Total Words
By Achieve Psychology for Learning
Research says children are reading less. Quality, concise texts packed with topic details make a difference.
Why five at a time?
One topic, five different titles, 6 copies of each - Plus activities and comprehension skills tasks for every book.
Our books address the challenge that all teachers experience when faced with 30 students in their class with differing levels of reading ability, differing levels of motivation and confidence. Total Words books are short, concise texts that support all levels of reading skill. Total Words books cover topics in science, history and social values, they provide researched, factual topic information in easily accessible lengths, with support for learning keywords.
Each box contains thirty books – five different titles related to one topic, with six copies of each title. Total Words books can be used for guided reading, general classroom reading and for topic research.
Available ranges:
Aspiring Readers: 100-250 words per book: for students who are beginning their reading career, building their sight-reading vocabulary and for students who need a new approach to kick-start their reading skills.
Challenge Readers: 300-600 words per book: for students who are learning to confidently use their reading skills and need to extend the amount of reading that they do each day;
Curriculum Readers: 800-1300 words per book: for students who are learning to read text for meaningful research.
Reading comes down to maths; for a pupil to make rapid gains in their reading, they need to have access to reading texts that give them the opportunity to learn a high number of new words each week.
Inclusive Reading
Total Words books cover curriculum-related subjects at manageable lengths for readers who may be at risk of being left behind their classmates.
‘Doing reading’ can mean different things for different students. For some, it may mean reading 2-3000 words in one reading session; for others, it may mean taking turns with a book and actually reading 20-30 words. Because we produce books of selected lengths, provide word counts so that students and teachers know exactly how many words have been read each day, the gap that is created and sustained through some students reading fewer words than others, doing less daily reading practice can be reduced.
Our books can be read cover-to-cover and re-read within the duration of a typical classroom lesson.
Reading for Research
With summaries and keywords at the beginning of each story, Total Words books make selecting relevent topic language clear for readers.
Total Words books are designed for effective research - with highlighted key topic words and simple, easy access to topic content and topic details. The internet is undoubtedly a great resource for classroom teachers, but research suggests that the complex language of websites does not make it easy for students to select what information is relevant for them, resulting in many students blindly copying words from a website without really having a personal understanding of the content.
Total Words books are ideal for children who are learning to read their first stories right through to children who are building up their extended vocabulary and using reading comprehension skills to learn details from text.
Each book in each range has accompanying activities for teachers to use in class.
