We are sometimes asked whether Leveled Literacy Intervention is a scripted teaching system.

Here is an example of the type of question we occasionally recieve about this topic.

"If research shows that what really matters is highly effective, educated teachers who are able to make teaching decisions based on his/her students’ needs, why would you create a scripted curriculum in a box? I understand the district’s decision to purchase a boxed curriculum. It’s less expensive than teaching the teacher, but with your Reading Recovery knowledge

I don’t understand why you would create it. Why must LLI teachers even conduct a running record or "reading record" when their next books and word work activities are already planned for them."

We consider Leveled Literacy Intervention neither a “scripted“ nor “boxed” system, but a comprehensive system for supporting teachers’ decision making when working with a small group. In our experience, Reading Recovery teachers have found the system to be very useful as designing a lesson for one child is very different from working with a small group. In fact, many have sent feedback indicating that they have appreciated having a starting point and tools to get started.

You will see as we have written on the blog elsewhere, we do not consider the LLI lesson a script, but a framework of suggested considerations and routines. Teachers learn more and more about how to make better decisions by noticing children. We hope you will have the opportunity to read the System Guide where you will learn that teachers can skip books at a level, focusing on the behaviors they notice, they tailor the suggestions to fit the children they teach, regrouping children as needed, customizing the cards and games with the Lesson Resources CD-ROM etc. They select appropriate language to use with their students from the Prompting Guide and use The Continuum of Literacy Learning to guide their teaching. Reading Recovery teachers have been especially positive as they see that LLI is a system that supports the very principles you describe and is a wonderful complement to their Reading Recovery teaching. We hope you get a chance to talk with more teachers who have had professional development in LLI so they can share with you how the system is intended to be used. As with all materials and professional resources, a teacher must bring thoughtfulness to decision-making. You should know that Heinemann provides both onsite and offsite professional development services to support LLI teachers at all levels.

We discussed the notion of scripted lessons in LLI at greater length in our forum.
http://heinemann.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=52

We hope this helps clarify any misconceptions you may have about the Leveled Literacy Intervention System.

Best regards,

-Gay & Irene