Thinking Reader - Scholastic

Thinking Reader from Tom Snyder Productions

Aligns to Striving Readers Program Criteria

September 2005 1

The purpose of the Striving Readers Program is to raise the reading achievement levels of middle and high school-aged students in Title I-eligible schools with significant numbers of students reading below grade level. The goals of the Striving Readers program are to:

Enhance the overall level of reading achievement in middle and high schools through

improvements to the quality of literacy instruction across the curriculum Improve the literacy skills of struggling adolescent readers

Help build a strong, scientific research base around specific strategies that improve

adolescent literacy skills

The following chart details how Thinking Reader can support the development of a Striving Readers Program grant.

Key Criteria for the Striving Readers Program

Thinking Reader

1. Include school-level strategies

designed to increase reading achievement for students in Grades 6-12 by improving the quality of literacy instruction across the curriculum, including, at a minimum, a:

Needs assessment Professional development

plan Process for monitoring

student performance

Thinking Reader’s interactive software takes the unabridged text of award-winning literature and presents it to students in audio and onscreen. The program provides embedded, scaffolded reading support as it trains students in Grades 6-8 to become strategic readers. Thinking Reader can be used with struggling readers, special needs students, English-language learners, adequate readers, and strong readers. The program particularly benefits struggling students, because it allows them to read grade-appropriate, unabridged digital texts that match the printed texts teachers are using with the other students in their classrooms. Scientifically proven to increase student reading achievement, Thinking Reader provides explicit instruction and practice of seven critical comprehension strategies: Summarizing Visualizing Question Generating Feeling Clarifying Reflecting Predicting

The program models these strategies, prompts students to use them at key points in the text, provides vocabulary support, and gives students meaningful feedback. Thinking Reader has five levels to support students as their reading comprehension skills improve. In addition, students use a variety of printed graphic organizers to help them better understand the interrelationships of complex ideas and themes in a book.

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Thinking Reader Alignment to Striving Readers Criteria

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Thinking Reader

Include school-level strategies designed to increase reading achievement, Continued

Thinking Reader uses the Gradual Release model. The teacher sets the level of challenge and support for each student. As students’ comprehension skills improve and they move to a higher reading level, the teacher gradually withdraws the supports so students have the opportunity to use the strategies on their own. The program follows this five-step approach: Step 1: Model strategic reading—The teacher introduces

students to the process of reading strategically and establishes a model for their own reading.

Step 2: Build reading comprehension skills with

Thinking Reader—After teachers familiarize students with the software, students read the assigned digital text and complete activities by themselves.

Step 3: Assess and evaluate student progress—Using

software-generated comprehension quiz reports, student-teacher conferences, and an assessment rubric, teachers track each student’s growth with reading strategies and comprehension of the book.

Step 4: Engage students in a discussion of the literature

and strategies—Students gain additional meaning from the literature as they interact with the other students in the class.

Step 5: Extend the strategies—Students use the

Strategy Response Journal to help them carry over the skills they have learned to other reading materials.

Needs Assessment Thinking Reader, which continually tracks students’ performance, can generate electronic and printed reports that help teachers determine students’ needs. Work Log Report shows a student’s responses to

strategy prompts in the software. Teachers can use the data to determine whether a student’s level in the program should be adjusted in the software.

Quiz Results Report shows the percentage of quizzes

that a student has correctly answered and compares it to a benchmark.

Thinking Reader Assessment Rubric, which is provided

in the Teacher’s Guide, allows teachers to rate students on their understanding of the text using the seven comprehension strategies.


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Thinking Reader

Include school-level strategies designed to increase reading achievement, Continued

Professional Development Plan Thinking Reader’s professional development solutions increase teacher effectiveness in implementing the program and integrating technology into the curriculum. These include: Teacher’s Guide, which details the five steps for

successful implementation of the program, presents Thinking Reader’s research base, provides graphic organizer templates and other reproducible tools, and includes tips for holding student-teacher conferences

Title-specific discussion guides that present strategies

for leading engaging, instructional examinations of each book and that contain cross-curricular ideas

Printable PDF files of teacher support materials

Thinking Reader website, which contains links to sites

focused on comprehension skills Optional full-day implementation workshop that focuses

on how educators can use Thinking Reader to improve reading comprehension for struggling readers and special needs students

Optional on-site, customizable workshop—Literature

Circles and Computers: Transcending Classroom Boundaries

Process for Monitoring Student Performance Thinking Reader can generate a variety of reports that allow teachers to review student performance: Work Log Report shows all student responses to

strategy questions in the software. Class Work Log Report provides teachers with data to

identify patterns in students’ work in the software. Quiz Results Report displays student performance on

quizzes in the software. Class Quiz Results Report overviews the performance

of all class members on the quizzes in the software. Teacher Comments Report shows all the comments that

a student has received from the teacher about his/her strategy responses while using the software.


