SIM Stories
The Center for Research on Learning (CRL) began as an organization focused on struggling adolescent learners in secondary schools. In large measure, and to our professional satisfaction, that is still what we do today. These stories capture a sense of the broad array of challenges we have met head-on through our development of the Strategic Instruction Model® (SIM) and related research.
Decoding Skills Leap Six Grade Levels with The Word Identification Strategy
Student Success: Strategy30+2: The Word Identification Strategy
The Power of One: Once Teacher's Story of Success (NC)
Katelyn Hagen's Teaching Success: 30+3: Xtreme Reading
A journey from memorization to understanding multiplication and division
Jessica Milton's Teaching Success: 30+5: The Strategic Math Series
Rural school's Dream Team initiates big change with Xtreme Reading
Swain County Middle School Success: 30+4: Xtreme Reading
The first SIM Profile School: Laura Belle Wallace Middle School in Kyle, Texas
School Success: 30+8: SIM
James Madison University, the Virginia Department of Education and SIM work together for student success
Collaboration Success: 30+13: SIM
From tears to cheers: One student’s SIM Learning Strategy success
Student Success: 30+21: Student success in Florida, LINCS Vocabulary Strategy, Word Mapping Strategy and Self Questioning Strategy
SIM Learning Strategies helped turn a career goal into reality
Student success in Florida: 30+28: Learning Strategies
More Stories from Students and Teachers
- Cabot Middle School North was named an Arkansas Diamond School to Watch in 2008, and the Strategic Instruction Model sparkled as one of the school's areas of academic excellence.
- Collaboration and data key to ensuring lasting change At Riverbank High School in California, scores on state competency tests rose more than 50 points in the first two years alone after the school adopted an extensive literacy improvement program based on SIM.
- Comprehensive Program Targets School-wide Literacy Students who completed Muskegon High School's reading comprehension course, which consisted of four SIM strategies, performed better on the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test at the end of the year than their peers at a comparison school.
- Cooperative Thinking Strategies in Glastonbury Connecticut public schools
- Crafting an online course with Content Enhancement
- Eighth-Grade Spark Fuels Lasting Academic Success Until she was introduced to SIM, a Virginia teacher thought that all she had to offer students were short-term fixes. Now, she feels empowered, confident, and more accomplished, and her students are models of the long-term benefits associated with SIM.
- Sabrina Saleh is on her way to nursing school (SLANT, Sentence Writing, Test-Taking, Reading Comprehension)
- School Ensures Students Possess ALL the Skills Needed for Success(SLANT, Test-Taking, Self-Advocacy)
- SIM in Florida since 1985!
- SIM interventions make a difference on the Fort Peck Reservation in Wolf Point, MT(Striving Readers Grant Success)
- SIM sustainability and spread in Hays, Texas (Content Enhancement and Learning Strategies)
- SIM Tools of the Trade, Susan Trumbo, Speech Language Pathologist
- SIM Writing Strategies with advanced students in accelerated courses, Katherine Green and Larissa Bell
- Sophomore finds his voice with SIM Writing Strategies
- Support of SIM at Mashburn Institute in Arkansas
- The Sentence Writing and Paragraph Writing Strategies: "A million reasons" (Student success, Shana Paterson)
- Three components for SIM success at Montana high school (Striving Readers Grant Success)
- Transformed: Ex-student steps into teacher’s shoes When Stephen Hanson was a teenager, SIM Learning Strategies transformed his life. He now teaches strategies to students in the same middle school he once attended.
- Using the Framing Routine During Math Lectures Yields Positive Results AP Calculus students at Riverbank High School in California like the Framing Routine for the organization it brings to their notes and for the way it helps them grasp difficult concepts in class.
- Using the Theme Writing Strategy with gifted students, Jennifer Hunter (Teaching success)
- Whitney: A Very Special Student (Wethersfield Connecticut, 1997)
- A Thank You Note from Jennifer-Ann
- SIM Boosts Literacy Levels at a Native American High School
Listen to SIM StoryCorps
SIM StoryCorps is a candid conversation between two SIM Professional Developers about what’s really important in the field of education: students, connections, hope, success. How did SIM contribute to attaining what matters most? Listen to these stories from educators' hearts to find out.