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REWARDS Plus review


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I thought some of you might like to know more about REWARDS Plus. My ds had completed REWARDS intermediate, but needed more reinforcement, so I bought REWARDS Plus Science.

 

REWARDS Plus Science (Social Studies is also available) is designed to follow either REWARDS intermediate or REWARDS secondary. However, it is not "more of the same" but a program with a different set of strengths and probable usefulness to a wider range of disabilities than REWARDS intermediate or secondary. The passages are at an 8th grade reading level, but because so much prereading is done, the authors say that the program can be used for a child on a 6th grade reading level or above.

 

The greatest strength of the REWARDS intermediate and secondary (R-i or R-s) is the strategy taught for decoding multisyllabic words. I would rate fluency building as a secondary strength; however, it is not introduced until the end of either book, so there isn't enough of it. I purchased REWARDS Plus thinking I would get more lessons of the same type as are found at the end of REWARDS. There is that, but there is much more. In fact, I would say the strengths of REWARDS Plus are fluency, reading Comprehension & test-taking strategies, including writing short answer or essay questions. Application of REWARDs decoding appears to be a secondary strength of the program. A student who needed work on decoding skills should not start with the REWARDS Plus books. However, for a student with decent decoding skills (6th grade level), but difficulties in reading comprehension, REWARDS Plus seems like an excellent place to start. Because of this, it might be a good match for kids who have difficulty with active working memory (teaches several skills for noting info as you go along) , kids with nonverbal ld's (the verbal repetition of step by step strategies for comprehension and inference seems well matched) , and/or kids with a need for vocabulary development within a content area. Additionally, there is a decent expository writing component.

 

REWARDS Plus is set up with 6 review lessons that assume that the student has completed a REWARDS course prior to REWARDS Plus. Those lessons are more abbreviated that the REWARDS lessons but do include reading sentences using the words decoded in the lesson.

 

Following the review lessons are 15 application lessons.

 

Each application lesson contains the following activities:

 

A: Vocabulary lists (There are 3) Like the end of the R-i or R-s , the first part of the list are words that don't lend themselves quite as well to the strategy; these words are read to the student. The REWARDS decoding strategy is then applied to List 2 words. The meaning of each word is also covered, to build vocab. List 3 are words in word families. Going a bit beyond R-i or R-s, these are grouped into verbs, nouns, and adjectives, so energize, energy, energizer, energetic.

 

B: Spelling dictation

 

C. Passage reading and comprehension

1. Passage is previewed by reading title and headings.

2. The passage is broken into sections of 2 or more paragraphs each. A paragraph of the first section is read silently, then aloud. A comprehension question is asked. This process is repeated until the section is done.

3. After a section is completed, the student fills out an information web: a graphic organizer with fill in the blank "notes" from the reading.

4. After the information web is complete, the student uses the web to narrate the main points of the passage back to a partner or tutor.

 

D: Fluency building: Done using 3 one-minute whisper readings prior to the reading aloud. Each reading is timed and the words per minute recorded.

 

E. Comprehension questions: multiple choice (This walks kids through strategies for answering multiple choice questions)

 

F. Vocabulary activity: This includes thought questions that incorporate vocab words. Eg Are all organisms predators? Why or why not?

 

G. Expository writing: multiparagraph answer: Guides students through answering a comprehension question in essay form. Several steps are included. A rubric is included in the test for evaluating. It is a decent way to craft an essay. The thing that I think could use fleshing out is how to craft a topic sentence.

 

H Comprehension: single paragraph answer

 

This requires students to answer a "What if" question, crafting a hypothesis that extrapolates material they have just read. Eg. After reading about ecosystems, the What if question involved the impact of the humans in the ecosystem constructing a mall on the wooded edges of a city.

 

*****

We will be focusing on the reading portions. I"m guessing that we will need 3 days per lesson just to get through all the reading activities.

 

Ds generally gets comprehension fine and needs practice on the decoding strategies so that they become automatic and he doesn't slip back to using context clues and an initial peek at the word to guess. However, because I think the comprehension strategies are so well done, we'll do those so that he has some tools for material that is more difficult than the novels and history books he's been reading--such as textbook readings like the examples in the book.

 

I'm not sure ds is at the point where he can do the expository writing. I may try it, skip it, or save it for later! Dunno yet.

 

HTH others.

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I have the Rewards Plus Social Studies book. It seemed to be a lot more "dry" than Rewards Secondary, which we loved. It seemed more like an approach that a school would use too. However, I think it's a great follow-up program for students who need more practice with the reading strategies.

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