ABL Reading (Acadia Bright Learning)

• Overview
• Project Purpose
• Reading Overview
• Elements of Reading
• Reading Progression
• Conventional Grade Level Focus
• Kindergarten
• First Grade
• Second Grade
• Third Grade
• Fourth Grade
• Fifth Grade
• Sixth grade
• Seventh grade
• Eighth Grade
• New Passage Preparation Module
• Passage Intake
• New Passage Module
• Passage Formatting and Ordering Module
• Voice Recognition Module
• RS: Passage Reading (Blending Assist) Module
• Inputs for Student Ready Reading Passage Module
• RS: Passage Reading (Word ID support) Module
• RF: Sound Symbol (BlueTone) Module
• RF: Blending Skills Module
• VO: Word Meaning Module
• GM: Sentence Unscramble Module
• ABL Reading Terminology
• Definition of Terms
• Student Analytics

Overview

Project Purpose

ABL Reading aims solve the most significant unmet need in reading instruction - teaching all students to read English fluently with understanding. Given the complexity of the English orthography, too many students fail to acquire the foundational skills necessary for fluent reading, and consequently are not exposed to the rich, complex texts needed to develop proficient reading. 

 

Reading Overview

Elements of Reading

Decoding Words

• Phonemes
• BlueTones
• Blending Phonemes to say a Word
• Decoding Multisyllable Words

Sentences

• Sentence Conventions and Punctuation
• Grammar (Nouns, Verbs Adjectives, Adverbs, Pronouns, Interjections
  
• Plural / singular
• Tense agreement
•  Phrases
  • Prepositional (Where, When, Who, How)
  • Idioms
• Clauses and Conjunctions
•  Types
  • Information
  • Questions / Answers
  • Commands
  • Dialogue
  • Reasoning
  • Facts and Opinions

Prosody

• Articulation
• Utterance (question, statement, command)
• Rhyme
• Alliteration
• Meter
• Emotional content
• Stress
• Intonation
• Pause
• Chunking
• Repetition

 

 

Reading Progression

Decoding

• Recognizing BlueTones
  • Latency time
  • Articulation
• Blending Sounds to form a Word
• Decoding Multisyllable Words
• Automatic Recognition (Auto)
  

Words

• Articulation
• Word Exposure
  • Total Words Read
  • Total Unique Words Read
• Automatic Recognition (Auto)
  • Latency time
    

Language

• Word meaning
• Relationships between Words
  • Word Context Categories
    • Context Low (L)
      • Animals, foods, clothing, furniture, vehicles, actions, locations, plants, colors, shapes, toys, Letter Names, Number names, Family names
    • Context Medium (M)
      • Feelings, descriptions, time, pronouns, activities, Specific Names, dialogue, directions
    • Context High (H)
      • Articles / determiners, logical, transitions, prepositions, relationships, abbreviations, contractsion
    • Domain Specific (D)
• Dictation and recall
• Prosody
  • Articulation, Utterance, Rhyme, Alliteration, Meter, Emotional content, Stress, Intonation, Pause, Chunking, Repetition
• Sentences
  • Information
  • Questions / Answers
  • Commands
  • Dialogue
  • Reasoning
    • Not, And, Or, Sequence, Categories and Groups, If then
  • Facts and Opinions
    • Preferences, Facts, Certainty levels, Constraints, Assumptions (series of facts), Arguments

Conventional Grade Level Focus

Kindergarten 

Reading foundations

1. Letter Identification
2. Lowercase and uppercase letters
3. Word recognition
4. Consonants and vowels
5. Beginning and ending sounds
6. Letter-sound associations
7. Consonant blends and digraphs
8. Short vowel sounds
9. Long vowel sounds
10. Sight words

Reading strategies

1. Text features
2. Reality vs fiction
3. Main idea
4. Inference and analysis
5. Setting and Character
6. Sequence
7. Point of view
8. Read-along literary texts
9. Read-alone literary texts
10. Read-along informational texts
11. Read-alone informational texts

Vocabulary

1. Color and number words
2. Adjectives and verbs
3. Location words
4. Question words
5. Synonyms and antonyms
6. Categories
7. Multiple meaning words

Grammar and mechanics

1. Sentences
2. Capitalization
3. Nouns
4. Verbs

First Grade

Reading foundations

1. Consonants and vowels
2. Syllables (2-syllable)
3. Rhyming
4. Phoneme blending, segmenting and substitution
5. Consonant sounds and letters
6. Consonant blends and digraphs
7. Short vowels
8. Long vowels
9. Silent e
10. Vowel teams
11. Sight words

Reading strategies

1. Reality vs fiction
2. Main idea
3. Sequence
4. Point of view
5. Inference and analysis
6. Setting and character
7. Text features
8. Read-along literary texts
9. Read-alone literary texts
10. Read-along informational texts
11. Read-alone informational texts

