“It’s boring!”… “I don’t like to read!”  …”I can’t read that!”  If any of the previous sentences are ones that have been uttered within earshot, then the teacher probably works with adolescent learners.  It is not uncommon to hear these frustrated comments from seventh and eighth grade students entering sections of Central Middle School’s Reading + classes which are designed for reading intervention.  However, it is highly unlikely students retain the sentiment after spending

a few weeks using an abundance of instructional and independent reading materials. 

      Within each forty-five minute, Monday through Friday, six week section of Reading +, students receive direct instruction of reading strategies, vocabulary development, self-

selected independent reading, and written response to reading.  While a variety of materials are utilized to keep the instruction prescriptive and individualized, one material from Options Publishing has been exceptionally helpful.   Best Practices in Reading is a

series of eight books, reading levels one through eight, which contain high interest, paired fiction and non-fiction selections. 

     The features this CMS teacher are most impressed with are the before, during, and after reading strategies designed for struggling readers to practice.   Frontloading activities before each fiction and non-fiction selection encourage readers to make text to world …text to self… and text-to-text associations in a “Connect to the Topic” section along with a “Preview and Predict” section.  Meaningful during reading strategies include prompts in the margins to stop and “visualize”, “make an inference”, “make connections”, “question”, and “understand the genre”.   Each of these sections can be presented to a group of students via an overhead in a “modeled” reading activity, in small groups working together on multiple copies, or with one-on-one tutoring. 

     Additional features that readers gain valuable practice from appear after the selection is read.   A summarizing activity, graphic organizers, and analysis questions tie together the fiction and non-fiction selections and offer consistent features.  The repetition of activities builds confidence in the students and a familiarity with the structure of the material serves as a springboard to further discussion about the structure of non-fiction pieces, i.e. textbooks.

     The one feature of Best Practices in Reading that required problem-solving was that the books are consumable and Reading + is not a revenue generating class.  To extend the life of each book, the pages are placed in plastic sheet protectors.  Students use fine point dry erase markers as writing utensils and greatly enjoy the novelty of writing and erasing effortlessly.  Regardless of how much or how little funding a reading program experiences, Best Practices in Reading is a materials that can be utilized countless ways to enhance and improve reading instruction to struggling readers.