, or advance to another objective if the student is mastering the concepts.

The sequence is organized into five instructional strands: phonological awareness, phonics, comprehension and vocabulary, language concepts, and fluency. Students can progress in an individual instructional strand independently of their progress in another. The levels of the program are used to help the sequencer organize the instructional strands. Before beginning their work in Waterford Early Reading Program, Reading Placement determines the student’s level within the instructional strands.

These are important terms to know when discussing the organization of the program:

Objective: an activity or group of activitiesLearning Objective: the educational goal of an objective or activity

Each instructional strand is organized into objectives. An objective is a group of activities (though some objectives may only have one activity).

Objectives consist of a combination of these types of activities:

• Preassessment: a test taken at the beginning of an objective or series of objectives to measure the student’s background knowledge, to determine how the student will be routed in the program, and to provide a benchmark score for reports

• Song: engaging music and memorable lyrics help students learn and remember concepts

• Introduction: a brief overview of the objective or quick hints on what will come next and how to be successful with that skill

• Instruction: explicit teaching to help the student learn a concept• Book: beautiful illustrations and text geared towards the objective’s concept

give students experience with language, reading, and a particular skill• Practice: application of the instruction through repetition, usually in

a game• Postassessment: a test taken at the end of an objective or series of

objectives to determine if the student needs remediation or if the student will advance to other objectives; it also provides a benchmark score for reports

16 ScopeandSequence

Sentences Sentence Marks Nouns Plural

NounsPossessive

Nouns

Sentence Marks

Sentence Marks Practice

Sentence Marks Assessment

Each objective and activity has a learning objective, or the educational goal of the objective or activity. Here is an example of the sequence of objectives within the Language Concepts Instructional Strand.

Each of these objectives has a learning objective. For example, the Sentence Marks learning objective is: “Use periods, question marks, and exclamation marks correctly.”

Each objective contains an activity or activities as described on the previous page. These activities help to teach the learning objective. The following diagram shows the activities contained in the Sentence Marks objective.

LanguageConcepts

Sentences Sentence Marks Nouns Plural

NounsPossessive

Nouns

Each of these activities has its own learning objective. For example, the Sentence Marks Assessment learning objective is: “Demonstrate ability to use periods, question marks, and exclamation marks correctly.”

The sequencer uses this organization of objectives and activities to guide students through the program. All the activities within an objective will play before the sequencer moves the student to a different instructional strand. The sequencer determines which instructional strand needs to be played by the percentage of unmastered objectives yet to be seen in that level. A strand with more objectives will be seen more frequently than a strand with fewer objectives. The sequencer keeps instructional strands in balance within each level.

Each objective has unique specifications. For example, the Sentence Marks objective requires 80% mastery. If a student needs remediation, then this objective is programmed to play a second time at a later date.


In the course of the program, students are taught a concept, allowed to practice skills in various ways, and assessed. If the student is unable to pass an assessment for a particular concept, additional foundational skills or the concept itself is reintroduced into the student’s curriculum after a prescribed period of time. The concept is then practiced and reassessed.

Also, most of the program’s preassessments test concepts before instruction begins. If the student shows concept mastery in a preassessment, then instruction of that concept is not given. The table below shows the mastery requirements for different components of Waterford Early Reading Program.

InstructionalStrand Level ActivityType Mastery MaximumPossibleTimesSeen

Phonological awareness — Preassessment 100% 1Instruction and Practice 80% 35*Postassessment 80% 6Additional Assessment 80% 8

Phonics One Name Recognition Assessment 100% 10^Letter Recognition Instruction and Practice

Exposure 1

Individual Letter Mastery Assessment (Letter Checker)

100% 11

Letter Mastery Practice Exposure 5

Mixed Case Letter Automaticity Assessment

100% 2

Capital Postassessments 90% 1Lowercase Postassessments 90% 1Decodable Books 80% 2All other assessments 100% 1

Two Preassessment 100% 1Lesson Introduction Exposure 1

Letter Sound Instruction Exposure 12**

Letter Sound Assessment (Name That Sound)

100% 11

Power Word Instruction 100% 2

Power Word Spelling 100% 2

Pattern Word Instruction 100% 2

Automatic Word Recognition 80% 4

Word Reading Strategies 80% 1

Readable Word Assessment 90% 2

Record Readable^^ Exposure 2

18 ScopeandSequence

InstructionalStrand Level ActivityType Mastery MaximumPossibleTimesSeen

Phonics continued Three Lesson Introduction Exposure 1Spelling Preassessment 100% 1Spelling Word Instruction Exposure 3Spelling Postassessment 100% 2Word Recognition 100% 2Automatic Word Recognition 80% 2Listen to Readable*** Exposure 2Record Readable Exposure 1


One Nursery Rhyme Exposure 4Read with Me Book Exposure 2

One, Two Comprehension and Vocabulary Assessments

80% 2

Two Traditional Tales and Read-along Book

Exposure 2

Three Read-along Book Exposure 4Comprehension Assessment 80% 4

language concePts One, Two Instruction, Practice, and Assessment

80% 2

Three Instruction Exposure 4Practice Exposure 3Assessment 80% 2Writing and Editing Assessments

100% 2

Fluency Three Speed Assessment 60–90 WPM 4Comprehension Assessment 100% 1

* Instruction and Practice is repeated when students fail the activity itself or the corresponding postassessment. After failing, students see Instruction and Practice up to 8 times before taking a postassessment. There are up to 12 different data sets for each Instruction and Practice, so students are always seeing new material.

^ It is critical that students learn to spell their own names. After students fail a Name Recognition Assessment, they receive one of five instruction or practice activities each day before they reattempt the Name Recognition Assessment.

** Letter Sound Instruction is repeated each time students fail a letter sound in a Letter Sound Assessment (Name That Sound). Vowel sounds are assessed the most frequently, and are therefore the most likely to be repeated.

^^ If students fail a Readable Word Assessment, they will see the corresponding Record Readable a second time.

*** If students fail an Automatic Word Recognition, they will see the corresponding Listen to Readable a second time.

WaterfordEarlyReadingProgramSequence 19 19

Sound IdentificationListen, identify, and order environmental sounds. (Preparatory to hearing sounds in words.)

Rhyme and Nonrhyming WordsIdentify words that do and do not rhyme.

Syllables and Syllable DeletionIdentify and delete syllables in words.

Blending Onset/RimeUnderstand that word parts and onset /rime blend together to make words.

Blending Individual PhonemesIdentify words by blending individual phonemes. (Alternates with segmenting.)

Initial SoundsIdentify the initial sounds in words.

Final SoundsIdentify the final sounds in words.

Phoneme Positions (Blend and Order Phonemes)Identify the initial, medial, or final position of sounds in words.

The following pages show the skills of objectives within the five instructional strands.

PHONOLOGICALAWARENESSINSTRUCTIONALSTRANDSKILLSBecause phonological awareness is such an important skill, all students will complete the Phonological Awareness Instructional Strand unless they pass the final assessment in Reading Placement.

Phoneme SubstitutionUnderstand that changing or substituting one phoneme for another creates a new word.

Phoneme Addition IdentificationIdentify the new word formed when a phoneme is added to an existing word.

Segmenting PhonemesIdentify the number of phonemes in a word.

Phoneme ManipulationUse letters to manipulate phonemes and create new words.

Phoneme DeletionIdentify the word that remains when a phoneme is removed from another word.

20 ScopeandSequence

PHONICSINSTRUCTIONALSTRANDSKILLS

LevelOne

Letter Name RecognitionAutomatically identify and write capital and lowercase letters.

Letter–Sound CorrespondenceIdentify high-frequency letter–sound correspondences.

BlendingBlend letter sounds to form word patterns and identify decodable words.

Power WordsRead and identify 20 high-frequency words.

Decodable BooksRead decodable books.

LevelTwo

Introductory BooksIdentify and spell Power Words to read Introductory Books.

Letter–Sound CorrespondenceDemonstrate ability to identify letter–sound correspondences.

Decodable WordsBlend word patterns and identify words using these patterns.

Power WordsRead and spell high-frequency words.

Decodable BooksPractice Power Words and word patterns by reading and recording decodable books.

LevelThree

SpellingIdentify and spell pattern and Power Words to read decodable books.

Automatic Recognition of WordsIdentify pattern words and Power Words with speed and accuracy.

Decodable BooksPractice Power Words and word patterns by reading and recording decodable books.


COMPREHENSIONANDVOCABULARYINSTRUCTIONALSTRANDSKILLSLevelOne

Vocabulary WordsMatch vocabulary words with definitions.

Nursery Rhyme Song or Read with Me BookLearn vocabulary words by listening to a nursery rhyme song or short story.

Comprehension Strategy DevelopmentRecall words from the nursery rhyme by matching the words with pictures or by sequencing pictures of events.

LevelTwo

Vocabulary WordsUse sentences and story content to verify word meanings.

Prereading Comprehension StrategiesPrepare for reading by building background knowledge and vocabulary, making connections, predicting, or asking questions.

Traditional Tale or Read-along BookDevelop comprehension skills while reading or listening to a Traditional Tale or Read-along Book.

Post-reading Comprehension StrategiesCheck comprehension by summarizing; answering who, what, where, when, and why questions; and comparing characters.

LevelThree

Prereading Comprehension StrategiesPrepare for reading by building background knowledge, making connections by stepping into the story, and predicting.

Read-along BooksDevelop comprehension and vocabulary skills while reading or listening to a Read-along Book.

Post-reading Comprehension StrategiesCheck comprehension by summarizing, answering questions, comparing characters, building vocabulary, and mapping the story.

22 ScopeandSequence

LANGUAGECONCEPTSINSTRUCTIONALSTRANDSKILLS

LevelOne

Print ConceptsIdentify print directionality, a letter, a word, pictures, and text.

ReadinessIdentify basic oral language skills, such as shapes, facial features, numbers, colors, positioning words, sizes, and categories.

LevelTwo

SentencesUnderstand that a sentence begins with a capital letter, tells a complete idea, and ends with a punctuation mark.

Punctuation MarksIdentify the correct use of periods, question marks, and exclamation points.

NounsIdentify common nouns, plural nouns, and possessive nouns.

VerbsIdentify verbs and complete sentences using correct verbs.

Word Endings (-ed, -ing)Identify how spelling changes in words when -ed and -ing are added to words.

Structural AnalysesIdentify contractions and compound words.

Adjective InstructionIdentify adjectives and use them to describe characters.

LevelThree

Alphabetical OrderOrder words alphabetically by the first and second letter.

AdjectivesIdentify the adjective that will complete the sentence and add to the story.

ComparativesIdentify comparatives, such as big, bigger, and biggest to complete a story.

Word Endings (Change Y to I)Identify how words that end in Y change when different endings are added.

Irregular PluralsIdentify the irregular plurals that will complete the sentence.

VerbsIdentify past-tense verbs, irregular verbs, and nonaction verbs that correctly complete sentences.

AdverbsIdentify the adverb that will complete the sentence.

PronounsIdentify the pronoun needed to complete a sentence.

PrefixesIdentify the correct prefix that will complete the sentence and add to the story.

SuffixesIdentify the correct suffix to complete a sentence.

HomophonesIdentify the correct homophone that will complete a sentence.

AntonymsIdentify the antonym for a given word.

SynonymsIdentify the synonym for a given word.

Writing ProcessUnderstand the steps of prewriting, making a first draft, revising, editing, and publishing.


FLUENCYINSTRUCTIONALSTRANDSKILLS

LevelThree

Fluency ExpressionDevelop oral reading by reading sentences with appropriate expression.

Fluency Speed DevelopmentPractice reading text at the appropriate word-per-minute benchmarks, ranging from 60 to 90 WPM.

Fluency ComprehensionPractice literal and inferential comprehension to ensure that meaning is maintained as reading rate increases.

24 OverviewoftheCourseware:WaterfordEarlyReadingProgram

Overview of the Courseware: Waterford Early Reading Program

ActivityTreeIconsEach objective is comprised of a series of activities as shown in the following pages. The following icons are used to show the type of activities in the View Activities tab in the Manage Curriculum drawer.

Song Assessment

Book Tutorial

Introduction/Instruction Congratulations

Practice Title Screen

Extension

ReadingPlacement

INTRODUCTIONReading Placement assesses key reading skills to help teachers place their students in Waterford Early Reading Program™. This series of tests places students in Level One, Level Two, or Level Three of Waterford Early Reading Program. Based on performance, students are placed at the beginning, middle, or near the end of a level in the Phonics, Comprehension and Vocabulary, or Language Concepts Instructional Strands for Level One or Level Two. Because phonological awareness is such an important skill, students will be placed at the beginning of the Phonological Awareness Instructional Strand unless they master the final assessment in Reading Placement. The assessments test reading skills in advancing difficulty for each area:

• Level One—Unit 1 Capital Letter Assessment—Unit 2 Lowercase Letter Assessment—Unit 3 Word Assessment

• Level Two—Units 1–3 Word Assessment—Units 4–5 Word Assessment—Units 6–10 Word Assessment

If students pass the Level Two, Units 6–10 Word Assessment, the placement test ends and students are placed at the beginning of Level Three.

Rosy appears at the beginning of Reading Placement to introduce the test. She also appears between assessments to inform students they are moving on to the next test, will see a rest activity, or have finished the test.

Students must score 80% or higher to move on to the next test. (Students can only miss 2 letters or words.) If students score less than 80%, the assessment stops, and students are appropriately placed in each instructional strand of Waterford Early Reading Program.

ReadingPlacement 25

MANAGINGTHETESTReading Placement is designed to be taken only once to place students in the reading program. If students take the assessment again, all previous scores will be replaced with the most recent scores and students will be placed in Waterford Early Reading Program accordingly.

Reading Placement is automatically enabled and will run before a level of Waterford Early Reading Program is assigned. If you do not want to use the placement tool, manually assign a level of Waterford Early Reading Program (see Quick Reference or How Do I . . . ?).

Kindergarten and first-grade students begin Reading Placement with Level One assessments. Second-grade students automatically skip Level One assessments and begin Reading Placement with Level Two assessments.

If teachers want second-grade students to begin with Level One assessments—which assess letter recognition and simple consonant-vowel-consonant words—teachers can manually assign Level One assessments to those students.

LevelOneAssessments

AtaGlanceAssessments Unit 1 Capital Letter Assessment

Unit 2 Lowercase Letter AssessmentUnit 3 Word Assessment

Objectives Identify all capital letters.Identify all lowercase letters.Identify Power Words and nonwords.

Supporting Research “Beginners need to know letter shapes and sounds well enough so that this connection-forming material is available for activation when words are read” (Ehri & Roberts, 2006, p. 115).“A list of nonwords designed to test the decoding skill should contain nonwords assessing a wide range of GPC (grapheme–phoneme conversion) rules, from simple to complex” (Joshi, 2004, p. 137).

Unit1CapitalLetterAssessment In the Capital Letter Assessment, students see 10 letters. They are asked

to click a specific letter.


Unit2LowercaseLetterAssessment In the Lowercase Letter Assessment, students see 10 lowercase letters.

They are asked to click a specific letter.

Unit3WordAssessment In the Word Assessment, students see three ducks with a word or

nonword displayed on each one. Students hear a target word, then click the corresponding duck. There are 3 sight words and 7 nonwords.

ReadingPlacement 27

LevelTwoAssessments

AtaGlanceAssessments Units 1–3 Assessment

Units 4–5 AssessmentUnits 6–10 Assessment

Objectives Identify Power Words and nonwords.Order words to form a sentence.

Supporting Research “The material commonly used for assessing decoding ability is a list of nonwords, also referred to as pseudowords. Because these ‘words’ are new to the reader, it is believed they can be read only by decoding them” (Joshi, 2004, p. 137).“Systematic phonics instruction produces significant benefits for students in kindergarten through 6th grade and for children having difficulty learning to read” (National Reading Panel, 2000).

Units1–3WordAssessment In Word Assessment, students see a spaceship surrounded by three

meteors with words on them. Students hear the target word spoken, then click the meteor with the target word on it. There are 2 sight words and 8 nonwords.

Units4–5WordAssessment In Word Assessment, three words appear on the screen. Students hear a

target word and click the word that matches the spoken word. When a word is clicked, a rabbit smashes the fruit to make juice. There are 2 sight words and 8 nonwords.

Units6–10WordAssessment In Word Assessment, students see a spaceship surrounded by three

meteors with words on them. Students hear the target word spoken, then click the meteor with the target word on it. There are 2 sight words and 8 nonwords.


PLACEMENTCHARTThe following chart shows how Reading Placement places students within the Phonics, Comprehension and Vocabulary, Language Concepts, and Fluency Instructional Strands.

LevelOneAssessments

Capital Letter Assessment

score of * 80%

score of ≥ 80%

Unit 1: Capital Letter Preassessment

Vocabulary Words:

Apple Tree

Print Directionality

ComprehensionandVocabulary

LanguageConcepts

Identify Sounds*

PhonologicalAwareness

Identify Sounds*


Identify Sounds*


Lowercase Letter

Assessment

score of ≥ 80%

Unit 2: Lowercase Letter

Preassessment

Phonics

Vocabulary Words: Andy’s

Adventure


Similarities and Differences in

Letters

LanguageConcepts

Word Assessment

score of * 80%

score of ≥ 80%

Unit 3: Power Word

Preassessment

Phonics

Words Tell about Pictures

LanguageConcepts


Vocabulary Words:

Magnifying Glass

Unit1

Unit2

Unit3

Level Two Assessments

*Reading Placement always places students at the beginning of the Phonological Awareness Instructional Strand.

Name Recognition Assessment

NameRecognition

score of * 80%

Phonics

ReadingPlacement 29

LevelTwoAssessments

Word Assessment

score of * 80%

score of ≥ 80%

Unit 1, Lesson 1: Introduction Readable, Me

Read and Comprehend:

Mine

What Is a Sentence?

PhonicsComprehensionandVocabulary

LanguageConcepts

Word Assessment

score of * 80%

score of ≥ 80%

Unit 4, Lesson 16: Readable, Slug

Bug

What Is a Sentence?


LanguageConcepts

Read and Comprehend:

José Three

Units1–3

Units4–5

Identify Sounds*


Identify Sounds*


Word Assessment

score of * 80%

score of ≥ 80%

Unit 6, Lesson 26: Readable, Can We Still Be Friends?

Read and Comprehend: My

Super Sticky Sandwich

What Is a Sentence?

PhonicsComprehensionandVocabulary

LanguageConcepts

Place in Level Three

Units6–10

Identify Sounds*


*Reading Placement always places students at the beginning of the Phonological Awareness Instructional Strand.

Phonics


PhonologicalAwarenessInstructionalStrandPhonological awareness develops students’ abilities to recognize that spoken words are made up of sequences of little sounds. Phonological awareness includes the ability to recognize that (1) words rhyme, (2) that words begin with the same sound, and (3) that a word such as cat is composed of three sound, which is specifically phonemic awareness. Because phonological awareness is so important, it is not leveled and all students will see it unless they master the final assessment in Units 5–6 of Level Three in Reading Placement.

Students placed in Level One begin working in the Phonological Awareness Instructional Strand after they have completed capital letters. Students who are placed beyond that point with Reading Placement begin working in the Phonological Awareness Instructional Strand immediately. The sequencer will play one objective each day until mastery is reached, regardless of the level the student is placed in.

ScopeandSequenceofSkillsThe following is the scope and sequence of skills learned in the Phonological Awareness Instructional Strand. You will notice there are five preassessments toward the beginning of the sequence. These preassessments are grouped together to create a benchmark score. Because phonological awareness skills are so closely related to each other, gains in one area can affect gains in another. This benchmark score allows the program to measure initial ability and then track gains throughout the instructional strand.

1. Identify Sounds 2. Sounds in Order 3. Rhyme Preassessment 4. Syllable Preassessment 5. Blending Preassessment 6. Initial Sound Preassessment 7. Segmenting Phonemes Preassessment 8. Rhyme Instruction 1 9. Rhyme Instruction 2 10. Rhyme Practice 1 11. Rhyme Practice 2 12. Rhyme Postassessment 13. Syllable Instruction 14. Syllable Practice 15. Syllable Postassessment 16. Blending Onset /Rime Instruction 17. Blending Onset /Rime Practice 18. Blending Individual Phonemes Instruction 19. Identify Words by Blending Phonemes 20. Phoneme Manipulation 21. Initial Sound Instruction 22. Blending Individual Phonemes 23. Initial Sound Practice

PhonologicalAwarenessInstructionalStrand 31

24. Blending Practice 25. Blending Postassessment 26. Identify the Nonrhyming Word 27. Blend and Order Phonemes 28. Initial Sound Postassessment 29. Syllable Deletion 30. Final Sound Assessment 31. Phoneme Position Instruction 32. Phoneme Substitution Practice 33. Phoneme Deletion 34. Phoneme Addition 35. Phoneme Substitution Assessment 36. Segmenting Phonemes Practice 37. Segmenting Phonemes Postassessment

ACTIVITIESThis section provides objectives, learning objectives, and general descriptions of each type of activity students will see in the Phonological Awareness Instructional Strand.

IntroductoryActivities(SoundIdentification)

AtaGlanceObjectives Identify Sounds

Sounds in OrderLearning Objective Identify environmental sounds and place them in the

order they are heard.Supporting Research “Identify environmental sounds, e.g., keys jingling,

scissors cutting, clapping” (Core Knowledge Foundation, 2010, p. 6).

IdentifySounds

Get Started with Sounds teaches students that learning about sounds will help them get ready to read. They are also introduced to Rusty and Rosy. Rusty also appears at the beginning of each phonological objective to remind students to listen to sounds in words.


What Do You Hear? helps students associate sounds with the objects that make them. Students see a scene, hear a sound, and then choose the object that made the sound.

SoundsinOrder Sounds in Order teaches students to identify sounds and put them in order.

Students hear a series of sounds, then click pictures representing each sound in the order the sounds were presented.

Rhyme

AtaGlanceObjectives Rhyme Preassessment

Rhyme Instruction 1Rhyme Instruction 2Rhyme Practice 1Rhyme Practice 2Rhyme PostassessmentIdentify the Nonrhyming Word

Learning Objective Recognize and identify rhyming words.Supporting Research To demonstrate an understanding of spoken words,

students should be able to “recognize and produce rhyming words” (Common Core State Standards Initiative [Common Core], 2010, p. 15).“Rhyme awareness is a predictor of which children will find it easier to develop phoneme awareness” (Goswami, 2002, p. 119).“Studies showing a connection between early rhyme awareness and the subsequent acquisition of literacy or literacy-related skills demonstrate that the developmental pathway to reading acquisition in English critically involves rhyme” (Goswami, 2002, p. 119).


RhymePreassessment Rhyme Preassessment assesses students’ ability to identify rhyming

words. A picture representing a target word appears, and students must choose the representative picture that rhymes with the target word.

