What research tells us about priority skills is that these are the most important skills for students to learn if they are going to grow in reading. For example, students in kindergarten need to be able to hear the sounds of our language and map these sounds to print. This is a combination of phonemic awareness and the alphabetic principle. This is a very high-priority skill for kindergarten for it is associated with learning to read. As students acquire foundation skills, learn to blend sounds, and recognize how sounds map to print, they then blend these sounds to words, learn irregular words (or words that aren�t, if you will, regular with respect to sound/symbol relationship), and then they learn some beginning reading skills. Those are the highest priorities in kindergarten. In fi rst grade, the priority skill, again, is phonemic awareness for students who haven�t quite mastered it. But by the middle of fi rst grade, phonemic awareness plays much less of a role, and the focus shifts to phonics, fl uency, and comprehension. As students progress in their reading, the foundation skills of phonics and phonemic awareness give way to the essential skills of fl uency and reading for pleasure and learning.

The difference is that even though teachers have always recognized the important elements of reading, they haven�t considered them priority skills. Teachers may have realized that particular elements of the foundation skills were important—for example, letter naming—but were not as confi dent about whether teaching students to map sounds to print and learning the decoding system of the alphabetic system were essential. We now know the important role these skills play in beginning reading and that every student must master these skills before focusing on word knowledge, fl uency, and comprehension. The second part that�s different is that because they�re priority skills, we monitor students� progress in those skills. For students who are slipping behind or haven�t quite acquired them, we provide additional support and intervention. This assures that no student leaves a grade level without a fi rm knowledge of that grade�s priority skills.

The reason priority skills have a strong emphasis in Scott Foresman Reading Street is that not every skill at every grade level is equally important. In the last fi ve years, research has shown this. Some skills are what we call priority skills: They carry high signifi cance and become predictors for later success. These priority skills are clearly identifi ed for each grade level, and they�re different for each grade level. The kinds of instruction, assessment, and practice given to these skills ensure that students master them and are well equipped for the next grade.

It will help you become a better teacher because you will know what to emphasize, at what points in time, and for which students. Understanding priority skills will allow you to use your time wisely, maximize instructional time, and give proper instructional emphasis to those priority skills. As a busy teacher, you have many aspects of the reading process to juggle—including grouping, selection of materials, classroom management, material organization, and lesson preparation. By highlighting priority skills, you will be comfortable knowing that if all of the students in your class can perform well on these skills, at a minimum, they are on the path to successful reading. They are prepared to go down "Reading Street."