Assessments such as Bear Templeton and the Francine Johnston assess developmental stages students move through to spell and decode. Teachers need to address these stages in a systematic and explicit way. Mentors and new teachers use data analysis to analyze assessments and plan instruction. Practice with consonant and vowel sounds, vowel teams, multisyllabic word decoding and more as determined by assessment. Using repeated reading as a practical strategy that classroom teachers can use to improve reading fluency.
Students build fluency by increasing their reading rate, which in turn increases comprehension.
The importance of independent reading to vocabulary acquisition o The spelling-meaning connection. Direct instruction strategies such as concept maps, word maps, idiom, knowledge of Greek and Latin roots, connection to spelling, using the dictionary and thesaurus to confirm predictions. Signal words and their role in sentence and text structure. The role of vocabulary and syntax in comprehension. Direct instructional strategies for teaching syntax.