Planning February Reading Block
If you’ve just finished your midyear assessments, first of all—take a deep breath.
Those are finally done. Thank goodness. And truly, you should feel proud of yourself. Assessing a classroom full of children (especially when many are struggling readers) is exhausting, emotional, and incredibly demanding work.
Now comes the part that really matters: using the data well.
Hopefully, you’ve taken time to study your results and can see where your students are showing patterns of need. If a majority of your class is weak in a particular skill, that skill belongs front and center in your Tier 1 instruction. Your schedule should reflect what students actually need—not what’s easiest to plan.
A Reading Block That Actually Works
The most effective reading blocks I’ve seen are not quiet, neat, and perfectly uniform.
They are active.
Dynamic.
And yes, the teacher is usually in running shoes—because the teacher is visible and moving around every chance they get.
When reading instruction is done well, everyone is doing something slightly different:
Students are engaged in meaningful tasks
The teacher is moving between groups
Routines and expectations are tight
Kids know what to do because procedures have been practiced again and again
Is this harder to manage at first? Absolutely.
But once systems are in place, it becomes powerful.
Differentiation Is Necessary and Essential
For Your High-Achieving Readers
Enrich, Don’t Stall
Your strongest readers should be reading—a lot. But their reading can look different.
They might:
Participate in a novel study
Read stories from a basal reader
Analyze journal articles
Collaborate on creative comprehension projects
This is where you can intentionally build vocabulary, morphology, and background knowledge.
As David Share shared at the Reading League Conference in Chicago (2025):
“The more children read, the more they encounter words that are unfamiliar… and the more their orthographic map grows and becomes more refined.”
Kids who read a lot build vocabulary, strengthen word recognition, and develop their own comprehension styles. That’s true for children—and for adults.
For Your Middle Achievers
Independent, but Still Supported
These students can work independently, but they still need your attention.
They often benefit from:
Check-ins for comprehension (especially with abstract skills like inference)
Guided strategy use
Fluency practice at their desks (word reading, phrase fluency, passage fluency)
Vocabulary and morphology work
They should be practicing self-help strategies—and receiving frequent feedback from you or an instructional assistant who understands the goal.
For Your Striving Readers
The Most Time With the Most Skilled Teacher
Your weakest readers need the most instructional time with the most knowledgeable adult—you.
While some paraprofessionals are incredible and deeply committed, these students benefit most from working directly with the classroom teacher or reading specialist. They need:
Targeted instruction on specific deficit skills
Opportunities to read decodable text first
A quick transition into connected, authentic text as soon as possible
This group often benefits from scaffolded reading: I do, we do, you do—to ensure comprehension and progress in fluency.
Before reading:
Focus on unfamiliar vocabulary.
I do: You read the paragraph to the student
We do: You chorally read the paragraph together
You do (silent reading): The student reads independently and answers a comprehension question
The Students Must Do the Work
This part is critical.
The students are the ones who need to be doing the cognitive work.
Not the teacher.
Not the instructional assistant.
Not the volunteer.
When a student struggles with a word, don’t immediately tell them the word. Prompt them to sound it out. Break it into parts. Use what they know.
That productive struggle is how the brain builds new neural pathways.
That’s how learning sticks.
As Share reminds us, every successful attempt at decoding unfamiliar words strengthens the reading system.
The Hard Truth: Reading Practice Gets Cut
I want to follow up on something I shared in my last blog because it continues to be relevant.
One of the most astonishing things I see during reading instruction is this:
Many students are not actually reading.
Because of time constraints and behavior challenges, lessons often focus on phonics, spelling, and isolated skills—but fluency practice disappears. Reading aloud becomes optional. Connected text gets skipped.
This is a critical mistake.
Fluency Is Not Optional
Fluency is where phonics, decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension come together.
It is not an extra.
It is not a reward.
It is essential.
If students are not spending time reading connected text at their instructional level every single day, growth will stall.
What Richard Allington Confirms
I recently read a research paper by Richard Allington (University of Tennessee), and his findings are both powerful and troubling:
“Struggling readers are often assigned less reading but more worksheets.” (p. 526)
Struggling readers often spend their day on isolated skills, while stronger readers receive the benefit of authentic reading. If we want students to improve, we must design lessons where struggling readers actually read more—not less.
Another key takeaway from Allington’s work:
Not all reading should be oral reading.
Constant interruptions during oral reading can harm fluency and comprehension. A better approach is to:
Let the student finish the passage
Revisit words that were read incorrectly
Build fluency without breaking their rhythm
Silent reading also matters. Have students read independently, then check comprehension at natural stopping points—after a paragraph, a section, or an entire passage.
When students find their rhythm as readers, confidence grows.
And when confidence grows, engagement follows.
The Bottom Line
If we want real reading growth:
Students must read every day
Fluency must be protected
Lessons must prioritize authentic reading over busywork
Teachers must use data intentionally
Students must do the cognitive heavy lifting
That’s where real progress happens.
