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AUSD Year 1 SIM Implementation

Summer Insitute, 2007

In the Spring of 2007, a Summer Institute was presented for approval for middle and high teachers to provide research-based instructional strategies and routines for content teachers and teachers of at-risk students to improve adolescent literacy. Over ninety teachers and administrators voluntarily signed up for the Summer Insititute. The District choose the Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) to enhance instructional practice. The Summer Institute consisted of five days of training (three days in June and two days in August) broken into two areas: Fusion Reading and Content Enhancement Routines.

The implementation objectives for the first year of SIM Implementation are:

  • Develop an understanding of adolescent literacy
  • Provide a continuum of literacy instruction at each school site of literacy instruction across the curriculum
  • Implement SIM to make the reading process more transparent and promote adolescent literacy
  • Implement a SIM mindset when approaching instruction

Adolescent Literacy

In middle and high school, students encounter academic discourses and disciplinary concepts in such fields as science, mathematics, and the social sciences that require different reading approaches from those used with more familiar forms such as literary and personal narratives. These new forms, purposes, and processing demands require that teachers show, demonstrate, and make visible to students how literacy operates within the academic disciplines.

Adolescents are already reading in multiple ways when they enter secondary classrooms, using literacy as a social and political endeavor in which they engage to make meaning and act upon their worlds. Their texts range from clothing logos to music to specialty magazines to Web sites to popular and classical literature. In the classroom it is important for teachers to recognize and value the multiple literacy resources students bring to the acquisition of school literacy.

AUSD believes SIM will be a high leverage instructional approach that will improve student learning for all students.

A Call to Action: What We Know About Adolescent Literacy and Ways to Support Teachers in Meeting Students’ Needs
Federal Support for Adolescent Literacy: A Solid Investment

Strategic Instruction Model

The University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning developed the Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) . This comprehensive instructional system encompasses revised curriculum materials that take into account different learning styles, routines teachers can use to address the needs of learners in their classrooms, and specific steps at-risk individuals can follow to improve their chances of academic success. Their overriding goal of improving the quality of education available to at-risk students has led the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning to prepare "hands-on" instructional materials and procedures for teachers. Thousands of teachers throughout the world use these products, which also have been incorporated into teacher preparation classes. Content and materials for this component of the Strategic Instruction Model are available to the public only through professional development delivered by certified professional developers.

Frequently Asked Questions about SIM
SIM and Adolescent Literacy (3.2MB ppt file)

Explicit Instruction

SIM uses a process of a graphic organizer, linking steps and Cue/Do/Review within each SIM routine/strategy to make explicit what content is being delivered and the revleance to the student.

HALO Students

SIM routines and strategies are certified by reasearch when they demonstrate increases in student achievement for ALL students. As a part of the development process for each SIM routine, teacher asked to keep an example of HALO students in mind as they assess the delivery of their content. What concepts/ideas/vocabulary inhibit ALL student from accessing the content? HALO students stands for:

H: High achieving students
A: Average performing students
L: Low achieving students
O: Other students whose personal circumstances inhibit learning

A key principle of SIM is that content is never diluted or modified in order to teach content. By selecting and preparing a SIM routine, the teacher attempts to insure the maximum access to the concepts/ideas/vocabulary necessary to master the content being delivered.

Fusion Reading

"Fusion" is defined as "...the merging, blending or resulting blend of two or more things". This simple definition exemplifies the instructional and curricular development of the Fusion Reading Program. This program is designed to focus on the integration and application of multiple reading and motivational strategies necessary to improve the reading comprehension of "struggling urban adolescent readers."

The development of the Fusion Reading Program was supported by an Institute for Educational Sciences grant titled Improving Adolescent Reading Comprehension: a Multi-Strategy Intervention. Ninth- and 10th-grade students involved in this program represent 'urban struggling readers' or those students who are below proficiency on state-administered reading measures and fall two or more years below grade level in reading comprehension. Two urban high schools in Kansas City, Kansas have partnered with KU-CRL to deliver the two-year Fusion Reading Program.

The Fusion Reading Program consists of newly developed reading interventions. These interventions have been organized into three components:

  1. The Motivation Program

    2. The Motivation Program, Possible Selves, a validated motivation intervention, is used in this program to focus students' attention on the importance of becoming an expert reader and how the benefits of being an expert reader help students reach their hopes and dreams. The program plays the role of the "pillar" for which all other instruction is supported.

  2. The Bridging Intervention Program

    3. The Bridging Intervention Program has three core components: decoding/phonics skills, reading fluency, and vocabulary. Bridging is designed to address the needs of students who struggle with word-level reading skills.

  3. The Comprehension Intervention Program

    4. The Comprehension Reading Program consists of two key strategies. The prediction strategy designed for making and confirming predictions is taught during the ninth-grade year. The second year of the program, summarization strategy is taught to increase recognition of text structures, application of paraphrasing, and summarizing.

In addition to these three intervention components, two additional components were developed to increase the amount of time students spend with their "eyes on the page." Guided reading is an instructional process teachers use to demonstrate expert reading behaviors and to forecast strategy application. Highly engaging reading materials are used during guided reading. The book study component is designed for extension and application of learned strategies and is completed outside the classroom. Students select books of their choice and liking to complete the book study assignments.

To identify students who need assistance the Lexile Framework for Reading is used as an approach in reading measurement that matches readers to text. The Lexile Framework measures both reader ability and text difficulty on the same scale, called the Lexile scale. Teachers can use the Lexile Framework to differentiate content by building Lexiled tiered resource lists an students are empowered when they practice reading strategies with text at their Lexile level.

Content Enhancement Routines

Three routines (from numerous SIM routines) that were taught for teachers working with Content Enhancement Routines were:

Course Organizer Routine for planning courses around essential learnings and critical concepts. The teacher use the routine to introduce the course and the learning rituals that will be used throughout the year. The teacher use this framework throughout the year to maintain the big ideas and rituals. A graphic organizer is used to explore critical questions, content structures, critical concepts course principles, course rituals, performance options and course standards.

Course Orgranizer Template

Unit Organizer Routine is used to plan units; introduce and maintain the big ideas in units; and show how units, critical information, and concepts are related. Research showed that when teachers used the Unit Organizer Routine, understanding and retention of information by low-achieving students with learning disabilities and average-achieving students improved substantially over baseline as reflected in unit test scores and in scores on unit content maps and explanation of these maps.

Unit Orgranizer Template

Concept Mastery Routine is used to define, summarize, and explain a major concept and where it fits within a larger body of knowledge. Research shows that secondary teachers use of the routine benefits the student in several ways: students scored significantly better on tests designed to assess concept acquisition, students scored significantly better on regularly scheduled, teacher-made or commercial unit tests.

Concept Mastery Template

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Last modified: June, 2007

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