Content
Motivation and behavior. Students learn how they are expected to act in the classroom and how to create a productive learning community. Instruction includes teaching a repertoire of appropriate behaviors for such classroom situations as lecture/discussions, independent work, and small group work.
Advanced phonics and decoding. Students learn a strategy specifically designed for decoding multisyllabic words. Other instruction is individualized to meet students' needs.
Fluency. A Fluency Program involves explicitly teaching and modeling for students how to read fluently. Students repeatedly read passages aloud with partners and track the number of words read accurately per minute.
Vocabulary. Students learn several memory strategies designed to help them identify vocabulary words and learn and remember the meaning of those words.
Comprehension. Students learn to use the foundational reading comprehension strategies of imagery, summarization, prediction, questioning, and monitoring.
Thinking and problem solving. All of the instructional programs associated with the Xtreme Reading Program contain elements that promote independent thinking and problem solving, including steps related to monitoring whether responses make sense, checking for understanding, and correcting errors.
Technology. Interactive hypermedia instructional programs augment SIM strategy instruction. Some of the programs provide additional instruction and practice, others teach students such skills as how to use spellcheckers.
Writing. Two SIM writing strategies--the Paragraph Writing Strategy and the Theme Writing Strategy--are closely aligned with reading instruction. Both focus on a process-writing approach in which students learn how to plan, write, provide or accept feedback on their writing, and edit their writing.
