Reading Boot Camp

Reading Intervention Overview

Reading Boot Camp is a free open-source reading Intervention program designed to turn around an entire school in just 20 days! Reading Boot Camp uses the Finnish model of cooperative learning structures, collaborative teaching, enrichment, and active student learning! Teaching every child in your school to read and reason in twenty days is not only radical but saves tens of thousands in program cost. Turning the reading establishment on its head and saving a lost at-risk generation is a radical idea. Spending education budgets on great literature for students, instead of reading software, basal readers, reading intervention programs, and teacher in-service training is a radical idea. Insuring that all students have a real future is just a pipe dream if we stay on this path of chasing reading rainbows. Teaching twelve years in high-poverty schools, with over 95% of the students at risk, has taught me we have lost our way and the establishment is broken. We buy into every program that comes down the pike promising success, yet here we are failing our most needy students. Putting great literature, poetry, games and books in children’s hands is the foundation of Reading Boot Camp, not predigested workbooks, endless teacher-made photo copies, and needless made busy work. Reading Boot Camp is back to basics with a common sense sledge hammer to the outsider. Students find it rewarding and fantastic!

Students don't come with academic deficits they come with instructional deficits!  

Why is Reading Boot Camp 20 Days?
Students that are failing to read or struggle to read, start shutting down and dropping out of school mentally as early as 1st grade. Reading Boot Camp shakes things up in a fast paced, novel way that is fun for all students. Reading Boot Camp uses fun summer camp ideas that create an atmosphere of cooperation learning and team building. The learning structures or camp activities are designed to replace bad academic habits with positive academic habits. The fun, intense and rigorous cooperative learning structures used in the program are designed to maximize learning, academic listening and speaking, reduce behavior problems, and replaces poor academic habits with positive achievement. The kids have fun playing games, competing, exploring ideas, collaborating and truly having a camp experience while learning to be amazing readers. Children thrive in the positive learning environment that is created, and after 20 days the positive behaviors are habit. Students learn to build social emotional intelligence, positive interdependence and amazing academic achievement in a unique way that is reproducible in any classroom.

If you want at-risk students to succeed you need to teach them critical thinking! 

Reading/ELA Success Taxonomy Making Literacy Accessible for ALL!
Academic Dialogue "Listening and Speaking" (Developing Socratic Inquiry)	·         Model the use of Bloom's and Webb's DOK question STEMS  ·         Students focus on academic dialogue and inquiry with partners ·         Model Socratic Inquiry "higher order inquiry with think-alouds  ·         Play strategic board games with Socratic Inquiry modeled
Sustained Engagement with Rigorous ELA Curriculum (Reading Quality Literature)	·         Read genuine quality literature daily!  ·         Repeated exposure to tier 1, 2 and 3 vocabulary concepts  ·         Examine reading structures and comprehension strategies "close reading" with genuine literature ·         Repeat all declarative lessons!
Social Emotional Intelligence Development (Developing Presence of Mind and Cooperative Learning Structures and Strategies)	·         Use cooperative learning structures and strategies daily  ·         Model and Role Play  Social Emotional Intelligence and active communication
Critical, Strategic, Inquiry and Higher Order Thinking and Mind Development	·         Play, Play, Play, PLAY! | Learn Lyrics, Learn Dance Moves, Play Board Games, Create and Imagine,  Then Create and Imagine some MORE!  ·         Use complex games and learning simulations to develop Socratic inquiry ·         Model Critical, Strategic, and Higher Order thinking with think-alouds

Sample Schedule of a Reading Boot Camp DAY!  

A thought on READING!

• 107 words make up over 50% of the words you read, speak and hear!
• 1000 words make up 75-80% of the words you read, speak and hear!
• 2,000 words make up 80-90% of the words you read, speak and hear!

Purposes 1) Launch students into the rigorous and intensive reading and writing program that is taught throughout the year: 2) Accelerate the closure of the academic achievement gap in lowest quartile students; and 3) Teach the students cooperative learning structures, social emotional intelligence, school etiquette, classroom manners, academic listening and speaking skills, critical and strategic thinking, respect, responsibility and rebuild a love of learning and reading ...

Reading Boot Camp is a teaching philosophy that uses collaborative teaching, cooperative learning structures, active student learning, and teacher made curriculum that has many levels, structures, and strategies designed to meet the needs of individual children and classrooms.

Why implement Reading Boot Camp? The genuine answer is kids love having fun, playing games, feeling smart, learning and yes reading! The administrative answer is, 95% of all students that attend Reading Boot Camp make over a years growth in reading. 90% of all students including NES, ESL, and special education students pass state reading test in some of the poorest Title I schools! Reading Boot Camp uses a the same Education model that is used in Finland with amazingly the same results! 

