3rd Grade - Gateway 3

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials are well-designed and take into account effective lesson structure and pacing.

Implementation of the 90-minute instructional block, consists of three 45-minute blocks including Shared Reading, ELA Lessons, and Differentiated Instruction. Although there isn't a prescribed order for planning the three blocks, the Teacher Manual states the importance of the 45 minute-each time allocation.

Shared Reading lessons are designed as teacher supported lessons of fiction and non-fiction “intact” books, with repetitive routines for word study, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. ELA Lessons include narrative read-alouds with associated vocabulary instruction, grammar instruction, strategy-oriented, and genre-based instruction.

The Differentiated Instruction does not target instructional reading level. According to the Teacher Manual, differentiation is Tier II instruction, and students are placed in groups based on an informal reading inventory and Oral Reading Fluency data. An example routine includes 15 minutes with the teacher, and 30 minutes to complete written responses, word study, or vocabulary.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 3 meet the criteria that the teacher and student can reasonably complete the content within a regular school year, and the pacing allows for maximum student understanding.

Bookworms Reading and Writing Curriculum consists of three 45-minute daily instructional blocks with a complete span of 34 weeks. Appendix C of the Teacher Manual provides an overview of instruction for the year. According to the Teacher Manual, grade-level teams are expected to map out the curriculum weeks to align with the school calendar, accounting for school activities and testing. Within the 45-minute instructional blocks, teachers and students should have ample time to complete the entire lesson. However, while the materials include specific instructional sequences for the three blocks, no suggested time allotment or pacing for the various segments within the instructional block is included.

Additional notes in the Teacher Manual referring to time include:

• “Do not use Bookworms Reading and Writing unless you make the time.”
• Teachers need intact segments of time for Shared Reading and ELA blocks. They can be completed in any order, with interruptions limited to the breaks between blocks. Literacy instruction must include 90 minutes daily.
• No outside worksheets will fit into the program because the time allocated for each instructional block is filled with the lesson curriculum.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials contain a teacher’s edition with ample and useful annotations and suggestions on how to present the content in the student edition and in the ancillary materials. Where applicable, materials include teacher guidance for the use of embedded technology to support and enhance student learning.

ELA lessons and Shared Reading both contain instructional notes and annotations. This is mostly done through the use of first-person teacher think aloud annotations. The ELA lessons provide more notes and suggestions then the Shared Reading lessons. In both parts of the literacy block within the Teacher Manual, sample answers to discussion questions and assigned writing are not included. There are samples that accompany the rubrics and checklists for the overall curriculum in the Teacher’s Manual tab, but they are not provided as support within each lesson. Periodically there are mentions of technology components, such as videos and websites that are integrated or referenced for use during the lesson.

• ELA Lesson, Week 3, Day 1 to accompany the text, One Hen by Katie Smith Milway, planning notes before the lesson state, “It would be helpful to have a map of Africa on display to indicate West African places mentioned.”
• Shared Reading, Week 15, Day 1 to accompany the text,  And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? by Jean Fritz. Introduction teacher notes state, “We are going to read a short biography of Paul Revere written by Jean Fritz. You will notice that she uses many funny details and the illustrations are cartoons. But this is a nonfiction book.”
• Shared Reading, Week 31, Day 1 to accompany the text, Ancient Greece by Sandra Newman. Prior to the lesson beginning, the planning notes state, “Try to capture a picture of a local building with columns, a building that may already be familiar to the children.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials contain a teacher’s edition that contains full, adult-level explanations and examples of the more advanced literacy concepts so that teachers can improve their own knowledge of the subject, as necessary.

The Teacher Manual provides information regarding the research behind the design of the curriculum, rationale on text selection, explanations for differentiated instruction design, and the structure of writing instruction. The Teacher Manual refers to several other texts as the research-based design of the program. Teachers need to read the additional texts to deepen their learning.

