Lesson Connections Grade 1
Introduction
What is SRA Lesson Connections?
SRA Lesson Connections provides optional activities that are related to the skills and information
presented in the Reading Mastery Signature Edition program. Lesson Connections provides additional
instruction in phonemic and phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency.
Lesson Connections uses the same teacher-script conventions that appear in the Reading Mastery
Signature Edition (conventions about what the teacher says, what the teacher does, and what the
children’s correct responses are). As in Reading Mastery, you call for group responses, use clear signals,
and employ specific correction procedures. Expect your children to “say it like they know it” to ensure
foundational knowledge and firm, consistent responses.
How do you use Lesson Connections?
There are 160 lessons in Grade 1 Lesson Connections, as in Grade 1 of Reading Mastery. Each lesson
requires approximately 20 minutes.
The Lesson Connections exercises should be used on a prescriptive basis. Follow the rule that if
specific exercises in Lesson Connections are confusing to the children, particularly low performers,
delay the introductions of those exercises. Also, the sequence of exercises in Reading Mastery lessons
should not be interrupted when you work with lower performers. Note, for low-performing children, the
time required for presenting Lesson Connections may be better spent on doing additional practice in
Reading Mastery.
Lesson Connections has suggestions for increasing literacy opportunities in your classroom. Use these
suggestions with the understanding that the Reading Mastery lesson has first priority. Time should be
allocated accordingly.
Lesson Connections lessons are divided into major parts or strands. For example, Comprehension
Strategies is an important part of Lesson Connections for Grade 1 and often appears as Part B. Each
part of every lesson includes:
• Suggested instructional minutes (top left-hand column),
• What the teacher does (black type, left-hand column),
• What the teacher says (blue type, right-hand column), and
• What the students say/do (black italic type, right-hand column).
Overview of SRA Lesson Connections cc1
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Here’s an example from Lesson 111.
12 minutes Part C: Comprehension Strategies
Part C
Activity 1: Confirm Predictions—
Activity 1 Read or explain. An After Reading Strategy
Refer to Story 110, pages 75-77.
Elicit response to question. • In the last lesson, you made some predictions about what would
Guide as needed. happen in the Boo story. You made the predictions before you
read the story.
• Why do you make predictions? Idea: Making predictions helps
you understand the story better.
• Now that you’ve read the story, let’s check to see if your
predictions were in the story. That’s called confirming
predictions.
• What are you doing when you check to see if your predictions
are correct? Confirming predictions.
Lessons correspond to and enhance instruction found in the Reading Mastery program. The lesson
example shown above and found in Lesson 111 of Lesson Connections aligns with the Boo the Ghost
story located in Lesson 110 of the Reading Mastery Teacher Presentation Book for Grade 1. Lesson
Connections enhances rather than supplants the Reading Mastery program.
What Major Parts Comprise Lesson Connections?
There are four major parts of the Lesson Connections for Grade 1. These include: phonemic and
phonological awareness, vocabulary instruction, comprehension strategies, and fluency building.
Explicit instruction for each of these major parts is based on best practices in reading research (see
recommendations provided by Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2003; Carnine, Silbert, Kame’enui, & Tarver,
2004; National Institute of Child Health & Human Development [NICHD], 2000; and Vaughn & Linan-
Thompson, 2004). An overview and skills taught for each part follow.
Part A: Phonemic and Phonological Awareness
Overview
• Daily phonemic and phonological awareness instruction
• Explicit instruction with modeling, guided practice, and independent practice
• Instruction that progresses from easier to more difficult activities
• Phonemic segmentation and blending focus
• Phonemic and phonological awareness developed through a number of interesting activities
Skills Taught
• Word segmentation
• Rhyme recognition and production
• Syllable blending, segmentation, and deletion
• Onset-rime segmentation and blending
• Phoneme isolation (initial, final, and medial)
• Phoneme identification, segmentation, and blending
cc2 Overview of SRA Lesson Connections
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