ES Literacy Introductory Guide Reading

Reading, Engage and Direct Instruction, Grade 1

At the heart of Reading is sacred independent reading time—a time when scholars get lost in books they love. We use texts to directly teach and model the tactics of great readers. Then, we send scholars off to independently read their just right books and apply the tactics of great readers. We get to know our scholars as readers and coach them to become better readers during this focused time. Scholars discuss their books with partners and as a whole class to think critically about texts and share in the joy of reading.

Anytime you are teaching, you must engage scholars in using and noticing tactics for understanding the big ideas. The critical tactics below must be front and center in your planning and instruction.

Great readers, and teachers of reading, focus on five key tactics every time they read:

1. Great readers always make mind movies. In other words, readers always create pictures in their minds, envisioning the story happening as they read.
2. Great readers always notice vocabulary words whose meaning they don’t know. They use the context of the word in the sentence or the page to figure it out.
3. Great readers always read the title and think about the title as they read. They think about how the events or information in the text connects back to the title.
4. Great readers always look for the big idea and evidence to support it. They think about what is happening, or what they learned, and what this makes them think about the main point of the book or text, and they think about the details the author employs to support the big idea.
5. Great readers always notice interesting language and structures that support the big idea. Authors make purposeful choices when crafting their pieces. An author’s use of imagery, word choice, conventions, text features, or the way they structure the text ALL work to develop the big idea the author is conveying.

Engage — 1 minute
Build excitement around the lesson’s objective, which is always focused on making meaning of texts.

Direct Instruction (Model/Practice) — 5–7 minutes
Read aloud from a familiar text and demonstrate how it is related to the lesson’s objective.

Independent Reading/Targeted Teaching Time — 15–30 minutes (depends on the grade level)

• Scholars read independently.
• Spend 2–3 minutes working individually with 3–5 scholars to get to know them as readers by listening to them read, asking them questions, and giving them strategies to tackle their reading goals.

Partner Share — 3–5 minutes

• Scholars discuss their book with their partner.
• Listen to partnerships to determine if scholars are mastering the lesson’s objective. Choose scholars to model their thinking during the Whole-Class Share.

Whole-Class Share — 5–7 minutes

• Bring scholars together at the rug.
• Have a scholar model his thinking to reinforce the lesson’s objective.
• Have scholars discuss which great reading tactic the scholar used.