Reading Boot Camp is exciting, rewarding, enriching and fun for ALL students! Teachers can pick up the modified Kagan cooperative learning structures and other literacy strategies with ease. The routines, pacing, structures, strategies are very important to maximize the learning, and to a lesser extent the curriculum! The cooperative learning structures, enrichment, brain breaks are critical to maximizing student’s fast acquisition of language and test performance! 95% passing rates in schools is very common for all RBC graduates! Teachers have to believe in their students, students will rise to the occasion. Playing board games, singing songs, telling jokes, musical brain breaks, and other fun diversions every hour is a very important aspect of RBC success; teachers must buy into the less is more!


All Curriculum Materials Are Shared Openly With Other Teachers ! Sean

Fun Word Work Games!

RBC Core Academic Content
1. Cooperative Learning Structures
2. Fluency Drills
3. Reading Quality Literature
4. Learning Lyrics
5. Tier 2 and 3 Vocabulary games
6. Word Work | Word Study
7. Close Reading
8. Developing Quality Writing Strategies
9. Academic Listening and Speaking 
RBC Core Social Emotional Intelligence Content and Critical and Strategic Thinking
1. Energizing Brain Breaks
2. Teaching Social and Emotional Intelligence
3. Repeat all declarative lessons!
4. Use the 75/25 rule 75% Academic/25% Enrichment
5. Classic Strategy Board Games with a Twist





All of the teaching materials that I have created are free online, other essential materials are traditional classroom libraries. Reading Boot Camp uses a Finnish Model of education, meaning teachers make the curriculum and share!

Reading Boot Camp is a sure fire way to rev-up reading in your classroom.  RBC has no magical remedy, just uses consistent teaching practices, significant time on task~reading with student accountability, coupled with high interest reading, student motivation and effort.  Students who participated in Reading Boot Camp the summer of 2011 at Wilson K-8 and then for three weeks as the 2011 school year began, enjoyed the routines of daily singing to music with lyrics, poetry readings, word work drills, reading fluency drills, student choice in reading, academic word games, and motivational brain breaks which translated to student success. Does Reading Boot Camp work, YES!  Students grow in their reading ability, are motivated to read, recite, and sing to lyrics, while reading which equals a high level of student engagement and more time on task reading!” Cindy Senn, Wilson k-8 Reading Specialist/Teacher

TEACHING STUDENTS TO NEVER GIVE UP!

The Reason Reading Boot Camp Is Successful!

1. Language and reading is a function of auditory learning, students learn 6 times faster when listening, reading orally, and speaking. Language and vocabulary are mastered with repetition and modeling. When a reading teacher relies too heavily on individual student silent reading and silent writing activities, the speed of auditory learning is lost. By finding cooperative, creative and effective ways to provide more listening, oral reading, and speaking activities, you can give all learners in your reading class an accelerated chance to develop their literacy skills. During all Reading Boot Camp literacy activities the students are ether reading text or listening to text being modeled the within a cooperative learning or team structure. The repetition of seeing, hearing, and speaking vocabulary daily in fun and novel ways builds pathways exponentially, the further you get into the program the greater the automaticity. By day twenty, the brain pathways are automatic, automaticity has been achieved, the kids had fun learning the 800-2350 most used words and are ready to use them.


2. Reading Boot Camp is just that, camp, with camp counselors (teacher) providing highly focused fast, rigorous, cooperative, enriching, active, challenging, and fun, and yes reading activities all day long.

3. Students as teachers, using cooperative learning structures or peer partners for 90% of the activities builds accountability for the teams, and creates personal and interdependent learning that fosters greater success faster. Students are trained to work as cooperative learners, sages, bosses, scribes, secretaries, praisers, and teachers with the ability to run all Reading Boot Camp cooperative learning structures and activities with little assistance from the teacher. Students know all expected learning outcomes and work to meet individual goals and team goals. Students as teachers multiplies the effectiveness of on task behavior and helps student monitor individual progress and partners progress (Force Multiplier).

4. The 2000 most used English words (Tier 1 Words), Tier 2 and 3 academic words, and the Dolch sight words are modeled, read, written, acted, recited, or spoken 20-60 times per day during Reading Boot Camp. Students are exposed to 10,000-20,000 new vocabulary words during the course of reading a vast collection of literature that includes poems, plays, fairy tales, parables, fables, jokes, short stories and chapter books. Students build a fast auditory knowledge of the English language using simple yet fun enrichment activates. Teaching idioms, cognates, definitions, academic vocabulary, and any kind of words in a boring format will kill the learning and desired retention of any concept. Students interact with all the vocabulary in a fun nonthreatening way in the form of games or cooperative learning word work.

5. All Reading Boot Camp activities are Brain Based to enhance working memory, executive function and long term memory of materials.

Student PLAY fun strategic board games and verbal thinking games daily to help build "Socratic Inquiry Skills"!