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Thinking Reader

2. Provide intensive targeted

intervention for struggling readers, i.e., students who read at least two years below grade level, including limited English proficient students and students with disabilities, including, at a minimum:

Assessments to identify

struggling readers Supplemental intervention

designed to accelerate the development of literacy skills for these readers

Professional development for their teachers

A process for monitoring student progress that includes the administration of student assessments

Thinking Reader was designed as an intervention for struggling readers. The program provides a supportive environment in which students can develop comprehension skills and read grade-appropriate text that would otherwise be above their reading levels. For mixed-ability classrooms, teachers can differentiate Thinking Reader’s instruction by customizing students’ experience within the software. Teachers choose: In which of the five levels to place students for the

appropriate amount of challenge and support Whether or not students must complete certain chapter

quizzes before proceeding to the next passage Whether or not students are required to respond to

every strategy prompt before proceeding to the next passage

Whether or not students are allowed to choose their own

level in the program Whether a human voice will be available to read the

story text while sentences are highlighted on-screen, or whether a computer-generated voice—with adjustable speed and tone—will read as each word is highlighted

Thinking Reader supports students throughout each of the five program levels. The number of supports available to students corresponds to their level. Students working at Level 1 have the most supports; students working at Level 5 have the fewest. At the lower levels, the supports pertain largely to the content of the specific book. At the higher levels, the supports tend to be more general and focus on the use of the strategies. In addition, the type of strategy prompt varies from level to level. At the lower levels, strategy prompts often appear as a multiple-choice item or a sentence starter. At the higher levels, strategy prompts are open-ended and require more thought from the student. Students using Thinking Reader increase their confidence and self-esteem, because they can develop reading skills at their own pace and still be included in classroom discussions. The program empowers students by giving them control over the learning process and instant feedback on their progress. At key points throughout the text, on-screen adolescents provide model answers, the reasoning behind those answers, and hints for strategy use. Thinking Reader features popular, high-quality literature that engages adolescents in purposeful reading.


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Provide intensive targeted intervention for struggling readers, Continued

Limited English Proficient Students Students who are acquiring English benefit from Thinking Reader’s explicit instruction of comprehension strategies, scaffolded reading supports and prompts embedded in the software, and meaningful practice activities. The program allows students to click on a book’s highlighted, challenging words to read their definitions in either English or Spanish; view a graphical image when provided; and use text-to-speech support. Human voice narration models fluent reading as text is highlighted. Students can listen to a sentence or passage as many times as they need to feel comfortable with the text. Thinking Reader supplies high-quality, age-appropriate literature from and about student’s North American culture. During in-class gatherings, students can discuss how the cultural experiences reflected in each book are similar to or different from their own experiences. Students With Disabilities Originally designed by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), Thinking Reader uses the principles of Universal Design for Learning to provide a flexible and customizable environment for all students. Accessibility features include: Keyboard navigation Font-size control Text captioning Screen reader compatibility Voice preference and speed options

Assessments to Identify Struggling Readers Thinking Reader’s built-in assessments can help teachers identify students who are struggling in the program. Work Log Report shows a student’s strategy responses

over the course of an entire book. Teachers can use it to identify events, phrases, and words that a student has found confusing.

Quiz Results Report helps teachers pinpoint whether a

student is having difficulty developing recall, inference, and vocabulary skills.

Student Progress Report can be used to identify low-

performing students based on their average quiz scores.


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Thinking Reader


Supplemental Interventions to Accelerate the Development of Literacy Skills Students using Thinking Reader develop vocabulary, build fluency, and learn key comprehension strategies designed to significantly increase their reading achievement. Vocabulary

Students can click on the book’s highlighted, challenging vocabulary words to read their definitions in either English or Spanish; view a graphical representation when provided; and use text-to-speech support.

An electronic, contextual glossary includes all of the

book’s vocabulary words. Fluency

Human voice narration models fluent reading as text is highlighted.

Comprehension

Thinking Reader explicitly teaches the four strategic comprehension skills that form the researched-based Reciprocal Teaching method—summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting.

Students also build comprehension through visualizing,

feeling, and reflecting. Prompts, hints, models, and feedback, which are

embedded in the reading activity, remind students of the strategies and give them practice opportunities within the context of the literature.

