Group and Tutoring Edition (GATE) Steps

Step 1: Listen for Vowel Sounds in Words
Students listen for specified vowel sounds in words. This promotes phonemic awareness, in particular, the ability to recognize the vowel sound in each word.

Step 2: Blend Vowel Sounds
Students blend those vowel sounds into words. This improves phonemic awareness, in particular, the ability to recognize words made by sounds blended together.

Step 3: Practice Letter Sounds
Students practice letter sounds with and then without teacher support. This increases knowledge of the names and sounds of the featured letters.

Step 4: Sound Out Key Words
Students sound out key words with and then without teacher support. This teaches decoding of short, phonetically regular words containing the featured sounds.

Step 5: Make a Prediction
Students predict what the story will say about a topic using the title, picture, and key words. This is a pre-reading activity that prepares the students to read the story.

Step 6: Cold Timing
Students read the story independently while the teacher times them for one minute. This determines how well the students can read the story on their own before reading along or practicing.

Step 7: Graph the Cold Timing Score
Students fill in their individual graphs with a blue bar for the cold timing score. This provides a visual record of each student's cold timing score and a baseline for their progress.

Step 8: Read Along
Students read along with the teacher using the teacher's guide. This models the correct reading of the story so the students can learn new words, confirm words that tend to confuse them, and master other words. It also teaches appropriate phrasing and expression.

Step 9: Practice and Pass the Story
The teacher times the students as they practice reading the story independently several times, until they can read it at a predetermined goal rate. By practicing, students learn to read the story fluently and master some of the words within the story. It also provides the teacher with the opportunity to listen to each student read.

After practicing, the students then attempt to pass the story. Students must read a minimum of 70 words correctly in one minute in order to pass.

Step 10: Graph the Final Timing Score
Students fill in their individual graphs with a red bar for their final timing score. The red bar above the blue bar for their cold timing score shows students their improvement.