Improve literacy in 10 minutes a day with the new Take 10 Reading Program from Recorded Books

Prince Frederick, Md. – (August 18, 2010) – Recorded Books K-12, a leading publisher of K-12 education curriculum and the world’s largest independent producer of audiobooks, announces Take 10 Reading—a program designed to help students master the reading strategies required to achieve high-level reading comprehension through 10-minute-a-day sessions.

Developed by Dr. Pamela Craig and based on years of expert educational research, this nine-step model provides teachers with a framework for guiding students to higher levels of literacy within the time constraints found in today’s classrooms. The Take 10 Reading program offers teachers step-by-step directions for improving student reading achievement through daily mini-lessons focused on strategies linked to developing benchmark skills commonly assessed on reading comprehension assessments.

Intended for use at the beginning of each class as reinforcement for previously-taught strategies, the program also enables each lesson to serve as an introduction to how these same skills can be applied to increasingly complex text across content areas. Additionally, the lessons can be modified to fit any area curriculum or supplement core curriculum. To track student progress after a new reading strategy is taught, the Take 10 Reading program provides assessments that ask students to read a passage and then answer a set of five comprehension questions their ability to use the strategy.

After pre-selling nearly 10,000 student books, several early adopters were given the opportunity to implement the Take 10 Reading program in spring 2010.

“As supervisor for reading of a large district, the Take 10 Reading program meets a critical need. Short benchmark lessons, laid out using the gradual release lesson plan model provide teachers an invaluable resource, saving lesson planning time,” said early user Connie Kolosey, supervisor of secondary at Pinellas County Schools in Largo, Fla. “The modeled ‘teacher talk’ has also transferred into literacy instruction with other texts, becoming an embedded form of professional development. Students appreciate the interesting text selections and are gaining a better understanding of the reading process.”

The Take 10 Reading program employs principles from two proven models for classroom success: the Continuous Improvement Model and the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model. This hybrid educators to transition students from understanding the reading strategies first taught in the program to implementing the same strategies with their peers in small groups and then individually.

“Daily reading strategy instruction provides students with the tools they need to become successful, independent readers of increasingly complex text across all content areas,” said creator Dr. Pamela Craig. “In a world full of mandated curriculums and rigid pacing guides, teachers often struggle to find the time to embed daily literacy instruction. The Take 10 Reading program affords teachers the opportunity to reinforce reading strategies in just 10 minutes a day. Teachers and alike will be set up for success.”

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About Recorded Books
Recorded Books, a Haights Cross Communications company, produces and distributes unabridged
audiobooks and other audio products for schools and libraries, in CD, cassette and Playaway format.
Over 9,000 titles are available for children, young adults, and adults, narrated by professional, award-
winning actors. Recorded Books also publishes and distributes curriculum products, including Dr.
Janet Allen’s Plugged-in to Reading (www.pluggedintoreading.com), Plugged-in to Nonfiction, and The
Alan Sitomer BookJam (www.thebookjam.com). For more information, visit www.recordedbooks.com.
For media inquiries, contact Lauren Sanders of Dittoe Public Relations at (317) 202-2280 XT.10 or
lauren@dittoepr.com.

About Haights Cross Communications
Founded in 1997 and based in White Plains, NY, Haights Cross Communications is a premier educational
and library publisher dedicated to creating the finest books, audio products, periodicals, software and
online services, serving the following markets: K-12 supplemental education, public library and school
publishing, audiobooks, and medical continuing-education publishing. Haights Cross companies include
Triumph Learning (New York, NY) and Recorded Books (Prince Frederick, MD). For more information,
visit www.haightscross.com.

DOWNLOAD THE WHITE PAPER

Helping students improve their literacy skills across grade levels and content areas is perhaps the single most important factor impacting student achievement. Today, teachers are required to not only transmit content knowledge, but to also provide students with strategies designed to improve the learning process. This transition from functioning as transmitters of knowledge to facilitators of learning means teachers are being asked to change their instruction in order to address the learning needs of their students. Accomplishing this enormous task requires us to rethink how we teach reading at the secondary level.

The first step is recognizing that reading is not a content area. Reading is a process of incorporating a variety of highly complex reading skills by applying specific strategies that become internalized over time and which good readers use to comprehend increasingly complex texts. Students need continuing support and direct instruction focused on developing the skills required to access text across grade levels and content areas. For struggling readers, the ability to process these skills with automaticity and accuracy is impeded as they are exposed to more difficult texts across grade levels. Therefore, to help students develop automaticity, they need repeated practice using research-based reading comprehension strategies until they become skilled at using these strategies automatically (Biancarosa & Snow, 2004; Heller, R. & Greenleaf, C. L., 2007; Kamil, Borman, Dole, Kral, Salinger, & Torgesen, 2008; National Institute for Literacy, 2007; Reeves, 2003).

Consider this scenario. Golf is a game of skill that requires the golfer to utilize a series of complex skills with automaticity in order to drive the ball to the intended destination. The most serious golfers spend a considerable amount of time practicing these skills. Even expert golfers spend time daily perfecting the different skills necessary for maintaining their game. Expert golfers study the course before they begin to identify specific skills they might need to be successful on certain holes of that course. Prior to going on the golf course, they might spend 10, 15, or 20 minutes practicing their putting, warming up their swing, or experimenting with different clubs. When a skill breaks down, they work with a coach to acquire and practice specific strategies designed to improve the skill.

To learn more, download the Take 10 Reading white paper.