"Rewards" dyslexia program

You might mean “Great Leaps”. It is a good program to teach fluency in reading, but it is not a program to initially teach a dyslexic child to read. I cannot think of any reading program for dyslexics called Rewards, however.

Janis

The program that I am familiar with called REWARDS is published by Sopris West. It is inexpensive and is a direct instruction program that is designed to give students (Grades 4—12) a strategy and the knowledge they need to efficiently and quickly decode words of three to five syllables. It consists of twenty direct instruction lessons and would be easy for any teacher or even an aid to do with small groups. It would not be as easy with a full class. The lessons, however, are too long for me to cover in one 50 minute class period,(but I do a lot of vocabulary expansion during the pieces of the lesson) so the entire program does take longer than twenty sessions. I think, (having used it with fifth graders) that it is an excellent program for what it does. I’d consider it for any group of students who are reading on about a 3rd-5th grade level, and are in grades 4-5 or above. Any student that is not a proficient chapter book level reader would benefit from this program. It’s certainly not the only one available, but it’s packaged nicely, there is minimal planning involved, there is an motivational program built in to it, and it doesn’t cost much! You have to be an enthusiastic teacher though, or else, as in all programs, your students will really get bored with it.

I have used the REWARDS program with struggling 6th grade readers with much success, especially when I used it during a before school 25 minute time with about 15 students. Another teacher I know uses this program with contuation high school students with success. Ann did a great job of describing the program.