Students learn to monitor their comprehension as they

read. Students complete printed graphic organizers, such as

character webs, Venn diagrams, and incident summaries, to help them prepare for literature discussions over the course of reading a book.

Teachers encourage their students to carry the

comprehension strategies they have learned to everything they read.

Thinking Reader correlates to the English Language Arts standards of the IRA/NCTE and of all 50 states. (For details, please visit www.tomsnyder.com/standards.)

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Thinking Reader


Thinking Reader uses award-winning, grade-appropriate literature carefully chosen to match what teachers are teaching in their Middle School classrooms. Selections are: The Giver by Lois Lowry Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor Dragon Wings by Laurence Yep A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and

Christopher Collier Professional Development Tom Snyder Productions offers a full-day implementation workshop that provides educators with strategies for using Thinking Reader to improve struggling readers’ comprehension. The workshop emphasizes understanding of the research behind the program and helping participants use it in a manner that best fits the diverse needs of their students. Educators learn how to: Implement Thinking Reader effectively in their

classroom Teach reading comprehension strategies to students at

all reading levels Use the student management system to assess student

progress Establish classroom management procedures for the

program Thinking Reader provides title-specific discussion guides that present strategies for leading engaging, instructional examinations of each book and that contain cross-curricular ideas. The Thinking Reader website contains links to sites focused on comprehension skills. In addition, the Teacher’s Guide supplies classroom materials, details on how to customize software options, and implementation tips.


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Thinking Reader


Process for Monitoring Student Progress A student management system automatically records every reader’s progress by collecting students’ written responses, quiz results, time-on-task, and other performance indicators. Teachers can view data on-screen, printed, or exported to a spreadsheet program. They can look at aggregated data for an entire class or details on each student. Work Log Report allows teachers to monitor how

students are progressing with their use of the comprehensive strategies.

Student Progress Report overviews an entire class’s

progress in the software during a selected time period. It shows how far students have progressed in the book, their current reading level, the total amount of time they have used the program, and their quiz average.

Quiz Results Report summarizes quiz results for an

individual student Teacher Comments Report allows teachers to evaluate

students’ improvement in using reading strategies. In addition to electronic reporting, Thinking Reader contains a Rubric Assessment that teachers can use to track student progress. Teachers rate each student’s understanding of the text based on his/her responses to each of the seven comprehension strategy prompts.


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Thinking Reader

3. Provide middle and high school

age children reading at least two years below grade level with supplemental or replacement interventions to improve basic skills, motivation, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension using research-based strategies

Thinking Reader provides students who are reading below grade level with supplemental, research-based interventions.

Basic Skills—The program teaches seven proven comprehension skills, as well as helps students build fluency and vocabulary. Students learn in the context of reading unabridged core literature. They have multiple opportunities to develop critical thinking skills, write in response to strategy prompts, reflect on the literature they are reading, and engage in classroom discussions. The learning objectives of Thinking Reader correlate to the IRA/NCTE Standards for the English Language Arts. Students gain test-taking experience as they answer different types and levels of questions, such as open-ended, literal, and interpretive.

Motivation— Students read popular, age-appropriate

literature that holds their interest and covers many of the issues typical adolescents experience. Scaffolded instruction helps struggling students read with success and build confidence. It also allows them to read and discuss the same books as the ones their peers in the classroom are using. Students can relate to on-screen adolescents who provide model answers, the reasoning behind those answers, and hints for strategy use. Student-teacher conferences provide opportunities for students to become engaged in their learning process and for teachers to positively reinforce their efforts.

Vocabulary—The program supports vocabulary

development by providing students with definitions, in English or Spanish, of challenging words. Students can also see a graphical representation of words, when appropriate, and use text-to-speech support. Thinking Reader exposes students to a broad and diverse vocabulary through listening to and reading high-quality stories. The software includes a contextual glossary that includes all of the book’s vocabulary words.

Fluency—Human voice narration models fluent reading

as text is highlighted. Students can read the text multiple times.

Comprehension—Thinking Reader focuses instruction

on seven proven comprehension skills, including four that form the Reciprocal Teaching method. The software explicitly teaches strategies through modeling, prompts, hints, and feedback. Students practice skills in the context of high-quality, unabridged literature. To further their understanding of the text, students use graphic organizers, such as story maps and relationship diagrams. A Strategy Response Journal helps students continue to use strategies with any book they choose.


