Teachers love this Facebook Group

I haven't really used my Facebook for connecting with learning.  I have used it more to connect with family and friends.  A colleague in my Edgewood co-hort just loves this Facebook community and the teachers she works with enjoys the dialogue also. 

Wisconsin Writes

The DPI is launching a new writing project titled "Wisconsin Writes" with local Wisconsin authors.  Check it out here. 

What are your beliefs about the teacher

Marci Glarus from the DPI reminded me today of this visual depiction of literacy.

cue cards http://www.write-out-loud.com/cue-cards.html

Eight Great Tricks for Sounding Out Three Letter Words

Posted By Heidi on January 27, 2012

 

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In November, I posted a blog entry on teaching children to sound out CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words.  And like most Kindergarten classes, we are still working on mastering that skill.  While most of my kids are doing fairly well with this, there are still a few little ones that are struggling to figure out how to blend sounds together.  These are mostly the younger ones with the fall birthdays, so it is really not their fault at all, poor babies!

But, the Common Core State Standards were written for everybody- no matter when their birthdays fall- and so I am responsible for teaching all of them to sound out CVC words.  It doesn’t matter if English is not their first language, or if they only just barely turned five years old at the end of November.  It doesn’t matter if on top of that they were born prematurely, or may have a learning disability, or have any number of other problems you can imagine.  It makes no difference if their parents are uninvolved in their schooling or if their attendance is poor.  (Thankfully, this describes very few of my students!)

None of those things matter, except that I am responsible to make sure that everyone meets all of the state standards, to the best of their ability and my ability to teach them.   So here are some of the things that we have been doing in our little after school tutoring group to help build up their phonemic awareness and therefore get them closer and closer to being able to sound out CVC words.

We practice sounding out words every day as whole group
on this pocket chart from ReallyGoodStuff.com  

Phonemic awareness forms the foundation for language arts in general, but especially for sounding out words.  So when I have trouble getting kids to sound out words, I always remind myself to back up and see where they have fallen short on their journey to become readers.  All of the bricks (skills) in the foundation must be in place if they are going to be able to sound out words.  If they are having trouble, then there must be something missing.  So what is it?  I try to identify the gaps and see if I can fill them in.

Phonemic Awareness Skills Progression:
1.  Blending parts of compound words
(play + ground = playground)
2.  Blending initial sound to rest of word in longer words
(/m/ + arshmallow = marshmallow)
3.  Blending initial sound to rimes in shorter words
(/m/ + at = mat)
4.  Blending 3 phonemes/sounds in context
(“I like to /r/ + /u/ + /n/” =
“I like to run.”)
5.  Blending 3 phonemes
(out of context)
(/b/ + /a/ + /t/ = bat)

The natural progression after this step is that if a child knows the letter sounds, he would then be able to say the letter sounds him or herself and then sound out the words.  The activities below are based on this progression of phonemic awareness skills, and the idea that once they master each of the preliminary skills, they should then be able to sound out words- with a little practice, anyway! The only difference between these activities and any other phonemic awareness activities is that I am doing them with the very same sounds and words that I am trying to teach them to read, rather than any random sounds or words that I might pull out of the air.  This is VERY important!  For example, since I might be ultimately trying to teach them to read the word “fat,” I would work on blending just the /f/ and the /a/ sound in the first activity below.  Then, if I am also working on the word “sat,” then I would have them blend the sounds /s/ and /a/ in the first activity below, etc.

1.  Guess My Silly Sound
For this activity, I simply took any two sounds, such as /fffff/ and /aaaaa/ and said them out loud.  Then I called on a child to blend them together to make a funny sound, which in this case would be “fa.”  For some reason, my students this year find it easier to blend the words together if the vowel comes first and the consonant comes last.

2.  Guess My Secret Word

This is my CVC book.
You can also get it on a disc, which gets you
the printable CVC bingo games with it, too!  

For this activity, I just took the CVC flash cards from the unit in my CVC book that we are working on at the moment and just read each child the sounds from each card.  I simply told each child the sounds of each word without showing them the letters, and asked them to blend the sounds together to make a word.  If they didn’t get it, I started giving them contextual clues.  For example, if the word was “dig,” then I might say, “This is something a naughty dog does in the garden.”   If the word was “pig,” I might say, “This is a farm animal that loves the mud.” I’ve attached a sample of the “at” word family flashcards from this set for you to try.

