At the core of the Language Arts instruction for Engage Literacy are the Teacher’s Resource Notes. These resources provide a program and components overview as well as instructional support for each title in the Engage Literacy program. These comprehensive, easy to use teaching notes with blackline masters provide an instructional road map teachers can use to engage their students in their language and literacy development.

Instructional Design

Each Teacher’s Resource Note provides an overview of How to use Engage Literacy in your classroom. This page outlines a possible literacy block model incorporating whole class and small group instruction and lesson review and assessment.

The Teacher’s Resource Note provides two pages of Language Arts instruction for each title. The lessons are designed to provide the teacher with a content synopsis of each title including level and word count. The notes also provide teachers of all comfort levels with Guided Reading: a scaffolded instructional plan for using the Gradual Release model for instruction.

Blackline Masters for Every Title

There are 3 Blackline Masters (BLM) for each title in the Engage Literacy program. These BLMs are used for assessing skills taught in the lesson and can be used for periodic/formative assessment.

They can be used individually, in small groups, or with the whole class. Some BLMs reinforce concepts beyond the text and therefore can be used at any time. Each title’s teaching notes and BLMs comprise a range of activities that can be completed with the texts. The skills addressed are:

• Comprehension — incorporating literal or factual, inferential or interpretive, evaluative/analyzing and applied/creative comprehension within specific comprehension skill sets including: recall, sequencing, predicting, word meaning, noun/pronoun negation, tense, cloze, paraphrasing, summarizing, main idea, cause/effect, comparing/contrasting, inference, locating information, fact/opinion, figurative language, author’s intent, and scanning
• Phonological awareness/Graphophonics — initial consonant sounds, alliteration/rhyme, manipulation of sounds in words, segmenting words into sounds (analysis), onset and rime, blending, syllables, word families, contractions, compound words, suffixes/prefixes, plurals, synonyms/antonyms, tenses, and generalizations (root words, doubling last consonant)
• Vocabulary development — incorporating high frequency words and topic words
• Fluency — including phrasing
• Text conventions — features of text including font emphasis, grammatical features, and punctuation
• Writing activities — focusing on different text forms and text types, e.g. recount, report, diary, procedural, and narrative, enabling students to explore the text and complete related activities in many different contexts.

Oral Reading Record

Engage Literacy provides an Oral Reading Record for each title. This assessment tool can help show progress and can also be used as summative assessment.