BookNook’s Phonological Awareness/Phonics Lessons support students in building, practicing, and retaining foundational skills in both the phonological awareness and the phonics components of the science of reading. These lessons follow the same flow each time: Skill Introduction, Skill Practice, Foundational Skills Text, and Formative Assessment.

Skill Introduction: Lessons begin with the Skill Introduction where students are taught the skill or standard that the lesson is aligned to. Tutors present the skill and relevant examples for students to both see and hear, which provides the foundations needed for students to then practice the skill. For example, students may be introduced to consonant-vowel-consonant words, such as “cat” or “big,” and will be prompted to break the words apart to hear the different sounds. 

Skill Practice: Students then move to the Skill Practice, where they have the opportunity to apply the skill or standard of the lesson through multiple, engaging practice activities. These  practice activities help students practice the skill in many different ways to support skill retention and mastery. Students engage in 2–5 different practice activity types depending on the lesson.

Foundational Skills Text: Next, in the Foundational Skills Text section, students are able to practice the skill they’re focusing on with a text that incorporates a high number of words aligned to that skill. These texts integrate the components of phonics, fluency, and text reading comprehension skills through the authentic practice reading.

Formative Assessment: Lastly, each Phonological Awareness/Phonics Lesson ends with a Formative Assessment, which helps to provide an understanding of students’ progress toward mastery of the lesson’s standard through 3–5 aligned questions.

Comprehension Lessons are designed to support students in practicing and building skills in the vocabulary and comprehension components of the science of reading. Each Comprehension Lesson follows the same flow: Vocabulary Activities, Text Reading + Discussion, Comprehension Activity, and Formative Assessment.

Vocabulary Activities: Each lesson starts with Vocabulary Activities; this instruction is  important because of the impact a lack of vocabulary understanding can have on a student’s comprehension of the text. The vocabulary prioritized for focus in this section are tier 2 and/or tier 3 words that are essential to the comprehension of the text. The goal of the vocabulary work is that students have an understanding of the words when they are encountered while reading the text of the lesson. In alignment with this goal, students have multiple opportunities to engage with the words and their meaning. Students are taught vocabulary words in a scaffolded exposure.

Text Reading + Discussion: The transition from vocabulary to comprehension work begins with the Text Reading + Discussion of an authentic text. This read-through supports students in building a foundational comprehension of the text and is essential to help students engage in higher-level thinking about the text. The discussion stopping points also include questions that are aligned to the standard of the lesson. Therefore, students are engaging in discussion and critical thinking aligned to the skill(s) and standard of the lesson as well. Strategies implemented during a read-through support active engagement and provide opportunities for students to grapple with what they are reading, as opposed to passively reading the text. Discussion stopping points encourage strategies such as:

• Activating prior knowledge or predicting   
• Synthesizing information or retelling 
• Participating in a range of conversations and collaboration, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own 
• Determining the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues and analyzing meaningful word parts 
• Locating and recalling 
• Integrating and interpreting 
• Critiquing and evaluating

Comprehension Activity: Students then engage in a Comprehension Activity that includes intentional work around foundational comprehension skills such as main ideas, themes, summarizing, retelling, and sequencing.

Formative Assessment: Each Comprehension Lesson concludes with a 3–5-question Formative Assessment. Student performance on these questions helps to provide an understanding of their progress toward mastery of the lesson’s standard.

BookNook’s Fluency Lesson is designed to provide students the opportunity to practice and build their skills in oral reading fluency, thus supporting work in the fluency component of the science of reading. Fluency Lessons follow the same flow each time: Fluency Introduction, Exemplar Fluency Activity, “What’s Wrong?” Activity, and Student Fluency Read.

Fluency Introduction: During the Fluency Introduction, students review three components of fluency—accuracy, pace, and expression—and their definitions.

Exemplar Fluency Activity: Students then do an Exemplar Fluency Activity, in which they listen to an exemplar reading of a passage that demonstrates strong accuracy, pace, and expression. Students later have the opportunity to read the same passage aloud and practice the same techniques they heard in the exemplar reading.

“What’s Wrong?” Activity: The “What’s Wrong?” Activity provides students the opportunity to listen to and monitor non-exemplar fluency readings. Students identify the strengths and weaknesses in what they hear in order to improve their self-monitoring skills.

Student Fluency Read: Finally comes the Student Fluency Read, where students read a passage aloud while the tutor notes any errors. The BookNook algorithm uses these notes to calculate the student’s accuracy and pace.