3.  Stretch Out the Word
The goal of this activity is to get the children to be aware of every sound in the word; (hence the term “phonemic awareness.”)  For this activity, I have the children put their hands up in front of them and show me how they are going to stretch out their words.  Then we pretend to stretch out some rubber, stretchy snakes as we pull the sounds of the words apart.  I say, “Say ‘fat.”  Sound ‘fat.”  Then the children begin to pull on their imaginary rubber snakes until we have isolated all of the sounds in the word.  After we have done this for a few words, then I pass out some REAL stretchy snakes, and let them try it with some real ones!  The kids LOVE this, and when we have stretched out our CVC words, I let them play with the rubbery snakes a little bit.

 

4.  Build the Word with “CVC Pockets”

 

For this activity, I have the children take one of our new CVC pockets and pull the letters out of the envelope.  Then they have to try to put them in the correct order that they go in.  So for the word “lip,” we would not want to see the p coming first, etc.  They have to think about each sound and where it should go when putting it back together.  Then they have to try to read the word to me!

5.  Write the Word and Sound It Out By Pushing Up Chips
I learned this gem of a trick from my new friend, Janice Lawson, who is a retired Kindergarten teacher that has come to volunteer in my room one day a week!  I asked her if she would work with a couple of my students that were struggling with sounding out words, and she pulled out this activity from her bag of tricks that she used when she taught Kindergarten in Baldwin Park, CA.

This is Janice’s board for sounding out CVC words!  

She said that she felt that it was important for the children to write the words that they were going to practice reading themselves, to help them better focus on the letters.  Then she asked me for some blocks or chips to use as markers, and had the children push them up as they said the sounds, one block at a time.  Then they pushed the blocks together and tried to blend the sounds together as they did it.  For my two lowest little ones, this really unlocked the secret of sounding out words!  She said that they needed the kinesthetic element to help them remember and focus on the sounds.  She also mentioned that the chips had to be something very boring, or the children (especially the boys!) would just play with them.  She usually used poker chips.

This is my paper and the blocks that I used to sound out words with the kids.  

I was so excited to see that something was actually working for these two little students, because I had been trying absolutely everything I could think of, and getting practically no where!  So during after school tutoring, we tried it again!  I handed out white boards to the group and had them all write a word.  Then we put the blocks on the boards and pushed one block up on each letter for each sound as we said it.  Then we pushed the blocks together to sound out the word.  All of the children responded very well to this!  The only problem was that it resulted in an erased word on the white board!  So we put away the white boards and switched to paper and pencil and started over.  We did one word together, and then did a second word.  After our first word, we went back and read the first one again, using the blocks as before.  Then we did a third word, and went back and reread the first two words again with the blocks, etc.  We did several words, but each time we finished a word, we went back and reviewed the previous words.

This is what one of my student’s paper’s looked like.  You can see how difficult it was for them to get the words spaced out correctly and the letters written legibly.  

At the end of the session, I asked the children to read the words to me individually, without the blocks.  All of them could do it, except for my two lowest children that I had my friend Janice work with.  So I got out the blocks and let them try it again with the blocks.  Guess what?  THEY DID IT!  I was THRILLED!  They have sounded out a few words for me before, but they have been mostly words that they have memorized- not truly sounded out.  So this is wonderful news!  Hats off to Janice and her great ideas!  I can’t wait to learn more from her!

I decided that to make this a little easier next time, I’m going to make up a printable with some blank boxes for the children to write their letters in.  I’m also going to number them, so that when I ask the children to read the first or second word, we all know which one to read!  The children were writing their words all over their papers and it was hard to keep them all on the same word at the same time.  Some of them also were making their letters too small and too close together for the blocks, and I think that putting one letter in each box will solve a lot of these problems.  If you would like a copy of this printable, click here.

 

Of course, the idea of pushing chips into boxes for each sound is not a new one; these boxes are known as Elkonin boxes.  But I have never thought of using them with letters inside of them; I have only thought of using them as blank place holders to represent a sound in a word.  In this case, the letters are written down, and the child moves the chip on top of the letter while saying the sound, so it is slightly different than the original idea of Elkonin boxes as I understand them.

6.  Read the Word and Match It to the Picture
Finally, I have the children try to read me the CVC word by sounding it out.  No guessing allowed-they MUST sound it out!  Then they come up to the pocket chart and find the picture that matches their word.

