The Reading Series Three Classroom Set contains suggested materials for delivering a full complement of Reading Series Three instruction to a small group. Each set includes one Reading Series Three Foundational Skills Teacher's Guide, one Reading Series Three Close Reading Teacher's Guide, and six copies of each Reading Series Three book. For whole-group instruction, the purchase of additional book sets is recommended.
Reading Series Three Foundational Skills Teacher’s Guides contain explicit, systematic, book-by-book instruction that supports teachers in the delivery of evidence-based foundational skills routines with a focus on the vowel team syllable and reading and spelling words with its three variations (vowel digraph, variant vowel digraph, and diphthong), as well as reading and spelling words with vowel spellings that have unexpected pronunciations. As students become adept at recognizing types of vowel team syllables, they will be able to decode more words. This will increase the number of words they can read by sight and analogy. As students advance, they will read words by recognizing larger orthographic units (such as syllables and rimes). This developing ability allows students to read with greater efficiency than is possible when reading sound-by-sound. The instruction also includes the scaffolded analysis of inflectional suffixes and the teacher-directed analysis of derivational affixes. Once students have been taught these important skills, they can apply what they know to Reading Series Three books. Foundational Skills Teacher's Guides include book-by-book progress monitoring assessments and periodic formative assessments.
Reading Series Three Close Reading Teacher’s Guides contain book-by-book instruction that is carefully designed to support teachers as they release to students more responsibility for independently analyzing and discussing a variety of genres of writing during partner discussions and collaborative conversations. Throughout the series, students will use unique instructional tools to develop important strategic reading behaviors, including thinking and talking about text, illustrations, and text features; making inferences and elaborations; sharing opinions and making predictions; reflecting on their understanding and the author’s craft in a deliberate manner; summarizing and synthesizing; identifying text structures and signal words that exemplify the informational text genre; learning about specific topics and generating questions about those topics; and clarifying words and phrases. Instruction will also give students opportunities to gain practice thinking about tone, the author’s purpose, and themes and central messages. Reading Series Three Close Reading Teacher's Guides include comprehension assessments.
