Florida Department of Education/Just Read Florida! | Florida Grade-Level Reading Campaign

IES Practice Guide: Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding

by Brian O'Toole | Sep 6, 2022

This practice guide provides four recommendations for teaching foundational reading skills to students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. Each recommendation includes implementation steps and solutions for common obstacles. The recommendations also summarize and rate supporting evidence. This guide is geared towards teachers, administrators and other educators who want to improve their students’ foundational reading skills.

Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) Student Center Activities

by Brian O'Toole | Sep 6, 2022

Student Center Activities are available for use in Pre-K through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently. Students can complete the activities in small groups, pairs or individually. Accompanying these Student Center Activities is a Teacher Resource Guide that offers important insights on differentiated instruction and how to use the Student Center materials.

Supporting Your Child’s Learning at Home

by Brian O'Toole | Sep 6, 2022

Learning to read begins at home through everyday interactions with children, long before they attend
school. Supporting literacy development as children enter elementary school and progress through grades positively affects their reading ability. The Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast (REL-SE) provides family activities with easy-to-follow instructions to help children practice foundational reading skills at home for students in kindergarten through grade 3. This resource provides short family videos for tips and support on how to use the activities to help children grow as readers. Using the family activities at home can help children develop language, link sounds to letters, blend letters and word parts to read and write the words and ultimately read for understanding.

Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) Reading Program Repository

by Brian O'Toole | Sep 6, 2022

The Reading Program Repository is a resource to provide a one-stop shop to support Florida Local Education Agencies (LEAs) with being good consumers of research when selecting reading programs that best meet the needs of their students. The collection of reading programs listed in this repository is based on LEA program selections through the High-Quality Reading Curriculum Grant. The Reading Program Repository will continue to expand, including only programs of interest to Florida LEAs. Each of the programs included in the repository have been reviewed by either the What Works Clearinghouse or Evidence for ESSA. Individuals can use a filter to pull information on specific programs to obtain quick-glance information or view a full program description.

Parent Guides for B.E.S.T. Standards English Language Arts

by Brian O'Toole | Sep 6, 2022

The B.E.S.T. Standards for English Language Arts (ELA) are literacy standards for Florida students that will shape their education and make Florida the most literate state in the nation. Parent Guides are available to help families learn more about the B.E.S.T. ELA Standards for students in grades kindergarten through grade 8. This resource provides suggested book lists, activities to encourage learning at home in ways that are fun for parents and children and important educational (academic) words that parents will see in their child’s grade-level standards.