• “The most important thing to know about Bookworms Reading and Writing from the start is that research informs the design. We began with a small-group multiple entry skills curriculum. That curriculum is included in How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3 Wapole, S., & McKenna, M.C. (2017). How to plan differentiated reading instruction: Strategies for grades K-3 (2nd ed). New York, NY: Guilford Press. and in Differentiated Reading Instruction in Grades 4 and 5: Strategies and Resources Wapole, S., McKenna, M.C., & Phillapakos Z (2011). Differentiated reading instruction in grades 4 & 5: Strategies & Resources. New York, NY: Guilford Press.”
• "We drew upon three specific resources, identified below, and each of them is worth consideration as a book study on its own Coker, D. L., & Ritchey, K. D. (2015). Teaching beginning writers. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Philippakos, Z. A., MacArthur, C. A., & Coker, D. L. (2015). Developing strategic writers through genre instruction: Resources for grades 3-5. New York, NY: Guilford Press.Owocki, G. (2013). The Common Core writing book: Lessons for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. The first two texts distilled the cognitively-oriented research in writing (most of which was conducted with students with disabilities) and presented that research for a teacher audience and for a wider range of students. The third text includes extensive support for developing the craft of writing.”
• “To support teachers to develop their skills in the teaching of writing, we have constructed the lesson plans in first person. Our goal is that you read these plans as if you were watching a master writing teacher teach. Over time, as you build your own skills and see the opportunity for connections and repetitive language, you will be able to make the language your own. At the start, you may want to use the lesson plan language more closely, but you will never be able to simply read it aloud.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials contain a teacher’s edition that explains the role of the specific ELA/literacy standards in the context of the overall curriculum.

The Teacher Manual includes an explanation of how the ELA/Literacy standards align to the curriculum, and are used within the different parts of the literacy block. However, the curriculum does not provide a scope and sequence to show when the ELA/Literacy standards are taught throughout the year, or correlations to ELA or Shared Reading lessons. The curriculum includes an ELA/Literacy table, and it is up to the teacher to determine which parts of the lesson are connected to each standard.  

• “We define Shared Reading as teacher-supported grade-level reading, similar in purpose to the whole-group portion of a traditional core program. However, our curriculum is different from a traditional commercial core in three ways: (1) it uses only intact books, and (2) it is calibrated to the Common Core State Standards for text difficulty, and (3) the lesson plans and manual are available for free.”
• “The nature of standards influenced by the Common Core State Standards and the high-volume design of Bookworms Reading and Writing interact to produce daily opportunities for addressing multiple standards. We have identified those opportunities for teachers who want to track their work and for those who post standards each day. We have referenced word recognition and decoding standards as they are addressed each week in word study. Fluency standards are referenced in Shared Reading, as are text difficulty standards. Grade level reading literature and informational text standards are referenced daily in Shared Reading and interactive read aloud plans, as are speaking and listening standards. Language standards are referenced during sentence composing. Writing standards are referenced during text-based responses to Shared Reading and during genre-based writing instruction, and then practiced daily in text-based responses. Research standards are marked in our research units.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials contain a explanations of the instructional approaches of the program and identification of the research based strategies.

Throughout the Teacher Manual, the Bookworms curriculum provides explanations of the instructional approaches and the research behind the strategies and development of the curriculum. For Shared Reading, ELA Lessons, and Differentiated Instruction, rationales are provided with the titles of the additional texts, and research for teachers to reference for additional information.

• ELA Lesson Read-Alouds: “About half of the days, the ELA block uses an engaging book as a means of exposing students to rich language, developing comprehension ability, expanding vocabulary, and building knowledge Santoro, L. E., Chard, D. J., Howard, L., & Baker, S. K. (2008). Making the very most of classroom read-alouds to promote comprehension and vocabulary. The Reading Teacher, 61, 396-408. Teale, W. H. (2003). Reading aloud to young children as a classroom instructional activity: Insights from research and practice. In A. van Kleeck, A. A. Stahl, & E. B. Bauer (Eds.), On reading books to children: Parents and teachers (pp. 114-139). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. The practice of reading aloud to students should be a mainstay throughout the elementary years, not just in the primary grades. Their advantages exist well after students have learned to decode Cunningham, A. E. (2005). Vocabulary growth through independent reading and reading aloud to children. In E. H. Hiebert & M. L. Kamil (Eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice (pp. 45-67). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.”
• Writing Instruction: “That approach, like the rest of the program, is informed by research. We drew upon three specific resources, identified below, and each of them is worth consideration as a book study on its own Coker, D. L., & Ritchey, K. D. (2015). Teaching beginning writers. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Philippakos, Z. A., MacArthur, C. A., & Coker, D. L. (2015). Developing strategic writers through genre instruction: Resources for grades 3-5. New York, NY: Guilford Press.Owocki, G. (2013). The Common Core writing book: Lessons for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.. The first two texts distilled the cognitively-oriented research in writing (most of which was conducted with students with disabilities) and presented that research for a teacher audience and for a wider range of students."
• Differentiated Instruction: “Teachers may be familiar with definitions of differentiation that include choices about differentiating products, processes, or content Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Our Differentiation block is a type of content differentiation, but it is very different from the guided reading model Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (1996). Guided reading: Good first teaching for all student. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. that is commonly used for differentiation.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials regularly and systematically offer assessment opportunities that genuinely measure student progress.

