This program was created with both teachers and students in mind. It provides whole group instruction to introduce lessons and reading skills using stories brought to life by actors, plots and keywords. Students learn critical thinking skills like making predictions and comprehending what they read. Detailed center plans are provided for weekly lessons, allowing teachers to work with small groups on skills like fluency while students explore materials to build multiple literacy skills. The goal is to foster creative writing using Story Bird, where students create their own stories using the same pictures from the big books.

1. Story Bird
K-1
University of Georgia
April 9, 2018
amyepps4@gmail.com
Amy
C.Epp
s
© 2017

2. Read2LearnInstructional Approaches:
This program was created with both teacher and student in mind. Teachers are provided with whole
group instruction to introduce lessons and reading skills. Actors, plots and keywords bring these stories
to life. Students learn to make predictions as critical thinkers, are introduced to new material and expand
their vocabulary.
Do you see what I see? is the component that addresses reading comprehension as the students learn to
picture what they are reading.
Detailed center plans are provided for each weekly lesson. Teachers are free to work in small groups with
students on fluency with the big book, which comes in picture book form for students to have to explore.
As students move through these intentional centers, it provides scaffolding for multi-discipline materials,
providing that interdisciplinary component.
The final goal is fostering creative writing using Story Bird. Story Bird provides the same pictures as used
in the big books, but students are challenged to create their own version using their new literacy skills.
2

3. Read2Learn
Target:
○ K-1
○ Emergent readers with no
prior phonics/reading
experience
○ General ed population
Teachers Need:
○ Classroom teacher and
assistant
○ Ipads or computers, big
books, picture books, chart
paper and various materials
for centers
○ Story Bird online program
○ FastBridge testing program
Program Goals:
○ Create fluent readers
○ Foster Reading Comprehension
○ Create readers that are critical
thinkers
○ Expand vocabulary
○ Foster Creative thinking and writing
○ Foster Interdisciplinary Teaching
approach
○ Promote multicultural learning
3
I

4. Read2Learn
4
As Fastbridge identifies
deficiencies monthly, the teacher
will use this information to repeat
lessons for reinforcement. Those
students will also be identified for
EIP and any other support
teacher to pull out for additional
help. Because the classroom
library includes all the previous
texts, students will be asked to
work during center time in small
group to reteach missed skills.
Ongoing
Assessment: Informal Assessment:
As a teacher works with
guided reading and writing,
informal assessments are
conducted. There is a quick
form for notation.
Homework:
The big book is sent home in
paper format. Students are
also asked to study the sight
word list.
Length of the program: 65 weeks to allow for teacher discretion

5. Informal Ongoing
Assessment for small
group instruction:
5
Name Date Spelling Concept Retention Sight
words
Fluency Notes
**The teacher will ask the students to practice spelling words based on the
context of the lesson. CVC- cat, bat, lad, mad
The teacher will also practice sight words in small group- using flashcards.

6. Big Books connect readers to writing
through Story Bird.
Let’s see what it would look like Days 1-5.
Read it, Retell it, Write it and Learn!
Each weekly lesson comes with a big book. Teachers read this
aloud to students, students explore the book with guided reading
and then students rewrite their own story. Ulma, Adam, Emily,Bad
Cat
6

7. Day 1.
Whole Group
Introduce the phonics lesson for the day. This is where
whole group instruction takes place and sharing the Big
Book as a class. Depending on the lesson topic, whole
group could look two different ways:

8. Teaching
Vowels and
Consonants
○ Emily and Eddie, Vowel E Big Book
○ Read the story to the students
○ Identify sight words from story
○ Draw a picture of Emily holding an elephant while wearing egg
earrings~keyword elephant
○ Illustrate short E and the sound it makes
○ Make a word map of the e words from the story
○ Identify the location of the actor’s home on a map
○ Use this to continue with Do you see what I see?, using the keyword
elephant
8

9. Vowel Acts
The Actors
a-Adam
e- Emily
o-Oscar
i-Izzy
u-Ulma
The Plots
Adam eats apples and
adds ants. Adam lives in
Africa.
Emily wears earrings
shaped like eggs while
holding her pet
Elephant, Eddie. Emily
lives in El Salvador.
Oscar paints ostriches in
olive during October
and lives in Oghil.
Izzy is itching the iguana
in the igloo. Izzy lives in
India.
Ulma is ultra unhappy.
Ulma lives in Uruguay.
Key Words
Apple, eggs, olives,
igloo, unhappy
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10. Teaching
Reading
○ Bad Cat, CVC Book-Teacher explains that each letter makes
its own sound. Put a paw print under each letter and tap
them for each sound. Then have students picture a cat
running- complete reading the title.
○ Introduce the story-This cat has a problem. Let’s read to find
out what the problem is.
○ Make a prediction-What do you predict about cat?
○ Read the story to the students using a big book and
pointer.Select vocabulary and have students discuss with
partners-gnat, saw/come back together and create
definitions on a wall chart
○ Create a sight word list for the week-ex. and, why, saw, was,
gnat/add to wall chart
○ Move to centers
10

11. Day 1-5, part 2.
Centers and
Guided Reading
Various pre selected activities to enhance
literacy learning, teacher led small group guided
reading, ongoing assessment using Fast Bridge

12. Center
Sampling
Story Bird-(Computer)
Fast Bridge(Computer)
Guided Reading(Teacher)
Listening-following along to an audio version of a book containing
the same topic(Ipad)
Cultural-explore the origin of each actor by viewing short videos
on the country ex Ecuador for kids(Ipad)
Science-exploring ebooks containing information based on big
book- ex elephants(Ipad)
Art-for letter sounds-using the shape of the letter to create a
word picture ex horse(Art supplies)
Book Center-free reading for books containing phonics taught
Interactive Letter Books, Alphabet Roads
CVC Flip Books, Word Cups, CVC Spinners
13

13. Day 2.
Do you see what I
see?
Using picture prompts, words, sentences and stories from the big books
students are asked to describe what they see to a neighbor using details
and answering these questions-what, where, color, shape-The group
comes back together and students are selected to share. Students go over
sight words and reread the Big Book.

