28 SRA FLEX LITERACY ™ IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE
Practice
Certain activity types appear in almost every lesson. They include the following:
1. Fluency Practice
Fluency practice activities are presented in a repetitive cycle. Within that cycle,
students read the same passage four times. The first read, the cold read, students
record themselves reading the passage aloud. Teachers can listen and score the
recording through FLEXWorks . In the second read, students listen to a modeled read of
the passage. Then they select individual words to be read aloud to them. During the
third read, students read the passage silently and answer comprehension questions.
The fourth read is identical to the first one, though the passage is now familiar to
students; this final read is referred to as the hot read . Fluency practice begins in Lesson
71 and continues through Lesson 559. Each fluency passage is used in four
consecutive lessons with every fifth lesson being a non-fluency lesson. Before fluency
practice begins in Lesson 71, students complete repeated reading activities from
Lesson 43 through Lesson 70. Each passage is in three consecutive lessons and
includes a cold read, a modeled read, and a hot read.
2. Vocabulary Preview
Beginning in Lesson 81, each lesson introduces three new vocabulary words. These
words are classified as Tier II words (Beck, McKeown, & Lucan, 2013), meaning that
they are high-usage but fairly sophisticated words that allow students to comprehend
more advanced texts. The preview activity in each lesson presents students with the
part of speech, a definition, and an example sentence for each word on an interactive
card. Students are able to hear each of these words read to them. After reviewing the
cards, students read question items and select the word that answers the question.
Because students are seeing these words for the first time, students are allowed to try
each answer choice without penalty. Responses from these activities are not
incorporated into the student’s overall performance grade.
3. Reading Practice
Beginning in Lesson 61, each lesson features a reading passage that falls within the
Lexile® measure range for that lesson band. When students first encounter this
passage, it is presented with selected words removed. Students must select the
correct word from a set of answer choices to complete the passage correctly. Students’
responses to these items are assessed, and the resulting score is the student’s Lexile®
measure. These scores are gathered on a lesson-by-lesson basis and reported on
weekly to show each student’s Lexile® measure progress. Additionally, this same
passage may appear in other activities within the lesson to support instruction in other
skills.