SuperKids

Reading Workshop

Union Ridge School uses the Superkids Reading program. Students systematically learn to read and write letters, to associate letters with sounds, to blend letter-sounds to form words and sentences, and to read and write phonetically regular words as well as Memory Words. 

Students learn more complex letter-sound relationships. They continue to develop their decoding and encoding skills and read longer stories where comprehension and fluency are emphasized.

Grade 1 is split into two levels or semesters:

Level 3: Adventures of the Superkids

This level steps up students’ phonics instruction by teaching more complex letter-sound relationships, such as digraphs and long-vowel sounds. Instead of focusing just on individual letter-sounds, children learn to use word families and whole-word patterns to help them decode and encode. They also learn how to read and spell six new Memory Words—high-frequency or sight words—in every unit. The decodable stories children read in this level are longer and more complex than those in kindergarten. Lessons for each story help guide children’s understanding and explicitly teach comprehension skills and strategies. Lessons also teach and have children practice using fluency skills, such as reading with expression and natural phrasing. Explicit and systematic instruction in expressive writing teaches children how to write a wide variety of products and introduces them to the writing process.

Level 4: More Adventures of the Superkids

This level teaches more difficult phonetic elements, including r-controlled vowels and vowel combinations, such as au, oi, oy, and oo. Children learn strategies for decoding and encoding (spelling) words with variant vowel sounds. Then also continue learning to read and spell new Memory Words (sight words). By the end of this level, students are able to read and spell all 220 sight words on the Dolch Basic Word List. Comprehension and fluency skills are explicitly taught and children practice applying the skills to progressively longer and more challenging decodable stories. Instruction in expressive writing teaches children how to write additional products and use the writing process to plan, draft, revise, and publish.

The Superkids Hit SECOND GRADE!

FIRST SEMESTER

This level reviews, at a much faster pace, all the phonics and spelling skills taught in the first-grade levels of the program. The goal is for children to master these essential skills so that they are confident, automatic decoders and spellers. At the same time, this level greatly expands students’ world of reading. Children are taught how to apply comprehension skills to a wide variety of authentic fiction—including folktales, historical fiction, and realistic chapter books—and to nonfiction science and social studies articles in SUPER Magazine. Children’s vocabulary and fluency are also developed through their instruction with these materials, plus a Decodable Reader. Expressive writing skills are taught in greater depth than in the previous levels and children use the writing process to publish one final piece in every unit.

SECOND SEMESTER

Phonics and spelling instruction in this level introduces children to some of the complexities of the English language. In the Decodable Reader and Word Work Book, children learn less common sound-spellings to add to their knowledge of sound-spelling patterns. They soon realize that their new challenge is in having to remember which pattern applies to which words. Explicit instruction in comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency continues, but at a higher level as children read longer, more complex chapter books in the Book Club and nonfiction articles in SUPER Magazine. In Write It Right, children are challenged to produce longer, more complicated expressive writing products, including a research report and their own magazine. They are also are expected to use the writing process with greater independence with each unit. Additionally, cursive writing is an option if schools choose to introduce it in grade 2. By the end of this final level of the Superkids Reading Program, students should be confident, independent readers and writers, ready for intermediate-grade work.
 

What is a SUPERKID reader?

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