Proactive Reading

The lessons in Proactive Reading were designed to reduce student errors and facilitate skills and strategies that build over time to assist students in becoming competent readers who read both fluently and with comprehension. The tasks associated with fluent, meaningful reading were carefully analyzed and elements sequenced into daily lessons. Following these predetermined lesson plans, Proactive Reading teachers deliver explicit instruction designed to assist students in the integrated and fluent use of alphabetic knowledge and comprehension strategies.

A typical lesson

In a typical Proactive Reading lesson, students practice letter-sound correspondences for previously taught letters or letter combinations, practice writing these letters, and learn the sound of a new letter or letter combination. Students also play word games designed to promote phonological awareness, practice sounding out and reading words composed of previously taught letter-sound correspondences, spell words from dictation based on their sound-symbol correspondences, practice automatic recognition of words that do not conform to alphabetic rules, read and reread decodable connected text, and apply comprehension strategies to this text.

A primary focus of Proactive Reading is teaching efficient word identification. Thus, a large portion of each lesson is spent learning and reviewing letter-sound correspondences, sounding out and reading words rapidly, or spelling words in isolation. Over time, the nature of the lessons changes. In the beginning, the bulk of each lesson is devoted to learning to use the alphabetic principle quickly and efficiently, with less focus on connected text and reading for meaning. As students progress, lessons change in nature to focus on decoding multisyllabic and irregular words, fluent reading of connected text, and applying comprehension strategies.

Text characteristics

Beginning on the seventh day of instruction, students read connected text daily. This text is fully decodable, meaning that all phonetic elements and all irregular sight words appearing in the text have been taught previously. In the beginning, this text is rather stilted and sounds unnatural. However, as students acquire greater mastery of more elements, as well as the ability to decode more difficult words, this text becomes more natural.

Lesson format

A primary feature of Proactive Reading is that it maximizes academic engagement. Teachers follow a highly detailed lesson plan, and instruction is delivered to small, homogeneous groups of students. Instruction is delivered in a rapid-fire manner in which there is constant interchange between the instructor and students. In a typical activity, the teacher asks all students to respond to letters, words, or text in unison, followed by “individual turns” where each child is able to demonstrate his or her personal ownership of the content. The instructor moves quickly from activity to activity within each lesson. Within a typical lesson, 7–10 short activities encompass multiple strands of content.

An overarching teaching routine that is repeated throughout the entire curriculum comprises the teacher modeling new content, providing guided practice for students, and implementing independent practice for every activity. Instructors consistently monitor students’ responses, provide positive praise for correct responses, and provide immediate corrective feedback if an error occurs. Instructors have to make on-the-spot judgments about why an error occurs and focus on that aspect of the task in their corrective feedback.