What is My Child Doing in this 30 Minute Reading Recovery Lesson?

Rereading Familiar Books

The child practices rereading books that have been read in previous lessons.  This allows the child to become more fluent and expressive sounding when reading.  Since the book is familiar, the child's brain can attend to things maybe they did not notice before.  It also gives the teacher the opportunity to do some more teaching if needed.

Reading of the Running Record Book

The child reads a book that was introduced and read once the day before while the teacher sits quietly and takes notes.  This gives the teacher the opportunity to observe what kind of 'reading work' the child is doing when they run into difficulty and what teaching steps need to come next.

Word Work, Letter Identification and Breaking Words Apart

In this portion of the lesson, we work on letter identification in which we read an alphabet book, learn the names of letters and how the letters look.  We also look at how letters are similar and different. Many sorting activities are used during this time.  We also teach how words work such as how to break them apart, looking at how we add or take away endings to see parts we know and the many other ways words work.

Composing and Writing a Story 

Each day the child will compose and write a story.  This is our opportunity to work on writing words fluently, hearing sounds in words and letter formation.  We expect the child to do as much as possible and then we assist when something such as a sound or letter is unknown.

Cut-up Story

The story the child has written is then written onto a sentence strip and cut into units.  The child then reassembles the cut-up like a puzzle.  It is used to work on various things such as one-to-one match, reading phrased (or in units), paying attention to letter sounds and sequences.

Reading of the New Book

Each day the child is given a new book at their instructional level, selected especially for him based on what their needs are at that moment.  It should not be too hard, meaning there should be some problem-solving where they can use strategies but it should not be too easy either.  The goal is for the teacher to provide an introduction and rehearse uncommon structures or words and then the child reads it as independently as possible.