Overview of the STARI Program

The Tier 2 STARI curriculum is designed to accelerate the progress of struggling readers in grades 6, 7, and 8. It targets students reading 2-4 years below grade level through a rich, literacy-enhanced ELA curriculum. The curriculum novels, nonfiction, and poetry begin at a challenge level that students can manage; difficulty levels increase throughout the school year. Course activities are organized around engaging themes, such as the Harlem Renaissance and immigration, and incorporate a focus on discussion and debate.

How is STARI delivered?

STARI teaches reading skills in the context of traditional English language arts instruction and uses a major subject block to deliver the intervention. The goal is to provide more comprehensive and intensive intervention than is provided by supplemental reading programs. Depending on the school's or the district's approach to reading instruction for this group of students, the course can be delivered either as the primary ELA course or as an additional period course.

What kinds of literature are used in STARI?

STARI uses highly regarded young adult fiction that is selected to reflect students' backgrounds and experiences and to be accessible for struggling readers. STARI also uses poetry and short fiction by authors like Langston Hughes. It includes full-length novels and poetry but also includes highly scaffolded reading activities at differentiated levels of difficulty.

What skill areas does STARI address?

STARI focuses on accelerating reading fluency, as a core skill for success in secondary school. STARI teaches strategies for decoding multi-syllable words and words with more challenging phonics patterns. Reciprocal Teaching and question-answer relationships are the platforms for developing comprehension strategies. STARI builds background knowledge and vocabulary through the use of non-fiction books and fluency passages linked to the literature used in the course.

Teacher-led, whole class mini-lessons

The focus of mini-lessons may be word study (structural analysis, challenging letter sound patterns), a comprehension strategy (clarifying while reading), or a literacy response skill (tracking a theme across a work). Overheads and detailed lesson plans guide this work; often a homework assignment is linked to this same skill focus.

Partner fluency work

Students work in partners with short, leveled nonfiction passages to improve their reading rate, accuracy, and phrasing. Passages are “high interest” and are designed to build background knowledge on topics related to the literature in the course and to promote partner talk about text. Students are placed in fluency passages at levels A-D (corresponding to 3rd-6th grade equivalent) based on their entering fluency skills. The passages bump up in difficulty, and teachers move students up to the next level of passages when they reach targets for reading rate and accuracy.

Guided reading and partner reading

Reading of the accompanying literature alternates between guided reading and partner reading. For partner reading, students read assigned pages in the novel silently with a partner, stopping to discuss what they are reading and to record responses in a student workbook. With guided reading, a teacher leads the discussion on the same novel, applying decoding and comprehension strategies and discussing meanings, themes, and values. Detailed lesson plans support teachers in linking reading skills to students’ experience of reading literature.

The lesson format provides extended amounts of time to read text at appropriate levels of challenge. Smaller-scale contexts for discussion of text (partners, reading groups) provide more “air time” for all students to discuss meaning. Just as the fluency passages become more challenging over time, the literature selected reflects a gradient from about a fourth grade reading level (lexile 600) to around a sixth grade reading level later in the year. Nonfiction books form part of the curriculum and serve, along with the fluency passages, to address many students’ gaps in background knowledge and vocabulary. Poetry anthologies are included in some of the units.

Visit the STARI website for more information and to download or order materials.

Video 1 of 2: CCDD Curriculum - What is the STARI Program?

In this video, Lowry Hemphill describes:

students for whom STARI is designed and the structure of the intervention  •  missing components of some of the more popular reading intervention programs and how STARI addresses these gaps  •  STARI addresses an identified need of Boston Public Schools, including a diagnostic tool that uncovers the specific components of reading that need to be addressed in individual students

Catherine Snow discusses how:

STARI curriculum is aligned to Massachusetts state standards and includes novels, poetry and nonfiction books and articles  •  STARI includes background information that is written at an accessible level for struggling readers

Meenakshi Khanna explains:

involvement of teachers in creating the STARI curriculum

Video 2 of 2: CCDD Curriculum - Components of the STARI Program

In this video, Lowry Hemphill describes:

STARI has two levels, with level I designed for 6th and 7th grades and Level II designed for 7th and 8th grades  •  each level has four units; each unit takes about 6-8 weeks  •  teachers helped to select the themes for the STARI units, choosing issues that matter to students so that they will invest intellectually in the texts  •  STARI includes very detailed lesson plans, but this is not a scripted program  •  each unit is built around a central novel. There is also a non-fiction book in each unit, as well as poetry, drama and other texts  •  STARI includes a student workbook of fluency passages written at four different levels  •  most students identified for the STARI intervention begin reading at 70-80 words per minute  •  the fluency work includes elements of challenge, as it asks students to track their progress and move between levels at any time during a unit.

This site was originally prepared for districts and teachers who partnered with us throughout the project. While we have updated the text, many of the videos included on this site were prepared during the launch of the study. Although the project has come to a close, we are keeping the site and related videos available for those who are interested to learn more about the project.

