Greetings! I am so excited to have Savannah from Campbell Creates Readers on the show today. Savannah discusses cumulative review and why it is a crucial component of our instruction.

Introductions:

Savannah is a k-5 reading specialist at the school she attended as a child. She calls herself a recovering balanced literacy teacher. She learned all about balanced literacy while obtaining two master’s degrees. She carried this over into the classroom until she realized that those strategies weren’t working. She began looking for a better way. She took an Orton Gillingham class and it changed the entire way she taught. When she made this shift, she began sharing it through her website Campbell Creates Readers.

Cumulative Review:

Cumulative review is simply giving children enough practice in the skills that we have taught them, so they are able to read to automaticity.

We do a great job teaching the “skills” from day to day, but what we don’t do is give them multiple opportunities to practice.
Automaticity is a precursor to reading comprehension. We have to practice these skills 4-6 weeks after we have taught them.

Lesson Plan:

How does this fit into our lesson plans?

A cumulative review should take up 50% of your lesson unless we are teaching a new skill.

What does it look like within your lesson?

Sound Deck- Visual Drill. Flash letters and sounds for previously taught skills. Ask students to provide the sounds they see. ay says /ay/. We want our students to be automatic and make connections between the sound and the symbol.
Review Reading-Give students opportunities to practice reading in connected text. Decodable folders are the perfect fix for this! They are great to send home for practice as well.
Review Spelling- Give students opportunities to practice spelling.

What are Savannah’s favorite ways to practice?