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Explore by Grade Level: Grades 1 - 2

• Have your students mastered phonological awareness (PA)?

  Often students who struggle to read words have never mastered PA, a critical precursor skill for learning phonics. Phonemic awareness is the ability to segment and manipulate all the sounds in spoken words. If phonemic awareness is weak (as measured by assessment of phoneme segmentation tasks), it may be important to check a student’s earlier phonological skills. Sometimes the best path forward is to move back to those missing skills.
  
  Download this phonological awareness continuum that shows 24 separate phonological awareness skills at the syllable, onset-rime, and phoneme level.
  
  
  

• Are your students struggling with learning to read whole words blended?

  Even with the best instruction, some students struggle in making the transition from sound-by-sound word reading to smoothly blending those sounds into a word.  You’ve seen these students; they are the ones who over-rely on saying each sound aloud or subvocalizing instead of reading the word. We’ve developed a process that moves students through sequential stages to master this skill.  It begins with explicit instruction to develop an awareness of how sounds are blended. The process continues through stages where students are taught to gradually release their scaffolds until they can accurately and fluently read single syllable words. 
  
  Download this continuum that describes these stages.
  
  
  

• Are your students mastering all the phonics skills expected for their grade level?

  First and second grade teachers know that their students need to use phonics patterns to read words accurately and fluently.  What teachers find difficult is to know which skills need to be learned by when.  95 Percent Group has developed a continuum of phonics skills illustrating which skills should be mastered by the end of 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd grade.  This is a generic continuum that will be useful no matter what core reading program you use.
  
  Download the phonics continuum here.
  
  

• How do I make phonics instruction fun?

  Some teachers feel that phonics instruction can be boring. We have lots of ideas about how to make it fun and meaningful at the same time. One important thing we’ve learned is that using manipulatives during instruction is critical for making the abstract concepts more concrete for students.
  
  
  

• Are your students learning 2-3,000 new vocabulary words a year?

  Educators know that students need to learn around 3,000 new words a year. Teachers throughout the country report teaching 10-15 vocabulary words a week, which totals about 350-400 per school year. How will students learn the other 2,600 words?
  
  Clearly we need to be doing more than teaching individual words. Download this vocabulary infographic.
  
  
  

• What comprehension skills should I be teaching in grades 1 and 2?

  Whether your standards are based on the common core or are unique to your state, ELA standards describe ways that students read with understanding. Teachers know that they need to teach comprehension strategies such as connecting, questioning, inferring, predicting, etc.  After many requests about what order is best for teaching these comprehension skills, 95 Percent Group tackled this question and created a continuum to display our recommended sequence.
  
  Download this Comprehension Continuum that includes student-friendly definitions for each strategy.