Foundations & Frameworks

Foundations & Frameworks is an instructional reading program that uses a collection of best instructional practices for equipping students to fully understand ideas conveyed in text.

Thinking skills are explicitly taught and modeled. Because comprehension results from the thoughtful interaction between reader and text, improving student thinking positively impacts student comprehension. When a student fails to think while he is reading, he is not truly reading. By breaking thinking down into its component steps, teaching these steps explicitly, and extensively modeling the use of these steps, teachers can equip students with the cognitive abilities needed to fully understand a text.

Time is dedicated to skill mastery. Learning to use a skill requires extensive guided and independent practice. Insufficient time devoted to learning results in insufficient learning; students must understand the structures of text and the accompanying thinking skills so that independent application and transfer of thinking skills to other areas of learning can occur. Developing such understanding, such automaticity, requires time. Foundations & Frameworks units devote adequate time and provide adequate practice for students to truly master each comprehension skill.

High quality literature is used as a natural conduit for skill instruction. Great literature captures a reader’s imagination and motivates further reading. Foundations & Frameworks uses real, complete works of children’s literature to engage students and provide adequate material for in-depth comprehension. The literature is clustered according to readability and is used for comprehension skill instruction. For example, a book with cliff-hanging events may be used to teach and practice understanding plot, whereas a book with great character development may be used to study and practice character or comparison/contrast. Fifteen years of researching quality literature preceded the selection of Foundations & Frameworks titles.

Small group interaction is a daily practice. Small groups enable teachers to know their students and adjust instruction to meet the needs of individuals. Small groups also provide an opportunity for students to further develop their understanding of text through thoughtful discussion with the teacher and with others reading the same text. The small group structure also gives teachers the flexibility to group students for re-teaching, reviewing, or for providing additional, individualized, guided practice. While small group sessions take place, other students in the classroom prepare for their small group session by reading, adding entries to SPECS Logs, and completing practice with vocabulary words. SPECS Logs (SPace for Extending Comprehension Skills) are specially designed notebooks that foster student comprehension of text by providing space for the development of visual tools.

Visual tools are used to organize and represent patterns of thinking. Visual tools are graphic tools used to organize and connect information from a text. Because they represent the thinking process that has been explicitly taught and modeled, visual tools foster the thinking necessary to comprehend a text. With an associated visual tool for each skill, Foundations & Frameworks equips students to think effectively in reading  and in every other area of learning. For example, a flow chart used in the study of sequence of events provides an image of the process; sequence looks like a chain of boxes arranged in order. This understanding helps students understand the sequence of history, the sequence of the scientific process, the sequence of steps involved in long division, the sequence of throwing a ball correctly, and much more content in every area.

Vocabulary instruction emphasizes complete word understanding. Vocabulary instruction must emphasize complete word understanding to be effective. Definitional, contextual, and conceptual word understanding leads to ownership, allowing the student to not only comprehend new words, but to use them effectively in speaking and writing. Foundations & Frameworks emphasizes all three areas of word understanding through individual, small group, and whole class instruction and activities. Frequent feedback from teachers enables students to refine their understanding of words and promotes intentional and accurate word usage.

Phonemic awareness and phonics instruction is explicit and systematic. Comprehension begins with accuracy and fluency in word identification. Phonemic awareness, the foundational understanding that words are formed from blended sounds, is an essential precursor to phonics instruction. Phonics is best taught through multi-modal methods that incorporate listening, reading, spelling, and handwriting in explicit and systematic instruction of sound-spelling relationships. This is immediately followed by opportunities to practice decoding words in isolation and connected text. Foundations & Frameworks emphasizes both of these areas of word knowledge, getting students off to a successful start in both word recognition and comprehension.

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