The Evaluation tab in the Teacher Manual, explains how Assessments are used to support teachers in monitoring progress throughout the year. Weekly word study tests and bi-weekly on-demand written responses are used to assess comprehension, and longer writing tasks are used to assess composition and mechanics. Foundational skills assessments, such as an Informal Decoding Inventory, are provided by the publisher to support diagnostic data. Writing assessments assess student competency in narrative, opinion, and informational writing. Standards-based rubrics are included for evaluation of written responses.

Bookworms also recommends the use of additional holistic assessments in reading and writing, including Achieve the Core for on-demand writing tasks and reading mini-assessments. The reading mini-assessments include text-dependent questions and constructed response questions. Bookworms recommends that for each nine-week grading period, schools choose either a writing or reading assessment to track student progress over time.

The publisher does not include an assessment scope and sequence for teachers to see exactly where different assessments fall during the course of instruction. Appendix C shows assessments as it pertains to the Differentiated Instruction part of the literacy block. Assessments during Shared Reading and ELA Lessons are not included in this appendix. Teachers would need to go through each lesson to find where the assessments are located in Shared Reading and ELA Lessons.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials should include routines and guidance that point out opportunities to monitor student progress.

Instructional materials provide some routines and guidance to monitor student progress. These include informal checklists, constructed response rubrics, daily writing in response to reading, use of graphic organizers, and daily discussion questions. There are limited sample student responses within the daily lessons. The daily discussion questions and writing in response to reading assignments, do not include sample student responses to help support the teacher in determining if students are meeting the level of expectation as required by the literacy standard and the curriculum. Bookworms provide checklists and rubrics for longer writing assignments. Although it is not explicitly stated, these tools can be used to gather data on student progress in writing. Teacher Manual, Evaluation tab includes the following:

• Grading: Provides teachers with rubrics for Super Sentences, Written Responses, Word Study assessments, example student responses, and example grading responses. These rubrics are referred to during daily lessons in ELA Lessons and Shared Reading.
• Writing: Provides teachers with checklists for Conventions and rubrics for Narrative, Informational, and Opinion writing.
• Speaking and Listening: Provides a speaking and listening checklist where the standards are listed and the teacher can mark “consistently, sometimes, or rarely” for how students demonstrate the speaking and listening standards.

The materials reviewed for Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials provide opportunities for teachers to use a variety of grouping strategies.

The materials reviewed for Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials provide opportunities for teachers to use a variety of grouping strategies. The Bookworms Reading and Writing curriculum uses a repetitive approach to routines and instruction. This includes the grouping strategies that are used during instruction. In the ELA Lessons that focus on writing, grouping strategies include students working collaboratively in partners and small groups. ELA Lessons that include an interactive read aloud do not provide specific grouping strategies, other than stating “Engage Students in Discussion”. Shared Reading lessons include rereading with partners and sharing with partners. The Differentiated Instruction block groupings are explained in the Differentiated Instruction section of the Teacher Manual. This section explains how the 45-minute block students would have 15-minutes of time with the teacher and 30-minutes to complete their written responses to Shared Reading and when finished, students could engage in self-selected reading from the classroom library.

• ELA Lesson, Week 4, Day 3: Introduction to Informative Writing, “Students will work in partners or small groups around the room with small sets of text. There can be pre-selected groupings of texts or students may be permitted to work with one book at a time, coming up to get a new one once they have finished. Students should have sticky notes or some kind of note-taking document to write down the similarities among the informative texts.”
• ELA Lesson, Week 16, Day 4, with the text What is a Biome? by Bobbie Kalman. "Now it’s your turn to ask questions. Think of a really good question about what we’ve read today and ask your partner. You may be able to start with 'What would happen if…'”
• Shared Reading, Week 20, Day 4, with the text Susan B. Anthony by Helen Albee Monsell. Students reread with partners and discuss the relationship the girls in the text have with their grandparents.