RhymeInstruction1 Rhyme Instruction 1 teaches students that words that rhyme have the

same endings. Students hear two words and decide whether or not they rhyme.

Rhyming Words Song familiarizes students with rhyming words. Students hear words that rhyme and then select one of the various pictures that rhymes with a given word.

RhymeInstruction2 In Rhyme Instruction 2, students see pictures of two objects and are asked

whether the two words represented by the objects rhyme. Students answer by clicking YES or NO. Each time they answer correctly they see an animation.

RhymePractice1 In Finish the Picture, students practice recognizing rhyming words.

Students hear a sentence with a missing word. To complete the sentence, students decide which of three pictures represents a word that rhymes.


In Make It Rhyme, a remedial activity, students explore rhyme in a story. Students hear the first phrase of a rhyme and choose a sentence ending. Then they select the word that rhymes with their chosen ending. They hear the second phrase with the rhyming ending.

RhymePractice2 In Rhyme Match, students practice for the postassessment by identifying

words that rhyme. Students are asked to choose one of three pictures that rhymes with the target word. After several correct responses, students see corresponding animations.

RhymePostassessment Rhyme Postassessment assesses students’ ability to identify rhyming

words and determines the need for remediation. A picture representing a target word appears, and students must choose the representative picture that rhymes with the target word.

IdentifytheNonrhymingWord One Doesn’t Rhyme is a more advanced skill seen later in the sequence.

Students learn to recognize nonrhyming words. Students see three pictures representing various words (two that rhyme, one that doesn’t), and then choose the picture of the nonrhyming word.

Syllable

AtaGlanceObjectives Syllable Preassessment

Syllable InstructionSyllable PracticeSyllable PostassessmentSyllable Deletion


Learning Objective Understand how to break or segment words into syllables.

Supporting Research Marilyn Jager Adams explains that children’s “ability to detect syllables in speech has been shown to predict future reading” (1990, p. 300). Just as children need to understand that speech can be broken into words, they must understand that words can be broken into simpler units.To demonstrate an understanding of spoken words and syllables, students should be able to “count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words” (Common Core, 2010, p. 15).

SyllablePreassessment Syllable Preassessment assesses if students can identify the number of

syllables in a word. Students hear the name of an animal, then identify the number of syllables in the name by clicking the appropriate number of yellow dots.

SyllableInstruction In Syllable Instruction 1, students explore syllables by clicking animals

and listening to their names spoken in syllables. Later, students hear an animal name spoken in syllables and are told a number, and are asked if that is the number of syllables in the animal’s name.

In Syllable Instruction 2, students identify the number of syllables. Students hear a person’s name and indicate how many syllables are in the name by choosing between two boxes of dots, one of which has the correct number.


SyllablePractice In Syllable Safari, students practice identifying the number of syllables.

Students hear the name of an animal, and then identify the number of syllables. When students answer correctly, the animal appears in the safari scene.

SyllablePostassessment Syllable Postassessment assesses if students can identify the number of

syllables in a word and determines the need for remediation. Students hear the name of an animal, then identify the number of syllables in the name by clicking the appropriate number of yellow dots.

SyllableDeletion Take Away Syllables is a more advanced skill seen later in the sequence.

Students hear a compound word (e.g., cupcake) and are asked to take away a syllable (e.g., cup) and identify the word that is left (e.g., cake).

Blending

AtaGlanceObjectives Blending Preassessment

Blending Onset/Rime InstructionBlending Onset /Rime PracticeBlending Individual Phonemes InstructionBlend Individual PhonemesIdentify Words by Blending PhonemesBlending PracticeBlending PostassessmentBlend and Order Phonemes

Learning Objectives Blend onsets with rimes to make words.Blend individual phonemes to make words.


Supporting Research To demonstrate an understanding of spoken words, syllables, and phonemes students should be able to “orally produce single-syllable words by blending phonemes, including consonant blends” (Common Core, 2010, p. 12).“The most important forms of PA [phonemic awareness] involve segmentation and blending. Learning to blend phonemes is important for decoding new words” (Ehri & Roberts, 2006, p. 118).

BlendingPreassessment Blending Preassessment assesses if students can blend sounds together to

form words. Students hear individual sounds, and must blend the phonemes and select a picture of the word created.

BlendingOnset/RimeInstruction In Blend Onset/Rime Instruction 1 and Blend Onset/Rime Instruction 2

(remedial activity), students learn that sounds can be joined together to create words. Students hear the onset and rime of a word, see a picture, and then determine if the picture accurately represents the word created.

BlendingOnset/RimePractice

In Blending Dragon, students practice putting onset and rime together (e.g., /b/ & /at/ = bat). They begin by combining onset letters and rimes to make words. Then they select a picture of each new word.

In Blending Riddles: Onset/Rime (remedial activity), students practice blending onsets with rimes to make words. Each new word becomes a clue to identifying a mystery object found in the mystery box.


BlendingIndividualPhonemesInstruction Blending Individual Phonemes Instruction 1 and Blending Individual

Phonemes Instruction 2 (remedial activity) teach that phonemes can be blended to make words. Students hear several phonemes and see a picture. They must choose if the picture represents the word created by blending.

BlendIndividualPhonemes In Blending Riddles: Individual Phonemes, students practice blending

individual phonemes into words. Each new word becomes a clue to identifying a mystery object found in the mystery box.

IdentifyWordsbyBlendingPhonemes In Find the Picture, students recognize words formed by blending

phonemes. Students hear a word segmented into phonemes, and then click a picture of the word formed when the phonemes are blended together.

BlendingPractice In Blend Every Sound, students practice for the postassessment by

blending individual phonemes to make words. Students see individual letters displayed separately and three pictures. They must blend the phonemes to make a word and then select the picture of that word.

BlendingPostassessment Blending Postassessment assesses if students can blend sounds together to

form words and determines the need for remediation. Students hear individual sounds, and must blend the phonemes and select a picture of the word created.


BlendandOrderPhonemes Stick ’n’ Spell combines both blending and segmenting skills and is seen

later in the sequence. Students hear a word pronounced in individual phonemes. Then students blend the phonemes and click a picture of the word. Students must put the phonemes of the word (represented by letters) in the correct order.

Segmenting

AtaGlanceObjectives Initial Sound Preassessment

Initial Sound InstructionInitial Sound PracticeInitial Sound PostassessmentFinal SoundPhoneme Segmentation PreassessmentPhoneme Position InstructionPhoneme Segmentation PracticePhoneme Segmentation PostassessmentPhoneme ManipulationPhoneme DeletionPhoneme AdditionPhoneme Substitution PracticePhoneme Substitution Assessment

Learning Objectives Identify the initial phoneme in words.Identify the last phoneme in words.Identify and manipulate individual phonemes in words.

Supporting Research To demonstrate an understanding of spoken words, syllables, and phonemes students should be able to “segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes)” (Common Core, 2010, p. 15).“Learning to segment words into phonemes is important for writing all the sounds in words and for forming grapheme-phoneme connections to remember the spellings of words and to read words by sight” (Ehri & Roberts, 2006, p. 118).


InitialSoundPreassessment Initial Sound Preassessment assesses if students can identify words with

the same initial sound. Students see a picture representing a target word and choose from three pictures the one that represents a word with the same initial sound.

InitialSoundInstruction Initial Sound Instruction teaches students to recognize initial phonemes.

Students see two pictures, hear a phoneme, and then click the picture of the word that begins with that phoneme.

InitialSoundPractice Right Initial Sound helps students recognize similar phonemes. Students

listen to sentences in an alliterative story, and then choose a picture of the word that begins with the target phoneme.

InitialSoundPostassessment Initial Sound Postassessment assesses if students can identify words with

the same initial sound and determines the need for remediation. Students choose one of three pictures to match the initial sound of a target word.

FinalSound Final Sound Instruction helps students recognize final phonemes.

Students see two pictures, hear a phoneme, and then click a picture of the word that ends with that phoneme.


In Right Final Sound, students identify final phonemes. Students see a picture representing a target word. Then they choose the picture of the word that ends with the same phoneme as the target word.

PhonemesSegmentationPreassessment Segmenting Phonemes Preassessment assesses if students can identify

the number of phonemes in a word. Students show the correct number of phonemes by selecting correct number of pennies and then putting the coins in the piggy bank.

PhonemePositionInstruction Where Is the Sound? teaches students to recognize the position of

phonemes in words. Students see a picture, hear a phoneme, and then identify whether the phoneme is found in the beginning, middle, or end of the word.

PhonemeSegmentationPractice In Phoneme Segmentation, students practice for the postassessment

by identifying the number of phonemes in a word. When students select the correct number of phonemes, televisions on an assembly line show mouths pronouncing each phoneme in the word.

PhonemeSegmentationPostassessment Phoneme Segmentation Postassessment assesses if students can identify

the number of phonemes in a word and determines the need for remediation. Students show the correct number of phonemes by selecting that number of televisions on an assembly line.


PhonemeManipulation In Barnyard Bash, students explore how changing the phoneme in a word

creates a new word. Students choose a sound to change, then each new word is read and placed on the screen to show students the changes they have made.

Change One Sound assesses students’ ability to identify words that are formed when one sound in a word changes. One letter in a word changes, and the sounds of the new word are spoken individually. Students then blend the sounds of the new word and choose its corresponding picture.

PhonemeDeletion In Phoneme Eliminator, students see what happens when initial and final

phonemes are removed from words. Students then see a word and select the picture of the word that would remain if a phoneme were removed from the displayed word.

PhonemeAddition In One, Two, Three Sounds, students add initial or final phonemes

to existing words to make new words. Students see a letter and a picture representing a word. They identify the new word created by blending the letter and the picture word.

PhonemeSubstitutionPractice In Circus Clown Climbers 1, students change one word into another by

switching phonemes. Students see a word and replace a phoneme to create the target word.

PhonemeSubstitutionAssessment Circus Clown Climbers 2 is used as an assessment. It is the same format

as Circus Clown Climbers 1 except it uses blends. Students see a word and replace a phoneme to create the target word.


PhonicsInstructionalStrandPhonics instruction teaches the relationship between the letters of print and the sounds in spoken language. Students use these relationships to read and write words. Phonics instruction should bring students to an understanding that these written letters and sounds come together in a systematic way so they can read words and connected text. As students progress through this instructional strand, the following objectives will be reinforced:

• Building automatic letter recognition• Developing letter–sound correspondence• Blending sounds to read word patterns• Recognizing sight words (Power Words)• Reading simple decodable stories• Reading text with more advanced phonics skills• Reading literature

In Waterford School Manager™, you have the option of selecting whether your students see capital letters or lowercase letters first in the software. However, if you use Reading Placement to place your students in the courseware, this is not an option.

LEVELONESCOPEANDSEQUENCEOFSKILLS

ScopeandSequenceofSkills

Unit1In Unit 1, capital letter recognition (A–Z in alphabetical order) is emphasized. The letters and letter sounds can be reinforced with the correlated Nursery Rhyme books listed in the Book Distribution Schedule. Capital ABC Songs are seen in Unit 1.

Unit2In Unit 2, lowercase letter recognition (a–z in alphabetical order) is emphasized, along with mastery and automatic recognition of both capital and lowercase letters. The letters and letter sounds can be reinforced with the correlated Read with Me Books listed in the Book Distribution Schedule (see pp. 142–144). Lowercase and mixed case ABC Songs, Letter Sound Songs, and Sing around the World Songs are seen in Unit 2.

Unit3In Unit 3, students begin the decoding process by mastering 12 letter sounds (/s/, /m/, /t/, /p/, /h/, /n/, /d/, /k/, /l/, /a/, /o/, /i/), blending the sounds to form pattern words, learning sight words, and integrating these skills to read a simple book. The following is the scope of skills for Unit 3. The books listed appear on the computer and a foldable printout of each book is available for students to take home. All rebus words appear in parentheses. Letter Sound Songs are seen in Unit 3.

PhonicsInstructionalStrand 45

Book Letter Sounds

Vowel Sounds

Pattern Power Words

Text Word Count

He Is Happy heis

He is (happy).He is (surprised).He is (sad).He is (happy).

8 words4 rebus

Sam /s//m/

/a/ -am Imy

I am Sam.My (dog).My (house).I am Sam.

8 words2 rebus

A Mat /t/ -at ona

A mat.Sam sat on a mat.A (cat) sat on a mat.A mat on Sam.

16 words1 rebus

Pam and Pat

/p//h/

-ap andthe

Pam and PatPam and the map.Pat and the hat.Pam and Pat tap, tap, tap.

17 words

Nan and the Ham

/n/ -an insee

See the man.See Nan and the pan.See the ham in the pan.See Nan in the pan.

19 words

The Hat /d/ -ad washis

Dad had a tan hat.I sat on his hat.Was Dad sad? Was he mad?

His tan hat!

19 words

Up on Top /o/ -op upyes

Is Pop up on top?Yes, hop up.Am I on top?Yes, Pop and I up on top.

19 words

The Hot Pot /k/ (c) -ot togo

My pot is hot.The cat can go to the hot pot.

I hop to the mop.The cat can go to the cot.

24 words

Tim /i/ -in thisfor

This is Tim the cat.This pin is for him.Tim is in the tin can.Was the tin can for Tim?Yes, the tin can was for him.

29 words

Lil /l/ -id areyou

Lil hid.Did you go in the pit, Lil?

Are you on the lid?Are you on the mat?Lil had a nap.

23 words


LEVELONESAMPLEACTIVITIES

UnitOne

AtaGlanceObjectives Name Recognition

Letter Name Recognition PreassessmentLetter Name Recognition—CapitalLetter Name Recognition Mid-assessmentLetter Name Recognition ReviewLetter Name Recognition PostassessmentPlay and Practice

Learning Objectives Recognize letters in own name.Demonstrate recognition of capital letters.Write capital letters.

Supporting Research The easiest place for students to start is the alphabet song. Once the letter names become familiar, students can benefit from activities that teach the letter shapes (Adams, 1990, p. 363).Learning “letters is a major landmark in alphabetic literacy acquisition. This learning requires that children become acquainted with several identities for each letter, including its graphic shapes, namely in uppercase and lowercase forms, its name, and its sound (or sounds)” (Foulin, 2005, p. 129).

NameRecognition In What’s Your Name? Assessment, students demonstrate the ability

to choose letters in the correct order to spell their names. If the assessment is failed, students will see a Name Recognition instruction or practice activity at the beginning of each session until the What’s Your Name? Assessment is mastered.

In What’s Your Name? students learn to spell their own first names. The Hen, Clown, and Duck versions are instruction. The Gorilla and Gumball versions are practice. In the example shown, students receive instruction by helping the mother hen’s eggs hatch by clicking the letters of their names in the correct order using a model.


LetterNameRecognitionPreassessment,Mid-assessment,andPostassessment

In Name That Letter assessments, students see capital letters of the alphabet in random order. They are prompted to click one letter at a time. This assessment determines whether students see explicit instruction and practice for capital letters. You can also obtain a progress printout of students’ ability to recognize capital letters when they finish this assessment.

LetterNameRecognition—Capital The ABC Song teaches letters as a logical and important starting point for

emergent readers. There are several versions of the song with different themes using capital letters.

Letter Pictures shows an illustration and memorable animation of a specific letter. Students hear the name of the letter and the letter’s sound. Then they practice tracing the letter and identifying the letter.

In Letter Picture Writing, students trace the lesson’s letter with their finger. Then, on a piece of paper, students are challenged to write the letter as many times as they can before time runs out.

Make a Scene allows students to make their own pictures by clicking various objects that begin with a certain letter and dragging them into a background scene. They can then print the pictures and take them home.


In Find the Letter, students demonstrate their ability to identify the target letter in words.

LetterNameRecognitionReview The ABC Song teaches letters as a logical and important starting point for

emergent readers. There are several versions of the song with different themes using capital letters.

Letter Checker gives students practice identifying a particular letter. In this example, students click each capital S they see. The format is similar for each letter with varying graphics.

PlayandPractice The first time students enter Play and Practice, they will see the Play and

Practice Tutorial. This tutorial teaches them how to use the Play and Practice menu.

Play and Practice provides a less-structured environment in which students can explore activities of their own choosing at their own pace. Activities include Sing a Rhyme Books, ABC songs and sound songs, Sing around the World songs, phonological awareness activities, letter games, Read with Me Books, and Read with Me games.


UnitTwo

AtaGlanceObjectives Letter Name Recognition Preassessment

Letter Name Recognition—LowercaseLetter Name Mastery—Capital and LowercaseLetter Name Automaticity—Capital and LowercaseLetter Name Recognition Mid-assessmentLetter Name Recognition PostassessmentCapital and Lowercase Letter Mastery AssessmentPlay and Practice

Learning Objectives Demonstrate recognition of lowercase letter names.Demonstrate mastery of capital and lowercase letter recognition with automaticityWrite lowercase letters.

Supporting Research To demonstrate an understanding of the organization and basic features of print, students should be able to “recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet” (Common Core, 2010, p. 15).“The speed with which they can name individual letters both strongly predicts success for prereaders and is strongly related to reading achievement among beginning readers” (Stahl, et al., 1990, p. 43).

LetterNameRecognitionPreassessment,Mid-assessment,andPostassessment

In Name That Letter assessments, students see lowercase letters of the alphabet in random order. They are prompted to click one letter at a time. This assessment determines whether students see explicit instruction and practice for lowercase letters. You can also obtain a progress printout of students’ ability to recognize lowercase letters when they finish this assessment.

LetterNameRecognition—LowercaseThe same activities as seen in Unit One (pp. 51–52) will appear in Unit Two. However, all the activities will teach lowercase letters instead of capital letters.


LetterNameMastery—CapitalandLowercase The Letter Name Mastery objectives begin with a song. In the objectives

for lowercase letters, a Sing around the World song is used. In these songs, students hear an international folk song that corresponds with the letter of the alphabet being studied. The lyrics appear onscreen, reinforcing the connection between speech and written text.

In Hidden Pictures, students click on a designated capital or lowercase letter. As they click the letters, a hidden picture is uncovered.

In Hidden Letters, students click each designated capital or lowercase letter they see. When they have clicked all the correct letters, they discover a hidden object that starts with the target letter.

Letter Checker assesses students on identification of a particular letter. In this example, students click each capital K they see. The format is identical for each letter with varying graphics.

Letter Pictures (remedial activity) shows an illustration and memorable animation of a specific letter. Students hear the name of the letter and the letter’s sound, then they practice tracing the letter and identifying the letter.


LetterNameAutomaticity—CapitalandLowercase In Fast Letter Fun: Jungle Gorilla, students are assessed on their ability

to quickly and accurately recognize capital and lowercase forms of letters. Students click the target letter to make coconuts fall.

In Fast Letter Fun: Duck Arcade and Fast Letter Fun: Catch a Letter (remedial activities), students quickly and accurately recognize letters. In these arcade-style games, students click the designated letter. After the student clicks the letter, the object with the letter disappears.

CapitalandLowercaseLetterNameMasteryAssessment Two versions of the ABC Song are mixed case—they use capital and

lowercase letters to help students make the transition between capital and lowercase form. “Jazz ABC Song” and “Magic Carpet ABC Song” use both forms of letters.

In Alphabet Review, students recognize both capital and lowercase forms of five letters, correctly match capital to lowercase letters, and put letters in ABC order. In the example shown, a turtle swings across vines in a jungle as students review letters.

Name That Letter assesses students on their recognition of capital and lowercase letters. Students see a combination of five different letters and are asked to click on a letter. Students must be able to distinguish between the capital and lowercase form of each letter.


PlayandPractice Play and Practice provides a less-structured environment in which

students can explore activities of their own choosing at their own pace. Activities include Sing a Rhyme Books, ABC songs and sound songs, Sing around the World songs, phonological awareness activities, letter games, Read with Me Books, and Read with Me games.

UnitThree

AtaGlanceObjectives Letter Sound Preassessment and Postassessment

Power WordsLetter Sound RecognitionDecodable WordsDecodable Books

Learning Objectives Identify 20 basic sight words.Identify 12 letters with their corresponding sounds.Blend letter sounds together to form words.Read 10 decodable books.

Supporting Research Students should “know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words” by (1) demonstrating “basic knowledge of one-to-one letter–sound correspondences by producing the primary or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant,” (2) associating “the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels,” (3) reading “common high frequency words by sight,” and (4) distinguishing “between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ” (Common Core, 2010, p. 16).“Word recognition is important because it is the access card to reading. It is also the prime learning task in the early grades, becoming a kind of initiation rite to schooling” (Juel, 2006, p. 416).


LetterSoundPreassessmentandPostassessment Name That Letter Sound assesses which letter sounds the students will

see explicit instruction and practice for. The postassessment shows student progress of letter sounds learned.

PowerWords Power Word Preassessment determines if students will see Power Word

Instruction, Practice, and Postassessment.

In Power Word Instruction, students learn Power Words by seeing, hearing, saying, and spelling the word, and then repeating the word and hearing it used in a sentence from a Sing a Rhyme song or Read with Me Book. See pp. 87–88 for more information on the Sing a Rhyme or Read with Me Books.

Power Word Practice helps students identify a Power Word by having students select a specified word in a sentence and then in isolation. By correctly selecting the Power Word several times, students dunk Rascal.

In Power Word Postassessment, students are tested on their identification of Power Words. Students select the appropriate word. Each click helps Rascal out of the log jam.


LetterSoundRecognition Letter Sound Songs introduce each letter sound. From alphabet sounds,

tongue twisters, and vowel sounds, the Letter Sound Songs teach consonant sounds and vowel sounds.

In Letter Sound Instruction, students are given specific instruction for the activity’s “sound of the day.” They see and say the letter, see a close-up of a mouth making the letter sound, trace the letter, and see the anchor object of the day.

In Letter Sound Practice, students practice the lesson’s letter sound by playing “The Claw.” Students use the claw to choose toys that begin with the letter sound of the day.

Letter Sound Assessment tests students on their understanding of the letter sound. Students see three letter tokens and choose the letter token that makes the letter sound of the day. If they do not pass the assessment, they will see the Read with Me Book associated with the missed letter and the Make a Scene or Choose a Sound Activity for that letter.

DecodableWords Blend Decodable Words Preassessment determines if students will see

Blend Decodable Words Instruction, Practice, and Postassessment.


In Blend Decodable Words Instruction, students use sound-by-sound blending to form words that use the lesson word pattern with the blending Word Birds.

Blend Decodable Words Practice helps students blend words. Bertha the Word Bird helps students practice blending letter sounds to form several words with the same pattern.

Blend Decodable Words Postassessment tests students on their understanding of blending sounds to create real words and nonsense words. In the “Word Warehouse,” students are instructed to click the button that matches the word or nonword displayed on the screen.

DecodableBooks In each Decodable Book, students create the text for each page by putting

sentence words in the correct order. When students have finished the sentence, they are encouraged to read it aloud with Bertha. Once all the sentences are complete, students read along with a chosen character.

