Words Worth Reading: A Blueprint For Struggling Readers

Learning to read can be a difficult task for students in the primary grades. Dedicated educators are always searching for innovative ways to assist students to reach their maximum learning potential. It is important for educators to collaborate and find ways to improve reading through creativity and innovation so that they can reach all students to prepare them to compete in the workforce and become successful and productive citizens. Having a sense of urgency to improve student performance in the area of reading, two administrators created an instructional tool called, The Instant Word Notebook. Afterwards, they proceeded to conducted a program evaluation to analyze the instructional process and academic outcomes. A triangulation design consisting of two methodologies and one instrument were used to measure the fidelity of implementation. The Instant Word Notebook has great potential in closing the achievement gap for students as well as providing teaching strategies to educators. The findings of this study provide encouraging results that The Instant Word Notebook can be a catalyst for increased word knowledge for students in the first and second grade.