I am teaching 3 literacy classes, one for gr. 9s (all with IEPs, all 3 or more yrs. delayed) and 2 gr. 11 classes for students who failed a provincially-mandated literacy test, most of whom will also have IEPs.
Question: I use PG but want something to follow-up. Have checked out Great Leaps (which I think I recall Shay, you are planning to use next yr.), Benchmark Word Detectives pgm for gr. 5 and above (an analogies pgm.which I haven’t seen in detail) and Sound Reading Solutions— www.soundreading.com. It strikes me that Great Leaps may not be feasible with my numbers in the time I have alotted. (one semester, 76 mins. plus all the other stuff I have to do) and I am not sure about its compatibility with PG. As for Benchmark, their mail out is only minimally helpful in helping me determine how their pgm. works. It seems to me that the PG people slam analogies type pgms. though it seems Benchmark has had some success. Sound Reading sounds very interesting because it builds fluency as well as phonemic and phonological skills. Also, judging from the activites on its website, it is very PG-compatible. It contains print activities plus CD for supplemental practice and is supposed to be coming out with a high school version this spring.
I have one student who is severely delayed (visual, auditory, memory deficits). I got his word attack skills up 2 grades (from gr. 1.3) with 19 hrs. of PG. A recent assessment recommends LiPs, but I can’t see my school springing for it. I got the district to spring for LiPs for the elementary school next door (for use with my son) but it is now being used with other students and won’t be freed up for a long while. My student also has a lot of trouble with sight words. (Shay, do you know of any decent computer pgms. for sight words—the ones that are not decodable using PG?) Is Seeing Stars any good for high school?
Info. on any or all of these would be helpful. We have severe funding cutbacks and so I’m reluctant to purchase anything that isn’t appropriate or that doesn’t come highly recommended. (Am planning on purchasing Visualizing and Verbalizing for sure and possibly Step Up to Writing, so I am courting my limit. Earobics has also been recommended for my severely delayed guy.)
Thank you.
Re: Follow-ups to PG: Shay & others
My son’s resource teacher has used Great Leaps along side PG this year. I think it has been one piece in helping to improve his fluency. My impression is it isn’t very time consuming to use.
Beth
Re: Follow-ups to PG: Shay & others
Hi Jan,
I just got Great Leaps 3-5 for my 10 yr. old son. It is for fluency.
Anyway, it has some cute reading in it and my son loves it. I think it is because it is a notebook and the reading is timed. He is very competitive and wants to improve his reading time.
Like I said I just got it but he wants to do it so that to me is good.
Re: Follow-ups to PG: Shay & others
I forgot to mention that one element of the Sound Reading program I like is that it appears to have a LiPs-like component—an intriguing pgm. since it appears to hit a lot of bases. I had forgotten about Read Naturally. We have (had) a good chunk of $ for computer pgms. though I’m afraid the deadline might have passed. I put in a request for Inspiration, so it’s a sure bet (and has probably blown the $ allotment for computer stuff).
I wish it were possible to go to a convention at which all these goodies were demonstrated, with the opportunity to thumb through hard copies—a great forum for us visual learners.
Re: Follow-ups to PG: Shay & others
Great Leaps takes about 5 minutes per day per student. Actually, there are three sections and the student is timed for one minute for each section and has to read sounds, phrases, or stories. You record the number of correct responses and errors. A child moves on to the next lesson after reaching a certain proficiency level. Personally, I do not see the relevance in quick reading of phonemes. That is not a task that children need to do. They do need to read WORDS fluently. I am training to use PG now. So I would teach the phonetics with PG first and then use the phrases and stories portion of Great Leaps.
I also use Earobics. I think it is good for children with poor listening skills, auditory processing problems, and hearing impairment. However, I think it needs to be used fairly intensively to see significant gains.
Janis
Hi Jan,
I am going to look into Great Leaps for this year. I have used Read Naturally in the past and I have liked it but it is costly for an individual to buy but maybe you have enough money even in your low budget to buy some of the levels. I like this program because the students are on in control and this is great for older students and it frees you up to help students that may need additional help with PG.
The only time, at least for me, that I “slam” analogy programs is when they are used to teach programs. My philosophy for teaching reading is, after PG, use whatever works for your situation. I try a lot of programs, because you never know what is going to work with your kids. I am going to look at Reading Sounds now since you have mentioned it. You might look at Inspiration to use with Step Up To Writing. I may be purchasing the CD Rom that is compatible with V/V this summer. I have used Earobics and I think that it is a good program. The kids are used to computer games and it has helped those with auditory processing problems. “Step” is a great program. Part of the final for my 11th grade English class is a 3-5 page research paper. These kids couldn’t even write a good sentence at the beginning of this year. I will go to the Reading Sounds website and let you know what I think.