In Decodable Book Practice, Chester the Worm has eaten words and sentences out of pages of books. Students must identify the correct missing words and sentences, and then read the sentences aloud.


In Decodable Book Assessment, students see three sentences. Students select the correct sentence spoken by the instructor.


LEVELTWOSCOPEANDSEQUENCEOFSKILLSThe following chart will help you see at a glance what each lesson and book in Level Two teaches. In every case, an element appears in the list where it is first introduced. Book distribution information is found on pp. 145–150.

Unit Lesson Book Titles

Letter Sounds

VowelSound

Patterns PowerWords

1 Introductory A Me I, a, me, is, it, onIntroductory B The Snowman

The Mittenthe, what, in

1 I Am SamWhat Am I?

/m/, /s/ /a/ -am

2 Sad SamDad’s Surprise

/d/ -ad

3 TadMatt’s Hat

/t/c: /k/

-at see, he

4 What Is It?Dan and Mac

/r/, /n/ -an, -and, -ant said, says, are

5 What a Band!Pat Can Camp

/p/ -ap, -amp have, my

Unit 1 Review The Rabbit and the Turtle

2 6 Stop the Frogs! /o/ -od, -ot, -op will, go

7 Bob and Tab /b/ -ob, -ab, -oss his, has

8 Hot Rods /f/x: /ks/

-ox, -ax for, you

9 Happy Birthday /g/ -og, -ag with, here

Unit 2 Review Go, Frog, Go!

3 10 Pip, the Big Pig /w/ /i/ -ip, -ig, -in of, to, be

11 What Is in the Pit? /h/ -im, -it put, they

12 Prints! /l/ -ill, -int she, her, from

13 Who Is at the Door? /k/ -ing, -ilk who, come, let

14 The Big Trip /j/ -ack, -ock, -ick your, we, too

15 Who Will Go in the Rain? /sh/ -ash, -ish yes, no

Unit 3 Review Let’s Get Hats!

4 16 Slug Bug /u/ -ug, -un, -ut now, look, down

17 Green Gum /y/ -um, -ub, -ush went, then, get, that

18 Lizzy the Bee /z/ -uzz, -izz by, little, so

19 Little Duck qu: /kw/ -uck, -uff, -ump like, why, do

20 Thump, Bump! /th/ -th, th- mother, father, want, Mr.

Unit 4 Review The Tree Hut


Unit Lesson Book Titles

Letter Sounds

VowelSound

Patterns PowerWords

5 21 The Big Hill /ē/ -ed, -ell, -est was, far, fall, day

22 What’s in the Egg? /v/ -en, -et out, or, find, one

23 Rom and His New Pet -end, -ent friend, new, tree24 Chet and Chuck /ch/,

/tch/ch-, -tch some, thank, house,

good

25 What Do I Spy? wh: /hw/ -y, wh- how, all, does

Unit 5 Review Quick! Help!

6 26 Can We Still Be Friends? /ā/ -ade, -ake, -ame play, were, sure, could

27 Fun in Kansas -ane, -ate their, many, love28 Brave Dave and Jane -ave, -are walk, hold, pull29 My Snowman c: /s/

g: /j/-ace, -age cold, eyes, ears

Unit 6 Review Space Chase Race

7 30 Oh No, Mose! s: /z/ /ō/ -ope, -ose would, where

31 Smoke! -oke, -ole over, room, small32 The Note -one, -ode, -ote read, please, any33 The Snoring Boar -ore, -ove door, because, liveUnit 7 Review Shopping Day

8 34 Friends / ī/ -ide, -ime tomorrow, buy

35 Two Little Pines -ine, -ite two, start, school, don’t

36 Can Matilda Get the Cheese? -ice, -ire, -ile under, never, eat37 Let’s Go to Yellowstone -ive, -ike, -ipe our, there, knowUnit 8 Review Maddy and Clive

9 38 Brute and the Flute /ū/ -ute, -ude around, think

39 Old Rosa -ube, -ule very, old, work40 What Is in the Tree? -une, -use every, way, saw41 Too Much Popcorn sk-, -ed began, betterUnit 9 Review Old King Dune

10 42 Riding in My Jeep ee: /ē/ -eep, -eed, -eet show, push

43 Sammy and Pete ea: /ē/ -eak, -eal, -eam only, wait, other

44 Will You Play with Me? ai: /ā/ay: /ā/

-ail, -ain, -ay thought, soon, after

45 The Rescue oa: /ō/ -oat, -oad laugh, both

Unit 10 Review Who Am I?


LevelTwoSongsThe following songs are seen in various combinations and in various lessons throughout Level Two.

The Letter and Sound Songs are

• “Magic Carpet ABC Song” • “Apples and Bananas Vowel Song”• “Old MacDonald’s Vowels” • “Picture Sound Song”• “Scientist Sound Song” • “Tongue Twister Sound Song”• “Show and Tell Sound Song”

The Sing a Tip Songs are

• “Consonants” • “T-H Has Two Sounds”• “S Steals the Z” • “Chip Chop”• “Quotation Marks” • “Where Is a Whale?”• “Blends: Consonants Together” • “Sneaky Magic E”• “More Than One” • “Drop Magic E”• “C–K Rap” • “C and G”• “Sheep in the Shadows” • “The Three Sounds of ED”• “Blicky Licky Land” • “Eensy, Weensy Mouse”• “Lazy Letter Q” • “Vowels Side by Side”

LEVELTWOSAMPLEACTIVITIES

IntroductoryLessonsAandBAtaGlanceObjectives Introductory Lessons A and B

Power Word IntroductionPower Word ScreeningIdentify Power WordsSpell Power WordsAutomatic Word RecognitionRecord the Power Word Readable

Learning Objectives Understand that Power Words (sight words) are important because they are frequently seen.Recognize a few very useful Power Words.Identify words to complete sentences from the Readable Book.Examine words and rebus pictures in the Readable Book.Practice reading the Power Words that students have learned by reading them in the context of a story.


Supporting Research “Our informal analysis of texts suggests that many texts do not match what is being taught. We suggest that children read at least some texts that contain a high percentage of words with patterns taught in phonics lessons” (Stahl, Duffy-Hester, & Dougherty Stahl, 2006, p. 133).“Studies of print have found that just 109 words account for upward of 50% of all words in student textbooks. . . . Knowledge of these high-frequency words logically can help the fluency of readers” (Reutzel & Cooter, 1992, p. 115).

IntroductoryLessonsAandB In the Song, students sing a simple song to reinforce letter sounds and

language skills. The picture sound song repeats each letter sound four times and then connects the sound to a word. The songs are also seen throughout the courseware.

In Choose a Readable, students choose to read one of the last three books they studied in the courseware.

PowerWordIntroduction Power Word Introduction introduces students to Power Words (sight

words), by explaining that they are “the words you will see again and again. . . . It’s best to remember what they look like so you can read them quickly every time.”

PowerWordScreening In Power Word Screening, students interact with characters from a

Traditional Tale by clicking the correct Power Words. Two to five Power Words are tested at a time, and each word is tested in two ways: matching the written word with the correct spoken word and matching the spoken word with the correct written word.


IdentifyPowerWords Rascal Presents a Word introduces students to each of the Power Words

missed in the Power Word Screening. Students hear the word in a sentence, repeat the word aloud, and listen to a recording of themselves saying the word. Then students are asked to click the word.

SpellPowerWords Students see Spelling Scramble for all Power Words seen in the Power

Word Screen Preassessment. Students are asked to spell the word from letters in the Traditional Tale scene.

AutomaticWordRecognition Word Mastery Games tests students’ ability to recognize lesson words

with accuracy and speed. Students see three labeled objects and are instructed to click the word that matches what the narrator says. Then students see a word appear on the screen and click the object that says that word.

Students see Word Mastery Practice (remedial activity) if they score less than 80% in Word Mastery Games. Word Mastery Practice provides further practice in automatic word recognition.

RecordthePowerWordReadable In Power Word Progress, students see a brief animated scene showing

them the Power Words they are learning.


In the song, students sing a simple song to reinforce letter sounds and language skills. The picture sound song repeats each letter sound four times and then connects the sound to a word. The songs are also seen throughout the courseware. In the Show and Tell Sound Song, a girl tells her class what she did the past summer. She holds up animated pictures and sings about each one.

Meet the Readable is a short presentation where students learn more about the lesson Readable Book, the activities associated with the Readable Book, and the activities’ importance in helping them learn to read.

Word Assessment tests students’ knowledge of the lesson Power Words. If students score less than 90%, they will record the book a second time later in the sequence.

In Sentence Dictation, students see a sentence from the Readable Book The Mitten. Several words are missing and students must identify the correct words. Then they see a sentence with the words in the wrong order, and they must put the words in the right order.

The Readable Read Tutorial is a short presentation where students learn how to interact with the Power Words, Pattern Words, Fun Words, Rebuses, and Vocabulary Words in Readables. Students also learn to use the read and page turn buttons.


The Readable Jump-through activity shows pages from the Readable Book, introduces new vocabulary, and asks students to answer questions by clicking important words or pictures.

In introductory lessons, students read three Power Word Readables. Each is made up of rebuses and previously learned Power Words. Students should read and record each page of the book independently.

As with all books in the courseware, the narrator speaks any text students click. Students record themselves reading the story aloud. The most current three recordings are stored for later reading performance assessment.

PhonicsUnits1–10,Lessons1–45

AtaGlanceObjectives Introduction to the Readable

Lesson PreassessmentLetter Sound IdentificationLetter Sound AssessmentPattern Word BlendingPower Word ScreeningIdentify Power WordsSpell Power WordsAutomatic Word RecognitionWord Reading Strategies (Units 6–10)—Key Word Match, Pattern Hunt, and Use Several StrategiesRecord the Readable


Learning Objectives Blend letter sounds together to form word patterns and create other words using the same pattern by changing the initial letter.Identify two to five new Power Words in each lesson.Recognize words quickly and accurately.Practice using a Key Word to recognize unfamiliar words with the same pattern.Practice reading connected text and responding to stories through writing comprehension tasks.

Supporting Research Students should “know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words” by (1)decoding “regularly spelled one-syllable words,” (2) knowing “final and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds,” and (3) recognizing and reading “grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words” (Common Core, 2010, p. 16).Student should use “conventional spelling for words with common spelling patterns and frequently occurring irregular words” (Common Core, 2010, p. 26).“All successful phonics programs provide a great deal of practice in reading words containing the letter-sound relationships that are taught. Therefore, the practice given in reading words is extremely important”(Stahl, Duffy-Hester, & Dougherty Stahl, 2006, p. 133).“Being able to read words automatically from memory is the most efficient, unobtrusive way to read words in text. Hence, building a sight vocabulary is essential for achieving text-reading skill” (Ehri, 2005, p. 170).

IntroductiontotheReadable A song reviews letter sounds or language structure needed for the lesson.

In this example, a Vowel Song emphasizes the short vowel sounds. In “Old MacDonald’s Vowels,” the farmer sings the words, “Old MacDonald had some vowels: a, e, i, o, u. And these vowels have short sounds, too: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/.”


In Choose a Readable, students choose to read one of the last three books they studied in the courseware.

LessonPreassessment In Lesson Screening, students’ recognition of both real and nonsense

words is tested. If students score 100%, they start at Spell Power Words.

LetterSoundIdentification In Letter Sound Screening, students demonstrate their letter–sound

knowledge. Students see a letter and must choose the corresponding sound by clicking the mouth that says the correct sound.

If students have difficulty with a letter, Sound Room lets them explore that letter. Students click four different objects to reinforce the letter name, shape, and sound.

LetterSoundAssessment In the Name That Sound postassessment activity, students hear a sound

and click the corresponding letter. When finished, a list appears showing students the letter sounds they know and ones they need to work on. This activity determines the need for remediation.


PatternWordBlending At appropriate intervals in the courseware, the Sing a Tip Song (p. 63)

appears to teach special rules or conventions of spelling and punctuation.

Key Word Screening helps students demonstrate their ability to form letter sounds into real words. The words are created from word patterns for the lesson and the Key Words that help students read words with the same pattern. If students perform poorly on the screening, they will see Spell and Blend. If they perform well on the screening, they will see Word Blending.

Spell and Blend appears when students do not pass Key Word Screening. It helps students learn about the relationship between sounds and letters in a word. Students identify how many sounds they hear and then indicate which letters make which sound in the word. The letters are then placed in the word.

Word Blending helps more advanced students blend letter sounds into words. Students blend a word slowly and continuously.

Word Pattern Introduction introduces word patterns. Students see a pattern and choose a letter to put with the pattern. They can hear the word they have created. Then they combine different initial sounds with the same pattern.


Word Pattern Spelling shows students several letters and then asks them to spell a word. Students click the letters in the correct order to spell the word. The example shown is Spelling Symphony.

Say and Trace helps students learn how to spell and write Key Words and other Pattern Words. They practice saying and tracing each letter of a Key Word. Then they use a pencil and paper to write the Key Word. Students practice changing the initial sound to make new words with the same pattern, and then write as many of the new words as time allows.

PowerWordScreening Power Word Screening lets students interact with Traditional Tales

characters by clicking the correct Power Words. Students match a Power Word with the spoken word, then match the spoken word with the correct Power Word.

IdentifyPowerWords Rascal Presents a Word introduces students to each of the Power

Words missed in the Power Word Screening. Students hear the word used in a sentence, repeat the word aloud, and listen to the recording of themselves saying the word. Students then click the word in the sentence.

SpellPowerWords Students see Spelling Scramble to learn to spell high-priority Power

Words from the Power Word Screening. Students are asked to spell the word from letters scattered in a Traditional Tale scene. Students who scored 100% in the Power Word Screening spell all of the Power Words in this activity. Students who scored less than 100% in the Power Word Screening will only spell those words that are designated as must-spell by the end of first grade.


AutomaticWordRecognition Word Mastery Games test students’ ability to recognize lesson Power and

Pattern Words with accuracy and speed. If students do not score well, they see Word Mastery Practice.

Students see Word Mastery Practice if they score less than 80% in Word Mastery Games. This activity will help students recognize lesson words quickly. Students hear a word and identify it from several other words. Then they click the object that says the word.

WordReadingStrategies(Units6–10)—KeyWordMatch,PatternHunt,andUseSeveralStrategies

The Key Words song lyrics help students remember that using Key Words can aid them in reading new words that contain the same word pattern. The lyrics also remind students to look for familiar word patterns in different places in a word.

In Key Word Instruction, Patty Plumber explains that Key Words and word patterns help students read new words. Students click on each new word, and the word is layered on the old Pattern Word, showing the pattern is the same.

In Key Word Match students identify Key Words containing the same word pattern as the Pattern Word. This helps Patty the Plumber turn the keys and open the door.


In Pattern Hunt, the text of a story, a Key Word, and a matching picture appear. A narrator emphasizes the word pattern in the Key Word, and tells students how many words with that same pattern are in the text. Students “hunt” for the words and click them.

Look for a Clue helps students remember that using context clues can help them understand unfamiliar words.

Watch Me Read appears in the last lesson of each unit. Students learn how to use Key Words and context clues to read new words and understand what the words mean.

In Mystery Words, a sentence appears that contains a “mystery word” hidden behind boxes. Students use clues to figure out the mystery word. Clues are given when students click pictures to uncover part of the word or they use context clues.

RecordtheReadable In Power Word Progress, a brief animated scene shows students Power

Words they are learning.


Sing a Tip Songs (p. 63) reinforce concepts taught in the Readable Books. In Sneaky Magic E, students learn that “Magic E” changes short vowel sounds to long vowel sounds.

In Meet the Readable, students are introduced to the lesson Readable Book and are encouraged to learn the new words needed to read the book themselves.

Word Assessment tests students’ knowledge of Power and Pattern Words learned in the lesson. If students score less than 90%, they will see the Readable Walk-through instead of the Jump-through and will record the book a second time later in the sequence.

In Sentence Dictation, students see a sentence from the Readable Book with words missing and must identify the correct words. Then they see a sentence with the words in the wrong order. Students must put the words in the correct order.

The Readable Walk-through or Jump-through activity shows pages from the Readable Book, asks students to answer questions by clicking important words or pictures, and introduces new vocabulary. Students see more questions in the Walk-through.


The Readable Book (pp. 61–62) gives students the opportunity to practice reading the lesson words in connected text. Each lesson contains at least one Readable Book made up of Power Words, Key Words, Pattern Words, Vocabulary Words, Fun Words, and rebuses. When students click the different words, they are either spoken, blended slowly, or defined. Students record themselves reading these stories aloud and the recordings are saved in Waterford School Manager for teacher evaluation.

After each Readable Book, Write about It helps students respond to the story by answering a simple question. Students type in their answers and can hear the text read to them.

Reviews—EndofUnits1–10

AtaGlanceObjectives Introduction to the Readable

Letter Sound Assessment (Units 1–5)Pattern Word BuildingAutomatic Word RecognitionRecord Review ReadablePlay and Practice

Learning Objectives Review skills by practicing sounds and words and then reading a story that contains all the skills.Reread stories from the unit.

Supporting Research “Reviewing skills helps students retain knowledge. Exemplary beginning reading programs build in review to strengthen learning. Calfee lauds the review feature of a reading instruction program that teaches a specific curriculum element in two weeks, with a review at the beginning of the second week. This review bridges interruptions ‘to support cumulative learning’” (Honig, 1996, p. 329).


IntroductiontotheReadable A song is used to review concepts learned within the unit. Vowels Side

by Side teaches students how to pronounce words when there are two vowels in a row.

Choose a Readable allows students to choose to read one of the last three books they studied in the courseware.

LetterSoundAssessment(Units1–5) Name That Sound assesses how well students learned the letter sounds

for the unit. Students hear a sound and click the corresponding letter. When finished, students see the letter sounds they know and which ones they need to work on. This activity determines whether or not students need remediation for letter sounds.

PatternWordBuilding Word Construction lets students build a famous structure, like the Empire

State Building, while creating words with the patterns learned in the unit. Each time students create a word, part of the structure is built and the word is spoken and used in a sentence.

AutomaticWordRecognition The Word Mastery Games tests students’ ability to recognize words from

the current unit with accuracy and speed. Students see three labeled objects and click the words that match what the narrator says. Then a word appears and students click the object that says the word.


Word Mastery Practice (remedial activity) is seen if students score less than 80% in Word Mastery Games. Word Mastery Practice provides further practice in automatic word recognition.

RecordReviewReadable In Meet the Readable, students learn more about the Review Readable

Book they will read in the end-of-unit activities.

Word Assessment tests students’ knowledge of Power and Pattern Words that students will see in the upcoming Readable Book. If students score less than 90%, they will see the Readable Walk-through instead of the Jump-through and will record the book a second time later in the sequence.

Sentence Dictation shows students a sentence from the Review Readable Book with one or two words missing. Students identify the missing words. Then they see a short sentence with words in the wrong order, and they must correct the order.

The Review Readable Walk-through or Jump-through shows pages from the Review Readable Book, introduces new vocabulary, and asks students questions that require clicking important words or pictures to answer.


A Review Readable appears at the end of each unit to help students review the skills and words just learned. Students record themselves reading these stories aloud and the recordings are saved in Waterford School Manager for teacher evaluation.

Reader’s Choice lets students choose any two books from the unit to read. This provides a final review of the unit skills and allows students to revisit some of their favorite stories.

PlayandPractice Play and Practice provides a less-structured environment in which

students can explore activities of their own choosing at their own pace. A short tutorial explains how to navigate through the menus. Activities include Readable Books, Traditional Tales, Read-along Books, songs from the courseware, Sounds Fun! and Sound Adventures activities, Word Master Games, and Writer’s Corner (Word Processor).


LEVELTHREESCOPEANDSEQUENCEOFSKILLSThe following chart will help you see at a glance what each lesson and book in Level Three teaches. In every case, an element appears in the list where it is first introduced. Book distribution information is found on pp. 151–155.

Unit Lesson Book Titles Recognition/Spelling Words

Phonemes Pattern Words Power Words

1 1 The Show /ā/ plane, brave, skate they, pull2 Dinosaur Bones /ō/ nose, pole, bone, home have3 Mike and the Mice / ī/ mice, pile, tire, nice one4 Huge Red Plume /ū/, /�/ cute, use, flute around, does5 The Bees /ē/, /ā/ seek, eat, rain, play said

2 6 My Shark /ar/ car, shark, arm want, about7 Barnaby /oo/ book, good, look once, was8 Animals in the House /�/ zoo, room, food animal, live9 Do You Know? /ō/ snow, know, grow why, people10 Cow on the Hill /ow/ cow, now, brown away, come

3 11 Clouds /ow/ cloud, house, out four, little12 The Noise in the Night /oi/ point, noise, boy again, open13 Strawberry Jam /aw/ straw, lawn, saw were, you14 Jade’s Note /o/, /ō/ ball, small, boat, coat write15 Bertie /er/ bird, girl, germ, curl water

4 16 Cory’s Horn /or/ horn, for, roar before, brother17 The Lion and the Mouse /ng/ fang, lung, strong would, very18 Lightning Bugs / ī/ light, night, might their, give19 Louis Braille / ī/ child, blind, find two, because20 Trolls’ Visit /ō/ roll, cold, post where, your

5 21 Andrew’s News /ū/, /�/ new, threw, few don’t, there22 Sue’s Slime /�/ glue, blue what, other, some23 The Name of the Tree /e/ head, ready are, who, move24 The Giant and the Hare hair, hare, deer, dear done25 Frank’s Pranks /nk/ ink, tank, skunk didn’t, been

6 26 Through the Back Fence /s/, /j/ fence, dance, change gone, after27 Fudge for Sale /j/ fudge, judge, edge great, money28 Photos for Phil /f/ phone, photo, laugh baby, over29 Moose Are Not Meese tooth, teeth, foot, feet words

30 Little Barry Busy explore, retell, unplug could, always


LevelThreeSongs

• “Apostrophe Pig”• “Bossy Mr. R”• “Capital Letters (Days)”• “Capital Letters (Places)”• “Capital Letters (Proper Nouns)”• “Capital Letters (Titles)”• “Comma, Comma, Comma (In a Letter)”• “Comma, Comma, Comma (In a Series)”• “Compound Words”• “Contraction Action (2)”• “Double the Fun”• “Drop Magic E”• “More Than One”• “Nouns”• “P-H and G-H Say Fff ”• “Preposition Ship”• “Quotation Marks”• “Schwa Sound”• “Sentence Marks”• “Silent Letters (G-H)”• “Silent Letters (K and G )”• “Silent Letters (W )”• “There, Their, They’re”• “To, Too, Two”• “Verbs”• “What Is a Sentence?”

LEVELTHREESAMPLEACTIVITIES

DailyActivities:Units1–6,Lessons1–30

AtaGlanceObjectives Lesson Introduction

Spelling PreassessmentSpelling InstructionWord RecognitionAutomatic Word RecognitionRecord ReadablesSpelling PostassessmentPlay and Practice

Learning Objectives Practice reading skills by reviewing stories.Spell lesson words.Review and spell Pattern Words and Power Words by hearing each blended, seeing each written, spelling each aloud, and writing each.


