HIP Theory
The theory behind HIP novels can be whittled down to a simple statement: students become better readers when they read and re-read texts at their appropriate reading level.
The importance of matching readers with text at their instructional reading level has been demonstrated repeatedly by research (cf. Allington, Pressley, Pearson, etc.) Unfortunately, a quarter or more of the students in the average classroom struggle with traditional “grade level” novels. Many students in a typical class may have an “independent” reading level that is a grade or two below grade norms. For all these students, reading and repeated reading of appropriately levelled text is the key to reading success.
The novels in our four HIP novel series have been created and edited to hook readers quickly and provide cliffhanger situations to carry the reader from chapter to chapter. To ensure their appeal and accessibility, the books are tested with groups of students and teachers, and then revised accordingly. The stories are illustrated to help students visualize the characters and action, and also to “bulk up” the books to look more like standard grade level novels without adding to the reading challenge. The accomplishment of reading a novel “all the way through” is particularly important for reluctant readers.
The readability of each HIP novel has been carefully controlled to maintain a consistent level of difficulty from page to page. HIP Sr. novels have reading levels from grade 3.0 to 4.0; HIP Jr. novels peak at a grade 2.5 level. We measure readability every one hundred words of text, carefully checking vocabulary that goes outside the basic HIP 800 list to be sure it is decodable and essential to the story. Even the typeface and page designs of our books have been tested and optimized to facilitate reading for struggling readers. There are no end-of-line hyphens and no sudden jumps in reading difficulty in these books. Our editorial and design goal is to make HIP Jr. novels consistently interesting and consistently easy to read.
All this has been accomplished in books that look exactly like the middle-grade novels so often found in classrooms and libraries. Our great pride in creating all HIP novels is that these books are popular with both struggling and proficient readers in classrooms around the world.
Advantages of the teacher’s guide
The HIP teacher’s guides offer important resources for teaching HIP novels. Our educational consultant, Lori Jamison, has broken each novel into teachable “chunks” of one to three chapters, then provided before-reading, during-reading, and after-reading discussion notes. As well, there are graphic organizers designed to help students extend their experience with the text and build reading strategies. When the reading is finished, each guide offers six to eight after-reading activities and a brief quiz.
