Title page
Contents
Introduction to Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4-9 8
Recommendation 1: Build students' decoding skills so they can read complex multisyllabic words 11
Recommendation 2: Provide purposeful fluency-building activities to help students read effortlessly 19
Recommendation 3: Routinely use a set of comprehension-building practices to help students make sense of the text 27
Recommendation 3, Part A: Build students' world and word knowledge so they can make sense of the text 29
Recommendation 3, Part B: Consistently provide students with opportunities to ask and answer questions to better understand the text they read 44
Recommendation 3, Part C: Teach students a routine for determining the gist of a short section of text 54
Recommendation 3, Part D: Teach students to monitor their comprehension as they read 66
Recommendation 3, Summary: Putting together the comprehension-building practices in Parts A-D 72
Recommendation 4: Provide students with opportunities to practice making sense of stretch text (i.e., challenging text) that will expose them... 75
Glossary 84
Appendix A: Postscript from the Institute of Education Sciences 88
Appendix B: Methods and Processes for Developing This Practice Guide 92
Appendix C: Rationale for Evidence Ratings 96
Appendix D: Meta-Analytic Data 158
Appendix E: About the Panel and WWC Contractor Staff 169
Appendix F: Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest 174
References 175
Notes 189
Table 1.1. Recommendations and corresponding levels of evidence 10
Table 3.1. Parts of Recommendation 3 27
Figure 3A.1. Pictures of three different ecosystems 30
Resources
Resource 1.1. Common vowel sounds and vowel combinations 12
Resource 1.2. Most frequently used prefixes and suffixes 15
Resource 3A.1. Frequently occurring prefixes 37
Resource 3A.2. Frequently occurring suffixes 38
Resource 3A.3. Other prefixes and suffixes that are frequently used in academic words 39
Resource 3B.1. Types of questions 45
Resource 3B.2. Prompt card for answering Author and Me questions teachers pose 50
Resource 3B.3. Question stems for students to use when asking questions about the text 51
Resource 3C.1. Routine for generating a gist statement 55
Resource 3C.2. Marking the text 55
Resource 3C.3. Types of text structures and the related questions that help identify the gist 58
Resource 3D.1. Possible questions students can ask themselves as they read 68
Resource 3D.2. Possible sentence starters to complete after reading 69
Examples
Example 1.1. Teacher demonstrating how to identify prefixes, suffixes, and vowel combinations to decode a multisyllabic word 14
Example 1.2. Teacher working with students to apply a routine to identify syllables and sound out unfamiliar words 16
Example 1.3. Practice activities that can build students' automaticity with multisyllabic word reading 18
Example 2.1. Questions that provide students with a purpose for reading a passage 20
Example 2.2. Interventionist asking a small group of students to read a paragraph on issues related to poverty and feeding a family 21
Example 2.3. Interventionist asking a small group of students to read a passage on coal mining multiple times to build fluency 22
Example 2.4. Procedures for reading a wide range of texts with a partner 24
Example 3A.1. Teacher briefly providing the meaning of a few words that will help a group of students understand the meaning of the passage 32
Example 3A.2. Teacher engaging students in activities to solidify the meaning of the words that appeared in the passage they just read 33
Example 3A.3. Teacher modeling how to use the surrounding sentences to figure out the meaning of the word obstacles 34
Example 3A.4. Teacher guiding students in using context to figure out the meaning of the word remote 34
Example 3A.5. Teacher guiding students in dividing a word into parts to determine its meaning 40
Example 3A.6. Teacher helping students understand the meaning of words with the root bio- using a word map 42
Example 3B.1. Teacher modeling how to answer a Right There question 46
Example 3B.2. Teacher modeling how to answer a Think and Search question 47
Example 3B.3. Teacher modeling how to answer an Author and Me question 48
Example 3B.4. Teacher guiding students in answering Author and Me questions 49
Example 3C.1. Teacher modeling how to generate a gist statement for a group of students 56
Example 3C.2. Teacher modeling how to use a text's structure to generate a gist statement for a group of students 60
Example 3C.3. Teacher and students collaboratively generating a gist statement 62
Example 3D.1. Sample student sheet: Does it make sense? 67
Example 3D.2. Teacher demonstrating how to ask questions to monitor comprehension 68
Example 3D.3. Sample list of questions that will help students reflect on what they read 70
Example 3E.1. Putting it all together 72
Example 4.1. Teacher preparing to read a short section from a grade-level text about noted novelist Louise Erdrich 77
Example 4.2. Teacher assisting students in working through text 80
Example 4.3. Teacher leading students through using essential words to determine what the text is about and respond to comprehension questions 81
Table A.1. IES Levels of evidence for What Works Clearinghouse practice guides 90
Table C.1. Mapping between studies and recommendations 96
Table C.2. Relevant domains for each recommendation 99
Table C.3. Domain-level effect sizes across the 32 studies supporting Recommendation 1 101
Table C.4. Studies providing evidence for Recommendation 1: Build students' decoding skills so they can read complex multisyllabic words 103
Table C.5. Domain-level effect sizes across the 33 studies supporting Recommendation 2 117
Table C.6. Studies providing evidence for Recommendation 2: Provide purposeful fluency-building activities to help students read effortlessly 119
Table C.7. Domain-level effect sizes across the 34 studies supporting Recommendation 3 131
Table C.8. Studies providing evidence for Recommendation 3: Routinely use a set of comprehension-building practices to help students make... 133
Table C.9. Domain-level effect sizes across the 15 studies supporting Recommendation 4 148
Table C.10. Studies providing evidence for Recommendation 4: Provide students with opportunities to practice making sense of stretch text... 150
Table D.1. Domain-level effect sizes across the studies supporting all recommendations 158
Table D.2. Data for studies providing evidence for Recommendation 1: Build students' decoding skills so they can read complex multisyllabic words 159
Table D.3. Data for studies providing evidence for Recommendation 2: Provide purposeful fluency-building activities to help students read effortlessly 162
Table D.4. Data for studies providing evidence for Recommendation 3: Routinely use a set of comprehension-building practices to help students... 165
Table D.5. Data for studies providing evidence for Recommendation 4: Provide students with opportunities to practice making sense of stretch... 167
Figure B.1. Studies identified, screened, and reviewed for this practice guide 94