Explore pattern word combinations to create words.Recognize lesson words automatically.Practice reading the Power Words and Patterns Words by reading connected text in stories.

Supporting Research Students should “know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words” by (1) distinguishing “long and short vowels when reading regularly spelled one-syllable words,” (2) knowing “spelling-sound correspondences for additional common vowel teams,” (3) decoding “regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels,” (4) decoding “words with common prefixes and suffixes,” (5) identifying “words with inconsistent but common spelling-sound correspondences,” and (6) recognizing and reading “grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words” (Common Core, 2010, p. 16).“Once word recognition processes are automatic, the ease of single-word reading permits readers to process text effortlessly and to experience the author’s use of language rather than focusing on the letters that make up print” (Ashby & Rayner, pp. 58–59).

LessonIntroduction Students see one of twenty-six songs designed to help teach and review the

skills and concepts they are learning. In Silent Letters (G-H), students sing about when G and H are silent.

In Choose a Readable, students choose to read one of three recently studied Readable Books. Students practice reading each page independently. If they need help, they click any word to hear it spoken.

Spelling Exploration lets students spell words with the letters available onscreen. Students are presented with letters and then order them into two-, three-, four-, and five-letter words.


SpellingPreassessment Make and Spell Preassessment tests students on their knowledge of the

Spelling Words for the lesson. Students spell the words by dragging letters down from the top of the screen. When they are finished spelling a word, they can add a picture. Students who spell all words correctly skip to Word Recognition.

Spell and Blend (remedial activity) provides explicit spelling and blending instruction to help students learn about the relationship between sounds and letters in words. First, students identify how many sounds are in a word. Then students match the letters with the sounds they make.

SpellingInstruction Spelling Instruction helps students practice words they missed in Make

and Spell by hearing the words blended and seeing them written. Students also practice spelling the words verbally and writing them on paper.

WordRecognition In Choose a Readable, students choose to read one of three recently studied

Readable Books. Students practice reading each page independently. If they need help, they click any word to hear it spoken.

Readable Word Play lets students experiment with word patterns from the lesson. Students combine beginning, middle, and ending letters to create real or nonsense words. Words are read aloud so students can hear the word they have created from the patterns.


Word Recognition Assessment tests students’ knowledge of the words and patterns taught in the lesson. Students click words as they are spoken. Different facial features are added as students click correct words. If students answer quickly, they can manipulate the facial features with the remaining time.

AutomaticWordRecognition Automatic Word Recognition determines if students need to hear the

Readable Book modeled. This activity tests automatic recognition of lesson words. Here, students see rabbits run toward their homes, each carrying a vegetable labeled with a word. Students click the word that matches what the narrator says before the rabbit hops into the hole. Then students see a word and click the rabbit that says the word.

In Readable (Listen), the Readable Book is modeled for students.

The first time students see a Readable Book, they see the Vocabulary Tutorial. Rusty and Rosy show students how to click any bolded Vocabulary Word to learn its definition and aid comprehension of the Readable Book.

The first time students see a Readable Book, they see the Pattern Word Tutorial. Rusty explains how to click unfamiliar Pattern Words in books to hear them sounded out.


RecordReadables Before recording the Readable Book, students see a Song. The song

reviews the skills or concepts students need to successfully read the Readable Book.

For each Readable Book, students record themselves reading the story and then play back their recordings. The earliest recording and the three most recent recordings are stored in Waterford School Manager so you can assess each student’s progress.

SpellingPostassessment In All-star Spelling Postassessment, students spell each word they have

learned during the lesson by dragging letters into a word box. After they finish spelling a word, the pitcher pitches the ball. If the word was spelled correctly, students score a hit. If the word was misspelled, students receive additional instruction.


PlayandPracticePlay and Practice appears after every fifth lesson and provides a less-structured environment in which students can explore activities at their own pace. Activities include Reader’s Corner, Writer’s Corner (Word Processor), and Songs.

Reader’s Corner allows students to choose one of twelve Read-along Books. The book choices change each time Play and Practice is played. The books are presented in levels of difficulty. The medium level is the second-grade level.

Students can also choose Writer’s Corner (Word Processor). This program allows students to practice writing and illustrating stories.

Students can also choose to hear any of the Level Three Songs (p. 80). The songs will appear only in the final Play and Practice of the level.


ComprehensionandVocabularyInstructionalStrandThis strand emphasizes reading for a purpose and actively thinking during reading. Comprehension is the purpose for becoming a successful reader, and students must know the meaning of words to understand what they are reading. The Comprehension and Vocabulary Instructional Strand develops these skills to build oral and reading vocabulary. The strand also includes comprehension strategies to interact with text in order to build meaning.

As students progress through this instructional strand, instruction is provided in the following key areas:

• Developing vocabulary through direct and indirect instruction• Listening to and singing songs • Reading narrative and expository text• Understanding key comprehension strategies:

— Using a concept map—graphic and semantic organizer— Answering questions— Generating questions— Understanding story structure by using a story map— Summarizing— Building background knowledge— Predicting— Connecting to the story

ComprehensionandVocabularyInstructionalStrand 83

LEVELONESCOPEANDSEQUENCEOFSKILLSThe following charts show the vocabulary words and comprehension strategies in each Sing a Rhyme Song/Book and the vocabulary words in the Read with Me Books. You can also find comprehension strategies for the books in the “Get Ready to Read” and “Think about It” sections in Level One Lessons and Resources.

Sing a Rhyme Song/Book Vocabulary Words Comprehension Strategy

The Apple Tree high, apple, tree, smiled, down Recall Details

Bluebird, Bluebird bluebird, through, my, window, day

Pat-a-Cake bake, cake, pat, oven, baby

Hey, Diddle, Diddle cow, jumped, moon, laughed, ran Remember Order

One Elephant Went Out to Play elephant, play, spider’s, web, enormous

The Farmer in the Dell farmer, dell, heigh-ho

Ten Little Goldfish ten, little, goldfish, swim Remember Order

All the Pretty Little Horses cry, sleepy, wake, pretty, horses Recall Details

Mother, Mother, I Am Ill ill, doctor, nurse, alligator, purse Recall Details

Jack and Jill hill, pail, water, fell, tumbling

Three Little Kittens three, kittens, lost, mittens, naughty Recall Details

Mary Had a Little Lamb lamb, fleece, white, snow, everywhere

Little Miss Muffet tuffet, curds, whey, beside, frightened Remember Order

I Touch My Nose Like This touch, nose, eyes, mouth, head

Polly, Put the Kettle On kettle, tea, off, away

This Little Pig pig, market, home, roast, beef Predicting, Remember Order

Quack, Quack, Quack big, skinny, duck, feather, back

Little Rabbit rabbit, ear, turnips, carrots, bite

Eensy, Weensy Spider spout, washed, sun, dried, rain Remember Order

Tortillas, Tortillas tortillas, mother, father, brother, me

The Bus people, bus, up, town

My Valentine valentine, red, blue, drop, mailbox

Wee Willie Winkie upstairs and downstairs, nightgown, rapping, lock, children

Recall Details

A-hunting We Will Go hunting, we, catch, fox, box

Yankee Doodle Yankee, riding, pony, stuck, hat Recall Details

The Zulu Warrior come, here, Zulu, warrior, chief


Read with Me Book Vocabulary Words

Andy’s Adventures athlete, acrobat, astronaut, actor, attic

Baby’s Birthday balloon, bunny, bowl, bottle, birthday

At Camp camp, canoe, cave, caterpillar, camera

I Go . . . dock, dairy, deli, dentist, dragon

Eleven Elephants eleven, elevator, exiting, tickets, envelope

Five five, fat, freckled, frilly, flying

Go, Grasshopper! guppy, golf, goose, garden, grasshopper

Hair hippo, hair, hog, hyena, hamster

Who Has an Itch? iguana, itchy, inspector, infant, insect

Jumbled jumbled, jam, jet, jeep, jelly beans

Here, Kitty, Kitty kitchen, kickoff, kangaroo, kindergarten, kiss

Long Lewie legs, leap, lily pad, log, ladder

Magnifying Glass magnifying, glass, monkey, mouse, mustache

New new, neighborhood, friend, school, same

Opposites tall, short, opposites, cold, stop

Pairs pair, arms, paws, spots, panda

The Quiet Book book, quack, quiet

Rascal’s Rotten Day rhinoceros, rainbow, rose, rash, ranch

Six Silly Sailors silly, sailors, sewing, socks, sea

Together toothbrush, tennis, tub, towel, together

Under under, lamp, blanket, shelf, rug

Family Vacation van, volcano, view, visit, vacation

Watch the Woolly Worm watch, worm, wiggle, weave, wings

Rex Is in a Fix X-ray, ax, sax, tyrannosaurus rex, fix

Yummy yummy, cheese, lemons, bananas, yesterday

The Zebra zoo, zebra, zigzag, stripes, zippers


LEVELONESAMPLEACTIVITIES

AtaGlanceObjectives Vocabulary

ComprehensionLearning Objectives Increase vocabulary-word knowledge by teaching

meanings of words seen in the Sing a Rhyme and Read with Me Books.Remember words from a Sing a Rhyme by matching the words with pictures.Sequence pictures and phrases in the correct order.Predict what will happen based on clues from the story.

Supporting Research Student should be able to “determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on kindergarten reading and content” (Common Core, 2010, p. 27).To develop comprehension, students should be able to do the following with help and support: (1) “ask and answer questions about key details in a text; (2) “retell familiar stories, including key details;” and (3) “identify characters, settings, and major events in a story” (Common Core, 2010, p. 11).“Comprehension can be enhanced through instruction focused on concept and vocabulary growth” (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998, p. 6).“[Studies] show a strong link between an entirely informal experience early on in the child’s life and a formal educational skill. . . . It [is] clear that this early knowledge of nursery rhymes may play a considerable role in preparing the child for reading and spelling” (Bryant, et al., 1989, p. 425).“The average child enters school with a very small reading vocabulary, typically consisting largely of environmental print. Once in school, however, a child’s reading vocabulary is likely to soar at a rate of 3,000 to 4,000 words a year . . . If we can substantially increase the reading students do, we can substantially increase the words they learn . . . Some researchers believe that such an increase is the most powerful thing we can do to improve students’ vocabularies” (Graves, 2008, p. 60).


Vocabulary Students see Vocabulary Introduction before each Sing a Rhyme and

Read with Me Book. Students learn three to five vocabulary words they will encounter as they read. The words are defined and illustrated.

In the Sing a Rhyme songs, students hear a variety of nursery-rhymes. As the words are sung, the text of the rhyme appears on the screen. Engaging graphics accompany each song. For instance, the illustration at the left appears with the rhyme below, “Mother, Mother, I Am Ill.”

Mother, Mother, I am ill!Call the doctor over the hill.In came the doctor,In came the nurse,In came the ladyWith the alligator purse.

See page 87 for the list of Sing a Rhyme Songs.

The Read with Me Books give students further exposure to printed text and letter sounds. Here, the book Five is pictured.

FiveWritten by Michelle Miller Illustrated by Brenden Taylor

Five fish.Five fat fish.Five fat, feathered fish.Five fat, feathered, freckled fish.Five fat, feathered, freckled, frilly fish . . .flying!

See page 88 for the list of Read with Me Books.

In Picture Story, students interact with the text by clicking any word of the Sing a Rhyme song to hear it spoken. For some words, a small picture (rebus) appears in place of text. The pictures become text when clicked.


In Vocab Assessment, students are assessed on the vocabulary words from the Sing a Rhyme or Read with Me Book. To progress on their journey, students must identify each vocabulary word based on the definition and illustration.

Comprehension In the Sing a Rhyme songs, students hear a variety of nursery rhymes.

As the words are sung, the text of the rhyme appears on the screen. Engaging graphics accompany each song.

The Sing a Rhymes included in Comprehension are

A: Apple TreeD: Hey Diddle, DiddleG: Ten Little GoldfishH: All the Pretty Little HorsesI: Mother, Mother, I Am Ill K: Three Little KittensM: Little Miss MuffetP: This Little PigS: Eensy, Weensy SpiderW: Wee Willie WinkieY: Yankee Doodle

The comprehension activities in Level One are

• Missing Pictures—Recalling words from the Sing a Rhyme text.• What Comes Next?—Sequencing events in the Sing a Rhyme.• Predicting—Predicting what will come next in the story.

In Missing Pictures, students recall missing words from the Sing a Rhyme by matching correct pictures to the text. This and the following activity help students further explore and experiment with text.


In What Comes Next?, students identify the correct sequence of pictures and phrases from a familiar nursery rhyme by placing the pictures in the correct order.

In Predicting Assessment, students demonstrate the predicting skills they developed in the activities associated with This Little Pig.


Book Vocabulary Words Comprehension Strategies

Introduction Assessment

Mine scar Build Knowledge Describe CharactersThe Gingerbread Man gingerbread, cozy, cottage, sly Connect to Me Remember OrderJosé Three swish, confusing, amusing Step into the Story Describe CharactersThe Little Red Hen tidy, grain, wheat, grind, mill, dough Build Knowledge Connect to MeMy Super Sticky Sandwich squished Peek at the Story Find an AnswerLizard and the Painted Rock artist, lizard, scurried Build Knowledge Connect to MeOoey, Gooey Mud scrunch, bittersweet Connect to Me Describe CharactersAnansi and the Seven Yam Hills yam, woe, guinea fowl, persimmon Build Knowledge Describe CharactersFawn Eyes chirp, damp Connect to Me Describe CharactersThe Big Mitten Babushka, knitted, shivering, hedgehog,

reluctantlyConnect to Me Connect to Me

Garden Visitors trampoline, relays, lace Step into the Story Five WsThe Three Little Pigs beware, fortunes, chops, huff, puff Peek at the Story Remember OrderLittle Monkey nibbled Compare Characters Remember OrderCity Mouse and the Country Mouse city, country, fireflies, pavement,

fancy, jazzConnect to Me Compare Characters

The Alligator in the Library checkout desk, alligator Peek at the Story Find an AnswerGoldilocks and the Three Bears porridge, middle-sized, mush Ask a Question Connect to MeA Story in the Snow tracks, dodged, darted, thicket,

bounded, burrowStep into the Story Compare Characters

The Magic Porridge Pot porridge, bubble, spilled Build Knowledge Recall DetailsShell Houses muffled, oyster, gurgled, hermit crab,

sea urchin, chimed, sea turtle, slimeStep into the Story Remember Order

The Three Wishes enormous, ax, woodcutter, shrug, argue, sausage

Connect to Me Remember Order

Lost Socks jog, fog Build Knowledge Find an AnswerHenny Penny flurry, bonked, squawked, haystack Ask a Question Distinguish between

Fantasy and RealityLumpy Mush mush, mash, dust balls Step into the Story Five WsMr. Lucky Straw fortune, dragonfly, peddler, silk, kimono Build Knowledge Remember OrderThe Germs hitched Build Knowledge Five WsLa Tortuga tortuga, acacia, flute Build Knowledge Imagine BeyondThe Swing pleasantest Step into the Story Describe Characters

LEVELTWOSCOPEANDSEQUENCEOFSKILLSThe following chart shows the vocabulary words and comprehension strategies in the Traditional Tales and Read-along Books. Traditional Tales are marked in bold. These vocabulary words and comprehension strategies are taught in the courseware or in Level Two Lessons and Resources. Book distribution information is found on pp. 145–150.


How to Read a Story

Peek at the Story

Connect to Me—What I Know, Feel, and Do

Step into the Story

Use Clues to Guess What Might Come Next

Check My Guess

Wonder—Ask a Question

Find an Answer

Sum Up—Remember Order

Sum Up—Five Ws (Who, What, Why, When, & Where)

Book Vocabulary Words Comprehension Strategies


The Shoemaker and the Elves shoemaker, leather, oxfords, elves, mayor, examined, prosperous

Build Knowledge Five Ws

The Watermelon Seed accidentally Build Knowledge Find an AnswerThe Brothers Israel, wheat, sheaves, sickle, threshing,

harvestBuild Knowledge Describe Characters

Moon Song fades, crescent, invisible, sliver, gleaming Build Knowledge Connect to MeThe Ugly Duckling duckling, ugly, goslings, reflection,

fowl, swanPeek at the Story Connect to Me

What Is a Cloud? Build Knowledge Find an AnswerContext Clues: Don’t Be Scared cave, stare, brave, save, screamedLegs creatures Connect to Me Compare CharactersContext Clues: Do You Have My Shoes?

cone, stone, phone, note, bone

In the Rain rain-speckled Step into the Story Remember OrderContext Clues: Nice Mice twice, pile, mile, tire, pieceMoving Day Peek at the Story Find an AnswerContext Clues: Vito’s Big Night June, party, tune, stream, embarrassedSeeing Fingers blob, prickly Step into the Story Find an AnswerContext Clues: Gail’s Adventure played, rain, tail, spot, rayPlay Ball champions Peek at the Story Find an Answer

In the courseware, Inspector Detector teaches the following comprehension strategies with the Readable Books in Units 6–10. You can also use the “How to Read a Story” chart below and the suggested activities in the Level Two Lessons and Resources to teach these comprehension strategies in the classroom.



AtaGlanceObjectives Vocabulary

ComprehensionLearning Objective Use sentences and story context to verify word

meanings.Recognize when you don’t know the meaning of a word.Comprehend stories by using comprehension strategies.

Supporting Research Students should be able to “determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 1 reading and content” by (1) using “sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase,” (2) using “frequently occurring affixes as a clue to the meaning of a word,” and (3) identifying “frequently occurring root words . . . and their inflectional forms” (Common Core, 2010, p. 27).To develop comprehension, students should (1) “ask and answer questions about key details in a text” and (2) “describe characters, settings, and major events in a story using key details” (Common Core, 2010, p. 8).“Vocabulary knowledge certainly affects comprehension, because we do have evidence that teaching word meaning directly affects comprehension” (Stahl, 1999, p. 7).“Written text is accessible—and thus permits learning—only if the reader or listener already knows the vast majority of words from which it is constructed. Indeed, research indicates that reading with comprehension depends on understanding at least 95% of the words of a text” (Adams, 2009, p. 172).


Vocabulary The lyrics in Look for a Clue help students remember that using context

clues can help them understand unfamiliar words.

Rusty and Rosy’s Clues helps students learn to use clues in story text to help them understand words. Rusty reads a paragraph aloud, pointing out the words and phrases that help him know what the word banquet means.

In Use a Clue, students are invited to use clues in a story to help them figure out which word belongs in each blank.

Comprehension Before every Read-along Book or Traditional Tale, an Introduction helps

students use a comprehension strategy as a way to get ready to read the story. The comprehension strategies used as introductions include:

• Step into the Story • Build Knowledge• Peek at the Story • Predict• Ask a Question • Compare Characters

Students may learn about the story’s setting or characters or may play a simple game or see a video clip to help them comprehend the Read-along Book.


Read-along Books provide rich, natural language and help students learn about a variety of topics from science to fantasy and make-believe.

See pages 93–94 for the list of Read-along Books.

The Traditional Tales are traditional stories from various cultures. The rich, natural language of these books can help students find incentive for learning to read written words.

The list of Traditional Tales is found on pages 93–94 (marked in bold).

In the Assessment, students use a comprehension strategy to think about the Read-along Book or Traditional Tale. They may answer questions, remember the order of events, or describe characters. After reading Seeing Fingers (Read-along Book), students answer questions about what it may be like to live without sight.

The comprehension strategies used as assessments include:

• Find an Answer • Connect to Me• Sum Up: Remember Order • Recall Details• Describe Characters • Sum Up: Five Ws

After reading Mr. Lucky Straw (Traditional Tale), students recall the order of events in the story by matching the object Yosaku gives away with the person or people who receive the gift.


Book Title Vocabulary Words Comprehension Strategies


Bad News Shoes thick-soled, stout, support, sleek, velvet, dainty

Peek at the Story Check My Guess

Up and Down gravity

I Met a Monster stereo, greedy, knitting needle Peek at the Story Check My Guess

The Mighty Sparrow basking

Bandage Bandit burglar Peek at the Story Check My Guess

The Four Seasons mangos, harvest

Rocks in My Socks quilt Peek at the Story Check My Guess

David Next Door

The Snow Lion China, rice paper, boasted, humbly, noble

Peek at the Story Check My Guess

Poetry Book 1 worrisome, shrill, bogs, Venus’s flytrap, insectivore, leafhopper, armadillo, halo, explosion

Snake Weaves a Rug badger, Ya ateeh, loom, frame Peek at the Story Check My Guess

The Crowded House kerchief, dawn, advice, relief, roomy

Turtle’s Pond alder, banks, burrowed Build Knowledge Remember Order

Sound vibration, inner ear, eardrum, anvil, stirrup, hammer

Great White Bird egret, scan, dagger, keen, gleam, salt grass

Build Knowledge Remember Order

Duc Tho Le’s Birthday Present Vietnam, bamboo, rice cakes

The Story Cloth bamboo, Laos, bamboo shoots, Thailand


Wendel Wandered aisle, scowled, baggage, chute, whimpered

Lorenzo’s Llama llamas, Andes mountains, chuyo, grazed, panpipe, bobbles


Today I Write a Letter konnichiwa, mata

The Sweater knit, boa constrictor Build Knowledge Remember Order

I Hate Peas

LEVELTHREESCOPEANDSEQUENCEOFSKILLSThe following list shows the vocabulary words and comprehension strategies included in Level Three. These comprehension strategies are taught in the Introduction and Assessment activities (before and after most Read-along Books are presented).