The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305F100026 to the Strategic Education Research Partnership as part of the Reading for Understanding Research Initiative. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.

CCDD TEAMStrategic Education Research Partnership •  1100 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 1310 •  Washington, DC 20036

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Overview of the STARI Program

The Tier 2 STARI curriculum is designed to accelerate the progress of struggling readers in grades 6, 7, and 8. It targets students reading 2-4 years below grade level through a rich, literacy-enhanced ELA curriculum. The curriculum novels, nonfiction, and poetry begin at a challenge level that students can manage; difficulty levels increase throughout the school year. Course activities are organized around engaging themes, such as the Harlem Renaissance and immigration, and incorporate a focus on discussion and debate.

How is STARI delivered?

STARI teaches reading skills in the context of traditional English language arts instruction and uses a major subject block to deliver the intervention. The goal is to provide more comprehensive and intensive intervention than is provided by supplemental reading programs. Depending on the school's or the district's approach to reading instruction for this group of students, the course can be delivered either as the primary ELA course or as an additional period course.

What kinds of literature are used in STARI?

STARI uses highly regarded young adult fiction that is selected to reflect students' backgrounds and experiences and to be accessible for struggling readers. STARI also uses poetry and short fiction by authors like Langston Hughes. It includes full-length novels and poetry but also includes highly scaffolded reading activities at differentiated levels of difficulty.

What skill areas does STARI address?

STARI focuses on accelerating reading fluency, as a core skill for success in secondary school. STARI teaches strategies for decoding multi-syllable words and words with more challenging phonics patterns. Reciprocal Teaching and question-answer relationships are the platforms for developing comprehension strategies. STARI builds background knowledge and vocabulary through the use of non-fiction books and fluency passages linked to the literature used in the course.

Teacher-led, whole class mini-lessons

The focus of mini-lessons may be word study (structural analysis, challenging letter sound patterns), a comprehension strategy (clarifying while reading), or a literacy response skill (tracking a theme across a work). Overheads and detailed lesson plans guide this work; often a homework assignment is linked to this same skill focus.

Partner fluency work

Students work in partners with short, leveled nonfiction passages to improve their reading rate, accuracy, and phrasing. Passages are “high interest” and are designed to build background knowledge on topics related to the literature in the course and to promote partner talk about text. Students are placed in fluency passages at levels A-D (corresponding to 3rd-6th grade equivalent) based on their entering fluency skills. The passages bump up in difficulty, and teachers move students up to the next level of passages when they reach targets for reading rate and accuracy.

Guided reading and partner reading

Reading of the accompanying literature alternates between guided reading and partner reading. For partner reading, students read assigned pages in the novel silently with a partner, stopping to discuss what they are reading and to record responses in a student workbook. With guided reading, a teacher leads the discussion on the same novel, applying decoding and comprehension strategies and discussing meanings, themes, and values. Detailed lesson plans support teachers in linking reading skills to students’ experience of reading literature.

The lesson format provides extended amounts of time to read text at appropriate levels of challenge. Smaller-scale contexts for discussion of text (partners, reading groups) provide more “air time” for all students to discuss meaning. Just as the fluency passages become more challenging over time, the literature selected reflects a gradient from about a fourth grade reading level (lexile 600) to around a sixth grade reading level later in the year. Nonfiction books form part of the curriculum and serve, along with the fluency passages, to address many students’ gaps in background knowledge and vocabulary. Poetry anthologies are included in some of the units.

Visit the STARI website for more information and to download or order materials.

Video 1 of 2: CCDD Curriculum - What is the STARI Program?

In this video, Lowry Hemphill describes:

students for whom STARI is designed and the structure of the intervention  •  missing components of some of the more popular reading intervention programs and how STARI addresses these gaps  •  STARI addresses an identified need of Boston Public Schools, including a diagnostic tool that uncovers the specific components of reading that need to be addressed in individual students

Catherine Snow discusses how:

STARI curriculum is aligned to Massachusetts state standards and includes novels, poetry and nonfiction books and articles  •  STARI includes background information that is written at an accessible level for struggling readers

Meenakshi Khanna explains:

involvement of teachers in creating the STARI curriculum

Video 2 of 2: CCDD Curriculum - Components of the STARI Program

In this video, Lowry Hemphill describes:

STARI has two levels, with level I designed for 6th and 7th grades and Level II designed for 7th and 8th grades  •  each level has four units; each unit takes about 6-8 weeks  •  teachers helped to select the themes for the STARI units, choosing issues that matter to students so that they will invest intellectually in the texts  •  STARI includes very detailed lesson plans, but this is not a scripted program  •  each unit is built around a central novel. There is also a non-fiction book in each unit, as well as poetry, drama and other texts  •  STARI includes a student workbook of fluency passages written at four different levels  •  most students identified for the STARI intervention begin reading at 70-80 words per minute  •  the fluency work includes elements of challenge, as it asks students to track their progress and move between levels at any time during a unit.

Catalyzing Comprehension through Discussion and Debate (CCDD)