Take a moment to reflect on your own practice with regard to teaching the SIPPS (Systematic Instruction in Phonological Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words) program and consider your own learning goals.
Think about your SIPPS instruction:
Reconnect with your SIPPS program materials before starting instruction.
Introduction of your SIPPS Teacher’s Manual:
Appendices of your SIPPS Teacher’s Manual:
Get familiar with navigating the Learning Portal to support your instruction.
The TLS (Professional Learning/Implementation tab) provides just-in-time, ongoing professional learning opportunities directly to teachers of SIPPS.
A notification will alert you when a new learning opportunity posts in the TLS.
The following is guidance across the SIPPS levels to support your preparation for instruction.
Continuous Blending for Phonological Awareness and Decodable Words. In continuous blending, words are “sounded out” with no stopping or pausing between sounds. For example, in sounding out the word am, hold the sound /a/ for 2 seconds because it is continuous, and then say the sound /m/ without any break between the two sounds.
To learn more, see Lesson 1A on page 7 of the Beginning Level Teacher’s Manual and read the blog, “What is continuous blending, and why is it important?”
Beginning Level Story Poster. The purpose of the Beginning Level story poster is to allow you to guide the students in choral reading, which provides necessary practice.
For more information, see Appendix A: Routines on pages 490–494 of the Beginning Level Teacher’s Manual and read the blog, “SIPPS Beginning Level Reading: The Story Poster.”
Extension Level Review Lessons. The 15 review lessons are a valuable beginning-of-year resource to help solidify short vowels and consonant digraphs.
For Older Students! Plus Level is strategically designed to support our older students in grades 4-12 who require intervention at the decoding level. The structure of Plus Level was designed to respectfully consider the older reader through the scope and sequence (accelerative combination of Beginning and Extension) and the materials, including Dreams on Wheels.
Basic Concepts Lessons. Lessons 1–4 in the Challenge Level develop or strengthen the basic concepts students need to apply syllabication strategies. Consider your pacing of these lessons at the beginning of the school year and tab the lessons to easily locate them if you need to reteach later in the school year.
To learn more, read the blog “SIPPS Tip #12: Basic Concepts to Support Challenge Level Instruction.”
Beginning, Extension, and Plus. Reading the texts associated with Beginning, Extension, and Plus provides the opportunity for students to apply their foundational skills and for teachers to verify their instruction.
To learn more, read the blog “SIPPS Verification of Instruction: Are My Students Learning?”
In Collaborative Literacy, Tier 1 foundational skills instruction is provided during Being a Reader Small-group Reading Sets 1–5 and grade 2 Word Study. Tier 2 foundational skills intervention instruction is provided through SIPPS.
To learn more about the connectivity across tiers, read the document, “RTI/MTSS Guidance for Reading Instruction in Collaborative Literacy” (Professional Learning/Implementation tab).
Intensive Multisensory Instruction for SIPPS is an additional component of the SIPPS program that includes expanded routines for phonological awareness, phonics, and sight words, and guided spelling. The handbook suggests enhancements to the standard SIPPS routines that can be used with students with dyslexia or other significant challenges in learning to read. In the handbook, teachers will find ideas to strengthen the connections among the students’ visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile learning modes.
To learn more about this component, read the blog, “Introducing Intensive Multisensory Instruction for SIPPS.”