The Wantagh School District provides the Wilson Reading System for students that are struggling readers. This program is designed for students that are struggling with decoding and encoding.

Profile of a Wilson Reading System Student

• Students with an inability to analyze and apply structure of English to reading and spelling
• Students unable to decode accurately
• Slow, labored readers who lack fluency
• Students who may know many words by sight, but have difficulty reading new words and “nonsense” syllables
• Students who often guess at words
• Students able to speak and understand English, but not read or write it
• Poor spellers
• Students unsuccessful with other reading programs or who have gaps in their decoding and / or encoding

Data Points That Are Considered When Evaluating Student Entry into the WRS

• Fountas and Pinnell Benchmarks
• iReady Scores
• WIST Percentile
• Fundations Work Samples
• Report card rating in phonics and word decoding

Key components directly addressed in WRS are:

• Word structure, in depth, for automatic decoding and spelling
• Word recognition and spelling of high frequency words, including irregular words
• Vocabulary, word understanding, and word-learning skills
• Sentence-level text reading with ease, expression, and understanding
• Listening comprehension with age-appropriate narrative and informational text
• Reading comprehension with narrative and expository text of increasing levels of difficulty
• Narrative and informational text structures
• Organization of information for oral or written expression
• Proofreading skills
• Self-monitoring for word recognition accuracy and comprehension 

Program Implementation Model

• Small groups receive daily instruction for 40 minutes.
• Provided as a pull out support service by a reading teacher. 

Progress Monitoring

• Progress monitoring data will be collected throughout the year and provided to the parents each trimester.

Successful Completion of the Wilson Reading System

As student progress is monitored throughout their participation in the program, students’ performance in the following areas will be evaluated:

• WADE
• Fountas and Pinnell Benchmarks
• iReady Scores
• WIST Percentile

If a student meets or exceeds grade level expectations on the data points mentioned above, the next step would be to determine if there continues to be a need in the area of comprehension and/or writing. If so, the team will discuss the best placement to support the student’s current needs. If no out of class support is needed, a parent phone call will be made and a release letter will be sent home.