Noise? What Noise? deaf, signed, hail Build Knowledge Remember OrderDarren’s Work salmon, Kuskokwim, mends,

voles, wisp, tundra, marsh, loon, bluffs, swallows

The Story of Tong and Mai Nhia weaver Step into the Story Compare CharactersMr. Croaky Toad peat moss, marigold, petunia,

bulging, gnats, hibernatingWhat If You Were an Octopus? Step into the Story Compare CharactersWhite-tailed Deer doe, bleat, nuzzlesThe Talking Lizard gecko, China Step into the Story Compare CharactersWater windowpane, mist, burner,

icebergThe Weather on Blackberry Lane cream puffs, sprinkler,

mackerel, sky, mischief, twilight

Step into the Story Compare Characters

Sequoyah’s Talking Leaves Cherokee, silversmith, bark, chiefs

Winter Snoozers hibernate, oxygen, kin Step into the Story Compare CharactersDrawing swimming trunks, pouch,

leopardWhy Wind and Water Fight overflowed, scrawny,

meandering, contentment, skittered, whitecaps, batter

Step into the Story Compare Characters

What Will Sara Be? astronaut, architect, skyscraper, intermission, sculptor, veterinarian, forest ranger

Little Tree meadow, fireweed, needles, wood mites, burrowed, drowsed, woodpecker, sap, ferns, spattered, streaked, pinecones, nourished, seedlings

Build Knowledge Build Vocabulary

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

All on the Same Earth solar system, Mercury, Venus, poisonous acid, orbiting, planet, reflect, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, tilted planet, Neptune, Pluto


Amazing Tails amazing, paddle, steer, propellers, flyswatter

The Pizza Book Stone Age, Greece, Italy, basil, pitas, English muffins





My Reptile Hospital reptile, swamp, murky, dense, herpetologist, kapok tree, coil, chameleon, gila monster, poisonous, tide, cold-blooded

The Pinãta Book padres, mission, papier-mâché, rafter


Movin’ to the Music Time fiddle, dance a square, do-si-do

Discovering Dinosaurs cliffs, fossil, backbone, ichthyosaur, plesiosaur, pterosaur


Macaw’s Chorus canopy, chorus, jamboree, mahogany, dusk, melody


Treasures from the Loom New Mexico, weavers, shuttle, dyes, coasters, table runners, tradition

The Courage to Learn fever, drifted, blind, deaf, braille, honors

Peek at the Story Map the Story

Poetry Book 2 checkers, petunias, pansies, boa constrictor, surf, shore, clan, spray, wheelies, curbs, pavement, asphalt, arch, bass, Apatosaurus, saxophone, trombone, kettle, drum, murky, foam

The Bee’s Secret nectar, pollen, petal, quivers Peek at the Story Map the Story

How Rivers Began messenger, face of the earth, crystal clear, wound, valleys, precious


Pencil Magic doodles, bases, home plate Peek at the Story Map the Story

Elephant Upstairs ceiling, teeter-totter, apartment Peek at the Story Map the Story

Reaching Above Oklahoma, boll, flock, book, wagon, Wright brothers, France, license, prejudice



The eight comprehension strategies and their accompanying illustrations are listed on the chart below. Note that four of the strategies were also taught in Level Two activities.

How to Read a Story

Build Knowledge

Peek at the Story

Check My Guess

Step into the Story

Build Vocabulary

Compare Characters

Sum Up—Remember Order

Map the Story

LEVELTHREESAMPLEACTIVITIESAtaGlanceObjectives Vocabulary

ComprehensionLearning Objectives Define vocabulary words in context of the story.

Build vocabulary knowledge by defining new words and using them in a sentence.Recognize when you don’t know the meaning of a word.Comprehend stories by using comprehension strategies.

Supporting Research To develop comprehension, students should (1) “ask and answer . . . who, what, where, when, why, and how [questions] to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text;” (2) “recount stories . . . and determine their central message, lesson, or moral;” (3) “describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges;” (4) “use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot;” and (5) “by the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories and poetry, in the grades 2–3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range” (Common Core, 2010, p. 11).


Supporting Research Students should be able to “determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 2 reading and content” by (1) using “sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase” and (2) determining “the meaning of the new word formed when a known prefix is added to a known word” (Common Core, 2010, p. 27).“Investigations that have studied the effect of context have generally found a facilitating effect on accuracy and speed with unskilled readers, providing there is a match between one’s anticipation and the text and the student is able to use multiple sources of information such as letters, configuration, and length cues” (Samuels, 1994, p. 370).“Words are the tools we use to access our background knowledge, express ideas, and learn new concepts. The words children know will determine how well they can comprehend texts in the upper elementary grades, in middle and high school, and in college. Reading is far more than recognizing words and remembering their meanings, but if the reader does not know the meanings of a sufficient proportion of the words in the text, comprehension is impossible” (Stahl & Nagy, 2006. p. 4).

Vocabulary In the Vocabulary Tutorial, which students see once at the beginning

of the sequence, Rusty and Rosy show students how to click any Vocabulary Word to learn its definition. Students begin to take ownership of their comprehension, realize when they do not understand a word, and discover the meaning of the word.

In Build Vocabulary, students select the category the Vocabulary Word belongs to, then select three descriptions associated with the word. Finally, the definition of the word is explained.


Comprehension The Reading Detective Song contains five different verses, each about a

different comprehension strategy. The students see the verse that relates to one of the comprehension strategies they will see.

Before every Read-along Book, an Introduction helps students use a comprehension strategy to get ready to read the story. They learn about the story’s setting or characters and may play a simple game to help them practice a comprehension strategy. The comprehension strategies used as introductions are

• Build Knowledge• Peek at the Story• Step into the Story

The list of Read-along Books is found on pages 98–100.

In the Assessment, students use a comprehension strategy to think about the Read-along Book. They may answer questions, remember the order of events in the story, or describe characters. After reading Reaching Above, students map the story. The comprehension strategies used as assessments are

• Build Vocabulary• Check My Guess• Map the Story• Sum Up—Remember Order• Compare Characters


LanguageConceptsInstructionalStrandYoung students need to talk and collect words to develop oral language as they are exposed to songs and stories. Soon they begin to see the connection between spoken language and printed words. The Language Concepts Instructional Strand is designed to help students develop this connection as they are exposed to words in activities with print. As students advance, language usage and conventions such as grammar and punctuation will assist them with both oral language and writing. The key components of this strand are

• Print conventions (teaches standard conventions, such as reading left to right and top to bottom)

• Readiness skills (basic skills, such as color names, names of shapes, or parts of the face)

• Language conventions (parts of speech, grammar, and punctuation)

LEVELONESCOPEANDSEQUENCEOFSKILLSThe following list shows all the Level One Language Concepts Instructional Strand Print Conventions objectives and Readiness Skills objectives. Each objective contains an introduction, instruction, practice, and assessment.

1. Print Directionality 16. Look, Listen, Match 1 2. Distinguish Letters from Other 17. Make Comparisons Symbols 3. Letters Make Words 18. Dots, Lines, Circles 4. Picture Clues 19. Look, Listen, Match 2 5. Print Concepts 20. First, Next, and Last 6. Similarities and Differences 21. One-to-one Correspondence in Letters 7. Numbers 1–5 22. Look, Listen, Match 3 8. Real and Make-believe 23. Opposites 9. Memorization Skills 24. Red, Yellow, and Blue 10. Match Numbers 1–5 25. Look, Listen, Match 4 11. Words Tell about the Pictures 26. Common Sounds 12. Over, Under, and Through 27. Sort 13. Top, Beside, and Bottom 28. Look, Listen, Match 5 14. Parts of the Face 29. Look at Details 15. Simple Shapes 30. Patterns

LevelOneSongsThe following songs are seen in various combinations and in various lessons throughout Level One.

The Sing a Rhyme Songs are

• “The Apple Tree (Aa)” • “One Elephant Went Out to Play (Ee)”• “Bluebird, Bluebird (Bb)” • “The Farmer in the Dell (Ff)”• “Pat-a-cake (Cc)” • “Ten Little Goldfish (Gg)”• “Hey Diddle, Diddle (Dd)” • “All the Pretty Little Horses (Hh)”

LanguageConceptsInstructionalStrand 101

• “Mother, Mother, I Am Ill (Ii)” • “Little Rabbit (Rr)”• “Jack and Jill (Jj)” • “Eensy, Weensy Spider (Ss)”• “Three Little Kittens (Kk)” • “Tortillas, Tortillas (Tt)”• “Mary Had a Little Lamb (Ll)” • “The Bus (Uu)”• “Little Miss Muffet (Mm)” • “My Valentine (Vv)”• “I Touch My Nose Like This (Nn)” • “Wee Willie Winkie (Ww)”• “Polly, Put the Kettle On (Oo)” • “A-hunting We Will Go (Xx)”• “This Little Pig (Pp)” • “Yankee Doodle (Yy)”• “Quack, Quack, Quack (Qq)” • “The Zulu Warrior (Zz)”

The Sing around the World Songs are

• “Introduction: Make New Friends” • “n: A Very Big Name”• “a: One Antenna, Two Antennas” • “o: On the Bridge of Avignon”• “b: A Bird Sang in the Trees” • “p: The Painted Rooster”• “c: Colors, Colors” • “q: Egg on a Queen”• “d: Days of the Week” • “r: Mountain Rabbit”• “e: Everybody Loves Saturday • “s: The Sandman” Night”• “f: Catch Him Just for Fun” • “t: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”• “g: Brown Girl in the Ring” • “u: Wake Up”• “h: Horse and Buggy” • “v: The Bird’s Voice”• “i: Inchworm” • “w: Oh Welcome, My Friends”• “j: Sweet Guava Jelly” • “x: An Ox Kissing a Fox”• “k: Kookaburra” • “y: The Flower of My Youth”• “l: Little Chicks” • “z: I Am a Zebra”• “m: Little Snowball Bush of Mine”

LEVELONEACTIVITIESAtaGlanceObjectives Print Conventions

Readiness SkillsLearning Objective Prepare for reading and writing by learning print

concepts (e.g., sentences are read left-to-right and top-to-bottom, words are separated by spaces).Build basic readiness concepts and oral language, including recognizing position words, identifying shapes, recognizing numbers, and sequencing events.

Supporting Research Students should “demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print” by (1)identifying “the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book;” (2) following “words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page;” and (3) understanding “that words are separated by spaces in print” (Common Core, 2010, p. 8).


Supporting Research When children are gaining an awareness of print, “adults serve as facilitators and planners who . . . structure the environment so that certain literacy experiences are apt to occur. They surround children with print. . . . Literacy learning proceeds naturally if the environment supports young children’s experimentation with print” (Strickland & Cullinan, 1990, pp. 430–431).By kindergarten and first grade, children are giving or receiving directions for a more complicated sequence of steps. “They can listen to, comprehend and carry out directions with five or six simple steps” (National Center on Education and the Economy, 2001, p. 168).

PrintConventionsEach Print Convention objective contains an introduction, instruction, practice, and assessment. The following activities belong to the Print Directionality objective.

In this Introduction, students learn to track text from left-to-right, top-to-bottom. The text of the Apple Tree rhyme appears with a hand pointing to each word as it is read aloud.

In this Instruction, students are instructed to click where “we begin to read” at the beginning of a sentence.

In the Practice, students click on a fruit where “we begin reading” and move it from left to right to a basket filled with fruit. As they drag the fruit to the right, a sentence is uncovered and read aloud.


The Assessment tests students’ knowledge of the objective. Students click words on a series of lily pads, left to right in a sentence. When the last word is selected, students see a surprise animation.

ReadinessSkillsEach Readiness Skill objective contains an introduction, instruction, practice, and assessment. The following activities belong to the Memorization Skills objective.

In Introduction activities, students are introduced to the concept. In this example, students help Miss Mabel pick up the contents of her purse. One object disappears, and students choose which object is missing.

Instruction activities give students further instruction and some practice in the readiness concept the lesson is teaching. In this activity, students remember which objects are in Miss Mabel’s hair.

In Practice activities, students continue practicing the readiness concept. Here, students study the picture, then a piece disappears. Students choose the missing puzzle piece.

The Assessment evaluates student understanding of the concept. Here, students get a brief glimpse of a character behind a door. Then they click the picture that matches what they saw.


LEVELTWOSCOPEANDSEQUENCEOFSKILLSThe following table shows all the Level Two Language Concepts objectives. Each objective contains a song and one or more of the following: instruction, practice, and assessment.

1. Sentences 2. Sentence Marks 3. Nouns 4. Plural Nouns 5. Possessive Nouns 6. Verbs 7. -ed and -ing Endings 8. Contractions 9. Compound Words 10. Adjectives

LevelTwoSongsThe titles of all of the songs found in Level Two Language Concepts Instructional Strand are listed in the order your students will see them.

• “What Is a Sentence?”• “Sentence Marks”• “Nouns”• “More Than One”• “Apostrophe Pig”• “Verbs”• “Double the Fun”• “Contraction Action 1”• “Compound Words”• “Adjectives Describe”


AtaGlanceObjectives Language conventionsLearning Objectives Understand grammar, punctuation, and parts of

speech, and use them correctly.Supporting Research Students should “demonstrate command of the

conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking” by (1) printing “all upper- and lowercase letters;” (2) using “common, proper, and possessive nouns;” (3) using “singular and plural nouns with matching verbs in basic sentences;” (4) using “personal, possessive, and indefinite pronouns;” (5) using “verbs to convey a sense of past, present, and future;” (6) using “frequently occurring adjectives;” (7) using “frequently occurring conjunctions; (8) using “determiners;” (9) using


“frequently occurring prepositions;” and (10) producing and expanding “complete simple and compound declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences in response to prompts” (Common Core, 2010, p. 26).Although first-grade students will not have consistent control over punctuation, capitalization, and other conventions, by the end of the year we expect them to: • Demonstrate interest and awareness by

approximating the use of some punctuation, including exclamation points, questions marks, ellipses, colons, and capitalization of proper names and sentence beginnings

• Use punctuation accurately and sometimes use conventions that are borrowed from a favorite author to add emphasis, suggest mood, be clear, and direct readers to use particular intonations (New Standards Primary Literacy Committee, 1999, p. 137).

Each objective within Level Two Language Concepts Instruction Strand contains a song and one or more of the following: instruction, practice, and assessment. The following sample activities are for the Contractions objective.

In this instructional strand, students learn a grammar or punctuation skill. First, students are introduced to the skill in a Song. The songs present the skills in a memorable way and introduce each concept that will be taught.

Each Instruction/Practice teaches a language skill, such as parts of speech. To complete their instruction and review the concept, students also practice using the same activity. In this example, students learn that a contraction is two words combined to make one word by dropping letters and replacing them with an apostrophe.

The Assessment tests students’ knowledge of the skill being taught and determines the need for remediation.


1. Alphabetical Order (1st Letter)— Practice

2. Pronouns—Practice 1 3. Prewrite: Mapping 1 4. Past-tense Verbs—Practice 1 5. Adjectives—Practice 1 6. First Draft 1 7. Alphabetical Order (1st Letter)—

Assessment 8. Irregular Plurals—Practice 1 9. Revise: Add Details 1 10. Adverbs—Practice 1 11. Irregular Verbs—Practice 1 12. Edit: Edit Capitals 13. Past-tense Verbs—Practice 2 14. Pronouns—Practice 2 15. Prewrite: Mapping 2 16. Homophones—Practice 1 17. Suffixes—Practice 1 18. Revise: Add Details 2 19. Past-tense Verbs—Practice 3 20. Irregular Verbs—Practice 2 21. Edit: Edit End Punctuation 22. Pronouns—Practice 3 23. Nonaction Verbs—Practice 1 24. Revise: Use Interesting Words 1 25. Adjectives—Practice 2 26. Antonyms—Practice 1 27. Edit: Edit Spelling 28. Irregular Plurals—Practice 2 29. Homophones—Practice 2 30. Prewrite: Word Bank 1 31. Synonyms—Practice 1 32. Antonyms—Practice 2 33. First Draft 2 34. Comparatives—Practice 1 35. Endings (Change Y to I)—

Practice 1 36. Revise: Use Interesting Words 2 37. Nonaction Verbs—Practice 2 38. Synonyms—Practice 2 39. Edit: Edit Calendar Capitals 40. Adjectives—Practice 3 41. Alphabetical Order (2nd Letter)— Practice

42. Prewrite: Word Bank 2 43. Adverbs—Practice 2 44. Prefixes—Practice 1 45. First Draft 3 46. Suffixes—Practice 2 47. Pronouns—Assessment 48. Revise: Start Sentences

Differently 49. Comparatives—Practice 2 50. Antonyms—Practice 3 51. Edit: Edit Commas 52. Homophones—Practice 3 53. Endings (Change Y to I)—

Practice 2 54. Prewrite: Mapping 3 55. Suffixes—Practice 3 56. Irregular Plurals—Practice 3 57. Revise: Stick to the Topic 1 58. Past-tense Verbs—Assessment 59. Comparatives—Practice 3 60. Revise: Stick to the Topic 2 61. Synonyms—Practice 3 62. Endings (Change Y to I)—

Practice 3 63. Edit: Edit Tricky Spelling 64. Suffixes—Assessment 65. Prefixes—Practice 2 66. Prewrite: Word Bank 3 67. Adverbs—Practice 3 68. Alphabetical Order (2nd Letter)—

Assessment 69. First Draft 470. Homophones—Assessment71. Endings (Change Y to I)—

Assessment72. Revise: Delete Extra Words73. Prefixes—Practice 3 74. Antonyms—Assessment 75. Edit: Edit Punctuation 76. Nonaction Verbs—Practice 3 77. Adjectives—Assessment 78. Prewrite: Mapping 4 79. Irregular Verbs—Practice 3 80. Comparatives—Assessment 81. First Draft 5

LEVELTHREESCOPEANDSEQUENCEOFSKILLSThe following list shows the order of objectives for Level Three Language Concepts Instructional Strand. As shown below, writing objectives appear every third objective.


82. Adverbs—Assessment 83. Nonaction Verbs—Assessment 84. First Draft 6 85. Irregular Plurals—Assessment 86. Irregular Verbs—Assessment

87. First Draft 7 88. Synonyms—Assessment 89. Prefixes—Assessment 90. Word Processor

LevelThreeSongsThe titles of all of the songs found in Level Three Language Concepts Instructional Strand are listed in the order your students will see them.

• “ABC Order (1st Letter)”• “Pronouns”• “It Happened Yesterday”• “Adjectives Describe”• “Strange Spelling”• “Adverbs”• “Irregular Verbs”• “Homophone Monkey”• “Put It at the End”• “Verbs That Link”• “Antonym Ant”• “Synonym Tree”• “Let’s Compare”• “Tricky Y to I”• “ABC Order (2nd Letter)”• “Put It at the Front”



AtaGlanceObjectives Language conventions

Writing processLearning Objectives Understand language conventions, such as

alphabetical order, pronouns, verbs, prefixes, and suffixes.Identify the steps of the writing process: prewrite, first draft, revise, edit, and publish.

Supporting Research Students should “demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking” by (1) using “collective nouns,” (2) forming and using “frequently occurring irregular plural nouns,” (3) using “reflexive pronouns,” (4) forming and using “the past tense of frequently occurring irregular verbs,” (5) using “adjectives and adverbs, and choos[ing] between them depending on what is to be modified” (Common Core, 2010, p. 26).Students should “demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing” by (1) capitalizing “holidays, product names, and geographic names;” (2) using “commas in greetings and closings of letters;” (3) using “an apostrophe to form contractions and frequently occurring possessives;” and (4) generalizing “learned spelling patterns when writing words” (Common Core, 2010, p. 26).“From first grade on, reading and language arts programs need a strand of continuing skills development for grammar, usage, and composition; mechanics (such as capitalization and punctuation); syllabication, prefixes, suffixes, and derivatives such as ing and ed; and sentence, paragraph, and text structure. These skills should not be de-emphasized in the mistaken belief that they can be learned only in context of writing or that teaching skills hampers writing” (Honig, 1996, p. 89).“In the high-achieving classrooms, there was thorough integration of reading and writing. Consistently, students were asked to respond to what they read by writing” (Pressley, et al., 2001, p. 64).In the most effective classrooms, “there was much writing; writing was a daily activity” (Pressley, et al., 2001, p. 56).


LanguageConventionsEach objective within Level Three Language Concepts Instruction Strand contains a song, instruction, practice, or assessment.

Students listen to a Song that presents the new concept in a memorable way.

Each Instruction teaches a language skill, such as verbs, prefixes, or synonyms. In this activity, students learn about synonyms by comparing bears that are similar but described with different words.

To complete their instruction on a skill, students see a Practice. In the example of the synonyms skill pictured here, students match a noun such as city with its synonym, town. Each objective is practiced using different data three different times during the sequence.

The Assessment is similar to the Practice but uses new items. This assesses students’ knowledge of synonyms.


WritingProcessWriting is a fundamental part of the Language Concepts Instructional Strand. If students are to become authors, they must be taught to write like authors. Expert authors employ the following strategies that make them successful:

• Authors see writing as an integral part of their lives and as an essential way to communicate—a skill with practical application

• Authors write for an audience, and they read and write often• Authors follow the same basic steps to writing, with slight variations to fit

their individual styles

As shown in the Scope and Sequence (pp. 110–111), writing appears every third objective.

Prewrite: Two activities, one on word mapping and one on using a word bank, teach students to organize ideas before they write. In the word bank activity, students choose a topic and then use the keyboard to fill in subtopics on the bank steps.

First draft: Students are taught how to write a first draft in this activity. First, they click a picture to choose a writing topic. Then the narrator tells them how to write quickly without worrying about mistakes. After writing for four minutes, students can choose to have the page read back to them and print out their stories.

Revise: Students learn how to improve their writing by adding details, using interesting words, cutting out irrelevant sentences, and deleting redundant words. In this example, students learn to remove sentences that are not related to their topic.


Edit: In these activities, students learn to check for capitalization, punctuation, and spelling errors before they publish their work.

Publish: The Word Processor allows students to practice writing and illustrating stories.

The five steps of the writing process and their accompanying illustrations are listed on the following chart.

Prewriting

First Draft

Revision

Editing

Publishing

How to Write


FluencyInstructionalStrandFluency is defined as “the ability to read a text quickly, accurately, and with proper expression” (National Reading Panel, 2000, pp. 3–5). Fluency is important because it creates the connection between word recognition and comprehension. When students can read accurately and effortlessly, concentration can shift to understanding the meaning of text. The Fluency Instructional Strand includes activities to:

• Develop reading with expression• Build fluency rate by repeated readings of a passage to achieve 90 words

per minute• Assess comprehension of the fluency passage to ensure that

comprehension is mastered as reading speed increases

LEVELTHREESCOPEANDSEQUENCEOFSKILLSThe following list shows where the fluency speed passages fit in with the fluency expression skills. For example, a student receives instruction on concepts 1 through 16 before trying the fluency passage from The Show. Students review the expression skills periodically in the sequence.

1. Quotations 12. Question Marks 13. Pauses 14. Phrases 15. Exclamation Marks 16. Phrases 27. Quotations 28. Pauses 29. Question Marks 210. Exclamation Marks 211. Phrases 312. Question Marks 313. Quotations 314. Pauses 315. Exclamation Marks 316. Quotations 417. The Show18. Dinosaur Bones19. Question Marks 420. Mike and the Mice21. Huge Red Plume22. Pauses 423. The Bees24. My Shark25. Phrases 426. Barnaby27. Animals in the House28. Exclamation Marks 429. Do You Know?30. Cow on the Hill31. Phrases 5

32. Clouds33. The Noise in the Night34. Quotations 535. Strawberry Jam36. Jade’s Note37. Pauses 538. Bertie39. Cory’s Horn40. Question Marks 541. The Lion and the Mouse42. Lightning Bugs43. Exclamation Marks 544. Louis Braille45. Troll’s Visit46. Phrases 647. Andrew’s News48. Sue’s Slime49. Question Marks 650. The Name of the Tree51. The Giant and the Hare52. Quotations 653. Frank’s Pranks54. Through the Back Fence55. Pauses 656. Fudge for Sale57. Photos for Phil58. The Mighty Sparrow Story: Recording59. Moose Are Not Meese60. Little Barry Busy

FluencyInstructionalStrand 113


AtaGlanceObjectives Expression

SpeedComprehension

Learning Objectives Develop reading with expression by reading and recording phrases and sentences.Build reading rate to reach the goal of reading 90 words per minute.Understand literal and inferential comprehension to ensure that meaning is maintained as reading speed increases.

