A Successful Early Reading
Intervention Program for First-Grade Teachers
by Barbara Taylor, Professor, Department of Curriculum and
Instruction, College of Education, University of Minnesota
Exciting things have been happening in recent years in early
reading intervention. Many early intervention programs have been
developed that have succeeded in helping low-achieving first-grade
children learn to read. The best known is Reading Recovery, a one-to-one
tutoring program provided by highly trained teachers (Pinnell, Fried,
and Estice, 1990). While Reading Recovery is very successful, the
program is expensive and serves a relatively small number of children.
Early Intervention in Reading (EIR) was developed for use by
the classroom teacher (Taylor, Short, Frye, and Shearer, 1992).
Procedures are similar to those used in Reading Recovery, but the
first-grade teacher, not a tutor, provides an additional 20 minutes
of daily reading instruction to a group of six or seven of
the lowest readers in the class.
 Generally,
students work on one story for three days. Reading material for
the first four months consists of shortened versions of picture
books. (The original books are first read aloud.) Later, the actual
picture books are used as the reading material. Shortened books
are used at first so that children can feel successful with stories
that interest them but that are too long, in their original form,
for the children to read. The shortened stories used from October
through November are 40-60 words long; the ones used from December
through January are 60-90 words long.
On days one and two, the children read, with the teacher, the
shortened story on a chart. Using the chart, the teacher works with
the children on the sounding and blending of phonemes within words
to develop children's phonemic awareness. Words with short vowel
sounds are stressed first. The teacher also instructs children about
the sounds of letters and the importance of using context clues
and meaning to decode words as the chart is read.
On day one of a story, children in the group write three or four
words from the story, phoneme by phoneme. Words are printed in a
series of boxes with one phoneme per box. The teacher provides help
as needed. On days two and three the children write a sentence about
the story. The group decides on a common sentence. The teacher asks
the children to give him or her the letters for as many sounds in
the words they are trying to spell as s/he thinks they can successfully
provide. S/he quickly tells them the rest of the letters. For example,
if the children were writing "The chick couldn't swim," the teacher
might ask the children what letters in "chick" spell /ch/ and /o(i,)/
and tell them the last sound is represented by "ck."
The shortened stories are reproduced in booklet form on half-page
sheets of paper. The children illustrate their booklets in their
free time or when the teacher is listening to children read individually.
In addition, each day the children reread the new story in booklet
form with an aide or adult volunteer. If an adult is not available,
the children can reread with partners. The partner may be from the
group or may be another student in the class. The adult or partner
should provide clues when needed, but the goal in rereading is for
the children to try to read as much on their own as possible.
On the third day, the teacher listens to each child individually
reread part or all of the story in the booklet. The teacher is careful
to help the child with difficult words, but also encourages him
or her to sound and blend easier words and to think about which
word would make sense in the story. Throughout the instruction,
the teacher emphasizes providing the children with strategies that
they can use to decode unknown words when they are reading on their
own.
After the third day, running records are begun on selected stories
to assess student progress. At this point children are typically
reading their stories with at least 92 percent accuracy. If not,
easier stories are needed. The story is sent home at the end of
the third day so the child can read it to a parent. The books are
returned, or second copies are kept at school, so the child can
continue to practice rereading the stories in the classroom.
References
Pinnell, G., Fried, M., and Estice, R. 1990. Reading recovery:
Learning how to make a difference. The Reading Teacher
43: 282-95.
Taylor, B., Short, R., Frye, B., and Shearer, B. 1992. Classroom
teachers prevent reading failure among low-achieving first-grade
students. The Reading Teacher 45: 592-97.
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