Volume 3, Issue 3
We are pleased to announce the formal structuring of the first Reading Horizons Advisory Council. Listening to customers and prospects over the years has helped us make many improvements to our products. We have frequently solicited opinions from users prior to implementing changes or adding new functionality to our products. Our new Advisory Council will provide us with constant and consistent guidance as we move forward in our efforts to provide the most complete, user friendly, and impactful low level reading materials on the market. We would like to take the opportunity to introduce you to each member of the council. (Please look on at end of page to view all nine members of the advisory council).
Each of the upcoming newsletters will spotlight a different member of the council. With this issue we are pleased to spotlight Brian Brown, a juvenile corrections teacher from Mt Vernon, WA. The following is Brian's description of his experience with the Reading Horizons program:
"I have been using Reading Horizons since the fall of 1995. The North West Educational Service District 189 had Linda Eversole do a day workshop for about ten of us interested in your program. I heard about your program through a King County corrections teacher. She told me that she was using a reading program that was giving her amazing results. She was almost afraid to tell me just how well it was working for fear that I might think she was exaggerating her results. After using it for a short time I became a believer.
The only other reading programs that I ever used were more entertainment than academic. Too much time playing games rather than learning to read. I became very disappointed and seldom used them.
For the past seven years I have focused on reading in my program. Every day we spend at least an hour on reading. Anyone reading at or below 6th grade level is put on Reading Horizons.
I believe in this program because I've seen it work. Kids that have never read a book before are now asking me what I like to read. I have seen students eyes light up knowing that this program has given them the tools to be a better reader. Being a teacher, you know when something works, this works.
Two success stories that I would like to share are; I had a thirteen year old boy whose IEP stated that his disability was being mildly retarded. Cris would not read, but he would look at picture books. After finishing Reading Horizon Cris started reading chapter books. I saw him again about two months later and he had a big smile on his face and told me that he was reading chapter books now and that his teacher's knew that he could finally read. This made my school year.
My other success story was the beginning of the last school year. I received a phone call from a leading Seattle state representative asking me to call all my local representatives and school superintendents and do a presentation of our reading program. She said that this session was going to focus on literacy and she wanted this group to be better informed about successful programs that were already in place. A month later I had a classroom full of suits asking three of my students about Reading Horizons. One local superintendent asked, "what had changed in their reading ability", and the response was that now this student could read street signs and felt that he could read a job application. Another stated that, "I still hate getting locked up in detention, but at least now I can read and get lost in a book and not just sit in my room being bored". Not bad responses from a group of students that could not or would not read several weeks earlier."
Have you, as a teacher, ever seen classes that were using the Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself program and thought, "that program really is so logical, so sequential and easy to teach, and I can see that the students make tremendous progress, but I just can't teach the isolated sounds of the alphabet using the SCHWA!" Unfortunately, many teachers have avoided this highly effective course for that very reason. I've written this article to put your minds at ease, and to let teachers everywhere know that the Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself program can be just as effective if you teach isolated sounds in their pure form or with the schwa (vowel element). I know this for a fact, because over the past eighteen years of presenting this program to teachers nation-wide, I have taught multitudes of teachers who are instructing students in Jr. High, Middle School, High School or Adult Education classes. Obviously these students have already learned a 'sound' for their consonants and vowels, yet without re-teaching the sounds they already know, they progress through the Discover Intensive Phonics course in a matter of weeks.
For those of you who may not be familiar with the SCHWA, let me give a brief explanation. The dictionary says that the 'schwa' is an unstressed vowel sound. It is represented by an up-side down E and has the sound of short U/u, /u/. The word 'schwa' is from Hebrew origin. Since all five vowels can use the 'schwa' sound, I refer to it frequently as the 'generic vowel'. In the Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself course, author Charlotte Lockhart uses the schwa joined with the consonants in isolation in order to accomplish three primary objectives:
The key to success with the Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself program, however, is not determined so much by the use of the SCHWA as it is by the SLIDE. Students begin immediately to slide from the consonant sound to the vowel A/a. /a/. Mastering the slide helps the student in many ways. First, they focus on the need to read from left to right. Next they learn to smoothly join the sounds and as new vowels are introduced, they learn to slide to each vowel sound. Finally, they add the ending consonant sound and are able to produce smooth, fluent reading.
Once a student begins the slide process, it really doesn't matter how they have learned the consonant in isolation as long as they slide successfully to the vowel sound.
