Where Instruction Begins

Individualized Pathways to Independent Literacy 

Establishing the Baseline

Every student begins with a comprehensive literacy baseline. This is not a screening. It includes standardized, normed measures of word reading, spelling, and oral reading fluency, an in-depth examination of phonological skills, and a comparison of listening and reading comprehension that shows what a student understands when the decoding demand is removed.

I also integrate any prior data a family or school shares, including school evaluations, neuropsychological reports, and classroom benchmark data, so that testing is not duplicated unnecessarily.

The results determine where instruction begins in the sequence and identify which skills are not yet secure. Findings are documented in a written report, which serves as the reference point for future progress updates.

Diagnostic Planning

Instruction is diagnostic and prescriptive. Each lesson generates data, and that data determines the direction we go next.

Student responses are recorded during reading, spelling, and dictation, and errors are analyzed for patterns rather than counted. A student who misses a word because a vowel team is unstable needs something different from a student who misses the same word because a suffix rule has not generalized.

A concept moves forward only when it meets criterion for both accuracy and automaticity, since accurate-but-effortful reading will not hold under the demands of connected text. When criterion is not met, the concept is re-taught with additional multisensory practice and controlled reading at that level before the sequence advances. Previously taught concepts stay in cumulative review so that earlier skills are maintained while new ones are introduced.

Formal progress checks occur on a set schedule, with a meeting to review the data and discuss any changes to instructional goals and the plan.

Specialized Instructional Methodologies