The Colorado Department of Education

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CRF Lesson Map Guidelines

Guidelines for Effective Use of Lesson Maps and Templates:

  1. Lesson Maps may take anywhere from 90 to 115 minutes per day, five days a week.
  2. Lesson maps are designed for struggling students but can be used with all students to help them master critical reading skills.
  3. Instruction can be delivered in whole or small group depending on the resources available at the school.
  4. Lesson Maps help teachers pace their lessons so that they can fit the most important elements into the reading block.
  5. Lesson Maps incorporate the use of Templates, and they identify where to place Templates to provide the most impact.
  6. Portions of the Lesson Maps can be "chunked" to allow for small group instruction or quick movement activities especially at the K-1 levels.
  7. The Lesson Maps and Templates are designed to prepare students to successfully read the anthology selection. The anthology selection is the primary vehicle for teaching skills and strategies through modeling and scaffolding of instruction. With support of the Lesson Maps and Templates, most strategic and benchmark children should be able to successfully read the anthology selection.
    Strategic students who can't read the anthology should read the easiest leveled book instead. Intensive students may simply need to listen to the anthology story. They should then be provided with targeted, small group instruction in identified areas of need during their additional 30-60 minutes of instruction. Alternatively, teachers may consider using an intervention core with these students.
  8. The leveled books that are components of the core are meant to be used as additional practice and are shaded in gray (non-priority) in the Lesson Map. They may be used outside the 90 plus minutes of reading instruction for additional fluency practice.
  9. Templates for decodable text are located in the non-shaded (priority) area of the Lesson Map. The purpose of decodable text is to allow students to use their newly learned and practiced decoding skills to decode the words in connected text. Echo or choral reading of decodable text before students have the opportunity to decode independently is not recommended.

Lesson Map Links