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Summer School

Unlock Literacy Success This Summer with Science of Reading-Aligned Instruction

According to the latest NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) data, only 31% of fourth graders in the U.S. are reading at or above a proficient level. The numbers are even more concerning for struggling readers, who fall further behind each year without targeted, research-backed intervention.

Students in classroom with teacher, posing for picture.

This summer, give your students the structured, effective, and engaging instruction they need with Really Great Reading’s Science of Reading-aligned summer school curriculum. Our evidence-based approach helps students build strong foundational reading skills, decode words confidently, and accelerate their reading growth in just a few weeks.

Don’t let another summer pass without giving your students the proven tools for success. Invest in a transformative, research-based summer school program that makes a lasting impact.

Here are the 10 Reasons to use RGR’s Science of Reading Curriculum in Summer School.

summer school
Why is our Summer School Program Free?

We are mission-driven. We continue to see a pervasive literacy crisis. Really Great Reading can’t stand by and watch as readers fall further and further behind. The crisis is real, but if we work together with educators, we can all help mitigate the impact. Summer school is the perfect time to intervene and make important gains. 

We Have Three Different Summer School Levels

Emerging - Science of Reading SORing to Summer Success

For Rising First Graders and Severely Struggling Second and Third Graders

This level of instruction helps develop automaticity with the foundational skills students need to jump-start their journey to strong orthographic mapping and fluent reading.

Students will:

  • Solidify their letter knowledge
  • Build fluency with high-frequency words
  • Develop basic phonemic skills (isolation, segmentation, and blending)
  • Learn how to read and spell words like tap, jet, spin, and fresh
Emerging reader summer school
Developing- Science of Reading SORing to Summer Success

For Rising Second Graders and Struggling Upper Elementary Students

This level of instruction is designed for children who have mastered some fundamental foundational skills but need additional insights about word structure to accelerate their word storage abilities and grow a large bank of automatically recognized words. Skills are taught in a structured and systematic approach to help students become excellent orthographic mappers and fluent readers.

Students will:  

  • Review letter-sound relationships and become fluent with high-frequency words
  • Gain advanced phonemic skills (deletion, addition, and substitution)
  • Read and spell complex single-syllable words, build automaticity with complex Closed Syllable words, and develop strategies for reading multi-syllabic words

 

Developing reader summer school
Advancing - Science of Reading SORing to Summer Success

For Struggling Students in Grades 6-12

This level of instruction is designed for older students who have reached adolescent grades and don’t have sufficient decoding skills to support comprehension.

Students will:

  • Learn and practice basic and advanced phonemic awareness skills and then leverage those skills for reading and spelling.
  • Examine phoneme-grapheme relationships in complex single-syllable words with three syllable types (Closed, Open, VCE).
  • Read 2-, 3-, and 4-syllable words with three-syllable types and the Schwa. 
Advancing reader summer school
What is Included?
  • 2 hours of professional development
  • 75 minutes of implementation training
  • DIGITAL instructional lessons - 5 weeks of lessons

Teacher resources include:

  • The Digital Teacher’s Guide: Includes daily scripted lesson plans and a research-filled appendix. This digital 240-page lesson plan PDF will guide you through each easy-to-follow lesson.
  • The Online Teacher Presentation Tool: Includes animations, posters, and a treasure trove of supplemental resources. Helping the teacher deliver concise and vibrant lessons, and featuring new Guest Teacher Videos, this tool is your co-teacher in the classroom!
  • Professional Learning Courses: This comprehensive package wouldn't be complete without Really Great Reading's exceptional professional eLearning courses. Each package contains three hours of upfront, professional learning to ensure you can teach lessons with fidelity and confidence. The package also features incremental professional development, to assist teachers as their knowledge grows.
  • The Diagnostic Assessments:  In just 5-7 minutes, Really Great Reading's diagnostic decoding assessments answer these key questions: Which students are struggling with decoding? What types of words are they struggling with?
  • Access to the Grouping Matrix: A complimentary, web-based, password-protected, secure student data management interface. The Grouping Matrix enables you to group students (K-12) according to the type and depth of their decoding difficulties using data from grade-level Oral Reading Fluency passages (such as DIBELS, AIMSWeb, Six Minute Solutions, Read Naturally, EasyCBM) and our complimentary diagnostic assessments. Who can be grouped together? Which instructional package (Emerging, Developing, Advancing) is right for them? 

Student resources include:

  • The Digital Student Guided Practice Packet PDF: Like our student workbooks, these PDF packets allow teachers to provide students with guided practice so that they can develop accuracy and fluency with the skills they are learning.
  • Letter Tile Freeplay: A comprehensive set of virtual phonics manipulatives that help students understand the relationships between phonemes and graphemes. This tool helps students read and spell words, fostering a deep and rich understanding of the alphabetic code.
  • Reading Playgrounds: An independent practice portal that facilitates independent, asynchronous engagement and enables word-learning opportunities that promote mastery and automaticity—at the pace and extent they need. 
Summer School Professional Development

Science of Reading Concepts:

  • Best practices in decoding instruction
  • Foundational literacy skills
  • Essentials of orthographic mapping

Instructional Ideas/Techniques:

  • Basic phonemic awareness (segmenting and blending)
  • Definitions of phoneme & grapheme
  • Reading and spelling Closed Syllables
  • Digraphs
  • Blends
  • Pushing these ideas into multisyllabic words

Key Ideas:

  • Looking at and considering unfamiliar words at single and multi-syllable levels
  • Orthographically mapping words for permanent retrieval
  • Students teaching themselves to read new words

Getting Started Lessons:

  • Reviewing components
  • Accessing lessons
  • Teaching lessons using the Teacher Guide, Online Tool, and Student Practice Book
    • Student practice:
      • Guided
      • Independent

Pre/Post Assessments:

How do Educators Access the Summer School Curriculum?
  1. You must be an educator (the lesson plans are designed for trained educators)
  2. Checkout using a district email address - our system licenses by district/school.
    1. Within 24-72 business hours of placing your order, you will receive your unique link to the Science of Reading Summer School Training. The email will come from [email protected] so please keep an eye on your spam/junk folder.
    2. Starting on May 5th, we will send your account login credentials to your district email address. Then you can access your FULLY DIGITAL Science of Reading Summer School Lessons.
      1. Your lessons will include:
        1. Digital Guided Student Practice Book PDF
        2. Student Reading Playgrounds
        3. Digital Teacher Presentation Online Tool
        4. Digital Teachers Guide PDF 
           

If you have questions about your Summer School Registration please email us at [email protected]

Students laughing with teacher