Strategies to Achieve Reading Success

The STARS® Series

Target Instruction on the Essential Reading Comprehension Strategies

Using the results of the CARS pretest, target instruction with the highly scaffolded, five-part lessons in the Strategies to Achieve Reading Success (STARS) series.

  • Explicit instruction and practice in a carefully structured format fully supports students.
  • Gradual release of responsibility and practice with short pieces of text builds students' confidence.
  • Multiple definitions and examples of each strategy within each lesson continually reinforce understanding.
  • Easy-to-use, informative Teacher Guide makes every teacher a reading expert.

The STARS series also supports English Learners with prior knowledge activation, explicit instruction, graphic organizers, and theme-based instruction.

Get to Know STARS

STARS focuses on the 12 key reading strategies to improve students' reading ability: finding main ideas, recalling facts and details, understanding sequence, recognizing cause and effect, comparing and contrasting, making predictions, finding word meaning in context, drawing conclusions and making inferences, distinguishing fact from opinion, identifying author's purpose, interpreting figurative language, and summarizing.

Strategies to Achieve Reading Success student book.

Student Book

Each lesson is broken out into five parts: Think About the Strategy, Learn About the Strategy, Check Your Understanding, Build on What You Have Learned, and Prepare for a Test. Student Books are available in English for Grades K–8 and in Spanish for Grades 1–5.

Download a free sample lesson:

Strategies to Achieve Reading Success Teacher Guide.

Teacher Guide

Teacher Guides provide a wealth of information and support for teachers, including:

  • Modeling to help teachers introduce the 12 strategies
  • Connection to Literature feature to apply strategies to authentic literature
  • Reteaching box to reinforce student learning

Download a free sample lesson:

Proven to Work

The Educational Research Institute of America completed a study of the instructional effectiveness of CARS and STARS.

READ THE STUDY

Backed by Research

The STARS series is founded on research-based strategies and features that are designed to support students as they learn how to read for meaning.

READ THE RESEARCH