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Thinking Reader

4. Provide professional development

aligned with scientifically based reading research or integrating comprehension and literacy skills in the classroom across the subject areas

The Teacher’s Guide describes the research and rationale behind Thinking Reader, including pertinent studies on reading strategies, reciprocal teaching, Universal Design for Learning, and brain functioning. The guide also provides Thinking Reader’s five-step implementation method designed to significantly increase students’ reading achievement. The Thinking Reader Discussion Guide booklet provides teachers with title-specific ideas for planning, organizing, and leading engaging and instructional examinations of the books students are reading. Discussion guides include questions, activities, and cross-curricular extension ideas. In an optional Tom Snyder Productions full-day professional development workshop, educators learn the seven reading comprehension strategies presented in Thinking Reader and how to teach them. The strategies are: Summarizing Visualizing Question Generating Feeling Clarifying Reflecting Predicting

Tom Snyder Productions also offers an on-site, customizable workshop, “Literature Circles and Computers: Transcending Classroom Boundaries.” Educators learn to: Implement literature circles to support the reading and

language arts curriculum and actively engage students in understanding what they read.

Use computers to support literature circles with a variety

of activities including: o Research o Story-mapping and timelines o Illustrations o Multimedia activities and online projects


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Thinking Reader

5. Acquire, provide training for, and

implement valid and reliable reading assessments or other appropriate measures that are based on scientifically based reading research to determine whether students are developing and improving reading skills.

The Thinking Reader implementation workshop teaches educators how to assess student progress in reading comprehension within and outside of the program. They discover how to maximize Thinking Reader reports to monitor student improvement. The Teacher’s Guide contains complete instructions on how to generate six reports using student performance data from Thinking Reader’s built-in assessments. It also provides the main purpose of each report and suggestions for following up with students. The six available reports are: Work Log Report—shows a student’s response to

strategy prompts in the software Class Work Log Report—presents students’ responses

to strategy prompts in the software Quiz Results Report—displays a student’s performance

on quizzes in the skill areas of recall, inference, and vocabulary

Class Quiz Results Report—overviews the performance

of all class members on the quizzes in the software Student Progress Report—overviews the entire class’s

progress in the software during a selected time period, including how far students have progressed in the book, their current reading levels, the total amount of time they have used the program, and their quiz averages

Teacher Comments Report—provides all the comments

that a student has received from the teacher about his/her strategy responses while using the software

To stay informed about student assessments in the software, teachers can access quiz questions on-screen, in printed reports, and in the title-specific discussion guides. In addition, Thinking Reader provides a reproducible Assessment Rubric. The Teacher’s Guide presents clear directions on how to use it to rate students’ understanding of text based on their responses to strategy prompts.


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Thinking Reader

6. Design and implement a project

evaluation that includes a: Rigorous experimental

research evaluation (with a randomized control trial) of the intensive, targeted literacy intervention for struggling readers

Rigorous evaluation of the school-level strategies designed to increase reading achievement for students by integrating enhanced literacy instruction throughout the curriculum and the school

Because Striving Readers is a demonstration program, one of its key goals is to help build a strong, scientific, research base around specific strategies that improve adolescent literacy skills. Each program must have a rigorous, experimental evaluation design conducted by independent researchers, such as research firms or universities, who have experience in experimental design and scientifically based reading research. In addition, the U.S. Department of Education plans to provide technical assistance to help grantees and their evaluation partners with evaluation design and implementation. The key evaluation questions for the Striving Readers demonstration program are: Do the specific supplemental literacy and classroom-

based strategies employed by the grantee significantly improve reading proficiency among students?

Do different groups/types of students benefit in different ways/to a different extent?

In a federally funded experimental study (Dalton et al., 2001), The Center for Applied Special Technology evaluated Thinking Reader with 102 students, most with learning disabilities and all achieving below the 25th percentile in reading. After controlling for gender and pre-test scores on comprehension and vocabulary, students using Thinking Reader demonstrated significantly greater gains in comprehension on the Gates MacGinitie Reading Achievement Test than did their peers receiving traditional strategy instruction. Qualitative analyses of student and teacher interviews and questionnaires indicate that students viewed the Thinking Reader digital text as extremely helpful and that there was substantial variation in how students used the various supports. Teachers reported a positive impact on students’ engagement and self-efficacy. A comparison of the two groups’ on-task behavior revealed that students reading in Thinking Reader spent significantly more time “on task” and had significantly more opportunities to respond and practice strategies than did their peers using traditional strategy instruction (Coyne, Pisha, Dalton, Deysher & Eagleton, in preparation). More research, supported by the Institute for Educational Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education is now underway.