The pocket chart with flash cards from my CVC book.  

7.  Reading CVC Nonsense Words
When the children get more proficient at this, I am definitely going to introduce them to the concept of reading nonsense words!  I know that, at the moment, they are trying to make sense of what they are reading, and that is good.  But I do think that in order to develop some good, solid phonics skills, they will need to be able to decode nonsense words.  This is because when a child attempts to decode a longer, multisyllabic word, each syllable inside of it is essentially a nonsense word- and that’s why nonsense words are important.  I use the Word Blending Pocket Chart pictured below from ReallyGoodStuff.com.

  _________________________________________

(This last idea was added on an update to this blog on July 20, 2013).

8.  Sing and Move to Sound Blending Songs to Help the Musical & Kinesthetic Learner
We completed our Sound Blending Songs for Word Families DVD in Spring of 2013, and I have to say that using the songs as a teaching tool for my class made an incredible difference!   As the children sing the songs, they take themselves through the process of saying the letter sounds, stretching them out, and then blending them together to read the word.   They enjoy practicing this process because the songs are fun and active!  These songs really made a difference to some of my students that were struggling the most!

 

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Helping Our Youngest Readers Move Up the Ladder of Text Complexity - 

Natalie Louis

This session was presented by Natalie Louis who is the co-author of Writing for Readers
(Heinemann, 2013) a unit of study for Kindergarten writers. 

The lower grade is potentially in danger with text complexity.  It's a huge learning curve from what we've been doing.  We need to find new ways to move readers forward faster.  Don’t abandon Fountas and Pinnell.  We still need reading levels, the progression of students has just been ramped up.

In kids book baskets, in the past the teacher would mostly have the students independent level.  We started to play around with the formula in the baggies.  Marie Clay says what most grows readers is the instructional level (stretch level). So already we aren’t putting the right thing in the book bags.  Reading Recovery studied and discovered kids grow one level every two weeks, so most of the instruction wasn’t at instructional level.
So we decided to get more instructional level texts in baggies - more shared reading with a small group, sometimes one to two levels above their grade level.

I want to read that book with you!!!!

Kindergarten teachers understand the power of shared reading.  How you know its a good shared reading - the kids are excited and UNRULY!  And its mostly implicit (just doing reading - don’t talk about it).  Less blah, blah, blah, more do, do, do.  It’s why they want to read.  They hear that model of you reading and want to sound just like it.  If your kids are all sitting still, hands folded -it’s not a good shared reading (all eyes on same text - 1 book).  More like a MOSH pit where kids want to surf toward the book.  That's what she wants to see in classrooms.  Excitement! 

You do the dance of shared reading.  As much as they need, until they DO back.  Gesture for them to try, don’t talk about it. Continue saying "Join me if you can." as you turn the page.  Just read it with them.  We are talking levels below I , J. 

Take guided reading books and use them for group shared reading.  Teacher is only one with copy.  All eyes on same text.  The idea is that at the end they might be able to read by themselves. 

Kids below benchmark get this burst schedule of shared reading instruction from you.

Example "Group Burst Schedule"

 You would do two week cycles where you take one group and see them intensely and work with the instructional books in their baggie.  This won't take much time!  These are low level books you can shared read the entire book pretty quickly.

Day 1: Two or three instructional texts (meaning books 2 or 3 levels above their independent level)  in shared reading. Saying to the kids: Join me if you can.  The kids are shouting out things they notice and you just don’t respond.  Keep reading and stopping and saying “Join me if you can”
Day 2:  Two shared reading two above level
Day 3: Guided reading at their level
Day 4:  Two shared reading  two above level and decide how each is doing
Day 5:  Informal or Formal assess to see if their level moved unless they are totally lost still

This can help them “burst” ahead.  Even if you can move a few up faster the one behind can get more focused one on one help.

Partner Reading - There is no reason to have a reading partner unless there is trouble.  If things are good...you don’t need help.  A partner is there for help.  Make sure kids know why they have a partner - so there’s someone else to help when there’s trouble or join the joy!  They need to understand the why of partner reading.

