MacqLit
The MacqLit Program is an explicit, direct instruction, intervention programme for students at significant risk with reading. This programme was selected as a proven way to raise the literacy skills of low progress readers. It is part of our School Improvement obligations and in time, the results will enhance the overall literacy health of our whole school…but most importantly, the individuals who access it.
The programme is based on 4 lessons a week, of 60 minutes duration - Monday to Thursday. The lessons are scripted, specific and progressive, and the students selected will stay with the programme until testing indicates they are able to achieve a fluency target consistently, over several assessments. For some students, this may be the entire year, and for some, even further than that.
Each lesson is made up of 45 minutes of 9-12 activities that are delivered in short intervals, and include a range of activities covering phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, spelling, whole words, sight words, vocab study, sentences, dictation and paragraphs. The final 15 minutes is putting that all together in a group reading exercise that reinforces the lesson.
Ideally, students should receive a daily, 15-20 minute Reinforced Reading (RR) session that is specifically designed to help them transfer their new skills to reading ‘real, common-language’ books. These books are levelled specifically for each student at 98% accuracy. They will be available as ‘take home’ books but will need to be at school every day as they will be used in the RR time allocated during the week. Results show this is integral to the success of the programme for the students.