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Thinking Reader

7. Devise a plan for measuring the

regular progress of students participating in the supplemental literacy intervention that includes appropriate valid, reliable, and ongoing reading assessment as well as state assessment results

Thinking Reader provides progress-monitoring tools that teachers can use at strategic times during the course of teaching a book. Teachers are encouraged to plan which assessments they want to perform and how often. The software continuously collects student performance data, making it possible for teachers to monitor students’ progress at any time during the program. The following are examples of how and when teachers may wish to evaluate student progress: Each title contains four to six comprehension quizzes,

which contain recall, inference, and vocabulary questions. At the end of each book, teachers can generate the Quiz Results Report and the Class Quiz Results to document students’ progress.

The software’s Work Log captures a student’s strategy

responses over the course of an entire book. It contains a wealth of information about a student’s progress. Teachers may wish to view the Work Log on-screen on a weekly basis. They can also generate a printed copy of a student’s Work Log Report and a Class Work Log Report.

Twice during a book, about one-third and two-thirds of the way through it, students encounter a reflection prompt. These prompts ask students to reflect on the book, review their Work Log, and then set up a conference with their teacher to summarize their progress and set new goals.

At the end of a novel, teachers can do a formal rubric

assessment of students’ understanding of the text and compare results to previous rubric assessments.

The Student Progress screen allows teachers to view

students’ progress in their Work Logs and online quizzes. They can create and print individual or class reports that show the highest chapter and passage a student has reached, the student’s current level, time on task, and average quiz score.

The Recent Progress screen allows teachers to view a

student’s last five Work Log responses. Teachers can use this information when they wish to evaluate whether or not a student is working in the most appropriate level.

The Teacher Comments Report, which shows all the

comments that a student has received about their strategy responses in the software, can help teachers monitor student progress throughout the program.


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8. Annually report students’

performance using these indicators:

The number/percentage of

adolescent students reading significantly below grade level who demonstrate a gain in their reading achievement at a minimum of one grade level or its equivalent over an academic year

The number/percentage of

schools participating in Striving Readers that demonstrate performance gains on their State’s assessment of reading/language arts achievement

Thinking Reader helps students prepare for state assessments. The program’s instruction correlates to the English Language Arts standards in all 50 states, and the quizzes provide students with test-taking practice. Thinking Reader has been proven to significantly raise students’ reading achievement compared to peers participating in traditional strategy instruction. Because Thinking Reader continuously collects data on students’ performance in the software, schools can deliver meaningful data about students’ reading gains. Software-generated reports, which can be customized to cover specific time periods, provide the following information about student performance: The number and percent of correct answers on quizzes

that test students’ recall, inference, and vocabulary The percent of correctly answered questions per quiz The average quiz score The level in which students are working Students’ time on task Students progress in the program

Students’ scores on the Thinking Reader Assessment Rubric also supply quantitative data on their performance and progress over time.


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Thinking Reader

9. Devise a project that contributes

to the development and advancement of theory, knowledge, and practices in the field of adolescent literacy

Thinking Reader is based on a solid, reliable foundation of research on the Reciprocal Teaching method, Universal Design for Learning, and brain processing during reading: Research-validated methods of reading comprehension

development include the instruction of self-monitoring and self-evaluation (Englert, et al., 1991; Paris, Cross & Lipson, 1984), the use of dynamic and embedded assessment (Campione & Brown, 1987; Cioffi & Carney, 1997; Feuerstein, Rand, & Hoffman, 1979), supports for vocabulary (MacArthur & Haynes, 1995), and anaphoric reference (Boone & Higgins, 1993).

Studies of Reciprocal Teaching, which forms one of the

key foundations of Thinking Reader, indicate that the method is a robust intervention, leading to positive gains in students’ comprehension of instructed text, as well as transfer text, and modest gains on standardized measures of reading comprehension (Palinscar & Brown, 1984).

Reciprocal Teaching is effective as a means of

promoting reading comprehension with middle school students (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994).

The Center for Applied Special Technology, which

collaborated with Tom Snyder Productions in designing Thinking Reader, applied research on Reciprocal Teaching and Principles of Universal Design for learning (Rose & Meyer, 2002) to the design of interactive digital texts with embedded strategy instruction (Dalton & Pisha, 2001; Dalton, Pisha, Eagleton, Coyne, & Deysher, 2001).

The overall approach of Universal Design for Learning is

based on a framework derived from current brain research (Rose & Meyer, 2002). Specifically, Thinking Reader applies current research on: o The way the brain learns to recognize the elements

of text o The way the brain learns new strategies for

operating on text o The way that the brain differentially engages in

reading strategies

For more information on Thinking Reader’s research base, please visit: http://www.tomsnyder.com/reports/Thinking_Reader_White.pdf

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Thinking Reader - Scholastic