Vocabulary

1. Nouns and adjectives
2. Categories
3. Synonyms and antonyms
4. Multiple meaning words
5. Shades of meaning
6. Prefixes and suffixes
7. Context clues
8. Reference skills (ABC order)

Grammar and mechanics

1. Sentences
2. Nouns
3. Pronouns
4. Verbs
5. Subject verb agreement
6. Verb tense
7. Articles
8. Adjectives
9. Prepositions
10. Linking words
11. Contractions
12. Capitalization

Second grade

Reading foundations

1. Syllables (2-syllable)
2. Rhyming
3. Consonant blends and digraphs
4. Short vowels
5. Long vowels (including silent e)
6. Vowel teams
7. Soft g and c
8. The letter group "le"
9. Sight words

Reading strategies

1. Sequence
2. Theme
3. Topic and purpose
4. Cause and effect
5. Inference and analysis
6. Setting and character
7. Compare and contrast
8. Text features
9. Read-along literary texts
10. Read-alone literary texts
11. Read-along informational texts
12. Read-alone informational texts

Writing strategies

Kindergarten

Reading foundations

Reading strategies

Writing strategies

Vocabulary

Grammar and mechanics

First Grade

Reading foundations

Reading strategies

Writing strategies

Vocabulary

Grammar and mechanics

Second Grade

Reading foundations

Reading strategies

Writing strategies

Vocabulary

Grammar and mechanics

Third Grade

Reading foundations

Reading strategies

Writing strategies

Vocabulary

Grammar and mechanics

Fourth Grade

Reading strategies

Writing strategies

Vocabulary

Grammar and mechanics

Fifth Grade

Reading strategies

Writing strategies

Vocabulary

Grammar and mechanics

Sixth grade

Reading strategies

Writing strategies

Vocabulary

Grammar and mechanics

Seventh grade

Reading strategies

Writing strategies

Vocabulary

Grammar and mechanics

Eighth Grade

Reading strategies

Writing strategies

Vocabulary

Grammar and mechanics

New Passage Preparation Module

Process to prepare a new passage for incorporation into the ABL Reading format.

Passage Intake

New passages readied for inclusion in ABL Reading require the following items:

• Text file of the passage in plain text, grammar and spelling checked
• Audio file of the passage, preferably in natural voice
• Type of English and spelling conventions for specific passage (Eng-US, Eng-UK)
• Freedom to be able to use
  • Public domain passages
  • Licensed passages
  • Fair use passages

New Passage Module

Goals of the Passage Processing Module

• Format and analyze the passage to provide the files needed for formatting and sequencing the passage

Outputs from Passage Processing Module

• Analysis
  • Number of Words
  • Number of Unique Words
  • Number of Sentences
  • Number of Syllables
  • Step (11 through 80)
  • Readability Assessments
• Outputs
  • List of Sentences
  • List of Unique Words
  • Lists of Unique Words grouped by number of Syllables
  • List of Words divided into Syllables

Passage Formatting and Ordering Module

Voice Recognition Module

RS: Passage Reading (Blending Assist) Module

Inputs for Student Ready Reading Passage Module

Goals for Student Reading Passage Module

• Sequence of pages ready for students to access (browser format)

Inputs needed for Reading Passage Module

• Passage Sentences sequenced
• Number of Words per Sentence
• Step
• List of Unique Words with Syllables

Outputs desired for Reading Passage Module

• Formatted Pages Sequenced and ready for Student use

RS: Passage Reading (Word ID support) Module

RF: Sound Symbol (BlueTone) Module

RF: Blending Skills Module

VO: Word Meaning Module

GM: Sentence Unscramble Module

ABL Reading Terminology

Definition of Terms

BlueTone

A BlueTone is a unique identifier for sub-word items. Most commonly, a BlueTone is a phoneme (sound) - grapheme (spelling) pair. There are other sub-word items that are represented by a BlueTone, including consonant combos (2 or more consonants that typically represented as a single unit), combinations (consonant and vowel combinations that are typically grouped together), or non-sound characters that are important for the word meaning but are not used as a sound element (example -- the word "can't" contains an apostrophe (') that is necessary for the word mean, but does not represent a phoneme (sound) element

Phoneme

A Phoneme is a unit of spoken sound. Most languages, including English, have between 40 and 50 phonemes. The number of English phonemes has been debated. For purposes of this project, there are XX vowel sounds, XX consonant sounds, XX consonant combos, and XX combinations. For most languages, there are 2 types of phonemes: vowel sounds and consonant sounds. Variations of languages (eg English-US vs English-UK) typically have differences in the auditory signal for the phonemes, in particular the vowel sounds.

Grapheme

A Grapheme is a letter or letter combination that represents 1 phoneme (sound) in a word. Graphemes range from 1 to 4 letters, with some graphemes split across the word

Student Analytics