Every child has that one book they keep picking up that is WAAAAY above their level.  Maybe its a book they've seen an older sibling read, maybe it's a topic or popular character right now, but whatever it is - Let them have it!  I call this the child's northstar book - way above your level but you will LEARN to read for this book. They want to read this book so bad they try to sound these huge words out when they are really a C level reader!  Mark it with a post it and say this book is special because it is hard for you but we will give you a shot.  Guess which book they work on hardest?  If I say a book is "just right" and you struggle with it what are you saying in your head to yourself in your head?  "My teacher said this book is just right and I can't read some of these words - ugh I'm so dumb."   A hard book they know is hard  they say, "Oh, I don't know lots of these words but she said it was hard for me so no big deal."  but they work harder.  Let them have it but label it with a sticky note with a star so they know that is their special hard book they chose.

 As an aside...I remember when my son was in Kindergarten and hanging at the C level for so long and desperate to read Star Wars easy readers.  I bought them anyway to keep at home and I would read them aloud to him at times but he sat in front of those books longer than any others trying to sound out "Obi Wan Kanobi".  I'm pretty sure "the force" (or his Northstar books) propelled him through those primary reading levels. :)

I think the Common Core Standards and text complexity will force us to continue looking for new and different ways to get those "bursts" in reading levels.  Do you have any tips or trick to share?
Click here for more from Melanie.

 

Melanie Holtsman

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Green Screen in Miniature - easy, peasy - you can do it too.

Making a Mini - Green Screen work for your projects - speaking skills, digital storytelling, writing and directing a play, etc.  You really don't need costly tools.  You probably already have the tools around you. 

Click here.

Thinking about the questions teachers are asking about GRAMMAR -

Separating grammar from the writing process seems to be like separating the bread from peanut butter and jelly when making a sandwich.

Let's go to a wonderful set of articles from top ELA educators in the professional magazine for ELA teachers.  Click here to read so much information to help you formulate your instructional plans.

Only time for one quick article - in my opinion this is the one to read -A Path to Better Writing.

The Motivating Factor of Working with a Real Author

Our 7th grade Advanced ELA students are currently working via Skype with Katy McKy. Katie is a children's author and magazine writer who is originally from Wisconsin but now lives in Maine.  

Getting our students excited about writing is easy when you incorporate author in to the classroom work.  Most times this has to be through vodcasts or youtube videos.  Here are some helpers in order to assist with your writing instructional planning.

Biographies                   Writer's Notebooks                  The Writing Process    

Older Writers           Wattpad App for Readers & Writers

Wisconsin Writes provides a glimpse into example writing processes of Wisconsin writers from a variety of contexts. Each video story featured captures the recursive, complex, often messy process that we call writing from some of the best writers in the state. The videos showcase each writer working on a current writing task and talking out loud about what they are doing in the moment.

Click here to see the four examples

The examples from Wisconsin writers span the entire writing process from planning, putting a writing plan into action, and editing and revising. These stories create a space to think about where within a writing process we can explicitly talk about and teach strategies for writing based on task, purpose, audience, and student needs.

I can't imagine my life without a writer's notebook. I hope you enjoy writing and teaching writing as much as I do.  Writers Rock, kathy

Becky Murkley updates on WI Biographies -

We’ve been fielding all sorts of inquiries about this project and are super pleased to announce the launch of our newest grade 3-8 resource, Wisconsin Biographies!

Wisconsin Biographies is a collection of free educational, online media resources to enrich your social studies and literacy curriculum, using the stories of famous people in Wisconsin history. Educational materials include:

- short animated videos,

- leveled printable books and ebooks (available free on the iBookstore),

- cross-curricular online activities for students,

- a gallery of historic images,

- teaching tips (short, flexible lesson plans) tied to fourth grade academic standards.

Students can define, analyze, compare and contrast historical figures, time periods, eras and themes, including westward expansion, slavery, women’s suffrage, innovation, and civil rights.

We send out an especially warm thanks to all of the Wisconsin educators who lent their time, expertise and support to advise on and test this project.

Please share this cost free resource with other educational professionals and celebrate with us by entering to win a complete set of classroom trading cards and printed stories that students will instantly love on any of our social media platforms: newsletter, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

For twenty-one more streaming multimedia social studies resources, visit WIMediaLab.org! Please let us know if you have any questions!

Becky Murkley

EDUCATIONAL PRODUCER

ECB | Wisconsin Media Lab

T 608.264.9640 | F 608.264.9622

I am happy to say I worked with Becky when she was a 2nd grade teacher and she was awesome.  She loves the outdoors and getting kids involved in learning with hands on, exciting curriculum.  

