SRA Reading Mastery at The Virtual Vine

Information on this page provided for classroom use only; not for publication.

thevirtualvine.com 2007

SRA Reading Mastery is a reading program that's been around since 1969. SRA stands for Science Research Associates and way back in 1969, Reading Mastery was known as DISTAR. DISTAR/SRA is well known for teaching through "direct instruction." Skills are systematically and explicitly taught using Reading Mastery. A type of coding is used to help the students understand some of the rules of reading and then is gradually phased out. Generally teachers either like SRA or they hate it .... not much in between. :) If you like it, it's because you've seen it work wonders with your kids. If you hate it, it's because you hate the scripting and you think it's boring.

I'm one of those who like it. I choose to use it with some of my students with special education needs. Not all of them, just those who need it. I've seen it work wonders with some kids who'd really bombed out for YEARS in general ed. BUT, I also don't use it as a stand alone program either. I think SRA has finally admitted that the program needs to be supplemented. I supplement with LOTS of stuff. I basically use it as a good backbone program for some of my more needier students. Depending on the scheduling and the students, I use it in conjunction with sight words, themes, guided reading, general ed basals, etc. I also have lots of freedom as to how I teach the program. I don't have people coming in and out of my classroom critiquing my performance of how I delivered my reading lesson. My training in using SRA (in the '80s) was minimal, so my use of the scripting and hand signals has evolved over the years to fit my needs and the needs of my students ... not the other way around.

Anyway, this page will be a resource for those using SRA Reading Mastery I and possibly II. I'm going to try and use it for the first time ever with my Ks this year. (I've only used it with 1st grade and above) So I'm coming up with some plans and some activities and of course, I have to share them with you guys! :) Ok, this is the plan ... below is the sounds sequence for the program. I'm going to try and teach mini units along with each letter/sound that's introduced so that I can incorporate literature, math, writing, vocabulary, etc. Below each letter/sound I will put links to pages for units/activities that will go along with each letter/sound. I have some units already online that will work and I'm adding activities to them and I also want to create a page for each letter/sound. Hmmm ... that's a lot of pages, so we'll see what happens with that! ;)