In Tandem: Making the Perfect Pair
Welcome back to Colleen’s Cozy Book Corner, and Happy New Year! It’s already shaping up to be an exciting entry into 2025. Not only do we have a promotion on decodable books this month (use code JANUARY25-NL10 for 10% off!), we also have a free webinar with our literacy experts. Bundle up and come close! There’s nothing like a good book and a discussion to generate fiery warmth in January.
In the Cozy Corner today, I’m getting technical. That’s right—rather than discussing a book’s themes, character’s feelings, or prediction about how a story might end, today we’re going to consider books from a curriculum developer’s point of view. Before books get to a teacher’s classroom, how do they become part of a collection in the first place? When PVB bundles titles together for a reading and writing program, how do we decide which books to include? The answer is … very thoughtfully.
As our example today, we are going to take a look inside In Tandem, a K–2 reading program for small-group differentiated instruction. In Tandem is a compelling and dynamic program for 100 different reasons, but perhaps the most interesting of them all is that it pairs a decodable book with a fiction or nonfiction text across each 5-day lesson plan. One of the goals of our In Tandem curriculum is for the student to see a phonics element first in isolation and then to experience it in continuous text while also learning new vocabulary and practicing comprehension skills. That means the two books In Tandem pairs together must be just right for the tasks at hand. Nothing left to chance here!
Let’s briefly zero in on Lesson 45 from the In Tandem Kindergarten Kit. The first two days of the lesson are spent reading the decodable book Don’t Cry, in which big brother Brad comforts little sister Jan when her tower of bricks falls to the floor. The next two days of the lesson are spent with the less-controlled nonfiction text Horseback Riding, a book detailing what riding a horse involves. Subject matter need not be the same for these two books to work in tandem when it comes to targeted instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension.
What links the two books is what they contain in terms of the phonic element (in this case, initial blend br), sight word (in this case, make), and the opportunities to decode unfamiliar words using skills previously taught (broke, take, grooming, brushing). Using both the decodable book and the less-controlled text provides students with opportunities to practice decoding and encoding throughout the lesson, encouraging them to become flexible word solvers.
In addition to the phonic element that each book features, the lessons provide an opportunity for book discussions and building writing skills. Equally important (and sounding a lot less technical), students will be drawn into the stories—why does Jan cry when her tower crashes to the ground? What is the best way to take care of a horse? Our books have always been page-turners after all. (Hey, write that word down on the vocabulary list!) By the end of four days, students will have read two books and covered those five crucial components to literacy instruction that every teacher is looking for. That leaves Day 5 for rereading and progress monitoring.
Thanks for visiting the Cozy Book Corner again this month. To learn more about the research-based In Tandem reading program for kindergarten through second grade that engages every student, reach out to me (Colleen) or any of our account managers for more information!
