Passport to Literacy

Passport to Literacy is a widely-used, supplemental multi-component reading intervention program designed to improve reading outcomes for struggling readers in fourth grade. The program provides daily 30-minute sessions in small groups of 4-7 students throughout the school year (120 lessons total). Passport to Literacy addresses phonics and word recognition, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension in each lesson, with main emphasis on strategies for gaining understanding, building conceptual and background knowledge, and teaching students to interact with text to gain meaning and monitor comprehension. Lessons are organized into 12 ten-day adventures. Each lesson includes Word Works (focusing on advanced word study, affixes, roots, and multi-syllabic word strategies) and Read to Understand (organized into before, during, and after reading comprehension skills and strategies). The program requires research staff or trained interventionists to deliver instruction. Prior to intervention, teachers participated in approximately 8 hours of training over two days, with ongoing twice-monthly coaching visits and monthly meetings throughout implementation.