*Please note, we do not sell Reading Mastery materials. Click on the "Where to Purchase" button below to view purchasing options or click here to find your local DI representative.*
Reading Mastery is a complete basal reading program that uses the Direct Instruction method to help students master essential decoding and comprehension skills. The program places particular emphasis on teaching thinking skills and helping students acquire background knowledge. Program materials include fully scripted lessons to guide teachers through carefully constructed instructional steps - modeling new content, providing guided practice, offering individualized practice, and applying skills. It also utilizes a special orthography designed to assist students identify letter sounds. The special font is later phased out and replaced with traditional orthography. Signals and group responses are used to keep students involved, help them stay on task, and help with lesson pacing. Teachers assess student performance throughout the program, and struggling students receive practice through remedial exercises. Each level of the program typically spans one academic year. A typical 30- to 45-minute lesson includes seven to nine short activities encompassing multiple strands of content, including:
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- Phonemic Awareness
- Letter-Sound Correspondence
- Sounding Out of Words
- Word Recognition
- Vocabulary
- Oral Reading Fluency
- Comprehension
This latest version of Reading Mastery, Reading Mastery Signature Edition (RMSE), is an update from Reading Mastery Plus written to incorporate Language for Learning, Language for Thinking, and Reasoning and Writing to become a more comprehensive Language Arts core reading program.
Reading Mastery and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)
In recent years, the Common Core State Standards have become a universal language for schools across our nation and play a significant role in instructional decisions made in schools, including curriculum selections. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were developed with the intent to provide a clear framework of what students are expected to learn and to ensure consistent standards, regardless of where students attend school. An evaluation of Reading Mastery Signature Edition has been conducted by the publisher of Reading Mastery, McGraw-Hill, to determine the alignment of the program’s content with the English Language Arts common core standards. Overall, RMSE met 95% of the ELA Standards prescribed in the CCSS. Read more about the alignment of Direct Instruction to the Common Core State Standards.
To view the correlation for each grade level, click on the individual grade level.
Grade K Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5
Integrating Science and Social Studies
Reading instruction consumes a large part of the daily schedule, reducing the amount of time for content area studies. Reading Mastery Signature Edition in grades two through five integrates a wide range of social studies and science concepts and information. Science and Social Studies in Reading Mastery Signature Edition is a powerful tool for teachers, coaches, and curriculum directors to have available for planning and integrating subject areas in order to reinforce critical content. This resource facilitates making connections with content material taught in the program.
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Learn more about Science and Social Studies in Reading Mastery Signature Edition
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Literature in Reading Mastery Signature Edition (RMSE)
The program is designed for elementary-aged students at all levels of reading performance and introduces students to many pieces of classic literature, including popular children's stories. Levels 4 and 5 contain a variety of rich literature, from novels to poetry to biographies, where students apply their knowledge of reading through a variety of lesson activities. The rich literature included in the program, as well as a sample of the daily writing activities incorporated in Reading Mastery Signature Edition, are described in the
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Literature in Reading Mastery Signature Edition brochure
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How Grammar is Taught in the Language Track of RMSE
Grammar is a critical component of the language track of Reading Mastery Signature Edition and is incorporated systematically into a variety of exercises with the goal that students will be able to use and articulate the associated grammatical conventions. Learn more about how grammar is taught in the Language Track of Reading Mastery Signature Edition in our
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handout
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Handwriting Supplement to RMSE
The Sentence Copying Program, developed at the National Institute for Direct Instruction, is a supplemental handwriting program to accompany the Reading Mastery Signature Edition program. The sentence copying sheets correlate with Reading Mastery’s sequence of skill development but do not employ its orthography. Instead, they provide handwriting practice of letter forms more commonly taught in typical elementary classrooms. This supplemental program is available for levels K and 1 of RMSE. Learn more in our store.
Reading Mastery Signature Edition was recognized for making a positive difference in education by K12 leaders who named it to District Administration magazine’s “Readers’ Choice Top 100 Product for 2013.”
The winners, selected by District Administration’s editors from a record 1,800-plus nominations, were products that received the highest number of nominations and best descriptions from K12 leaders. The Readers’ Choice Top 100 was announced online and in the December 2013 issue of District Administration.
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