Context Clues a strategy for develop meaning not to help with decoding

Every day I learn something new, I call it my nugget for the day.  While at the PALS conference today with the reading teachers Jenny Ried, a PALS consultant, spoke shortly about not using context clues as a rescue reading strategy when decoding a difficult word.

I pondered on that and wanted to learn more about why, when and to talk about how that would play out into a classroom's guided reading time.  I was able to ask the question but the question was put on hold probably due to time in the session.

That is where the internet and strong site sources comes in handy.  I spent a short bit of time and totally agree with what she said.  This particular article really explains what she stated in a bit more detail.  Thus my golden nugget for the day.  Let me know what you think, what questions you have, etc.  Kathy

Louise Spear-Swerling

The Use of Context Cues in Reading

November 2006

When children encounter an unfamiliar word in reading, they may make use of context cues, that is, information from pictures or from sentences surrounding the unknown word. One of the most misunderstood topics in reading instruction involves the extent to which children should be encouraged to rely on context cues in reading. In part, this confusion stems from the popularity in education of theoretical models of reading that do not reflect scientific evidence about how children learn to read. Another source of confusion is the failure to distinguish the use of context cues in word identification from the use of context in comprehension. 

Click here to read the whole article.

Take Your Student Writing to a New Presentation Level

How to make the best flipbooks

FlipSnack is everything you need to easily publish captivating online magazines, transforming your pdfs into online flipbooks. It works and looks great across all digital platforms, engaging your customers with interactive experiences and making it easy to sell directly from the pages of your digital publication.
Files conversion now 10X faster than ever!

Click here, and let your students take a piece of writing (you can turn a Google do into a pdf under File/Download as pdf) and download it into this tool.  It can motivate even your reluctant writer.

Lingo - Lango for Social Studies Learning: Are you into DBQ's?

Document Based Questions (DBQ) assess the ability of each student to work with historical sources in multiple forms.  The DBQ requires many of the same skills used in developing a research paper - interpreting primary and secondary sources, evaluating sources, considering multiple points of view, using historic evidence, developing and supporting a thesis.

Document-based questions:

• are based on the Social Studies Learning Standards, themes and concepts.
• focus on critical thinking skills and ask students to make comparisons, draw analogies, apply knowledge to the given data, and require students to apply historic analysis.
• ask students to take positions on issues or problems and support their conclusions.
• require students to look at issues from multiple perspectives.
• require student to apply skills thy use as adults
• are criterion referenced and employ a scoring rubric.

Check out this site for examples of DBQ's from grade 2-11.  Revise as needed.  Kathy

Reflections on Guided Reading - worth pondering

GUIDEDREADINGThe Romance and the RealityIrene C. Fountas ■ Gay Su Pinnell

As I read and re-read this article over the summer, I thought it made some really thought-provoking points.  As everything in the world, "guided reading" terminology needs to be defined.  I think if you are getting high results you are probably grouping students and explicitly teaching to meet their unique needs such as the repetition needed, skill breakdown needed or coaching of a skill for independence.  Listening to yourself to see how much you are talking and how much the students are talking is also very key.  Many of us, like myself, love to share and talk but it is the students who need to share and talk the most during today's instruction.  Teaching is very challenging - I just wish more of the world would understand that.  Perhaps we need to have a teacher and parents allow a "reality tv" produce "A Year of Learning" to showcase the life of an educator from start to finish of a school year.  Oh well, time to allow you to ponder the article.  kathy

http://www.heinemann.com/fountasandpinnell/supportingmaterials/fountaspinnell_revdreadingteacherarticle12_2012.pdf

Knowing Your Digital Tools --- with Journeys

Here is a quick view of the many digital tools available with our new English-Language Arts K-5 Journeys materials.  Hope this helps you see all digital tools in a quick snapshot.

Also, here is a copy of the Journey's correlation with Science and Social Studies.  This will help you as you are planning for time efficiency - especially in 5th grade. 

State Mandated - Personal Financial Literacy Standards

As I begin to ponder how we will work on the Personal Financial Literacy Standards that need to be embedded in our math, social studies, guidance, and career education, I see the many resources that are available to assist us in the instruction.  Click for DPI Personal Financial Literacy Standards  or CUNA: Financial Education to learn more.



'via Blog this'

K-5 Journeys.............did you know these facts?

