Reading intervention is one-on-one or small-group instruction to help struggling students build reading skills. It focuses on delivering lessons that are explicit, systematic, cumulative, and diagnostic.
The reading journey includes different components like letter recognition, phonics (blending individual sounds into words), fluency, and comprehension. Vocabulary development compliments these skills to expand kids’ knowledge of words.
Phonics
Teaching children the phonics skills they need to decode words and build new words is essential for reading success. It is the only reading intervention strategy that teaches students to blend sounds together or break down spoken words into their individual sounds, and it’s the key to unlocking a world of possibilities for them.
Systematic synthetic phonics instruction has been shown to improve the alphabetic knowledge and word reading abilities of both disabled and non-disabled readers. It is a crucial component of any reading program, and should be taught alongside phonemic awareness, fluency, and comprehension strategies.
Read Naturally’s research-validated programs offer explicit, teacher-led instruction for phonics and word recognition. They include quick and easy-to-teach phonics drills to open each lesson, as well as interactive Google slides for teachers and students with scripted instructions to guide them. They also feature an emphasis on spelling and high-frequency words.
Fluency
Fluency is important because when students read accurately and rapidly, they can focus their attention on the meaning of text. In a 10-minute reading period, proficient readers can silently read about 2,000 words. At-risk students, however, can only read about 500 words.
Research shows that reading fluency and comprehension are interrelated, and students who struggle with phonological awareness or decoding may also have trouble with comprehension. Consequently, it’s important to teach and reinforce all components of reading skill development.
Students can improve their fluency through repeated reading (RR) and phrase drill EC. Several studies have shown promising results with these interventions, but future group design research is needed to better understand the specific aspects of these treatments that facilitate generalization of gains to unfamiliar text.
Another effective strategy is to pair at-risk students with more fluent peers in a choral or echo reading activity. Studies of this intervention show that when students practice reading a passage together with a more fluent model, they are able to improve their own rate of reading and also become more accurate and confident.
Comprehension
Comprehension is a multidimensional skill that involves understanding language and information, linking new knowledge to existing knowledge, and making inferences to fill in gaps. It is influenced by several factors, including reader variables such as motivation and prior knowledge, text variables such as vocabulary and reading level, and context variables such as reading purpose and topic familiarity.
For a long time, comprehension was taught as a series of isolated skills like finding main ideas, identifying cause and effect relationships, comparing and contrasting, and sequencing. These skills are necessary, but they are not enough to enable comprehension.
To understand and make sense of what they read, students need a broad and deep background of knowledge and high-quality reading instruction. Teachers can help foster comprehension by providing explicit instruction, scaffolding, and opportunities for practice and reflection. They also need to consider how they teach the underlying components of comprehension, such as vocabulary and language. This includes using strategies that incorporate deconstruction of mentor texts, weaving grammar instruction into reading opportunities, and incorporating reading-alongs into the classroom to show how authors use grammar to convey meaning.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary is a crucial, non-negotiable aspect of reading instruction. Scientific research reveals that students learn the meanings of most words indirectly through everyday experiences with oral and written language, but direct instruction can help children learn difficult, unfamiliar words.
In addition to enhancing comprehension, a strong vocabulary also supports learners’ ability to quickly recognize words in context and improves their reading speed and fluency. Moreover, a strong vocabulary enables learners to detect word structures and pronunciation nuances.
Teachers should assess learners’ word knowledge using classroom/curriculum-based assessments, such as word play and games. Additionally, standardized oral assessments—like the TABE 9 & 10 and the Adult Basic Education Assessment (ABLE)—provide an objective measure of word knowledge that is not influenced by reading ability, allowing for accurate comparisons across learners. For ESOL learners, this type of vocabulary assessment is particularly important because it can serve as an early indicator of their reading potential. It is also a useful tool for planning for appropriate instruction that will promote a rapid and successful learning trajectory.
