Lift-Off for Early Literacy: Directed Reading Opportunities for Struggling Students

As early as preschool, children who struggle with emergent literacy skills can benefit from effective response to intervention. Don't wait until later grades when they've already fallen behind—improve their literacy skills now with this evidence-based Tier 2 RTI curriculum, ready for any pre-K educator to pick up and use right away.

Created by teachers for teachers, this activity-based curriculum is based on Project Early ID, a successful pilot program that's been improving reading outcomes in Baltimore public schools since 2005. Expertly organising their lessons into one hands-on, step-by-step guide, the authors give teachers, SLPs, and paraprofessionals eleven complete units of small-group instruction.

Educators can use this curriculum with confidence because it:

• Is proven effective. Follow-up studies of achievement tests show that the lessons helped increase the percentage of first-grade students reading at grade level to at least 90%.
• Includes verbatim, step-by-step scripts, so any education professional in the pre-K classroom can replicate the authors' success.
• Starts earlier than other curricula. Unlike most reading interventions, this curriculum starts in pre-K-early enough to help struggling students before they fail.
• Lays the foundation for success in the Big Five components identified by the National Reading Panel, especially phonics, phoneme awareness, and vocabulary
• Meets IDEA requirements for providing high quality, evidence-based, differentiated instruction to at-risk students.
• Takes just 20-30 minutes a day, ideal for the shorter attention spans of young children
• Addresses the smallest steps of skill acquisition, critical for pinpointing the source of a child's reading difficulty and providing explicit, targeted instruction
• Works with any other curriculum. Lessons can easily be "dropped" right into any pre-K core curriculum to support struggling learners.

Young children will love the engaging activity sets, filled with songs, stories, fingerplays, rhymes, and games that help increase their reading readiness while they have fun. And all adults involved in pre-K instruction—from teachers to classroom volunteers—will love how this curriculum helps them make the most of their classroom time and get real, measurable results. With this highly effective, teacher-friendly curriculum, pre-K educators will help struggling students achieve "literacy lift-off" as early as possible so they're ready for long-term reading success.

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Table of Contents

Contents of the Accompanying CD-ROM

About the Authors

Foreword - Linda Baker, Ph.D.

Preface

For the Reader

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Theoretical Framework and Concept Design of DROPPS

Chapter 2: Getting Started with DROPPS

DROPP 1: Rhyme Awareness

DROPP 2: Rhyme Discrimination

DROPP 3: Sentence Segmentation

DROPP 4: Compound Word Blending

DROPP 5: Compound Word Segmentation

DROPP 6: Syllable Awareness

DROPP 7: Syllable Blending

DROPP 8: Syllable Segmentation

DROPP 9: Blending Awareness

DROPP 10: Beginning Sound Alliteration

References

Index

CD-ROM Table of Contents

• About This CD-ROM
• About the Authors
• Permissions
• End User License Agreement
• Appendix A: OPT DROPP: Rhyme Production
• Appendix B: Skill Assessment Checkouts
• Appendix C: Sounds
• Appendix D: Games
• Appendix E: Resources

"Activities are well-laid out and provide explicit instruction . . . I like that there is a vocabulary component. I also support the fluidity in movement between the tiers (ten days of lessons, then a check) so that a child who makes quick progress can easily return to Tier 1 and that a child who needs more help can receive it."
- Betty Bunce, Clinical Professor, Schiefelbusch Speech Language Hearing Clinic, University of Kansas, Lawrence

"I highly recommend the book . . . it may stand as one of the best ones I have seen in 25 years of teaching primary children."
- Doug Potts, Kindergarten Teacher, Colton, California

"A terrific contribution to the field . . . With scores of strategies field tested in real schools, and a friendly teacher script that assures program fidelity, this book makes RTI come alive."
- Judy Montgomery, Speech Language Pathology Professor, Chapman University, Orange, CA