The book Discover Reading! is a teacher guide with activities for building all levels of literacy. The book outlines everything the parent or teacher needs to know, including sample lessons for teaching reading ala CM method using the material of choice. The lesson plans offered separately are an option for those wanting a quick start using ready-made lesson plans derived from familiar short poems and stories.
All the activities included in Discover Reading! work to build the underlying skills foundational to literacy; even many termed ‘pre-reading’ are still highly beneficial to all levels of beginning readers. In addition, Discover Reading! contains essential ideas that should be taken into consideration and practiced frequently to build a solid foundation at both the pre-reading, developing and emerging reader stages.
The optional lesson plans (available for purchase separately) are definitely not stand-alone. They are supplementary; providing the teacher with a framework and the materials needed to implement the method outlined in the book. Each digital lesson plan book comes with two files. First, there is a My Storybook file, which has the poems, songs or stories in large print for the child to use as-is or to cut and paste into his own storybook notebook. Second, the Storybook Resources file contains the lesson plans and printable word cards for using those poems, songs or stories as part of a reading lesson.