Students make explosive reading growth!  

Reading Boot Camp Results 2011-2012 school year!

This year’s 4^th grade class started with 31 students, 95% qualifying for free and reduced lunch, 12 ELL/ESL students, one (NES) Non English Speakers, and 5 students on IEPs or 504s. 7 of the 31 students are reading at a proficient level according to the NWEA MAP tests. The class reading mean is 191.76(2^nd grade reading level)  

Reading Boot Camp Results: Seven new students are now reading at grade level after 20 days! 90% of Students made one year growth in reading based on NWEA Map results. The class mean before Reading Boot Camp was 191.76 RIT post RBC was 200.19, 20 days! The expected summer growth according to NWEA MAP norms is 1.8 and the actual class growth was 8.48. (Students in our district do not make summer expected growth gains. End of Year Results: The end of the year MEAN 208.1! 2012

Reading Boot Camp Results 2010 37% started the year reading at grade level now 74% are reading at grade level in 25 days! Reading Boot Camp Results 9/2009 A Jump of 40 percentile points in Reading in 20 Days! 27% on Day ONE, 73% on Day Twenty!

Reading Program Effectiveness: 20 Days!

Eight new students are now reading at grade level after 29 days! 85% of  students made more that one year growth in reading. The mean for students  not participating in Reading Boot Camp is 194.3 RIT for 4th grade, students  participating in Reading Boot Camp the mean is 205.4. Four schools and many more classrooms are participating in RBC this year! Four classrooms are participating at our school and all show statistically significant gains in reading fluency and comprehension! 8/2010  

KEEP STUDENTS BUSY WITH FAST PACED LITERACY ACTIVITIES ALL DAY!

Reading Boot Camp! Make it FUN!

The schedule is not set in stone! Fluency Drills, Sight Word Drills, Singing, Exercising, Emotional Intelligence Lessons, Literacy Games, Board Games, Academic Vocabulary Games, Poetry Readings, Book Clubs, Authors Circles, Jokes, Riddles, Plays, and Tons of Reading Fun!

The only rules for Reading Boot Camp:

1. Every half hour take a brain and or a movement break!
2. Sing lots of songs
3.  Uses Cooperative Learning Structures as much as possible
4. Repeat all declarative lessons (Ex. Vocabulary Tier 1, 2, and 3) within two hours to maximize long term memory of materials
5. Keep it fun
6. Play games to teach critical and strategic thinking
7. Be creative
8. Skip the published basal readers and computer reading software

READING BOOT CAMP PUTS THE PLAY and ARTS BACK IN LANGUAGE ARTS! 

Sustained Engagement with Rigorous ELA Curriculum

Sample Academic Reading Words for the 4th Grade Reading

alliteration, assumption, characteristics, chronological, conflict, debate, exaggeration, exposition, falling action, flashback, headline, instruction, irony, literary device, literary element, memo memorandum, narrator, parable, persuasive, primary source, pun, quote, reference, research paper, scene, secondary source, speech, tale, thesis paper, word play

Differentiated Vocabulary Words Work  

Sample from Primary Speller 

Week 1	1st Grade Comprehensive English Vocabulary Tier 1, 2 & 3
MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY
the	I	it	had	at
of	that	with	you	her
and	was	is	not	by
to	he	for	be	which
in	his	as	on	have

Week 1	2nd Grade Comprehensive English Vocabulary Tier 1, 2 & 3
down		never	those	way	long
good		where	come	without	being
men		old	shall	life	well
own		day	himself	make	through
most		work	came	go	might

Week 1	3rd Grade Comprehensive English Vocabulary Tier 1, 2 & 3
rise	built	middle	rate	provided
sake	touch	promise	looked	pale
spot	courage	sky	lower	higher
winter	board	complete	distribute	loss
breath	official	physical	instance	offer

Comprehensive Academic Vocabulary Tier 3

Reading	Language Arts	Math	Science	Social Studies
Author	Punctuation	Add	degree	America
Plot	Noun	Shorter	balance	citizen
Setting	Sentence	Pattern	environment	community
Characters	Rhyme	Taller	shelter	country
Atlas	Pronoun	Smaller	thermometer	governor
Paragraph	Abbreviation	Subtract	light	president
Comprehensive Academic Vocabulary Tier 2             Blooms Taxonomy Vocabulary
Category	Tell	Read	Match	Compare
Create	Make	Describe	Predict	Discuss
Sort	Show	Sequence	Question	Answer

3^rd Grade Comprehensive English Vocabulary   Tier 1

MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY
rise	spot	looks	classic	instance
courage	servant	marked	meaning	promise
special	running	touch	complete	spread
wonderful	serious	marked	foreign	marked
physical	engaged	movement	darkness	vast
degree	distribute	obliged	expect	example
importance	advantage	provided	proved	request