• each grade level has over 1000 online guided reading books
• the Focus Wall can be the teacher presentation tool as it can be personalized and have other links connected on it - with a weekly parent letter already written for you in the Grab 'n Go
• over 400 interaction whiteboard (Smartboard lessons) are available at each grade level
• four text for students every week at minimum
• District common assessments can be easily created and scored online for reading and writing 
• Decodable readers for K-2 assist with students who need repetition
• 4 tubs with 5 different books -  guided reading books that fit the theme and vocabulary of the week
• center flip charts with activities for each week's lessons that fit with the week's focus learning targets

www-k6.thinkcentral.com  

Age of Distraction: Why It’s Crucial for Students to Learn to Focus

Katrina Schwartz | December 5, 2013 |

Digital classroom tools like computers, tablets and smartphones offer exciting opportunities to deepen learning through creativity, collaboration and connection, but those very devices can also be distracting to students. Similarly, parents complain that when students are required to complete homework assignments online, it’s a challenge for students to remain on task. The ubiquity of digital technology in all realms of life isn’t going away, but if students don’t learn how to concentrate and shut out distractions, research shows they’ll have a much harder time succeeding in almost every area.

“The real message is because attention is under siege more than it has ever been in human history, we have more distractions than ever before, we have to be more focused on cultivating the skills of attention,” said Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and author of Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence and other books about social and emotional learning onKQED’s Forum program.

“Children I’m particularly worried about because the brain is the last organ of the body to become anatomically mature. It keeps growing until the mid-20s,” Goleman said. If young students don’t build up the neural circuitry that focused attention requires, they could have problems controlling their emotions and being empathetic.

“It’s about using the devices smartly but having the capacity to concentrate as you need to, when you want to.”

“The circuitry for paying attention is identical for the circuits for managing distressing emotion,” Goleman said. The area of the brain that governs focus and executive functioning is known as the pre-frontal cortex. This is also the part of the brain that allows people to control themselves, to keep emotions in check and to feel empathy for other people.

“The attentional circuitry needs to have the experience of sustained episodes of concentration — reading the text, understanding and listening to what the teacher is saying — in order to build the mental models that create someone who is well educated,” Goleman said. “The pulls away from that mean that we have to become more intentional about teaching kids.” He advocates for a “digital sabbath” everyday, some time when kids aren’t being distracted by devices at all. He’d also like to see schools building exercises that strengthen attention, like mindfulness practices, into the curriculum.

The ability to focus is a secret element to success that often gets ignored. “The more you can concentrate the better you’ll do on anything, because whatever talent you have, you can’t apply it if you are distracted,” Goleman said. He pointed to research on athletes showing that when given a concentration test, the results accurately predicted how well each would perform in a game the next day.

Interesting article to reflect on stamina for learning!  Click here to read.

Welcome to Guys Read

Welcome to Guys Read, a web-based literacy program for boys founded by author and First National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature Jon Scieszka.  Our mission is to help boys become self-motivated, lifelong readers.

Research shows that boys are having trouble reading, and that boys are getting worse at reading. No one is quite sure why. Some of the reasons are biological.  Some of the reasons are sociological. The good news is that research also shows that boys will read — if they are given reading that interests them.

So the biggest part of this site is the collection of titles below. These

 are books that guys have told us they like.

The Data Speaks: Usage = Gains! Are Your Students on Track?

Students make amazing gains when they use Reading Plus with fidelity! During the 2013-14 school year, students who engaged in extensive scaffolded silent reading practice in SeeReader (100 or more lessons) achieved an average of two grade-level gains on the InSightassessment. Are your students on track to completing 100 or more SeeReader lessons by the end of this school year?

Just what makes you get up early and stay up late?

Just what makes me so passionate about the teaching of reading ?

Reading Plus   Why am I so passionate about the Reading Plus program when all 3 components are used for 5-12 graders?   I have seen it with my own eyes that students in high school and middle school who were in special ed for READING for years make the kind of growth that gives them independent success in the universal instructional curriculum.  I have seen over 9 students move 4-7 grade levels with consistency over the course of a year with Reading Plus as a regular 40 minute intervention.  They can decode, comprehend and read at a higher rate than ever before.  The students themselves are astonished.  

The scientific research behind Reading Plus - why all 3 portions are important and how it can change a life. Click here.

+++++visual attention therapy had any influence on improvement in reading comprehension of sixth graders with moderate reading disabilities

t+++++he relationship between students’ reading abilities, measures of temporal vision processing, and silent word reading fluency

More on Insight.

Kathy