Teaching with Into Reading?

If you're  new to this program... here are some resources to help you make  your way through.

First of all, it is important to acknowledge that this program has been rated as culturally destructive by an NYU study (read more here) so please, approach is through the lens of critical literacy.

If you are a district leader and/or in a school or district that allows teachers to apply their expertise and adjust here is my advice.
  • The Scope and Sequence for Reading is decent. The spiral is fine. In my opinion, in 4th grade, the spiral never actually increases in rigor. Some of the units at the end of the program are weak and lack rigor.
  • The Stories themselves ebb and flow from engaging to boring. Some are blatantly culturally destructive and should be replaced (the 5th grade Westward Expansion Unit is a prime example) There needs to be room to supplement with more knowledge building. I would not recommend reading every story multiple times as described in the TE and slides. Instead, I would pick the key skills and focus on that.
  • The Anchor Charts are cute, but often leave out critical information on the skill or standard and sometimes include irrelevent information.
  • The Foundational Skills and Vocabulary is not grounded in science of reading. If there is room, I recommend replacing it with something stronger (Morpheme Magic, for example) I personally would replace the spelling and focus on units that incorporate learning of grade level morphology (greek and latin roots) and are grounded in both meaning and spelling. 
  • The end of story and end of unit Writing Prompts/Reading Analysis Prompts are good and encourage deep thinking of texts if the goal is to prepare for state tests. There isn't enough explicit instruction with these and, attempting to do them all becomes overwhelming for teachers and students. I recommend using heavy scaffolds in the beginning of the year and then slowly (or quickly depending on need) pulling them away as students work towards quickly and independently answering such prompts. Again, if the main goal is merely tests prep... these prompts are fantastic.
  • The Writing portion is, to be blunt, awful. There is a lot of room for improvement here and districts should be creative with allowing teachers (or a team on the district) to create writing units that are more explicit, more relevant, and tied to content.
  • The Assessments included in the program are often not aligned to learning, give non examples, and are often far above or below grade level lexile levels. It would be poor practice to advise teachers to use all assessments.



This  resource  is a decent  place to start if you are looking for workable 4th grade student facing slides. I do not know who to give credit to for creating this document. I found it on a facebook page- there are many,  many versions of it. I love the blooket links! The slide links are connected to an earlier version and  often   do not align to the current version but... are still more useful than the program created slides.

Here are some free, supplemental resources specifically for areas that Into Reading is lacking.:
Morphology - The Syntax Project
Spelling/Phonics - UFLI (Free grades K-3)
Common Lit (Free grades 3-12) Great resource for teachers, schools and districts to turn to when needing to replace texts that do not live up to rigor needs and/or are culturally destructive.
Scaffolded Essay Frames - Ensure your students can answer those beginning of the year performance tasks!

Everything I share is is copyright protected. Please, do not share or resell these materials.
Okay, as I begin to prepare for next year, I am just going to go through and gather my thoughts in blog form. The Tips link will lead you to a page specific to that module with ideas on improvements and things to watch out for.
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Module 1
  • Tips 
  • Performance Task Essay Frame  (Free!)
  • Writing (Free - Modified from other slides created by other teachers - very tightly aligned to Into Reading's Writing program. Will need heavy editing to align with structured writing instruction)

Module 2  
Module 3 
  • Tips
  • Performance Task Essay Frame - (Free! Slow release of scaffolding to encourage more independence)
  • Writing (We extended Module two into this and started Module 4 early.)

Module 4 
  • Tips
  • Writing (Paid Resource - modified to include direct instruction)




Some of these resources are free, during an unprecedented teacher shortage, I am hoping to help as many  teachers as I can maintain their sanity and stay in this beautiful/crazy profession. Say thanks by buying your teammate some coffee- or, if  you feel inclined, purchase something from my TpT Store to support my work!