For example, whether a student has learned the consonant B/b as /b/ or /buh/, they will be successful if they can slide to the vowel A/a in the B-A slide, ba. The final consonant is then added, and theycan read bad, bag, bat, ban, etc.
Upcoming versions of the Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself and Reading Horizons Computer Courseware will feature the ability to hear the sounds of the consonants in isolation with our without the schwa. We invite all teachers to take advantage of the tremendous results guaranteed through teaching Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself!
Linda Eversole Certified National Trainer
The Reading Horizons and Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself software packages recently received EDDIE awards for best "Early Elementary" and "Special Education" Language Arts programs. The EDDIE award, presented by Computed Gazette, recognizes innovative and content-rich programs that are appropriate for use by educators to augment the classroom curriculum and improve teacher productivity. Winners are selected from titles submitted by software publishers from around the world. Selection is based on academic content, potential for broad classroom use, technical merit, subject approach, and quality of management system.
"This well-designed program not only keeps children engaged at all times, but also offers teachers and administrators highly intuitive menus for managing student databases, assigning lessons and tests, and following up on student progress."
"This is an excellent program for the teacher in need of an easy-to-use program which emphasizes skills in writing, spelling and reading"
Please visit the Computed Gazette web-site at computedgazette.com for a complete review.
We have just recently updated and restructured our entire website. Please take a look at www.readinghorizons.com to get familiar with Reading Horizons. For your convenience we have included a customer comments section. Here you can pose any questions that you have regarding Discover Intensive Phonics or let us know how you like our program and what's working for you.
Take a look on the web for a complete description of how Discover Intensive Phonics has met the National Reading Panels criteria for reading. Click on K-12/Elementary/ Research and Reccomen- dations/ then Supporting Research on our website.
In an attempt to better serve our customers we have invested a considerable amount of time and money over the past year developing an "on-line workshop". Many of you have participated in the seven-hour direct instruction workshop. Attendance at a workshop is integral where chalkboard instruction is the primary method used to teach the Discover Intensive Phonics system. Oft times a teacher will purchase materials but not have the money necessary to get trained. Other times teachers will go through a training and then forget key concepts before they have a chance to put them to use. We have heard over and over again from current users of a need for an on-line alternative to our training. Such training would address the aforementioned needs as well as:
Internet training will NOT be a replacement for the one-day Discover Intensive Phonics teacher workshop...but rather a supplement to the workshop. Internet training will be offered at no cost to sites currently using the computer courseware and teacher manuals.
The training is nearing completion and will be ready before the end of this next school year. We will send a notice, via e-mail, when it is completed so that you can contact us for your login information. If you are uncertain whether or not we have your e-mail address please send it to us at info@readinghorizons.com. We are looking forward to offering this service to our users and will provide you with more details in the months to come.
"HEC's Reading Horizons is a versatile tool with a wide range of applications. As a software specialist in ABE/ESL/GED learning lab that has made Reading Horizons available to all three student populations since 1994, I feel that I can comment on its adaptability. The program can be used where there are no textbooks, where students have little or no education in their native language, where students enter and leave the educational setting at any time, and where there are multilevel groups. From an instructor's standpoint, it is practical for facilitating the work of an individual or a group.
HEC Reading Horizons software users will not be overwhelmed with a glitzy multimedia experience. Instead they will be challenged by a solid computer software program that does exactly what it promises to do."
JoAnne Gerding ESL Special Projects Specialist Adult Education Learning Center Waubonsee Community College
"My students all had documented reading disabilities. I pretested, taught the program, and then post-tested. Results were amazing -- every student's decoding ability had made between 9 to 18 months of growth in one single school year! If only these young people had made that kind of progress from the beginning of their school education, they probably would not have needed to be in my resource room.
Over the years, I have used Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself. I am now teaching 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders in a resource setting and I continue to see astonishing results. The most exhilarating moments of all are when I hear my students say, "Mrs. Wright, did you know I can read now?"
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for such a tremendous program. It really helps keep me going to see something that works. Most of all thank you from all those children who have been given the key which opens the door to reading!"
Debora F. Wright Professionally Recognized Special Educator
"This past school year, I had a second grade student who could hardly read. I also had his two older brothers: fourth and fifth. After being introduced to DIP, he loved to read and would not put books down. He ended the school year at a beginning third grade level in reading. His mother would take him to his older brothers' baseball games and instead of watching the game or playing, he would be reading. I had to check books out of the library for him to read because he read all the books in his level in my personal library. I could not keep him supplied with enough books because he was devouring them."
Corey Triassi Oro Grande Elementary Lake Havasu, Arizona