HEC Reading Horizons e-Newsletter

Volume 8, Issue 1
Spring 2007

Inside This Issue:

• Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself Online Workshop
• The Gift of Literacy Available at Local Teen Challenge Training Center
• How to Transfer Discover Intensive Phonics into Reading
• Introducing Heidi Hyte: New ESL Director at HEC Reading Horizons
• Can Phonics Help Adolescents and Adults to Improve Their Reading?

Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself Online Workshop

“This is the missing piece in my training and knowledge. I’m excited to include this phonics system with my struggling readers. I wish I’d known this sooner.” – Dora Hunt, Orem, UT

The Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself approach is the most logical, sequential, concise, and effective phonics supplement available – and has been for over 30 years. Combining tried and true explicit, systematic, phonics concepts with teacher-friendly direct instruction materials and computer software that mimics classroom work and is age appropriate for children or teens/adults, this program can be adapted to ANY classroom curriculum or circumstance. Two days of hands-on training provide a tremendous boost for teachers as they learn how to teach decoding skills to students of all ages. Workshop reviews contain comments like:

“This is the missing piece in my training and knowledge. I’m excited to include this phonics system with my struggling readers. I wish I’d known this sooner.” –Dora Hunt, Orem, UT

“This was my first experience with phonics training, and I not only learned a great deal but thoroughly enjoyed myself.” –Sharon Hornstein, Meadville, PA

We are pleased to announce the release of a new online training tool that will make these critical concepts available to educators anytime, anywhere. Our Online Workshop begins with the presentation of the alphabet and concludes with strategies for decoding multi-syllabic words. A track for teachers of students ages 4-9 and another for teachers of students ages 10+ ensures that the content is right on target. The workshop uses full-motion video and flash animation to bring the concepts to life and allows for intermittent practice to embed concepts for teachers.

The workshop is engaging, informative, and a must for anyone interested in improving reading instruction for students. Best of all, you can sample the workshop FREE for 30 days. Simply visit www.phonicstraining.com, and sign up for your FREE 30-day trial of the best Web-based tool for basic decoding strategies on the market. The system allows you to start and stop as needed, letting you finish the workshop on your schedule; you can complete the entire workshop in only a few hours. Please take a few minutes to learn more about this tremendous tool for basic reading instruction.

The Gift of Literacy Available at Local Teen Challenge Training Center

It is probably hard to imagine not being able to read a coherent string of words, such as the ones in this article. It might also be hard to remember how you learned to read. Could you teach someone else how to read? Many tutors ask this very question.

Tutors at the Teen Challenge Training Center in Rehrersburg, Pennsylvania, have been faced with the challenge of teaching teens and adults how to read.

One tutor said, “Quite frankly, I could not remember how I learned to read. It’s a skill that has been there so long that I simply take reading for granted. I was struck by the enormous task of teaching an adult to do something that I could not break down into parts.”

In order to help the tutors at the center be more effective, they have been trained to use a computer program called Reading Horizons. It is a program designed to help teens and adults who struggle with reading. The tutors appreciate the program’s simple, systematic approach that makes learning to read an attainable goal for their students. Tutors have found Reading Horizons to be friendly, understandable, effective, and successful.

For some, the gift of literacy is a dream. One student, John*, entered the Teen Challenge Center able to spell only his name. The 40-year-old man couldn’t even use the letters from his name to spell other simple words.

“The letters were just shapes that had no meaning,” his tutor says. “I had no idea how to help him. The only thing I could think of was to see if Reading Horizons could help. So we started together; letter—sound; letter—sound; letter—sound.”

John was encouraged to practice, and his tutor promised to help him every step of the way. With the combination of John’s hard work and the tutor’s diligence, the Reading Horizons program helped John succeed. It brings tears to the tutor’s eyes when he remembers the first time his student read a list of words. By the time John completed the eight-month program at the center, he was able to read simple sentences.

For John, the challenge of illiteracy was overcome thanks to the help of a caring tutor and the Reading Horizons program. It can transform the gift of literacy from a dream into an everyday reality.

*Name has been changed to protect identity.

How to Transfer Discover Intensive Phonics into Reading

“Any approach to reading instruction must include early, explicit instruction in phonemic awareness — an understanding that words are made up of small sounds and that the ability to distinguish those sounds in words and blend sounds together to form words is an essential part of the reading process. Similarly, any approach must include explicit instruction in phonics — the ability to link these sounds to the specific letters used to represent them in written language — as well as an early emphasis on listening skills, background knowledge, comprehension, language development, writing, and conceptual and vocabulary development.” - “Overcoming the Language Gap,” by Louisa C. Moats, American Teacher, March 1998

Teachers struggle every day to find various ways to meet the individual reading needs of students in their classrooms. Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself has proven very effective as a supplement to a core program in helping to provide the phonics foundation that students need. Teachers who are new to the program sometimes ask, “How do you help students transfer what they’re learning into everyday reading and life experiences?”

That question was posed to three seasoned teachers and certified workshop instructors. This is what they had to say:

Joan Parrish, Twin Falls, Idaho

“Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself (DIP) is a scientifically based methodology that provides explicit, systematic, and sequential decoding skills for English-based words. A unique marking system is taught, helping students learn to decode phoneme sounds within words, and the teacher, through direct instruction, implements that skill into vocabulary and reading skills taught with the classroom reading program. Those same decoding skills and markings (DIP) should be transferred to the classroom instruction to assist students with their assigned spelling words. Within the DIP program, teachers also learn the importance of teaching word vocabulary and grammar skills while the decoding strategies are taught. This knowledge empowers the student during reading, spelling, and creative writing practice. Using the controlled vocabulary stories (Little Books) can ensure the students’ knowledge of the learned skill. In short, good reading instruction includes a solid grounding in basic, explicit, and systematic decoding skills for reading and spelling, enhanced by literature provided through basal series or guided reading programs.

“Teachers of today cannot rely solely on the teacher reading manuals handed them to provide a complete reading/phonic/spelling/language program. Teachers should attend workshops that provide direct, ‘hands-on’ instruction on ‘how’ to teach and incorporate those particular language arts skills, then transfer that knowledge to the skills taught in the classroom.”

Corey Triassi, Lake Havasu, Arizona

“We discuss over and over with the students to look for patterns. They sort and categorize their core spelling words and vocabulary words by patterns. When they are working on activities that allow them to write on paper or a copied book, they mark or prove words they cannot read. In first grade, the teachers have been designing centers around the Big 5 ideas: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. One center that I saw was a teacher took a large piece of paper and divided it into columns. Each column was one of the Five Phonetic Skills: one guardian, two guardians, no guardian, etc. … (We use symbols above the columns.) The students had to look at word cards and then write the words under the correct pattern. Whenever we are reading stories in their leveled readers or anthology, we have small whiteboards available. If students cannot read a word, they are writing it down and proving it. Again, constantly looking for patterns. … We have students code words in directions in other content areas. We had our music teacher coding a music vocabulary word on the board in music class. Discover Intensive Phonics is integrated in every area and by every teacher in the building.”

Sandy Hoffman, Hubbard, Ohio

“My students read a lot of the Reading A-Z books, which are leveled for the readers. I make copies of these books, which I download from their Web site. If the students are unsure of any word in their story, we mark the word right in their own book.

“My students use the DIP method for decoding words along with the use of context clues when they encounter any words that they do not know by sight. We take science, math, social studies words, etc. and mark them to see if the skills work or not.

“One thing that I have added to the program is the use of an individual ‘Word Bank’ booklet. The computer program tells the students to get a piece of paper to write their words on. What I have found is that the students were throwing their papers away after the lesson was completed, but I wanted to revisit those words with them. I made booklets in which they would write their words for each lesson, and then we could go back weeks later and review those words.

“Most schools are using Word Banks with their students, and this was another way for each child to have their personal Word Bank book. They love using it.”

Introducing Heidi Hyte
New ESL Director at HEC Reading Horizons

Heidi Hyte joined HEC Reading Horizons in September 2006 and serves as the ESL director. In this capacity, she has been given the challenge of furthering the impact of Reading Horizons on students who are learning English as a Second or Foreign Language. Some of her responsibilities include developing curriculum, conducting research, and providing teacher training. She oversees the development of ESOL curriculum and serves as the chair of the ESL Curriculum Committee. The ESL Curriculum Committee consists of ESOL educators who collaborate on ideas of how to appropriately implement and improve Reading Horizons curriculum for ESOL students. In addition to this responsibility, she assists in managing HEC research conducted in adult education, K-12, and special education contexts, and she instigates and oversees ESOL research. She is a certified trainer in the Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself methodology, and she travels to various locations to conduct training seminars and to make presentations at professional conferences. Last year, she conducted a Webinar for HEC titled “An Interactive Approach to L2 Reading: From the Bottom-Up,” which targeted ESOL reading teachers. Her education and previous work experience has prepared her for her current position as the ESL director at HEC.

Heidi graduated with a B.A. in linguistics in 2000 and an M.A. in teaching English to speakers of other languages in 2002 from Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah. Her thesis, titled “The Effects of Computer-Based Metacognitive Strategy Training for Adult Second Language Learners,” was awarded the BYU Linguistics and English Language Department Outstanding TESOL Thesis Award in 2003. Upon graduation, Heidi moved to Palo Alto, California, where she taught ESL to adults in a government-funded community education program. She was then offered a three-year appointment as a full-time faculty member and administrator at the English Language Center (ELC) at BYU. While at the ELC, she worked extensively with curriculum development, which prepared her well for the writing of ESOL curriculum at HEC.

Additionally, