comprehensive reading program

RA offers a very effective program for development of decoding skills, called Phono-Graphix, and also offers a program called “Language Wise” which develops higher order verbal skills. They do in-service training for PG, but I’m not sure about LW. Website is http://www.readamerica.net.

Mary

The special ed. teachers need to become knowledgable in how to help those students that can not decode and comprehend. They need to train in programs like
Orton- Gillingham and/or Wilson Reading Systems. This type of instruction can help students with decoding… The instruction can be intregrated along with other reading programs and literature. Buying a program & not improving the types of srvices delivered in the school for students with language based learning problems will have little if any overall effect.

Regards,

Fran Lunney

I”ve taught middle and high school reading and used SRA Corrective Reading (and liked it). What are the concerns for the “bridging” process? What do the students have trouble with? I’d be inclined to target those areas specifically and leave the direct instruction stuff doing it’s direct stuff ;)

For instance, there are good materials out of EPS for critical thinking skills, as well as from Jamestown PUblishers; their Single Skills series is one I had lots of success with for teaching things like main ideas and inferences.

The other huge issue is vocabulary — there are some really good ideas for teaching that on this site (click on “LD IN Depth” and go to “For Teachers”) and tolerable ones on mine (www.resourceroom.net — click on “reading comprehension” — there are vocab. exercises there too).

An awful lot of “higher thinking skills” teaching doesn’t reach LD kids for a number of reasons (often simply because their reading isn’t fluent and accurate enough for them to put the energy into the language comprehension, and often because they need to be taught what comes intuitively to other students).

I can get you titles if you’re interested.

… generally comes with training, too. It really addresses decoding issues, very systematically, and has the advantage of being designed for group instruction while many O-G programs work best in tutorial situations (tho’ Wilson is an exception to that). SRA isn’t as multisensory or explicit, and it’s structure is different, but it is a very effective service for many LD students. (Corrective REading isn’t the “SRA” that I grew up with, at all — those cool cards with colors that you read & answered quesitons about. THose weren’t direct instruction — they were nice reading practice, fine if you could read — it’s what we did while the teacher *taught* the other groups to read.)

After reading your helpful info on Corrective SRA. I have a few questions for you. A little background first I am a 6th grade reading teacher, inner city middle school, with students that aren’t prepared for 6th grade. They lack so much I don’t want to go on about it. We have been forced into acedemic emergency with title one because of scores. We now have an extra lg. lump sum of money to use over 18 mos to raise test scores. What would you recommend as a possible solution to raising reading scores. We are all trying different strategies. As a building we focused on 3 skills concept mapping, kwwl, and writing what you know or learned after a lesson.
We are looking into the star assessment program and other technology. We are to look outside the “regular box ” for ideas on doing things diffenently.
Our team recognized the lack of vocabulary development and as a study skill/hall time period are teaching words used on our OHIO prof. tests.
Would the corrective SRA be a helpful tool for these kids, appathy from parent and student alike is high. They don’t try and think for themselves they want everything handed to them (answers). Any help would be great. Thanks

then I would recommend that you look at Phono-Graphix (http://www.readamerica.net) for a method that tends to remediate decoding skills quickly. There are quite a few teachers on the ReadNOW list at http://www.groups.yahoo.com who have experience with PG (as well as other programs such as SRA, Open Court, LMB, etc.) both in tutoring situations and classroom situations, some with older children. So I would ask your questions there too. You can also search the archived messages on the list for opinions about different programs.

For a quick boost to vocabulary development (a shot-in-the-arm approach) I would recommend trying “Vocabulary Cartoons”. There is an elementary version for grades 3-6, and two additional books for grades 7-12. This is a very quick, fun approach for kids that can be done primarily orally, and retention is good. The books are probably available from most bookstores. The grade 3-6 book is ISBN 0-9652422-7-7.

Mary

Corrective reading is very, very structured and scripted — everything that comes from the teacher’s lips is down there on the paper. (So it even cuts on prep time.) It *does* take some old-fashioned self-discipline in delivery — of course it’s easier to ignore mistakes and *not* make the kids go back and correct, because they fight it at first. The program does require near-perfection in many spots — but the kids aren’t stupid, they figure out that it takes longer to argue and *then* go back and correct it than it does to just go back and correct it. (So, of course, you have to make them realize that you *are* going to make them go back and correct it). It’s a lot like leading a chorus (which I tell the kids too, but I also make sure nobody can see me “conducting” because they are very self-conscious).
THe structure, though, made it *very* effective for me for my most ‘at-risk’ kids with behavioral issues or no confidence. Kids know *exactly* what is expected every minute, and get feedback and points throughout.
Some people have trouble with that high level of structure — I thought I might, since I’m not a structured person by nature. Instead, I found it was a good balance — I could do lots of less structured things, and better, because the kids were getting this real foundation.

I completely agree with everything Sue has had to say about Corrective Reading and Reading Mastery. They are excellent programs. They are also very appropriate to be used in resource programs. When you are expected to work with 20-30 kids every day, you need something that is easy to plan for, easy to do, and easy to keep data on. I also like it because it has the research supporting it. I have read the Phonographix book, and I just don’t see how that can be successfully done with several students in a resource room. The only fall-back with Corrective Reading is that it doesn’t really pull in multi-sensory approaches, nor does it teach the syllable types.

have successfully used Phono-Graphix with small groups. Some have also been working on whole-school classroom implementation of PG. You might want to ask on that list for personal experiences, and/or search the archived messsages for old posts on this subject. Website for joining the list is http://www.groups.yahoo.com

It’s true that Reading Reflex was written for one-on-one work. However, there are also classroom and small group materials and workshops available from the developers for implementation of PG in school settings.

Mary