4^th Grade Comprehensive English Vocabulary Tier 1

wondered	mystery	suggestion	disease	suspicion
punishment	blessed	regret	troubled	attend
afford	Governor	pushed	commercial	delay
frightened	belonged	electronically	reign	related
reputation	formerly	replacement	indicate	violence
consciousness	possess	melancholy	eternal	pause
proceed	philosophy	appeal	stepped	fierce

5^th Grade Comprehensive English Vocabulary   Tier 1

gracious	opportunities	ridiculous	reckon	agony
tragedy	indicated	model	proceedings	ventured
submit	reserve	proposition	satisfactory	alteration
petite	emotions	mutual	convey	stout
pretext	disclaimers	inevitable	extensive	assume
compressed	unconscious	correspondence	exquisite	jealousy
disappointment	indifference	engagement	criticism	motives

Comprehensive Academic Vocabulary Tier 3

Reading	Language Arts	Math	Science	Social Studies
adage	adjective	addend	germination	abolitionist
allusion	simile	product	gravity	alliance
archetype	hyperbole	divisor	friction	capitalism
analogy	personification	denominator	erosion	federal
argument	stanza	polygon	environment	state
Academic Vocabulary Tier 2  Blooms Taxonomy Vocabulary
evaluate	debate	conclude	justify	select
predict	acknowledge	prove	prioritize	appraise
summarize	review	evaluate	assess	propose

Activities List: 

Phonemic Awareness (songs & lyrics for older students)and Fluency Activities : 8 times per day Music and Lyrics, 4-8 times per day Fluency Drills, 2-4 times per day Vocabulary Word List Drills (we make actually make this fun), and 2 times per day Poetry, Riddles, Jokes and Rhymes.  

Observe students day one, the students that avoid singing songs will make little gains without more intervention! All Activities are peer to peer!

Reading Vocabulary and Academic Vocabulary Activities: 4 times per day Vocabulary Sparkle, 4 time per day Vocabulary Board Games, 4-8 times per day vocabulary activities (COP CARS), 2-4 times per day Vocabulary Word List Drills, Vocabulary Pig Game, and student developed vocabulary activities! All Activities are peer to peer! (Cooperative Learning Structures)

Reading Comprehension Activities: 2 times per day Reading and Rereading Chapter Books, 2 times per day Story Maps and Journaling, Comprehension Sparkle, 2 times per week Endurance Reading, 2 times per day only starting on the 4th week Multiple Choice Reading Comprehension Test. All Activities are peer to peer! The Students and teacher all read the same books!
  

YES! STUDENTS SPEND 20 FULL DAYS BUILDING LITERACY! 
Sample  Daily Schedule  

Reading Vocabulary Word Walls

Academic Vocabulary Word Walls

Academic Vocabulary By Grade

Vocabulary Flash Cards

Open Source Speller 

Open Source Reader Poetry Reading Buddy Reading Music and Lyrics Chapter Books Whiteboard E-books and Librivox Audio Books Fluency Drills Comprehension Building Games American Juku

Alphabetics
Recitation
Peer Tutoring  Cooperative Learning Structures
Fireside Book Club
Reading Masters By Grade Competition
 Reading Journals

Vocabulary Reading Game Cards

Vocabulary Game Cards 1st  
Vocabulary Game Cards 1st B 
 Vocabulary Game Cards 2nd  
 Vocabulary Game Cards 3rd B

Vocabulary Game Cards 3rd  
Vocabulary Game Cards 4th  
Vocabulary Game Cards 4th B  
Vocabulary Game Cards 5th

Vocabulary Game Cards 5th B

Math Vocabulary Game Cards   
Vocabulary Game Cards1st   
Vocabulary Game Cards 2nd  
 Vocabulary Game Cards 3rd  
Vocabulary Game Cards 4th  
Vocabulary Game Cards 5th 

Administrators have asked why is Reading Book Camp successful? How do you take a class that is reading at the 20^th or 30^th percentile and move them to the 70^th or 80^th percentile in 20 days? My answers!

MOTIVATING AND INSPIRING STUDENTS!

80-90% of Reading Boot Camp activities use partners.

80-90% of Reading Boot Camp activities are done to maximize auditory learning.

100% of Reading Boot Camp activities are literacy based.

80-90% of Reading Boot Camp activities are 5-15 minutes in length.

Please let me know if you would like to participate in  Reading Boot Camp Training! Sean Taylor M. Ed

 

Students growth 300% over expected in reading, (NWEA MAP), Boot Camp ran longer than normal, twenty five days because I had more students on IEPs and English Language Learners than last year and the behavior was far from ready for instruction. The class  is now 74% at or above the mean in reading in all domains, and 87% of students are

reading at grade level in the domain of reading comprehension (NWEA MAP)! 

Sing Songs and Sing More Songs ! Get Up and Move Hourly !