SRA FLEX LITERACY

™ IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE

Students’ experience of the content is through a progression of lessons. Students

progress through lessons that include activities covering a carefully controlled range of

skills. For example, Lesson 196 in the table on page 31 includes activities on commas in

a series, subject/verb agreement, describing major events using key details, common

conjunctions, comparing/contrasting most important points in two texts on same topic,

and identifying text features. In The Digital Experience, lessons include 7 to 13

instructional activities, several of which relate to the individual skills. Students are

made aware of the skills addressed as they enter each activity, but they are not aware

of their position within the lesson matrix.

Another way to understand The Digital Experience content is by considering skill

progression. Again referring to the table, the first four skills have already completed the

gradual release instructional phase and are in the review cycle. The “Capitalization:

Proper Nouns” skill is in the mastery check phase in Lessons 192 and 193, and moves

on to the review cycle in Lesson 194. “Describe major events using key details with and

without illustrations” is in that same phase, while the rest of the skills are in various

gradual release phases. The sequence of these activities is designed to follow the

program’s gradual-release model of instruction. The first activities provide explicit

modeling. Over time, responsibility is released to the student, and the activities move

to independent practice and assessment. Ninety of the program’s skills follow this

horizontal model, while the remaining skills are practiced in every lesson.

Game Activities

The game activities are brief, engaging interactions that provide practice and

reinforcement for previously introduced skills. These games incorporate entertaining

and age-appropriate themes such as off-road racing, carnival games, and jungle

safaris. Reward Points collected during these games contribute to the student’s overall

point total for spending in the Item Shop, but performance on these activities is not

incorporated into the student’s overall performance grade.