30 minutes of Intervention: Are you playing the game or practicing the skills?

   When Jacob played soccer this fall, the coach practiced a few of the skills for the first 10 minutes and then they spent the next 30 minutes actually playing the game.  The first game they played, needless to say, didn't go so well.  Three year olds were all over the field, some running and some playing in the dirt, but they actually did play the game.  As the season progressed, they gained a few more skills, but each game got better and better.  If the coach had waited until all the kids had the skills to play the game, he would still be waiting!  A game would have never been played, because at 3 years old, Jacob has very minimal skills when it comes to soccer.  (Guess, Scott and I won't count on a scholarship for college:)) 
  
    Reading instruction is very similar to the analogy of a soccer game.  Kids need to practice the skills, but they need more time actually playing the game.  Simply praciticing skills, gets dull and boring, and leads to disinterested readers!   So, I would encourage you to make sure that your struggling readers are practicing their skills, but are spending more time playing the game and actually reading. 

30 minutes can go very quickly when working with a struggling reader, so it is very important to make every minute count.  

In order to make every minute count, Allington has reccomended that daily 30-minute, expert, very small group intervention should look like this:

• 20 minutes of reading appropriate new texts and rereading previously read texts
• 5 minutes of word work or phonological skills work
• 5 minutes of work on comprehension skills and strategies

He states that, "In many cases this equaled or exceeded the total volume of reading these struggling readers had done in their classroom reading lessons.  The intervention design doubled the volume of reading that these struggling readers did every day.  This doubling of reading volume was directly related to the accelerated reading growth." 

Good luck in the game!
- Liz