RILL lesson structure

Below is a quick visual of a single RILL lesson, which follows the same structure every time, thus allowing the child to recognise the rhythm whilst bringing familiarity and confidence as the course progresses.

A detailed description of the lesson structure can be found below:

Introduction


Recap

Recap previous lesson and outline aim of the lesson.

Vocabulary


Words of the day

Words of the day words are tier two words (Beck et al., 2002) which can also be found in the story Tier two words are:



Words of the day are trained following the approach used in the Reading and Vocabulary Intervention (REVI; Duff et al., 2008), based on Beck et al. (2002). It follows: 


Instructor contextualises word

Child repeats word

Instructor defines the word

Instructor uses an alternative

Child uses the word in context

Child repeats the word


Reading


Passage of the day

Read the passage with the instructor. 

Depending on the child’s level, they may read aloud independently or shared with the instructor. The passage contains the two Words of the Day and so the child is also exposed to the written form of these words in text. 

The instructor will help the child decode words they are unfamiliar with.

The instructor will ask the child two or three pre-set questions on the text.

Phonemic awareness and Phonics


Word games

In this activity children focus on blending the phonemes (i.e., synthesising individually presented phonemes to produce the target word), of upto five words which include the lessons target blend. This activity follows a systematic structure also.

Break

Spelling


Spelling

Where necessary, this session will focus on securing letter knowledge (for younger and poorer readers and spellers; see Byrne, 1998). 

The focus then shifts to explicit instruction of a specific vowel sound/pattern. The focus early in the programme is short vowel sounds, advancing to long vowel sounds later. 

Children are taught to segment and examine the orthographic context of specific patterns (see Treiman, 2018). Where possible, the words used in the vocabulary or phonological awareness activities were integrated (see Graham et al., 2018). 


Narrative


Verbal and written story skills

Focus on one key narrative skill (characters, sequencing, and structuring, elaborating, connectives, and verb use; see Clarke et al., 2010) in both the verbal and written domains. These skills are used to incrementally construct a story over several sessions. 


Vocabulary


Words of the day recap

Recap on the words of the day by:


Close


Recap and discussion

Instructor leads the discussion by prompting the child to describe what they have learned in the lesson and what they enjoyed doing.

Instructor briefly describes plan for next lesson.

Below you can watch snippets of a RILL lesson recorded live:

ruth.mp4