Early School Success

Early Success is a research-based reading intervention program made by Houghton Mifflin which correlates with Medford’s universal instruction by Houghton Mifflin. The daily lessons for Early Success are patterned after a three-step model: rereading for fluency, reading a new book, and working with words and sentences. The lesson begins with rereading known books to develop fluency. This includes oral reading checks and individualized coaching. Students may read individually or with partners, and the teacher provides additional support with self-monitoring strategies.

The next part of the lesson is devoted to the reading of new books, with 2 readings per day. On days 1-3, Book A is read. The first reading is a read aloud by the teacher with students following along as the teacher tracks print and models think aloud strategies for decoding. This is followed by Shared Reading where the teacher again reads aloud and the students join in, as they are able. The teacher Read Aloud is gradually faded and replaced by Shared Reading and then Choral Reading. On other days, there is Partner Reading and Individual (coached) Reading. The teacher’s manual gives explicit wording for modeling the decoding think-aloud strategy.

The final part of each day’s lesson includes word work with phonemic awareness and phonics activities, high frequency words and word walls, and writing sentences. One particular activity is chosen for each day. Days 1 and 4 of this part of the lesson are devoted to phonemic awareness and phonics activities; days 2 and 5 are guided sentence writing in which the teacher helps students write for sounds; and Day 3 is work with high frequency words. The phonemic awareness activities during the first 3 weeks of Level 1 involve segmenting and blending of onset and rime and individual phonemes. During week 4, sound box activities are incorporated into days 1 and 4 to help develop phonemic awareness and the one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds. Segmenting and blending along with phoneme manipulation provide work with target phonic elements.

Early Success is a reading intervention program for students in grades 1and 2 who need extra support to become proficient, grade-level readers. Early School Success is an adaptation of Early Success for kindergarten students.

Early School Success and Early Success uses a small group model (5-7 students) that provides 30 minutes of daily instruction/ 5 days a week that is in addition to the core reading/language arts program.