RESPONSIVE READING INSTRUCTION
Responsive Reading Instruction (RRI) is an observation-based reading intervention for struggling beginning readers that provides intensive small-group instruction several times a week for 40 minutes. Instruction includes:
- Daily instruction and practice designed to support the development of fluent reading
- Direct and explicit instruction in decoding
- Continuous monitoring of student growth through frequent assessment
- Large amounts of engaged practice in reading and writing connected text
Students have individual assessments of reading or key reading skills at least once a week, with teachers recording their observations in anecdotal records each day. The teacher then provides instruction designed specifically to meet the needs of individual students based on the results of the assessments. RRI provides guidelines suggesting the order of instruction in early reading skills such as letter-sound correspondences, but teachers also have the flexibility to plan each lesson according the needs of each student. The lesson cycle that determines how time is used across each 40-minute lesson has five components: (a) fluency building; (b) assessment; (c) word work; (d) supported reading; and (e) supported writing. Teachers choose activities from a “menu” of options for each part of the lesson based on the observed needs of their students. The nature of these activities, as well as the texts the students read in the lessons, become more complex over time.
The curriculum is based on a routine of modeling followed by guided and independent practice, such as games that engage the students and ensure each child is actively involved in learning to read. Students spend a large part of each lesson reading and writing connected text, as they apply the skills and concepts they have learned, and receive feedback and support from the teacher.
Students learn to use phonemic decoding, primarily at the phoneme level, to read and spell unknown words. The primary word recognition strategy is to look for parts you know, say the word slowly and blend the sound, then reread the sentence with the word in it and decide whether it makes sense. A second strategy taught to decode unknown words is to use analogy to known words. Students are taught to segment words and use letter-sound associations in order to spell unknown words.
Responsive Reading places emphasis on the development of reading fluency and comprehension. Students practice repeated reading of familiar text with support and feedback from the teacher, and engage in oral partner reading of familiar books. Teachers choose from a large collection of carefully selected student books to match students’ interests and reading level. The books are leveled for difficulty, but are not intended to be phonetically decodable. Before reading a new book, teachers preteach potentially difficult key words and encourage students to make predictions to link the book’s subject matter to prior knowledge and to establish a purpose for reading. During and after reading, teachers ask questions referring to the text meaning and ask students to retell or summarize portions of the text. After the students progress from the earliest stages of reading, the teacher encourages them to write text summaries or main idea statements after reading.
The Responsive Reading Instruction Curriculum
The Responsive Reading Instruction Book is available through Sopris West; the curriculum comprises the following.
- The Responsive Reading Instruction Book
- Responsive Reading materials currently in development.
The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Reading and Language Arts (UTCRLA)