How to Get the Most From Your Reading Block: 7 Practical Tips
Most school leaders agree that instruction is what makes the difference in student learning. And the first step to high quality reading instruction occurring every day is to ensure that that the reading block is protected. In reality, in too many schools, we do one of two things. We either
Set a schedule and then assume that it works for teachers and is being implemented as intended. Or, we
Trust teachers to make their schedule, given parameters for the amount of time to dedicate to reading instruction.
Even 5 minutes of a reading block being lost every day over the course of a 180 day school year is equal to 15 hours of reading instruction lost.
To get the most from your reading block, protect the minutes on the schedule and then check how many of them are regularly used for teaching. I look for at least 95% of scheduled time going to instruction. When a block falls short, a lot of the fixes are supports leadership teams can add immediately.
Why Consider the Reading Block First
When fewer than 80% of students meet the screening target, and/or fewer than 95% of students who start the year on track grow enough to stay on track, teams have a Tier 1 need. And the first question to ask is about time. Do students get enough protected, well-used core reading time?
Protected time is time that isn't regularly interrupted. A reading block can look great on paper and still lose a few minutes here and there, most days of the week.
Begin by naming the minutes.
Tip 1: Put the reading block on the master schedule for every grade
Add the universal tier reading block for each grade to the master schedule. Check your minutes against the general standards for reading time:
Grades K-3: 90 to 120 minutes a day
Grades 4-6: 60 to 90 minutes a day
Once the block is on the calendar, plan intervention times, assemblies and specials around it. Other school events can go outside the block as well.
Tip 2: Find out how much time you really get with a two-week audit
Your schedule shows the minutes you plan. To find out how many minutes students actually get, run a two-week time audit.
For 2 weeks, log every interruption on a simple tally sheet. Each line gets the date, what happened, and the minutes lost.
Then do the math. Multiply your scheduled minutes per day by the number of days in the 2 weeks, and subtract the minutes lost. That's your actual instructional time.
Here's an example. A 90-minute block over 10 school days is 900 scheduled minutes. 95% of 900 is 855, so that block meets the criteria if it loses 45 minutes or less across the 2 weeks.
Observers don't have to be administrators. Other teachers and coaches can observe. Teachers can also keep their own self-review, as long as they fill it in right after the reading block, while the minutes are fresh.
Tip 3: Move the daily barriers outside the block
The small, everyday barriers to implementation are usually the ones that need a permanent solution. Some common ones I see within schools I visit include:
Morning meeting
Breakfast
Announcements
For example, if announcements are at the start of every day, ensure that the reading period doesn’t begin until 5 minutes AFTER the start of the day. Or, if you have to use every minute due to local policy, then add 5 minutes to the reading block to account for the announcements.
In many schools, teachers are used to holding a morning meeting each morning at the start of the school day. If the leadership team makes a schedule that puts the reading block at the start of the day, leaders can not assume that teachers will not use part of that time for their morning meeting. Instead, work with teachers to understand that the morning meeting needs to shift to another time in the schedule or shift the reading block.
Tip 4: Teach transitions like any other routine
Transitions are a routine, so teach them like one! Transition minutes add up faster than we think about and they are something we control about our time in schools. Therefore, we need to schedule time to explicitly teach and practice transition routines so they cost fewer minutes.
For instance, consider if returning from recess and transitioning to the start of the reading lesson takes 10 minutes a day. Over a 180-day school year, that's 1800 minutes, or 30 hours of instruction. Even if some students are working silently while others are still filtering in and finding their work and the teacher is getting ready for the lesson, that’s still 30 hours of instruction that is not spent on reading lessons.
Tip 5: Understand Interruptions
Early outs and late starts are easier to plan for when you decide ahead of time to keep the reading block and shorten the rest of the day. A weekly 15-minute early out is 510 minutes over 34 weeks. That's more than 5 full 90-minute blocks.
For large-scale assessments, schedule testing by grade, on as few days as needed. Log the minutes lost so you know what testing costs your reading block. Plan pacing accordingly at the start of the year.
Hold celebrations at the end of the day or during non-core time.
Then add up the days lost each year to district-wide assessments and planned activities like field trips, assemblies, and pep rallies. Seeing the yearly total in one place makes it much easier to decide which days to protect. When seeing all of these events on the calendar at once, it becomes clear how many hours of instructional time may be lost over the course of a year. When they’re happening one by one, it feels less urgent.
Tip 6: Plan pull-outs so every student still gets core reading
Make a plan for all students, those who receive intervention, and those who receive IEP services or English Learner services, so they still get core reading instruction. Students receiving special education services still need access to core instruction to build background knowledge, vocabulary, and to make accelerated progress.
Tip 7: Make protecting time a leadership routine
Leaders make sure the work happens. They don't have to do all of it themselves! Treat time protection as part of the school's regular routine, the same way you treat screening windows and data meetings. Use your audit and days-lost totals to pick which priorities to address first. And ask teachers to tell you when the block gets cut, so you hear about it immediately. Get into classrooms often to observe reading instruction to find and support regular interruptions to the reading block.
Potential next steps
Leaders
Pick one grade and start the two-week audit.
All educators
Log interruptions to your reading block.
Tell your leaders when the block gets cut.
Once you know your real minutes, you'll be able to see which fixes give time back to students.
