FTF Literacy Curriculum

What is it?

Schools and districts that partner with IRRE to implement First Things First gain access to FTF Literacy. This approach to strengthening adolescent literacy marries powerful learning strategies with curriculum that is engaging and accessible for struggling readers. FTF Literacy:

• Takes place every day for 90 minutes for at least one semester.
• Targets students who are two to four years below grade level.
• Uses one-on-one, small group and whole group instruction.
• Places literacy in the many contexts students can experience reading - reading for pleasure, reading for information and reading for remembering.

How does it work?

FTF Literacy addresses all the elements of successful reading and the specific needs of each reader. The curriculum offers novelty and many levels of meaning, while it respects the life experiences and interests of adolescents. It controls the reading difficulty of the text so that students can succeed as they practice their developing skills. The content is unit-based and tied to standards and draws on a variety of sources within each unit.

Teaching staff in FTF Literacy classrooms:

• Diagnose student needs, using assessments of fluency and comprehension.
• Set targets for each student and for each class.
• Employ evidence-based strategies that are varied and responsive to each student's needs. The strategies promote phonemic, semantic and syntactic processing systems.
• Constantly model strategies and have students practice them.
• Help students internalize the strategies with ever increasing independence and sophistication.
• Monitor constantly each student's growth and challenges.
• Meet as a group to discuss and implement strategies and techniques that help students grow.

What are its benefits?

First and foremost, FTF Literacy engages students with reading. Struggling readers gain skills, experiences and confidence critical to their reading success. Students learn to focus on making sense of what they read. Instruction helps make visible the invisible processes of thinking and learning with an emphasis on comprehension and fluency.

FTF Literacy expands teaching staff instructional repertoire. Teaching staff learn a multidimensional approach to working with struggling readers - an approach they can use in all content areas.

FTF Literacy builds professional community. FTF Literacy teaching staff form study groups to discuss their evolving work and examine its impact on their students' learning. This dialogue among teaching staff encourages them to explore and improve teaching in all areas and helps them develop mutual support.

How do teaching staff learn to work with FTF Literacy?

Training and support takes four forms:

• Teaching staff attend a four-day summer institute with national FTF Literacy writers and coaches.
• FTF Literacy team leaders - one or two in each building - receive an additional three to four days of coaching each year so they can help their colleagues strengthen the power of study groups and the peer learning process.
• FTF Literacy teaching staff meet in weekly study groups, facilitated by the team leaders, where they:
  • Reflect on what's working and where they are struggling.
  • Monitor how frequently they are using the strategies.
  • Examine student assessments and develop action plans.
  • Review student work.
  • See lesson demonstrations.
  • Discuss peer observation.