14. Day 3.
Let me tell you a
story!
Bad Cat Story Board
The Story Bird center is introduced and students are asked to use the same
pictures and create their own stories. This is modeled each week for the
students. At first this may look like the same story, may need to be dictated,
may be in a different order, but as students progress, they can add to, recreate
and retell their own ideas. This can be saved and shared with parents. This
center should be manned by a paraprofessional or additional resource teacher.

15. Day 4.
Let me tell you
my story!
Using fresh ideas from Story Bird writing, students are
given blanks within the big book in whole group and
asked to input new words. Continue with sight words,
key words and centers.
Bad Cat Book 2

16. Day 5.
That’s a wrap!
This day is used for story mapping and any whole group
instruction to show illustration of keyword. Elephant
draw
Additional center time, rereading the Big Book, placing
the student books in the classroom library and sharing a
few of the students’ writings from the Story Bird Center
completes the concept/lesson.

17. “Vowels-week 1-5
Consonants-week 6-16
CVC words-week 17-18
Digraphs-week 19-23
Two letter blends-first the end then the beginning of the word-week 24-28
Three letter blends-week 29-31
Digraph blends-week 32-33
Units-34-36
Hard c, g/soft c, g-week 37-39
Long vowels-week 40-44
Silent e-week 45-46
17
The program follows traditional
phonics instruction:

18. “Compound Words 47-48
Two Syllable Words-week 49-51
Multi-syllable words-week 52-54
Doubling Rule:-week 55-56
Prefixes-week 57-60
Suffixes-week 61-63
Schwa-week 64-65
Why only 65 weeks? The program allows for teacher ongoing assessments and
reteaching for concepts that are not mastered.
18

19. See It
Retell
It
Read It
Reading2Learn
Process made
Easy
19
Learn it!

20. What research
backs our
program?
All components of
Read2Learn have been
adapted from
instructional theoretical
concepts and put into
practical use for
mainstream educators.
20
Sturtevant and Linek describe effective addolescent programs as having the following
components: Access to a variety of reading components, instruction that builds skill
and desire, and assessment that guides them(Wepner, Strickland, and Quotroche,
2014,p88).

21. Interdisciplinary
Learning
Heidi Jacobs writes, Interdisciplinary learning is one of many ways
to learn over the course of a curriculum. When educators consider
their curricular objectives and students' needs, they may choose
interdisciplinary learning to deliver part or all of the content they
will present. This method can help bring students to a new
awareness of the meaningful connections that exist among the
disciplines(Interdisciplinary Curriculum, 1989). In a world when
time is never enough for effective instruction, Read2Learn offers
Interdisciplinary learning.Read2Learn offers Interdisciplinary Learning by
scaffolding texts in science, geography, composition, spelling, reading, computer
and social studies. Not only does this allow for an Interdisciplinary Instructional
approach, it also fosters the skill and desire as noted on the previous slide.
21

22. Critical
Thinking
What is critical thinking? Critical thinking comprises a number of different skills that
help us learn to make decisions. It is the ability to evaluate information to
determine whether it is right or wrong. To think critically about an issue or a
problem means to be open-minded and consider alternative ways of looking at
solutions. As children grow into pre-adolescents and teenagers, their critical
thinking skills will help them make judgments independently of parents.
To be good at thinking, children must believe that thinking is fun and want to be
good at it. Parents can make thinking fun throughout the academic year as well as
during the summer and on vacations. Good thinkers practice thinking just like they
practice basketball or soccer(Price-Mitchell, 2011)
Read2Learn offers instruction for early development in fostering
creative and critical thinking. Our early approach allows students to
foster their own skills at a young age by simply making predictions
and giving explanations that support their ideas in large and small
group setting. As supported by Wepner, Strickland and Quatroche,
“Encourage discussions that can continue from one day to the next”().
22

23. Technology:
Reading2Learn offers many opportunities for technology implementation. Students success is tracked using
ongoing assessment through FastBridge. Ipads and computers are used to scaffold lessons for students to
open both cultural and interdisciplinary learning, using the Big Book from the lesson as the starting point.
Throughout the week, students practice writing and reading using the Story Bird program on the computer.
However, we are still a bit old fashioned and believe that one on one instruction, whole group instruction
and a hard copy are essential to literacy success. Wepner, Strickland and Quatroche also believe that while
technology is important in literacy education, limiting its use in the early grades is essential(2014,p62).
23

24. 24References
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https://m.wikihow.com/Draw-an-Elephant
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Kids.
Jacobs, Heidi (1998). Interdisciplinary Curriculm.ASD
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supervision of reading programs. New York: Teachers College Press.