Cooperative Integrated Reading And Composition Analysis

Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition, or CIRC, is a reading and writing team focused, fast-paced curriculum typically implemented in second through eighth grade classrooms. As its name indicates, the program’s main focus is to have students work together in groups with varying achievement levels in order to learn from one another and achieve one main goal, to be successful in reading and writing. Instructors are provided with daily 90-minute lessons of direct instruction and group work that focus on story-related activities, explicit instruction, and the integration of language arts and writing throughout the lesson (What Works Clearinghouse, 2012). The purpose of these three principals is to improve reading comprehension, fluency, …show more content…
If possible, he or she should create teams of four with two high achieving students and two low achieving students. This will allow students who are higher achieving to help students who are lower achieving when working in pairs due to the fact that one student does not succeed without the other. After groups are formed, the lesson begins with the teacher providing explicit instruction on what will be learned, and what team learning will look like. After expectations are clear, instructors will preview the chosen story to the students. This usually involves whole class discussion about predictions on what the story will be about and discussion about new vocabulary. This process should last approximately twenty minutes (Stevens & Slavin, 1995). Following whole class instruction, students will work in their small group of two, in their larger group of four, and individually on assignments that reflect the instruction given by the teacher. Students first read the story silently. CIRC uses short and simple stories that involve descriptive text (Zainuddin, 2015). Then in pairs, students will alternate reading orally to one another. This process gives students the opportunity to receive feedback from their partners, and practice oral reading fluency. Students who are lacking proficient reading skills should be paired with …show more content…
Depending on the grade level the teacher is implementing the CIRC program in, modifications should be used in order to best target the age demographic they are working with. If implementing the program in a second grade classroom, an instructor may choose to use a different reward system than if implementing CIRC in a seventh grade classroom. The instructor should be knowledgeable about what will motivate his or her students. The more salient the reward, the more motivated the students will be to achieve the reward. Instructors working with middle school teams should also consider creating choosing worksheet questions that facilitate more abstract, implicit themes and ideas, rather than explicit comprehension with younger students.