5 Steps Routine
Research-based methodology
In Achieve3000®, we believe that one to one teaching, focused on the level of each student, is one of the most powerful tools to help them develop their full potential.
Step 1: Establish a scheme
Students read and respond to a daily e-mail that sets the bases for what they are about to read. Students begin the process of reading and writing in an informal setting that encourages them to relate the text with the world. These databases are known to increase a student's ability to understand the material.
Reading comprehension: The daily email prepares students for the article they are about to read. Students are encouraged to dive into the subject before reading, to build prior knowledge or to remind them what they already know before presenting new material. When the daily email is received it offers students an opportunity to obtain a text related with the world, and develop reading comprehension skills of students.
Learning through differentiation: The key to success in learning is in the use of materials that students find interesting and relevant, and with content that meets the minimum and unique level of each student.
The diversity of students in a class makes it difficult to find content that encourages all students, and it is difficult to provide it at the reading level of each student. Using items with a wide range of topics of current interest in TeenBiz3000® and KidBiz3000 ™ ensures that students find something that captures their attention and involves them. The e-mail that students receive sets the bases for a learning experience designed to help each student to maximize their potential by introducing the topic of the article to expand vocabulary and using appropriate questions for their reading level.
Writing skills: According to the report of the National Writing Commission 2003 on "Writing: The R forgotten," increasing the amount of time students spend writing is the key to improve their writing skills. The NWC2003 also states that students should be encouraged to write in an informal setting, across the curriculum, and off school routine. The range of topics in KidBiz / TeenBiz offers many opportunities for students to write after school hours.
Step 2: Read information
The e-mail, through a hyperlink, directs students to a nonfiction article properly leveled taken from current events. The article engages students through situations and real-world issues. All students will read on the same subject, but the article adjusts to each profile and reading level of each student.
The appropriate content for their age is shown, so that; in TeenBiz3000® users read about topics of interest to middle school students, while KidBiz3000 ™ users will read about topics of interest for primary students, Empower3000 ™ for high school students and Spark3000 ™ for college students and adults.
In addition, students can summarize or raise questions as they read. In this step there will be a transformation that will achieve the acquisition of knowledge, starting from passive reading to active reading.
Learning through individualization: Individualized education is the basis of why the four programs are so effective. According to Carol Ann Tomlinson, the renowned expert in this field, students learn best when the content is differentiated and based on their individual needs. Lack of time, duration of classes, and the workload of teachers, often prevent teachers away from reading the models "One Size".
Achieve3000® makes it easier for teachers to adapt lessons to match individual reading levels of students. All students in the same class read the same subject, encouraging class discussions and improving self-esteem in them.
Each article comes with its curriculum for teachers. This provides teachers, information on the key concepts – the concepts that students will see, regardless of their reading level - for each article. Helping readers to practice and develop the full range of skills in each article, we recognize that each student has an important role to play. This is an important element in supporting the needs of students' self esteem.
Reading Comprehension: Decades of research indicate that active reading strategies improve the understanding of texts in students. Archive3000 allows a continuous development of two key proven strategies: generating questions and summarizing. The strategy of generating questions stimulates the curiosity of students, activates prior knowledge and helps them pay more attention to important information. Summarizing requires students to interact with all the text so they can determine what information is important.
While doing so, the memory of the students about the text and the ability to correlate the important points increases considerably.
Both strategies are essential for the development of independent readers.
Domain Vocabulary: The vocabulary component was developed under the direction of Dr. Linda Kucan, based on the research of the National Reading Panel, which emphasizes the need to support vocabulary development by allowing students to build deep knowledge of words. According to Dr. Kucan, teaching vocabulary effectively provides multiple encounters with new words and abundant opportunities for students to use words in different ways. KidBiz and TeenBiz provide students the opportunity to develop knowledge and appreciation for the words. Everyday articles encourage reading words appropriate to their level, which are reviewed and reinforced in follow-up activities. Solutions include systematic vocabulary instruction and students are supported in their efforts to understand and create.
Extension of reading: There is an ongoing effort to help students build the basic schemes necessary to understand what they are reading, while reading passages containing "related links", links to background information or prolonged reading.
Step 3: Demonstrate mastery
After reading the article, students answer questions that oversee the understanding and mastery of the vocabulary. Questions also serve to assess the skills of higher-order thinking.
Reading comprehension, vocabulary, and skills of higher-order thinking: After years of research on literacy, reading is characterized as a dynamic cognitive process. The authors of the "Framework of Reading 2009" NAEP identified the key cognitive objectives (distinguished by type of text) as the central element for the construction of meaning:
-Locate and remember: When students locate and recall information from an article, they clearly identify the main ideas; the thesis and the details are located to be able to support their ideas.
-Integrate and interpret: The integration processes focuses on involving students to compare, contrast ideas, draw conclusions, and to search for evidence to support an argument, to distinguish fact from opinion. In the final set of reading behavior, criticism and evaluation of text, students are asked to take an objective view of the text. In this category, students are asked to evaluate the strength and quality of the evidence used to support an argument, to examine a text to see what is more important, or judge the effectiveness of a textual function. Daily activities include questions of each of the cognitive goals.
-Learning through differentiation: Carol Ann Tomlinson has described differentiation as “the adaptation of the instruction to meet the individual needs." The assessment applied on a regular and ongoing basis in the activities of multiple choice help each student be liable to the same set of rules, plus the questions will differ according to the reading level of each student.
Teachers can monitor the progress of each student according to the standards and can easily identify the strengths and weaknesses of each. Frequent ratings are also obtained, which allow the identification of specific improvement materials for the needs of each student.
Step 4: Meaning Construction
Obtain more critical students to develop cognitive skills when writing responses.
Higher-Level Thinking Skills: The question covers the daily thought to integrate and interpret, as well as the critique and evaluation of cognitive objectives of the Reading Assessment of NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), as described above. The purpose of each question is that students develop their skills in higher-order thinking, as they participate in learning beyond the requirements of daily readings. Questions to think over challenges students to expand their initial impressions, apply what they have read, state generalizations, find what is most important in a passage or to have a different perspective:
The Reading-Writing Connection: The daily use of thought improves writing skills of students, specially the organization, logic and structure of the texts. The system design is compatible with the writing process and helps students to create coherent, consistent and attractive prose texts.
Differentiation: What each student produces to demonstrate what he or she has learned in one unit is one of the essential keys to individualization.
The question of reflection gives students an opportunity to demonstrate, implement and extend what they have learned in a formal written work. The complexity of the task of writing varies in the system, as well as authors and texts of support, which extend and enhance the ability of the students.
Step 5: Creating an Opinion
Students participate in a survey about the article, so they can evaluate the information and create an opinion - The real manifestation of true reading comprehension - and share your opinions with other students.
Higher-Order Thinking Skills: The daily assessment evaluates and improves the objectives of the Critics / Cognitive Assessment of the Reading Assessment by the NAEP, as described above. The survey encourages students to develop opinions and judgments of value to make decisions on important issues. When submitting their points of view, students are encouraged to provide evidence to support their opinion.
Learning through differentiation: Leaders in differentiated instruction identified using "tasks of respect" as a central element of student participation at all levels, to ensure that readers in the full range of skills deal with the same key activities of each article, because we recognize that each student has an important role to play. This is important in supporting the needs of students' self-esteem element. The daily survey is one of those important tasks. It allows all students to share their opinions and view their response compared in a wider context with students from around the country.