Supporting Research Students should “read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension” by (1) reading “on-level text with purpose and understanding;” (2) reading “on-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings;” and (3) using “context to confirm or self-correct word recognition, and understanding, rereading as necessary” (Common Core, 2010, p. 16).“Repeated reading and other guided oral reading procedures have clearly been shown to improve fluency and overall reading achievement” (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 3-28).

Expression In the Instruction, a narrator reads example passages from Level Two

Readable Books with expression. Students learn how questions, pauses, quotations, phrases, and exclamations affect expression while reading. In this activity, students learn about exclamation marks and how to read with excitement when they see an exclamation mark in text.

In the Practice, students are invited to practice and record a passage from the Level Three book The Mighty Sparrow.


Speed In the Practice, students practice reading quickly, with three chances to

reach the target speed of the current passage. Students click individual words to hear them read or listen to the whole passage. When they are ready, they click the Record button to start recording and click the Stop button when finished.

After the computer has calculated their speed, students watch a race between their character and a character representing the target speed. If they surpassed the target speed, they win the race.

The passages are seen in the following order and the target speeds are as follows:

The Show 60 wpm Cory’s Horn 78 wpmDinosaur Bones 60 wpm The Lion and the Mouse 78 wpmMike and the Mice 63 wpm Lightning Bugs 80 wpmHuge Red Plume 63 wpm Louis Braille 80 wpmThe Bees 65 wpm Troll’s Visit 80 wpmMy Shark 65 wpm Andrew’s News 83 wpmBarnaby 68 wpm Sue’s Slime 83 wpmAnimals in the House 68 wpm The Name of the Tree 85 wpmDo You Know? 70 wpm The Giant and the Hare 85 wpmCow on the Hill 70 wpm Frank’s Pranks 85 wpmClouds 73 wpm Through the Back Fence 88 wpmThe Noise in the Night 73 wpm Fudge for Sale 88 wpmStrawberry Jam 75 wpm Photos for Phil 90 wpmJade’s Note 75 wpm Moose Are Not Meese 90 wpmBertie 78 wpm Little Barry Busy 90 wpm

Comprehension The Assessment tests students’ literal and inferential comprehension of

the Fluency Speed practice passage. For instance, students may be asked to remember the characters or events in the story. After students answer questions correctly, they can place pictures in the photo album to help them remember the story.

116 OverviewoftheCourseware:KeyboardingtoReadandWrite

Overview of the Courseware: Keyboarding to Read and Write

Research has shown that students who type or keyboard out-perform, sometimes dramatically, their nontyping counterparts in reading, reading comprehension, writing, spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and language. Ann Cothran and George E. Mason in Elementary School Journal report the following, based on several studies:

• “Children of elementary-school age . . . who had typing instruction actually spent only an hour or two a week at the typewriter, yet at the end of the first year they out-performed the nontyping pupils in reading.”

• “Ralph Haefner . . . [maintains] that typing improves reading fluency in children of elementary-school age.”

• “Rowe’s experimental subjects made dramatic gains in their control of both vocabulary and reading comprehension.”

• “Katherine A. Seibert used electric typewriters in a summer program for first- and second-graders who were diagnosed as slow readers. The children who were not aware that they were in a ‘reading’ program, gained an average of .96 of a year in only eight weeks. The gain in reading skills was over three times larger than expected for these pupils” (Cothran & Mason, 1978, pp. 171–78).

Keyboarding to Read and Write helps students learn to keyboard by touch—without looking at their fingers. When students enter the program, they become Junior Reporters at a bustling newspaper office and learn to keyboard by touch with help from staff members. Junior Reporters also learn basic word processing tricks of the trade.

As they learn and practice their new skills, Junior Reporters interact with various characters. For example, they can:

• Help Mrs. Wafflebaum, the Art Director, put together comic strips• Accompany Vinny and Shyrril, Investigative Reporters, as they cover

the news• Laugh as they see Lester’s “fowl” weather reports• Cover the sports with Jackie, the Sports Reporter• Find adventures as they follow Boris, Felicia, and Harriet, and help them

report the news

Students will gradually learn to compose their own simple writing ideas at the computer. With each adventure, their keyboarding, reading, and writing skills will improve.

MaterialsThe Keyboarding to Read and Write courseware includes

• Keyboarding to Read and Write section of the Overview guide

TipsforClassroomManagement 117

This section outlines the learning objectives of Keyboarding to Read and Write and summarizes the research behind the activities. You will also find a courseware overview with descriptions of each activity and suggestions for setting up the computers and managing the courseware in your classroom.

TipsforClassroomManagementWhen you follow the tips below, you will increase your students’ success in learning to keyboard by touch.

1. Encourage students to type without looking at the keys. — Make keyboard covers. The covers should look like a low shelf that

fits over the entire keyboard console. Students place their hands under the cover to type.

2. Assess your students’ progress.— Check the Class Summary Reports located in Waterford School

Manager every two weeks.

3. Check students’ keyboarding workstation. — Set up the computers correctly. — Make sure students’ chairs, tables, or desks are the appropriate height.— Check students’ hand and wrist positions. They should be parallel to

the top of the desk.— Check students’ feet positions. They should be flat on the floor. If

necessary, provide a box or stool to correct the position of their feet.— Make sure the monitor is not too high.

The following Word Processing Instruction activities (shown in order of appearance) are available in Keyboarding to Read and Write:

• Enter• Backspace • Place Cursor with Mouse• Select• Formatting• Fun Buttons• File• Caps Lock• Delete• More about Formatting• Use the Arrow Keys• More about Enter• Cut and Paste• Copy and Paste

Time spent learning to keyboard is time spent

learning to read.


Each instruction takes approximately 3 minutes. The time to complete all instruction activities is about 36 minutes.

In addition to tutorials, Keyboarding to Read and Write also features Writing activities. In these activities, students watch a story starter video and then write about it in a word processor identical to the one in Writing. Students will need enough time to write and print their stories. The following topics are available:

• Friends• Me• Animals around Us• Jobs• Where I Live• Things I Like to Do• What Makes Me Happy• Music

ScopeandSequenceofSkills

LESSON KEYS/SKILLSIntroduction f, j, d, k1 g, h2 Enter3 s, n4 l, r5 a, ;6 c, o7 Shift (right), D, R8 Shift (right), S, C9 Shift (right), !, G10 i, t11 ’, z12 Shift (left), K, H13 Shift (left), J, :14 Shift (left), ?, “ 15 Backspace16 m, x17 �, b18 Place cursor with mouse19 e, u20 w, ,21 Select

ActivitiesOverview 119

LESSON KEYS/SKILLS22 p, q23 y, v24 Formatting25 Fun buttons26 File27 1, 028 2, 929 3, 830 4, 731 5, 632 CapsLock33 Delete34 More about formatting35 Use arrow keys36 Review placing cursor with mouse, selecting37 More about Enter38 Cut and paste39 Copy and paste40 Review more formatting41 Review fun buttons, File42–50 Writing

ActivitiesOverviewKeyboarding to Read and Write teaches students the basics of keyboarding and word processing in the first 41 lessons. In lessons 42–50, students review skills and use story starters to write stories. After lesson 50, students see Play and Practice to continue working on accuracy and speed. Students can also use Word Processor to write.


Below are descriptions of each type of activity found in Keyboarding to Read and Write.

SAMPLEACTIVITIES

IntroductoryLesson In Welcome to the Daily Monitor, students are greeted by Ed Gator, meet

the newspaper staff, and learn beginning keyboarding concepts. They also meet Kimiko, who teaches them to cover the keyboard and type without looking at their hands and with correct posture.

DailyWarm-upStudents are welcomed back to the Daily Monitor. They spend a minute and a half keyboarding text with previously learned letters and numbers.

LetterandNumberLocationInstruction Students learn correct fingering and letter and number location in these

instructional activities. They also type along to a beat. In the example shown here, Sally Jo and Mr. Snipes show location and correct fingering for the G key.

WordProcessingInstruction Students learn basic word processing skills in these instructional activities.

In the example here, La Mouche teaches how to save and retrieve documents.

ActivitiesOverview 121

WritingActivities Students are gradually led through the process of composing at the

keyboard with these activities.

PracticeActivities Students play one of several music or adventure activities while practicing

speed and accuracy. In this activity, a bird sings a note for every key pressed. At the end, all of the birds sing together.

Congratulations After each practice activity, a newspaper appears, showing the student’s

progress. Students are invited to print their progress reports each time they reach a new high score.

122 OverviewoftheCourseware:Writing122

Overview of the Courseware: Writing

Writing is an open-ended, exploratory environment. Through Write with Me activities and Word Processor (see pp. 130–132), Writing introduces students to writing with a word processor.

This section includes suggestions and tips to ensure that the activities are effective.

ManagingtheCoursewareWrite with Me and Word Processor are both used in conjunction with Waterford Early Reading Program™. Because writing is an integral part of reading, Write with Me and Word Processor are combined into a single course in the form of a simple menu. This allows teachers to assign students more writing time. Teachers can give a writing topic, then allow students to write about it using Writing activities.

Students will be able to use and manage Writing activities more effectively if they know how these activities work ahead of time. Provide a simple demonstration of the features available in the chosen activity. The following explanations will be helpful.

WritewithMeWrite with Me is a group of computer activities designed for emergent readers who usually do not have keyboarding skills. Students write by clicking an on-screen keypad with the mouse. However, it can be used with the keyboard for those students who have keyboarding skills. As students write, they are directed through a scaffolded activity to a final published product. Besides writing, students can use available artwork or draw pictures to accompany text. Synthesized speech is also available to read students’ writing to them.

Using Write with Me is a fun, creative way to excite students about writing and producing their own work. Each activity allows students to explore writing in a unique environment. Students can:

• Write a book about themselves in Me by Me• Create signs in Sign Studio• Write a letter, note, or book report in Things to Do• Make greeting cards in Card Maker• Create an alphabet book with letters and pictures in ABC Book• Create books or stories in Free Choice

WritewithMe 123

WRITEWITHMESAMPLEACTIVITIES

AtaGlanceObjectives Me by Me

Sign StudioThings to DoCard MakerABC BookFree Choice

Learning Objectives Recognize a letter, a word, and spaces between words.Develop a working knowledge of the alphabetic principle.Learn color names.Understand print directionality.Become familiar with basic word processing functions: cut, paste, save, font selection, scroll, print, and exit.

MebyMe

Me by Me is good for students with limited reading and writing skills. Students write about themselves in book format. This book may take several sessions to complete. Be sure to show students how to save and retrieve their work. Also remind them not to print their work until it is complete.

SignStudio In Sign Studio, students choose from a variety of captions for signs.

Reading and writing skills are helpful, but not necessary because writing support is built into the activity. More advanced students can create their own captions, or add to the existing ones.

ThingstoDo In Things to Do, students write a letter or note, make a list, write a journal

entry, or answer questions for a book report.

124 OverviewoftheCourseware:Writing

CardMaker Students choose the kind of greeting card they want to make in Card

Maker. Reading and writing skills are helpful, but not necessary because writing support is built into the activity. More advanced students can create their own captions or add to the existing ones.

ABCBook ABC Book is good for students with limited reading and writing skills. On

each page of their book, students click a letter. Then students choose pictures of items beginning with the letter by clicking the AppleArt button. Each time students add a picture, the name of the picture is added to the text area.

FreeChoice In Free Choice, students choose between writing with or without pictures.

If they choose text only, they use standard word processing features to type. If they choose text with pictures, the Write with Me features are available.

WRITEWITHMEFEATURESWhen running Writing, students click the Write with Me buttons from the Writing main menu. They see the menu of six activities and a folder of saved items.

If students want to retrieve saved work, they:

1. Click the Folders to retrieve it. 2. Select the activity title where the work is saved.

For example, if students were working on ABC Book and saved their work, they click the ABCBook folder. These folders cannot be accessed within the activities.

Write with Me activities do not automatically save when session time runs out. Students are prompted to save their work throughout. Remind students to click the Yes button when the prompt appears. Make sure students save their work before the session ends or before they leave an activity. Otherwise, their work will be lost.

WritewithMe 125

Following is a list of features in Write with Me, as well as items students should understand to use it with ease.

The Letterandnumberkeypad allows students to click letters and numbers with their mouse. The shift key on the pad switches between numbers, capital letters, and lowercase letters. Students may also use the keyboard to write.

The Trashcan button deletes work on the visible page or screen.

When the Pencil button is selected, the keypad is replaced by colored pencils. Students draw by clicking on the page and moving the mouse. Students must click again to lift the pencil from the page. To switch back to letters and numbers, click the Shift key on the keypad.

Appleart displays available artwork in a separate window. The artwork changes according to the page in the book. Scroll arrows on the right of the box are used to show more artwork.

The Border button shows available borders in a separate window. Scroll arrows on the right of the box are used to show more borders.

The Treasurechest button saves work. When clicked, students click the folder they want to save their work in. If this is not the first time students have saved this piece of work, they should click the same folder to avoid filling extra folders with different versions of the same work.

Students cannot retrieve work while using any Write with Me activities. They must go back to the main picture menu and click Folders to retrieve work.

The Printbutton prints the activity the student is currently working on. Because it will print all pages of the Me by Me and ABC Books, you should instruct students to wait to print until their books are finished.


The Cut and Paste buttons edit the written portion of the page and function like standard cut and paste features on a word processor. Students with less writing experience will probably not need to use these features.

The ReadtoMe button reads any words in the text area of the page with a computer-generated voice.

TheGoOn button is the standard GoOn button and returns students to the main picture menu. Any unsaved work will be lost. The button does not turn pages of the books or cards created by the student. To turn pages, students click the upturned lower corners of the book. The lower right corner advances the book one page, and the lower left corner goes back one page.

The Menu button is similar to GoOn. This button ends the current activity and returns students to the nearest picture menu. If clicked twice, it take students to the Writing main picture menu.

WORDPROCESSORWord Processor is a simplified word processor that helps students develop word processing and writing skills. Word Processor includes the following features: save, open, print, font selection, alignment, cut, copy, paste, pagination, clip art, borders, read back, and background music.

Objectives• Learn basic word processing functions• Understand the process of writing using the keyboard• Achieve a higher level of motivation

WritewithMe 127

UsingWordProcessor

File Text Art Read Back

Music On/Off

Music Selection

Cut

Copy

Paste

The three buttons in the top left corner determine which buttons appear on the left side. The default appearance (the ABC button is clicked) is shown in the example. When this button is clicked, the following buttons appear on the left side:

Font

Font color

Font size

Alignment

Font style

When the File button is clicked, the following buttons appear on the left side:

New page Print

Open Close

Save


When the Art button is clicked, the following buttons appear on the left side:

Borders Signs

Animals Stuff

People

To understand all the features in Word Processor, a tutorial is available.

WordProcessorTutorialWriting includes a brief Word Processor Tutorial. However, the Word Processor Tutorial may not be sufficient for students who do not have some familiarity with word processors. If you have access to Waterford’s Keyboarding to Read and Write, you may want to assign several of the instruction activities in conjunction with the Writing course.

After choosing to run both courses, you need to assign the desired activities to preempt the regular Keyboarding to Read and Write sequence. To do this:

1. Click the ManageCurriculum drawer. 2. Select Keyboarding and the class, group, or student you wish to assign the

activities to. 3. Expand the Activities menu by clicking the +. 4. Expand the Instruction menu by clicking the +. 5. Select the instruction activities you wish to assign and click Assign. 6. Click Save.

After your students have completed those assignments, remember to stop running Keyboarding to Read and Write. (You can do this in the ChooseCurriculum tab of the SetUpClasses drawer.)

130 WaterfordEarlyReadingProgramReports

Waterford Early Reading Program Reports

Waterford Early Reading Program™ Reports show students’ progress throughout the courseware. For instructions on viewing and printing reports, see Quick Reference or “How Do I . . . ?” in Waterford School Manager™. The types of reports available are

• Reading Class Placement Report —shows a class’s performance in Reading Placement

• Reading Group Placement Report —shows a group’s (subset of a class) performance in Reading Placement

• Reading Individual Placement Report —shows a student’s performance in Reading Placement

• Class Summary Report—shows a class’s progress• Group Summary Report—shows a group’s (subset of a class) progress• Individual Student Report—shows a student’s progress• Reading Group Generator—creates the number of groups you specify based

on students’ placement in the program• Keyboarding Class Summary Report—shows a class’s progress in

Keyboarding to Read and Write

The following pages explain the information contained in reports. Please note that all student information is fictional and used solely as an example.

ReadingClassPlacementReportThe Reading Class Placement Report shows where each student in a class who has completed Reading Placement will be placed in Waterford Early Reading Program. The Reading Group Placement Report, which shows students in a group, follows the same format.

Shows the date Reading Placement was completed.

The dots indicate students who have completed the test and their resulting placement.

These columns show where students may be placed throughout Waterford Early Reading Program.

ReadingIndividualPlacementReport 131

Waterford Early Reading Program Reports

ReadingIndividualPlacementReportThe Reading Individual Placement Report shows the performance of a student in Reading Placement. The report provides details for each assessment, including the possible answers for each question, the correct answer, and an indication of whether the student answered correctly.

Note: For students who completed Reading Placement in a version pervious to Waterford Early Learning 4.4, the report indicates whether each assessment was passed, but it does not include details about individual questions.

Red shading indicates an incorrect response.

SKIPPED indicates an assessment not seen during Reading Placement.

During Reading Placement, students are presented questions—the correct answer and the distractors— in random order.


Specify the report date range in the Reports tab.

Note: Sample report only. Not all students in the class are shown.

Click a student’s name to view the individual report.

Red shading indicates an average Phonics score below the 80% minimum.

Fluency components are only shown for students using Level Three.

ClassSummaryReport

ClassSummaryReport 133

The Class Summary Report shows how your class is performing in Waterford Early Reading Program in each of the five instructional strands: Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Comprehension and Vocabulary, Language Concepts, and Fluency. The Group Summary Report, which shows a group’s performance in each of the five instructional strands, follows the same format.

INFORMATIONONTHEREPORT

Average Scores for Reading Instructional Strands takes students’ averages on activities and assessments and averages them for each strand. Only scores within the date range selected by the user are used when calculating the average. If students are in more than one level during the selected date range, the averages will include information for more than one level. The dashed line at 80% is a visual reminder of the minimum mastery requirement for any strand. For specific mastery requirements, see pp. 17–18.

The student progress section gives a summary of how each student is performing in each instructional strand.

Current Lesson indicates the level, unit, and lesson in Phonics each student will see the next time the student sees a phonics objective.

Reading Program Use shows each student’s cumulative session time in all levels of Waterford Early Learning Program during the report’s time frame. This does not include time in Reading Placement. Compare it to Target usage by (#8).

Student Average (weighted) % displays the average of all student-generated scores from the most recent attempt on each learning objective played within the report’s time frame.

Each student’s performance in the five instructional strands is shown in the next five columns. Each percentage shown is the average of the student’s most recent attempts for all reported and scored objectives during the report’s time frame. These averages include all levels the student has worked in during the report’s time frame. Fluency WPM shows the students last words-per-minute score; it is not an average.

Note: If no data was generated for a student during the time frame of the report in an instructional strand, one of the following messages is displayed: Not Yet Begun, No Test Data, or Completed.

Class Averages show the class average for each column. Each figure is the average of student averages.

Target usage by shows the minimum amount of time each student should have worked on the program during the report’s time frame. Target usage is 80% of the recommended usage (see p. 4). Target usage is based on the calendar assigned to the class and the grade selected in the Set Up Classes Drawer. (For more information on assigning a calendar or grade, see Quick Reference or “How Do I . . . ?” in Waterford School Manager.)


IndividualReport

Red shading indicates objectives that have been seen the maximum number of times but remain unmastered. Shaded objectives will not be seen again in sequence.

Specify the report date range in the Reports tab.

Strand Averages are an average of student scores from all levels of the strand, not a simple average of level averages.

Fluency Comprehension is only shown for Level Three.

Note: Sample report only. Not all student data shown.

IndividualReport 135

The Individual Report shows how a student is performing—by level—in Waterford Early Reading Program in each instructional strand: Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Comprehension and Vocabulary, Language Concepts, and Fluency.

INFORMATIONONTHEREPORT Reading Totals shows the student’s performance compared to the class.

— Student Average % is calculated by averaging the latest attempts for all objectives across the program during the report’s time frame.

— Class Average % is an average of the student averages.— Student Program Use is the cumulative session time for the report’s time

frame. This number does not include paused time or time spent in Reading Placement. Student Program Use can be compared to Average Class Program Use and Target usage by (the time the student should have used the program to make adequate yearly progress). Target usage is based on the calendar assigned to the class and the grade selected in the Set Up Classes Drawer. (For more information on assigning a calendar or grade, see Quick Reference or “How Do I . . .?” in Waterford School Manager.)

Reading Placement and Progress shows where Reading Placement placed the student in Phonics and the date the placement was completed. It also shows the Phonics lesson the student will see the next time the student sees a Phonics objective, as well as the student’s progress through each level and through Phonological Awareness.

Average Scores for Reading Instructional Strands provides a visual summary of the student’s performance in each instructional strand by level. These averages are the student’s most recently scored activity results for the report’s time frame.

Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Comprehension and Vocabulary, Language Concepts, and Fluency. The remainder of the report is organized into tables. Each row is a group of objectives the student worked on during the report’s time frame.

Average Score % shows the average of the student’s most recent attempts for all objectives that were completed within the report’s time frame.

Date Last Seen indicates the most recent date the student worked in that group of objectives during the report’s time frame.

# of Objectives Seen shows how many objectives out of the possible objectives for that group the student saw during the report’s time frame. Each objective is represented once, no matter how many times it has been seen. The number of objectives skipped due to Reading Placement, mastering through preassessments, or bookmarking is also shown.

Objectives Not Mastered indicates objectives that the student attempted and failed. Once an objective is passed, it no longer appears in this column.

Score % shows the most recent score for the corresponding unmastered objective.

Failed Items in Phonics are displayed under the objective group. All objectives listed in the same group share items, so when the student masters the same items in a future objective from the group, the item is removed from Failed Items.


ReadingGroupGeneratorThe Reading Group Generator helps you form flexible groups for classroom activities by grouping students according to their progression in Waterford Early Reading Program. You specify the desired number of groups in the Reports tab in Waterford School Manager, and then students are grouped based on their current position in the courseware. In the example below, three groups were specified.

KeyboardingClassSummaryReport 137

KeyboardingClassSummaryReportThe Keyboarding Class Summary Report shows students’ progress in Keyboarding to Read and Write, how long they have been using the program, any milestone speeds they have reached, and when they reached those milestones. Early lessons focus on accuracy. Students are not tested on speed until approximately Lesson 7.

If there is no Milestone Speed for a student, then Milestone Speed and Milestone Speed Date are left at 0.

Class Average Program Use is the average usage of all students’ time during the report’s time frame.

138 StudentBookDistribution

Student Book Distribution

LevelOne

BOOKSSTUDENTSTAKEHOMEEach student in your class should receive copies of all 52 books available in Waterford Early Reading Program™ Level One. Students can take these books home to practice reading outside of school and with their families. Below is a brief description of the types of books your students will see in the courseware and classroom materials.

26SingaRhymeBooksThe Sing a Rhyme Books help students become familiar with the concept of rhyme.

26ReadwithMeBooks• Each book corresponds with a letter of the alphabet• The books explore printed text and practice the sound of a particular letter

in the context of words and sentences through alliterative stories• The books introduce high-frequency words

There are many ways you might distribute students’ individual copies of the books. You could:

• Use the distribution chart to determine which book students are ready to take home. You can also check students’ position in the courseware through the Report tab of Waterford School Manager™.

• Give students copies of the books according to the lesson you are teaching in the classroom. This way, all your students will receive the same books at the same time.

• For any of these options, you may wish to cluster the books and send home more than one lesson’s books at a time. For example, you can decide how frequently you want to pass out books (such as weekly or monthly) and give each student the appropriate books on that basis.

• All books could be sent home at the beginning of the school year. Parents can read a Sing a Rhyme Book after their child is familiar with the nursery rhyme from the video. This will help make the connection between speech and print. Reading the Read with Me Books will help reinforce specific letter sounds.

LevelOne 139

LEVELONEBOOKDISTRIBUTIONLOG

Stud

ents

The Apple Tree

Bluebird, Bluebird

Pat-a-Cake

Hey Diddle, Diddle

One Elephant Went Out to Play

The Farmer in the Dell

Ten Little Goldfish

All the Pretty Little Horses

Mother, Mother, I Am Ill

Jack and Jill

Three Little Kittens

Mary Had a Little Lamb

Little Miss Muffet

I Touch My Nose Like This

Polly, Put the Kettle On

This Little Pig

Quack, Quack, Quack

Little Rabbit

Eensy, Weensy Spider

Tortillas, Tortillas

The Bus

My Valentine

Wee Willie Winkie

A-hunting We Will Go

Yankee Doodle

The Zulu Warrior

SING A RHYME BOOKS

Note: Make enough photocopies of this chart to accommodate all students in your class.

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z


Stud

ents

READ WITH ME BOOKS


LEVELONEBOOKDISTRIBUTIONLOG,CONT’D

Andy’s Adventure

Baby’s Birthday

At Camp

I Go . . .

Eleven Elephants

Five

Go, Grasshopper

Hair

Who Has an Itch?

Jumbled

Here, Kitty, Kitty

Long Lewie

Magnifying Glass

New

Opposites

Pairs

The Quiet Book

Rascal’s Rotten Day

Six Silly Sailors

Together

Under

Family Vacation

Watch the Woolly Worm

Rex Is in a Fix

Yummy

The Zebra

a

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

i

j

k

l

m

n

o

p

q

r

s

t

u

v

w

x

y

z

LevelTwo 141

LevelTwo

BOOKSTHESTUDENTSTAKEHOMEEach students should receive their own copies of the 16 Traditional Tales and the 63 Readable Books to take home and read to others. Below is a brief description of these books and how they can be distributed and utilized at home.

16TraditionalTales(richlanguage,largefull-colorbooks)• Encourage students to develop interest in reading outside the classroom• Motivate parents and others to read to children in the home

There are several ways you might distribute these books:

• Read a Traditional Tale every two weeks to the entire class. Place a copy of the tale in a listening center. Send a copy of the tale home with each student the day you introduce it, or at the end of the week. On the computer, students see the books in the order listed in the Book Distribution Schedule, if you wish to match it.

• Send home a set of four or five tales at a time in the order listed on the following pages.

• Send home all 16 tales at once.

63ReadableBooks(decodabletext,smallbooks)• 3 Beginning Power Word Readable Books (in color) for the Introductory

Lessons (coded with a black and white bar on the left border of the book)• 50 Readable Books (in black and white) to accompany the 45 lessons• 10 Review Readable Books (in color) to accompany the 10 units

Students should be given a Readable Book to take home about the same time they are reading it on the computer, preferably afterwards. You might distribute these books in the following ways:

• Distribute the Readable Books a whole unit at a time (11 times during the course). (Readable Books are color-coded; for instance, all Readable Books with light blue and black on the left border are for Unit 7 books.)

• Ask students to turn in their Congratulations certificates to you. Then gather the Readable Books listed on each student’s printout.

• Distribute the Readable Books one lesson at a time (47 times during the course). Reference either a Class Summary Report or Individual Student Report to see a student’s current lesson progress.

• Distribute Readable Books independently of students’ position in the course. You might hand out all Unit 1 Readable Books to the entire class one day, for example. Two weeks later add another unit and continue until all the books are distributed.


BOOKSAVAILABLEONDVD

22Read-alongBooks(naturallanguage,availableonDVD)These books are also available on the computer. The following is a list of the order in which these stories occur within the course:

1. Mine 2. José Three 3. My Super Sticky Sandwich 4. Ooey, Gooey Mud 5. Fawn Eyes 6. Garden Visitors 7. Little Monkey 8. The Alligator in the Library 9. A Story in the Snow 10. Shell Houses 11. Lost Socks 12. Lumpy Mush 13. The Germs 14. The Swing 15. The Watermelon Seed 16. Moon Song 17. What Is a Cloud? 18. Legs 19. In the Rain 20. Moving Day 21. Seeing Fingers 22. Play Ball

LevelTwo 143

LEVELTWOSTUDENTBOOKREADABILITYThe Level Two Read-along Books and Traditional Tales provide natural, rich text to develop comprehension. The books have been sequenced in the courseware by objectives for comprehension strategies. On the computer, these books are read aloud to students for support. The books can also be read independently from the DVD. If you choose to have students read the books independently, the following table will assist you in matching text to students’ reading abilities. The books are measured with The Lexile Framework® for Reading. Also provided are approximate correlations to Fountas and Pinnell and the Developmental Reading Assessment. You may also choose to order the texts yourself, based on experience with your students.

Readability levels for the Readable Books are not included. Readable Books are supported by pattern words and sight words that correspond to lessons. Because of this correspondence, the decodable patterns taught in the books vary in complexity, creating an inconsistent leveling order.

Read-alongBooks:ApproximateTextCorrelations

Book Title Lexile® Fountas and Pinnell

Developmental Reading Assessment

First Grade (200–400)

Mine 210L F 9, 10

Moving Day 240L G 11, 12

My Super Sticky Sandwich 300L H 13

Lumpy Mush 310L H 13

Lost Socks 330L H 14

Ooey, Gooey Mud 340L H 14

In the Rain 350L I 16

Second Grade (401–500)

Legs 420L J 18

Fawn Eyes 440L J 18

What Is a Cloud? 450L K 20

José Three 470L K 20

Seeing Fingers 490L K 20

Play Ball 500L L 24

The Alligator in the Library 500L L 24

Third Grade (501–700)

Little Monkey 520L L 24

Shell Houses 530L L 24

The Germs 570L M 28

A Story in the Snow 650L O 34


ReferencesBeaver, Joetta. (2004). Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA). Lebanon, IN: Pearson Learning Group.

Fountas, I. C., and Pinnell, G. S. (1999). Matching Books to Readers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinnemann.

MetaMetrics. (2009). The Lexile Framework for Reading: Linking Assessment with Reading Instruction. Retrieved February 9, 2009 from http://www.lexile.com/



Garden Visitors 660L P 38

Moon Song 670L P 38

Fourth Grade (701–800)

The Watermelon Seed 830L T 44

Not Prose

The Swing — I 16

Traditional Tales


The Little Red Hen 340L H 14


Lizard and the Painted Rock 490L K 20


Goldilocks and the Three Bears 550L M 28

La Tortuga 570L M 28

Anansi and the Seven Yam Hills 580L M 28

The Ugly Duckling 590L M 28

Mr. Lucky Straw 610L N 30

The Gingerbread Man 640L O 34

The Big Mitten 660L P 38

Henny Penny 690L P 38


The City Mouse and the Country Mouse 740L R 40

The Brothers 740L R 40

The Three Wishes 820L T 44

The Three Little Pigs 820L T 44

The Shoemaker and the Elves 840L U 44

Fifth Grade and Up (851+)

The Magic Porridge Pot 1220L — —

LevelTwo 145

LEVELTWOREADINGLOG

READABLE BOOKSSt

uden

tsMeThe SnowmanThe MittenI Am SamWhat Am I?Sad SamDad’s SurpriseTadMatt’s HatWhat Is It?Dan and MacWhat a Band!Pat Can CampUNIT 1 REVIEWThe Rabbit and the TurtleStop the Frogs!Bob and TabHot RodsHappy BirthdayUNIT 2 REVIEWGo, Frog, Go!Pip, the Big PigWhat Is in the Pit?Prints!Who Is at the Door?The Big TripWho Will Go in the Rain?UNIT 3 REVIEWLet’s Get Hats!Slug BugGreen GumLizzy the BeeLittle DuckThump, Bump!UNIT 4 REVIEWThe Tree HutThe Big HillWhat’s in the Egg?Rom and His New PetChet and ChuckWhat Do I Spy?UNIT 5 REVIEWQuick! Help!Can We Still Be Friends?Fun in KansasBrave Dave and JaneMy SnowmanUNIT 6 REVIEWSpace Chase Race

ABC1

2

3

4

5

R1

6789

R2

101112131415R3

1617181920R4

2122232425R5

26272829R6


TRADITIONAL TALES


LEVELTWOREADINGLOG,CONT’D

READABLE BOOKSSt

uden

ts

Traditional Tales are associated with thematic lessons.

The Gingerbread ManThe Little Red HenLizard and the Painted RockAnansi and the Seven Yam HillsThe Big MittenThe Three Little PigsThe City Mouse and the Country MouseGoldilocks and the Three BearsThe Magic Porridge PotThe Three WishesHenny PennyMr. Lucky StrawLa TortugaThe Shoemaker and the ElvesThe BrothersThe Ugly Duckling

Oh No, Mose!Smoke!The NoteThe Snoring BoarUNIT 7 REVIEWShopping DayFriendsTwo Little PinesCan Matilda Get the Cheese? Let’s Go to YellowstoneUNIT 8 REVIEWMaddy and CliveBrute and the FluteOld RosaWhat Is in the Tree?Too Much PopcornUNIT 9 REVIEWOld King DuneRiding in My JeepSammy and PeteWill You Play with Me?The RescueUNIT 10 REVIEWWho Am I?

30313233R7

34353637R8

38394041R9

42434445

R10

LevelThree 147

LevelThree

BOOKSSTUDENTSTAKEHOMEEach student in your class should receive copies of 54 Read-along Books available in Level Three of Waterford Early Reading Program. Below is a brief description of the types of books your students will see in the courseware and classroom materials.

54Read-alongBooks• Will be seen in the Comprehension and Vocabulary Instructional Strand• Contain rich, natural language of varying skill levels• Designed to help students practice specific comprehension strategies• Students also see Read-along Books in Reader’s Corner in Play and

Practice after every five lessons of the courseware• Available in Level Three DVD Collection

There are several ways you might distribute the students’ individual copies of the books.

• Use the distribution chart on the following page to see which books the student is ready to take home. The Read-along Books may be too difficult for some of your students. Send them home when students are able to read them. The readability levels can be found on pp. 152–153.

• Give students copies of the books according to the lesson you are teaching in the classroom. This way all of your students will receive the same books at the same time.

You may also cluster the books and send home more than one lesson’s books at a time. Decide how frequently you want to pass out books (weekly, monthly) and give each student the appropriate books on that basis.

BOOKSREADONLINEIn the online courseware, students will read 30 Readable Books.

30ReadableBooks• Correspond to the 30 lessons in the course• Contain controlled text students should be able to read by the end of the

lesson in which the Readable Book is presented• Book text is found in Level Three Masters and Worksheets


LEVELTHREESTUDENTBOOKREADABILITYThe Level Three Read-along Books provide natural, rich text to develop comprehension. The books are sequenced by objectives for comprehension strategies. On the computer, these books are read to students for support. However, the books can be read independently. If you have students read the books independently, the following table will help you match text to students’ abilities. The books are leveled by The Lexile Framework® for Reading. Also provided are approximate correlations to Fountas and Pinnell and the Developmental Reading Assessment. You may also order the texts yourself, based on experience with your students.

Read-alongBooks:ApproximateTextCorrelations



Pre-primer (below 100)

Up and Down 150L E 7, 8


David Next Door 310L H 13

Bandage Bandit 310L H 13

The Story Cloth 350L I 16

The Four Seasons 360L I 16

I Met a Monster 380L I 16

Lorenzo’s Llama 380L I 16


Great White Bird 420L J 18

The Snow Lion 420L J 18

Wendel Wandered 420L J 18

I Hate Peas 420L J 18

Snake Weaves a Rug 430L J 18

Sound 460L K 20

Noise? What Noise? 460L K 20

Sequoyah’s Talking Leaves 460L K 20

The Three Billy Goats Gruff 460L K 20

Rocks in My Socks 470L K 20

Turtle’s Pond 480L K 20

The Talking Lizard 480L K 20

The Mighty Sparrow 500L L 24

The Sweater 500L L 24

Drawing 500L L 24

All On the Same Earth 500L L 24

LevelThree 149




Little Tree 510L L 24

The Story of Tong and Mai Nhia 520L L 24

Duc Tho Le’s Birthday Present 530L L 24

The Crowded House 540L L 24

The Weather on Blackberry Lane 540L L 24

Mr. Croaky Toad 550L M 28

The Courage to Learn 550L M 28

Pencil Magic 550L M 28

Water 550L M 28

Elephant Upstairs 550L M 28

Darren’s Work 560L M 28

White-tailed Deer 560L M 28

What If You Were an Octopus? 580L M 28

The Bee’s Secret 580L M 28

How Rivers Began 600L N 30

Discovering Dinosaurs 600L N 30

Reaching Above 620L N 30

The Pizza Book 630L O 34

The Piñata Book 650L O 34

What Will Sara Be? 660L O 34

Treasures for the Loom 680L P 38

Why Wind and Water Fight 680L P 38

My Reptile Hospital 680L P 38


Amazing Tails 740L R 40

Macaw’s Chorus 790L S 40

Not Prose

Poetry Book 1 — L 24

Bad News Shoes — P 38

Movin’ to the Music Time — P 38

Poetry Book 2 — Q 38

Today I Write a Letter — T 44

Winter Snoozers — T 44


Bad News Shoes

Up and Down

The Mighty Sparrow

The Four Seasons

I Met a Monster

David Next Door

Bandage Bandit

Rocks in My Socks

Great White Bird

The Snow Lion

Turtle’s Pond

The Story Cloth

Lorenzo’s Llama

Snake Weaves a Rug

The Crowded House

Sound

Noise? What Noise?

The Story of Tong and Mai Nhia

Duc Tho Le’s Birthday Present

Poetry Book 1

Wendel Wandered

What If You Were an Octopus?

Today I Write a Letter

I Hate Peas

The Talking Lizard

Darren’s Work

Sequoyah’s Talking Leaves

The Bee’s Secret

The Weather on Blackberry Lane

Little Tree

Treasures from the Loom

Poetry Book 2

Mr. Croaky Toad

White-tailed Deer

The Courage to Learn

How Rivers Began

Pencil Magic

Water

The Sweater

Drawing

All on the Same Earth

Elephant Upstairs

Reaching Above

LEVELTHREEREADINGLOG

READ-ALONG BOOKS

Stud

ents

LevelThree 151

READ-ALONG BOOKS, CONTINUED

Stud

ents

The Pizza Book

What Will Sara Be?

Winter Snoozers

Why Wind and Water Fight

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

The Piñata Book

Discovering Dinosaurs

Macaw’s Chorus

Amazing Tails

My Reptile Hospital

Movin’ to the Music Time

152 RationaleandResearch

Rationale and Research

WaterfordEarlyReadingProgramIn order to implement the most effective methods for teaching beginning reading, the designers of Waterford Early Reading Program™, all former teachers, researched data, consulted experts, and observed students. Some of their findings are listed below.

To see how these findings have been implemented into each of the instructional strands in Waterford Early Reading Program, refer to the “Scope and Sequence” section in this guide.

PHONOLOGICALAWARENESSINSTRUCTIONALSTRANDThe Phonological Awareness Instruction Strand is composed of two areas: phonological awareness and phonemic awareness.

Phonological awareness includes identifying and manipulating larger parts of spoken language, such as words, syllables, onsets and rimes, as well as phonemes. Waterford Early Reading Program’s phonological awareness curriculum adheres to the following research:

• Phonological awareness is important in learning to read (Griffith & Olsen, March 1992, pp. 516–523; Bradley & Bryant, 1989, p. 419; Juel, 1991; Juel, 1988, p. 778; and Torgesen & Mathis, 2000).

• Rhyme is one of the simplest ways to draw young student’s attention to the insides of words. An early knowledge of nursery rhymes is strongly related to other phonological skills and emerging reading abilities (MacLean, et al., 1987, pp. 277–278).

• “The ‘causal connection’ between phonological awareness and reading is strongest at the stage of early reading acquisition” (Stanovich, 2000, p. 93).

• “Turning to phonological awareness, there is an extensive research base in support of the effectiveness and practical utility of providing kindergartners with instruction in this skill” (Snow, et al., 1998, p. 185).

• “Young children who receive specific training in phonological awareness are able to learn to read more quickly than children of similar backgrounds who do not receive such training” (Snow, et al., 1998, p. 185).

• “A variety of games and activities have been designed to direct children’s attention to the sounds, rather than just the meanings, of spoken words. These activities can involve, for instance, detecting and producing rhymes and alliterative sequences in songs and speech, identifying objects in the environment whose names begin (or end) with the same sound, clapping to indicate the number of syllables (or phonemes) in a spoken word, and so forth” (Snow, et al., 1998, p. 187).

Phonemic awareness is one type of phonological awareness. It encompasses the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. The information below outlines the importance of phonemic awareness.

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• “Correlational studies have identified phonemic awareness and letter-knowledge as the two best school-entry predictors of how well children will learn to read during the first 2 years in school” (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 2-1)

• “Attaining phonemic awareness is difficult for most children and far more difficult for some than others. Still, because phonemes are the units of sound that are represented by the letters of an alphabet, an awareness of phonemes is key to understanding the logic of the alphabetic principle. Unless and until children have a basic awareness of the phonemic structure of language, asking them for the first sound in the word boy, or expecting them to understand that cap has three sounds while camp has four, is to little avail” (Snow, et al., 1998, p. 54).

• Children who have phonemic awareness skills are likely to have an easier time learning to read and spell than children who have few or none of these skills (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 2-19).

• One of the “essentials of an effective early intervention program is systematic and direct instruction in phonemic awareness” (Shaywitz, 2003, p. 262).

• “By the end of first grade, students should be well on the way to mastering phonemic awareness. No longer working on sounds or letters separately, they now are able to put these elements of the code together to read meaningful, connected texts.” At this time the students should be able to separate the sounds of a word and blend separately spoken phonemes to make a meaningful word (New Standards Primary Literacy Committee, 1999, p. 96).

• “Teaching students to segment and blend benefits reading more than a multiskilled approach. Teaching students to manipulate phonemes with letters yields larger effects than teaching students without letters, not surprisingly because letters help children make the connection between PA [phonemic awareness] and its application to reading” (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 2-41).

• “In Kindergarten, children should be learning phonemic awareness, the ability to hear and say the separate sounds (phonemes) in words. Specifically by the end of Kindergarten, we expect children to: produce rhyming words and recognize pairs of rhyming words; isolate initial consonants in single-syllable words; when a single-syllable word is pronounced, identify the onset and rime and begin to fully separate the sounds by saying each sound aloud; and blend onsets and rimes to form words and begin to blend separately spoken phonemes to make a meaningful one-syllable word” (New Standards Primary Literacy Committee, 1999, p. 54).

PHONICSINSTRUCTIONALSTRANDPhonics explores the relationship between the letters of written language and the individual sounds of spoken language to read and write words. Phonics also includes an understanding of the alphabetic principle. The following information outlines several benefits of phonics instruction.


• “Children leaving kindergarten should know the letters of the alphabet and many of their corresponding sounds. The precise number of letters and sounds kindergartners should know is not important; what is essential is that children grasp the idea of how letters represent sounds. We expect children leaving kindergarten to: recognize and name most letters; recognize and say the common sounds of most letters and write a letter that goes with a spoken sound; and use their knowledge of sounds and letters to write phonetically, representing consonant sounds with single letters in the correct sequence” (New Standards Primary Literacy Committee, 1999, p. 52).

• “Children enter school with widely varying degrees of letter knowledge, and how well kindergartners can identify letters is a strong predictor of future achievement in reading” (Snow, et al., 1998, p. 185).

• “The relationship between spelling patterns and their pronunciations is called phonics, and although there has been much debate over its importance, the fact is that all students learn about letter–sound relationships regardless of the type of instruction they receive. Then they use this knowledge to decode new words” (Snow, et al., 1998, pp. 173–174).

• A principle difference between a good reader and a poor reader is the good reader’s ability to rapidly use spelling–sound knowledge and identify words (Juel, 1988, pp. 444–445; Lieberman & Shankweiler, 1985, pp. 10–11; Perfetti, 1985, pp. 6–10; Stanovich, 1980, p. 38).

• Systematic and explicit phonics instruction makes a bigger contribution to children’s growth in reading than instruction that provides non-systematic or no phonics instruction (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 2-92).

• Phonics instruction should be a prominent part of any beginning reading program, but it should by no means be a program’s only concern (Adams, 1990, p. 411).

• Skillful readers “process the letters of text . . . quickly and easily” because they have an “overlearned knowledge about the sequences of letters comprising frequent words and spelling patterns” (Adams, 1990, p. 410).

COMPREHENSIONANDVOCABULARYINSTRUCTIONALSTRANDThe Comprehension and Vocabulary Instructional Strand combines vocabulary and comprehension because vocabulary is vital to comprehension of text.

Vocabulary includes words we must know to communicate effectively, both orally (words spoken or recognized while listening) and visually (words used in print). The following research outlines the importance of vocabulary.

