What to Do When Students Aren’t Moving*: Evaluating the Rigor of SIPPS

Thoughtful teachers routinely monitor the progress of their students. So it’s always a concern when we observe students not “moving” when we use a systematic and explicit system such as SIPPS to teach them to read. To address this concern, I usually ask myself a few questions, and I’ll include some reasons so you know my thinking.

How many are “not moving”? It makes a difference if it is most students in the group or one or two students.

Let’s assume the concern is that most of the students in the group are not making progress.

1. Do I give Mastery Tests as indicated in the program? Do I use Mastery Test data to guide my instruction in pacing, regrouping, or re-teaching?

The Mastery Tests (Beginning, Extension, Plus) are important to monitor the progress of individual students. This will be an opportunity to reflect and evaluate your instruction. Students who stand out will give you indication of the placement and instruction. Keep in mind that the Mastery Tests assess words in isolation, which is one part of reading knowledge and growth. Combine this data with how students read text to provide an overall portrait of the student’s reading progress.

2. Are the students properly placed? Does the instruction match the students’ needs? Is the learning relevant?

Just because the students are “below grade level” or are developing readers, it doesn’t mean they start at square one. Teaching students in their ZPD (zone of proximal development) is critical. It means the difference between using their brain to work on the learning (but not working too hard) or not using the brain at all (everything is too easy) and therefore lacking relevance.

3. If the lesson placement is accurate and relevant, am I using the routines to “train their brain” to do the work? Or am I doing the brain work for them?

When I provide too much support (help them with the “correct” word) or expect them to be independent, I rob students of the opportunity to do the brain work. This results in guessing, furthering their dependence and lack of confidence.

4. Individualized Daily Reading (IDR): Are the students read enough? Do they spend the majority of the reading time in the RIGHT level of text? Do I monitor the students’ reading practice?

SIPPS instruction is explicit, systematic, and direct. However, the long-term effect of automaticity, which leads to reading fluency, comes from lots of reading practice. Students need opportunities to read the practiced sight words in other contexts (beyond the sight word cards) and many chances to use the word recognition strategies (sound out words) in reading. With that said, finding the right books is critical, but often not easy.

That’s why SIPPS provides readers to accompany the instruction. For students in Beginning and early Extension (Plus) levels, daily and repeated reading using the hybrid texts that accompany SIPPS is the strongest practice that yields the greatest gains. These books (the blue Little Books, the purple Story Book, and Dreams on Wheels) give students opportunities to use the phonics and sight words that you have taught, as well as utilize previously taught elements (for review) in the context of a story. They use what you teach right away. There is no guesswork in finding appropriate text for this kind of practice.

Readers at this level of development do not benefit from reading picture (trade) books for several reasons. The books may be “short,” but most words do not allow them to use what they are learning because the sight words and phonics element do not match. They resort to guessing when the reading demand is too high. The trade books are best used as read-alouds at this point. Using other systems, such as Accelerated Reader books in the 0.5-1.5 levels, must be approached with caution. AR levels place high importance on sentence complexity and vocabulary, not the student’s ability to read the words.

When students finish the story books in Extension (and Plus) levels, then they are ready for the easy trade books. The “I Can Read” series are a good beginning for these readers. Students move to chapter books (at their level) for continued practice when they are in late Extension (and Plus) and Challenge levels.