Reading Remdiation and Compensatory Learning

This was a great class that allowed us to spend time researching and viewing websites,software information and apps that will further the reading process.

The following sites were found:

Software:
·         Success for All

Provides extensive school staff training and materials focused on cooperative learning, phonics, and a rapid pace of instruction. Also provides tutoring to struggling children, mostly first graders.

Website: www.successforall.org

At the Success for All Foundation, our goal is to help all students achieve at the highest levels—not just children who come to school well fed, well rested, and ready to learn, but everyone, at all levels, whatever it takes.

 We believe all students deserve an education that will challenge, inspire, and prepare them for a better future. Our top priority is the education of disadvantaged and at-risk students in pre-K through grade eight. We use research to design programs and services that help schools better meet the needs of all their students. Every child can learn. We help schools ensure that they do.

·         Direct Instruction/ Corrective Reading

A highly structured, phonetic approach to reading instruction that emphasizes phonics, a step-by-step instructional approach, and direct teaching of comprehension skills, as well as extensive professional development and follow-up.

Website: www.nifdi.org 
Welcome to the National Institute for Direct Instruction

 The National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) is the world's foremost Direct Instruction (DI) support provider. This website provides information and resources for administrators, teachers and parents to help them maximize student achievement through DI

·         Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS)

A technique in which children work in pairs, taking turns as teacher and learner, to learn a structured sequence of literacy skills, such as phonemic awareness, phonics, sound blending, passage reading, and story retelling.

Website: kc.vanderbilt.edu/pals

PALS is a version of classwide peer tutoring. PALS combines proven instructional principles and practices and peer mediation so that research-based reading and math activities are effective, feasible, and enjoyable. Teachers identify which children require help on specific skills and who the most appropriate children are to help other children learn those skills. Using this information, teachers pair students in the class, so that partners work simultaneously and productively on different activities that address the problems they are experiencing. Pairs are changed regularly and all students have the opportunity to be "coaches" and "players" over a period of time as students work on a variety of skills.

·         Reading Recovery

Provides the lowest achieving readers (lowest 20%) in first grade with supplemental tutoring in addition to their regular reading classes.

Website: www.readingrecovery.org
Our Vision
We ensure that children who struggle in learning to read and write gain the skills for a literate and productive future.

Our Mission
We achieve reading and writing success for children through partnerships that foster:
Reading Recovery in English, Spanish, or French as an essential intervention within a comprehensive literacy system

Teaching of children that is expert and responsive
Professional development for teachers that is specialized and continuous
Ongoing development of knowledge and practice based on research, data, and the theoretical framework that has underpinned Reading Recovery since its founding

·         Targeted Reading Intervention

A one-to-one tutoring model in which classroom teachers work individually with struggling readers in kindergarten or first grade for 15 minutes a day. The 1-1 sessions focus on re-reading for fluency (2 min.), word work (6 min.), and guided oral reading (7 min.).
Website: www.targetedreadingintervention.org
The Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI) is a professional development intervention designed for elementary students who require additional reading instruction and their classroom teachers. Via remote webcam, trained coaches with reading expertise provide one-on-one, ongoing support to build capacity in reading instruction with teachers.

The TRI helps teachers build capacity by:

Learning and using efficient instructional strategies for early reading development
Developing skills in matching instruction to assessment
Applying their learning for the benefit of targeted readers


Websites:
Starfall
http://www.starfall.com/
This site is mainly a free site to use, but does have some additional activities that can be used with a subscription. However, the main and most important reading activities are free and very easy to use.  It is a phonics based reading website that is aimed at children from the preschool age to second grade. It can also be used for ESL students and students with learning disabilities.  There are 4 main sections to the site. It is highly interactive and starts with letter sounds and progresses through the reading process.

Raz Kids
http://www.raz-kids.com/main/Login
Is another highly interactive website that uses interactive ebooks in teaching students to read. This is a subscription website that allows both teachers and parents to see the progress the child is making. Students are placed by their teacher at a reading level when they are registered (aa, A) and as they read the books and answer quizzes about the books, they progress to the next reading level. The student can not move to the next reading level without reading all of the books and without passing the 5 question comprehension quiz. Students are engaged with animation and sound effects as they listen for the first time to the book being read to them. Then they read it on their own and also have the option to record their voice. Students earn stars for reading and quiz activity to spend equipping their own Raz Rocket. They also have access to collections of poetry books, song books, and nursery rhymes. New animated books and Spanish eBooks are added regularly to the site.

Studydog
 www.studydog.com

 This is an excellent website that offers a complete early reading program that is computer-based. There are three levels, you must first determine what level the student is at before downloading the program. Each level builds on the next one and has over 20 lessons per level covering the alphabet, consonant sounds, vowel sounds, rhyming words, sight words, contractions, consonant blends, complex words, spelling, word families and so much more.  Students will receive a prize at the end of each lesson.

Reading Bear
http://www.readingbear.org/

Is a free beginner reader website that starts students at the very beginning of the reading process with letters and sounds. It has quizzes with each of the activities. It is a phonics based website that covers many of the important phonics based skills that are needed for reading.

Ready to Learn Reading
http://pbskids.org/read
This site is a part of the PBS Kids Raising Readers program and is meant to beginning readers and is a free site.  It provides resources to teachers and parents.  It is game based and provides fun and engaging ways for students to learn reading skills.

We also had the opportunity to reserach reading apps that we thought may be useful in the classroom. I enjoyed this as I am always looking for new and exciting apps that my students will want to use and that offer engaging learning opportunities. 
I really enjoyed learning about the E textbooks and iBooks that are available. It takes learning to a whole new level when students are able to navigate their textbooks through this exciting format. The text and graphic features are so user friendly and would keep students who would be bored by a traditional textbook engaged and interested in the material. I absolutely LOVED that there were different reading levels available!
The Read Iris app was also of interest to me as it offers another way we can make reading accessible to our students.
I am so excited by the various supports that we have learned about and am anxious to try them in the classroom.