• “Most children enter kindergarten with vocabularies that are more than ample for what they read. But because of the vocabulary of the books they will read, . . . children’s vocabularies also must grow—even in kindergarten. Children should learn not only new words but also new meanings and uses for familiar words” (New Standards Primary Literacy Committee, 1999, p. 66).

• Vocabulary is also very important to reading comprehension. Readers cannot understand what they are reading without knowing what most of the words mean. As children learn to read more advanced texts, they must learn the meaning of new words that are not part of their oral vocabulary (National Reading Panel, 2000, pp. 4-3–4-4).

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• Children learn the meanings of most words indirectly, through everyday experiences with oral and written language (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 4-4).

• Children learn word meanings indirectly in three ways: they engage daily in oral language; they listen to adults read to them; they read extensively on their own (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 4-3).

• Students learn vocabulary directly when they are explicitly taught both individual words and word-learning strategies. Direct vocabulary instruction aids reading comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000, pp. 4-3–4-4).

Comprehension means reading for a purpose and actively thinking during reading. The following research outlines the importance of comprehension.

• Using their experiences and knowledge of the world, their knowledge of vocabulary and language structure, and their knowledge of reading strategies (or plans), good readers make sense of the text and know how to get the most out of it. They know when they have problems with understanding and how to resolve these problems as they occur (National Reading Panel, 2000, pp. 4-5–4-6).

• Instruction in comprehension can help students understand what they read, remember what they read, and communicate with others about what they read (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 4-6).

• “Beginning in the earliest grades, instruction should promote comprehension by actively building linguistic and conceptual knowledge in a rich variety of domains, as well as through direct instruction about comprehension strategies” (Snow, et al., 1998, p. 7).

• The following six strategies appear to have a firm scientific basis for improving text comprehension: Monitoring comprehension; Using graphic and semantic organizers; Answering questions; Generating questions; Recognizing story structure; Summarizing (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 4-6).

• “Comprehension strategies instruction typically includes two components: direct explanation and scaffolding. . . . Then with time, practice, feedback, and coaching, students gain the knowledge and motivation to use independently what they have learned. In short, the goal is for students to become self-regulated in their strategy use” (Block and Pressley, 2002, p. 64).

LANGUAGECONCEPTSINSTRUCTIONALSTRANDLanguage concepts include print awareness, language conventions, grammar, and language structure. The following information outlines the importance of language concepts instruction.

• An important preparation for beginning reading instruction is the understanding that print is made up of letters and words that are read from left to right (Clay, 1991, pp. 141–154; Adams, 1990, pp. 333–374).

• Researchers have found that writing helps beginning readers gain a better understanding of reading in general because they begin to read with the “eye of a writer” (Tierney & Leys, 1986, p. 19).


• “Through writing, children learn that the purpose of text is not to be read but to be understood” (Adams, 1990, p. 405).

• “From first grade on, reading and language arts programs need a strand of continuing skills development for grammar, usage, and composition; mechanics (such as capitalization and punctuation); syllabication, prefixes, suffixes, and derivatives such as ing and ed . . . These skills should not be de-emphasized in the mistaken belief that they can be learned only in the context of writing or that teaching skills hampers writing” (Honig, 1996, p. 89).

• When children are gaining an awareness of print, “adults serve as facilitators and planners who . . . structure the environment so that certain literacy experiences are apt to occur. They surround children with print. . . . Literacy learning proceeds naturally if the environment supports young children’s experimentation with print” (Strickland & Cullinan, 1990, pp. 430–431).

FLUENCYINSTRUCTIONALSTRANDFluency is the ability to read text accurately and quickly and with appropriate expression. The following research outlines the importance of fluency instruction.

• “Direct instruction in fluent oral reading produces readers who move from word-by-word reading to more efficient phrase reading” (Allington, 1983, p. 559).

• “Repeated reading and other guided oral reading procedures have clearly been shown to improve fluency and overall reading achievement” (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 3-28).

• “Because the ability to obtain meaning from print depends so strongly on the development of word recognition accuracy and reading fluency, both of the latter should be regularly assessed in the classroom, permitting timely and effective instructional response when difficulty or delay is apparent” (Snow, et al., 1998, p. 7).

• “Fluency should be promoted through practice with a wide variety of well-written and engaging texts at the child’s own comfortable reading level” (Snow, et al., 1998, p. 7).

• “Fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension. Because fluent readers do not have to concentrate on decoding the words, they can focus their attention on what the text means. They can make connections among the ideas in the text and between the text and their background knowledge. In other words, fluent readers recognize words and comprehend at the same time” (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 3-8).

• “Monitoring student progress in reading fluency is useful in evaluating instruction and setting instructional goals can be motivating to students” (Armbruster, et al., 2001, p. 31).

• Four ways to build reading fluency include:— Model good oral reading— Provide oral support for readers— Offer plenty of practice opportunities— Encourage fluency through phrasing (Rasinski, 2003, pp. 26–33)

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• “Oral reading . . . offers us a window into the reading process. Strengths and weaknesses in word recognition, fluency, and—to a lesser extent—comprehension are measured by analyzing the quality of the student’s oral reading and any deviations from the text. We can even make inferences about the strategies the student is using based on the number and type of deviations he makes” (Rasinski, 2003, p. 157).

• “By listening to good models of fluent reading, students learn how a reader’s voice can help written text make sense” (Armbruster, et al., 2001, p. 26).

KeyboardingtoReadandWriteKeyboarding to Read and Write is based on extensive research. The information below summarizes a few of the major benefits of keyboarding instruction.

• Learning keyboarding skills helps improve reading and writing skills. Students who type or keyboard dramatically out-perform their nontyping counterparts in reading, reading comprehension, writing, spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and language. Ann Cothran and George E. Mason in Elementary School Journal report the following, based on several studies:— Children of elementary-school age . . . who had typing instruction

actually spent only an hour or two a week at the typewriter, yet at the end of the first year they out-performed the nontyping pupils in reading.

— Ralph Haefner . . . [maintains] that typing improves reading fluency in children of elementary-school age.

— Rowe’s experimental subjects made dramatic gains in their control of both vocabulary and reading comprehension.

— Katherine A. Seibert used electric typewriters in a summer program for first- and second-graders who were diagnosed as slow readers. The children who were not aware that they were in a ‘reading’ program, gained an average of .96 of a year in only eight weeks. The gain in reading skills was over three times larger than expected for these pupils (1978, pp. 171–78).

• Keyboarding skills help students with learning disabilities. D. Campbell reports that children ages 7–10 with learning disabilities who learned to keyboard showed significant gains in reading achievement over the children with learning disabilities in the handwriting group (1973, pp. 155–168).

• Students should begin keyboarding as soon as possible. Teaching students keyboarding techniques should not be delayed. As Ernest Balajthy states:

Delaying keyboarding instruction may have negative consequences if students are using computers. Student use of the computer without touch-typing skills can lead to the development of bad habits that are hard to break. . . . Lack of keyboarding skills is the most often cited hindrance to effective use of word processing technology (Feb. 1988, pp. 40–43).


Mary Heller reinforces this idea:

Direct instruction in correct keyboarding techniques can begin as early as the kindergarten or first-grade year. Research indicates that children who develop their keyboarding skills early learn to compose more quickly at the computer than those left to “hunt and peck” (1995, p. 339).

WritingThe research below summarizes the major benefits of students being able to write on the computer.

• Writing and reading support one another. “Research indicates that children’s achievements in reading and writing are generally quite strongly and positively related. Further, across evaluations of beginning reading programs, emphasis on writing activities is repeatedly shown to result in special gains in reading achievement” (Adams, 1990, p. 375).

• Writing encourages development of the alphabetic principle. The International Reading Association and the National Association for the Education of Young Children jointly state that “children acquire a working knowledge of the alphabetic system not only through reading but also through writing. [ Their efforts to spell] encouraged them to think actively about letter-sound relations” (1998, pp. 4–5). Adams adds, “Writing is the principle vehicle for developing word analysis skills. . . . [The stories that a child writes] provide a major source of information about the student’s growing mastery of orthography” (1990, p. 420).

• Word processors are motivational tools that simplify the writing process. The Handbook of Reading Research reports that “in a series of word processing studies, Daiute (1983) discovered that children found word processing more fun than hand revision because it dispensed with recopying their writings. Children also persisted on tasks longer when using word processing” (Kamil, et al., 2000, p. 778). The Handbook adds, “Philosophically and practically, word processing fits with current educational thought and pedagogy. . . . Simply, there is no other alternative that will allow students and teacher to operate in composing, editing, revising, and publishing with so little compromise” (p. 773).

160 Standards

StandardsWaterford Early Reading Program™ is a comprehensive reading and language arts program for kindergarten through second grade. The designers of the program reviewed national guidelines and key state standards for reading instruction. Waterford Early Reading Program presents a robust correlation between standards and course contents, both in the courseware and in the Teacher Guides. This summary represents an outline of the various standards used, from state standards, such as California’s and Texas’, to national guidelines, such as Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read and Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children.

Standards LevelOne

LevelTwo

LevelThree

Phonological awareness

Play with words through rhyming, alliteration, using multiple meanings, and repeating tongue twisters. X

Given a spoken word, identify or produce a word that rhymes. X X X

Identify pairs of rhyming words. X

Count the number of syllables in a word. X

Given a spoken word, identify a word that begins with the same sound. X X X

Isolate initial consonants in single-syllable words. X

Blend onsets and rimes to form words. X X X

Blend individual phonemes to form single-syllable words. X X X

Delete, add, or substitute phonemes to make new words. X

Segment single-syllable words by initial, medial, and final phoneme sounds. X X X

Phonics

Identify capital and lowercase letters. X

Identify one-to-one sound–letter correspondences. X X X

Study word families (word patterns). X X X

Use knowledge of letter sounds to read regularly spelled, single-syllable words and nonwords. X X X

Identify high-frequency sight words. X X X

Use knowledge of letter sounds to read regularly spelled words, including inflectional forms of -s, -ing, and -ed. X X

Read words using knowledge of letter sounds, including r-controlled, vowel digraphs, consonant digraphs, diphthongs, and blends. X X

Use knowledge of letter sounds to read regularly spelled multisyllable words and nonwords. X X

Use phonemic awareness and letter knowledge to spell independently. X X X

Standards 161

Standards LevelOne

LevelTwo

LevelThree

Spell three- and four-letter short-vowel words and grade-level–appropriate sight words correctly. X X X


Comprehension

Distinguish between reality and fantasy when read aloud to or told a story. X X

Receive and follow directions for tasks. X X X

Read and understand simple written directions. X X

Use knowledge from own experience to make sense of and talk about the text. X X X

Answer questions based on characters, setting, and plot after reading a story. X X

Answer sequencing questions after independently reading a story. X X

Make predictions based on pictures or portions of stories (kindergarten); predict and justify what will happen next in stories (first and second grade). X X X

Summarize or choose the correct summary after reading a fiction or nonfiction text. X X

Select a cause and effect of specific events for a text. X X

Identify the main idea of a text. X X

Answer questions about nonfiction text. X X

Engage with a range of genres: literature (stories, songs, poems, plays), functional texts (how-to books, signs, labels, messages), and informational text (all-about books and attribute texts).

X X X

Express incomprehension when listening to a story read aloud. X

Listen responsively to stories and other texts read aloud, including selections from classic and contemporary words. X X X

Create artwork or a written response that shows comprehension. X X

Examine the relationship between earlier and later parts of a text and between different texts. X

Retell and reenact stories of own making or in response to literature, songs, poems, plays, and other literary works. X

Vocabulary

Demonstrate understanding of a word by correctly matching it with a picture. X X X

Choose the correct antonym or synonym for a given word. X

Increase vocabulary daily through reading and conversing with adults and peers. X X X

Recognize that multiple meanings of words depend on use and context. X X X

Use newly learned vocabulary. X X X

162 Standards

Standards LevelOne

LevelTwo

LevelThree

language concePts

Identify the front cover, back cover, title, and author of a book. X

Distinguish letters from words. X

Identify that sentences in print are made of separate words with spaces between. X

Follow words from left-to-right and from top-to-bottom on the page.

Distinguish between declarative, exclamatory, and interrogative sentences. X X

Advance abilities to seek and explain information. X X X

Distinguish between complete and incomplete sentences. X X

Fluency

Use cues of punctuation, including commas, periods, question marks, and quotation marks as part of fluency. X

Monitor own reading and self-correct when an incorrectly used word does not fit with cues provided by the letters in the word or the context surrounding the word. X X

Read sixty words per minute (end of first grade). X

Read ninety to one hundred words per minute (end of second grade). X

Read or reread independently or with another student or adult daily. X X X

Read leveled books for accuracy and fluency at an instructional level. X X

writing

Understand and write independently most capital and lowercase letters and some words when dictated. X

Name and label objects and places. X

Write own first and last name. X

Write the name of several family members, pets, or friends. X

When writing, leave spaces between words. X

Capitalize proper nouns, words at the beginning of sentences and greetings, months and days of the week, and people’s titles and initials. X X

Use a period, exclamation point, or question mark at the end of sentences. X X

Gather, collect, and share information about a topic. X X

Maintain focus in writing, staying on topic. X X X

Produce a variety of types of compositions. X X X

Compose sentences with interesting, elaborated subjects. X X

Edit writing toward standard grammar and usage, including subject–verb agreement; pronoun agreement, including pronouns that agree in number; and appropriate verb tenses, including to be, in final drafts.

X

Standards 163

Standards LevelOne

LevelTwo

LevelThree

Produce writing that contains a large proportion of correctly spelled, high-frequency words. X X

Spell previously studied words and spelling patterns correctly in own writing. X X

Select and use writing processes for self-initiated and assigned writing. X X X

Generate ideas for writing by using prewriting techniques, such as drawing and listing key thoughts. X

Develop drafts and revise, edit, and proofread as appropriate. X X

Use available technology for aspects of writing, including word processing, spell checking, and printing. X X X

Produce writing that uses the full range of words in speaking vocabulary. X X

Create own written text for others to read. X X X

164 FrequentlyAskedQuestions

Frequently Asked Questions 1. How can I maximize the benefit of the instruction my students receive

on the computer?— Plan your classroom schedule to guarantee each student time on the

computer each day. Students’ reading scores are most likely to improve when they are able to consistently work on the program. Some teachers, seeing the benefits students gain by working regularly in the program, arrange before- and after-school sessions to ensure that every student has ample opportunity to use the computer.

— Make sure all students have their own copies of the take-home books, so they can read them to their friends and family.

— Sing songs from the program with the class. DVDs in Level One, Level Two, and Level Three are provided for this purpose.

— Become familiar with the learning objectives and recurring characters of the courseware so that you can refer to them when you are doing a related activity with students. Review an activity or two each day. Then refer to the activities when appropriate during classroom instruction. For example, if your students are working on Level Two, you might ask them to “Peek at the Story” to get some ideas about what the story is about.

2. How can I find out how each student is doing?— Print out a Class Summary Report or Individual Student Report through

the Reports tab in Waterford School Manager™.— In Level Two and Level Three, listen to student recordings of books

through the ListentoStudentRead tab in Waterford School Manager.

3. How do I determine where to place my students in the three levels of Waterford Early Reading Program™?— Students will take Reading Placement which automatically places them in

a level based on their performance.— As a general rule, assign students to the level which corresponds to their

grade level (Level One—kindergarten, Level Two—first grade, and Level Three—second grade).

4. How can I integrate the computer courseware with my classroom basal reading program?

There are two basic ways that you might combine programs:— Use your basal reading program with the whole class to support one or

two learning centers. Then use the teaching ideas from Level One Lessons and Resources, Level Two Lessons and Resources, and Level Three Lessons and Resources to teach smaller groups.

— Or use Waterford Early Reading Program Teacher Guides as your basis for whole-class and small-group instruction, supplementing with books from the basal reading program. (Most teachers feel they can never have too many books for students to read.)

FrequentlyAskedQuestions 165

5. How do I know when to send the books home with my students when they are all on different lessons in the courseware?— In Levels One or Level Two, check the current lesson in the Individual

Student Report through the Reports tab in Waterford School Manager; you can also use the Book Distribution Schedules found in this manual.

— You may also choose to send all the books home at the beginning of the year. See the Book Distribution Schedules for each level in this guide for further information (pp. 142–155).

6. In Level One, why do you start with capital letters?— Marilyn Jager Adams summarizes research of several scholars when she

explains:“Research suggests that uppercase letters are [easier to discriminate] from one another. In addition, whatever letter knowledge a prereader already has is most likely to be about uppercase letters. Thus, if working with preschool children, uppercase letters are probably the better bet. On the other hand, the ability to recognize the lowercase letters is more important for reading text. Thus, if working with first graders, it is probably wise to concentrate on them [lowercase]” (357).

— Waterford Early Reading Program Level One is designed for emergent readers and students in kindergarten, and thus emphasizes the uppercase or capital form of the letters. We have opted to use the term capital instead of uppercase because teachers frequently use capital when referring to capitalization of the first letter in a name or at the beginning of a sentence.

— If you want to teach lowercase letters first, you cannot use Reading Placement and have to assign students to Level One manually. Follow the steps listed below. The activities in the first half of the year will then emphasize lowercase letters and the activities in the second half of the year will emphasize capital letters. (The order of the activities does not change.)

To select lowercase letters first:

1. Click the SetUpClasses drawer.2. Select the class, group, or student you want to assign lowercase

letters to.3. Select EarlyReadingProgram.4. Click the box next to RunEarlyReadingProgram.5. Click the button next to LowercaseLettersFirst.6. Click Save.

Note: You cannot use Reading Placement with this option.

166 FrequentlyAskedQuestions

7. Why do you use your own Waterford font? Waterford Research Institute created a special font so students form each

letter in one unbroken stroke whenever possible. Such formation prevents children from “getting lost” with too many lifts as a letter is formed. The continuous formation of each letter also emphasizes its unique features. Although the Waterford font uses a fairly standard block letter shape, the continuous strokes used to form these letters makes the writing process easier. Readers encounter many fonts, and after learning one, seem to move effortlessly to others.

8. Why are phonics skills important for an early reading program?— Classroom research shows that beginning readers who receive systematic

phonics instruction are better at word recognition, spelling, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Programs that include phonics as one component are superior to those that do not (Chall; qtd. in Adams, 1990, p. 38).

— Waterford Early Reading Program combines meaningful, connected text with a systematic phonics approach to help students learn to read. This combination ensures that students gain necessary skills, yet helps them enjoy learning and using those skills as well.

9. What if I have a student who doesn’t appear to need all the instruction in a particular Instructional Strand?During many Instructional Strand objectives, students are pretested and posttested to determine the need for instruction and remediation. If students pass the pretest, they will not see all the activities within the strand.

10. Why do you attach a schwa sound to the ends of consonant sounds?— When any sound is pronounced, it is impossible not to have an ending

sound.— Some educators fear that teaching letter sounds in isolation can confuse

children. As Anderson, et al., explains in Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report on the Commission of Reading:

“A problem with explicit phonics is that both teachers and children have a difficult time saying pure speech sounds in isolation. The b sound becomes /buh/, for instance. When figuring out a new word the child who has been taught the sounds of letters in isolation may produce /buh-ah-tuh/ and never recognize the word is bat” (41).

— However, the same report goes on to say that research does not support the idea that this naturally occurring schwa sound will confuse children:

“This problem may be more hypothetical than real, since there does not appear to be evidence that hearing or producing imprecise speech sounds is an actual obstacle to figuring out words, provided that the words are ones the children know from their spoken language and the words are encountered in a meaningful context” (41).

— When consonant sounds are pronounced in Waterford Early Reading Program, the schwa sound is minimized and natural, not stressed, and should not cause students difficulty.

FrequentlyAskedQuestions 167

11. What printouts are available to students from the courseware?Level One• Name Certificate.• Student-authored Booklets: in several activities, students make rhyming

stories or create stories using words that have the same beginning sound. These can be printed out as booklets.

• Activity-related Printouts, such as Make a Scene (reinforces letter names and sounds).

• Decodable books.• Assessment-related Printouts, such as Name That Letter (letters that

students know or need to produce) and Name That Letter Sound (letter sounds that students know or need to produce).

Level Two• Power Word Progress Printouts: used to help reinforce and review Power

Words from each lesson.• Write about It Printouts: after each Readable Book, this brief activity

helps students respond to the story by keyboarding an answer to a simple question. They can then print their work.

• Activity-related Printouts.• Assessment-related Printouts.• Unit certificates.

Level Three• Spelling Pretests and Posttests: this printout lists the words students

spelled correctly, and the words spelled incorrectly for further review.• Writing Skills: each sheet provides practice on a specific step in the

writing process that students began on the computer.• Skill Builder Practice Sheets: these can be used for homework or

reviewing grammar, punctuation, and other language skills learned in the Language Concepts Instructional Strand. These are also available in Masters and Worksheets.

• Activity-related Printouts.• Assessment-related Printouts.

Keyboarding to Read and Write and Writing• Activity-related Printouts.• Speed and Accuracy Printouts.

168 Bibliography

BibliographyAdams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Adams, M. J. (2009). The Challenge of Advanced Texts: The Interdependence of Reading and Learning. In E. Hiebert (Ed.), Reading More, Reading Better: Are American Students Reading Enough of the Right Stuff? (pp. 163–189). New York: Guilford Publications.

Allington, R. L. (1983). Fluency: The Neglected Reading Goal. The Reading Teacher, 37, 556–561.

Anderson, R. C., Hiebert, E. H., Scott, J. A., & Wilkinson, I. A. G. (1984). Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading. Washington, DC: The National Institute of Education.

Armbruster, B. B., Lehr, F., & Osborn, M. (2001). Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read. Jessup, MD: National Institute for Literacy.

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172 Acknowledgments

EducationalConsultants

PHONOLOGICALAWARENESSMarilyn J. AdamsJoseph K. Torgensen

LEVELONEMarilyn J. AdamsIsabel BeckPat DonaheyBill HonigJune Schofield

LEVELTWOANDLEVELTHREEMarilyn J. AdamsIsabel BeckPhilip B. GoughBill HonigRichard K. OlsonWilliam H. TealeBarbara Wise

WRITINGJean Casey

PhotoContributorsJamaican Photos from Jamaican Village, text and photographs from John and Penny Hubley, A & C Black (Publishers) Limited, 35 Bedford Row, London, England. Used by permission.Chad HallCorel CorporationMuseum of Church History and ArtNASA

VideoContributorsAspen Grove ParkBrigham Young University Earth Science MuseumCorel CorporationHeindselman’s SewingHillcrest ElementaryOrem Public LibraryPeter Piper PizzaSbarros PizzaUtah Mountain Llamas

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments 173

OtherContributors“The Apple Tree” used by permission from Alphabet Fun & Games, Jill M. Coudron © 1984 Fearon Teacher Aids, PO Box 280, Carthage, IL 62321.

Lion and Aquarium from Carnival of the Animals © 1922 Durand S. A. Editions Musicales used by permission of the publisher. Sole representative U.S.A., Theodore Presser Company.

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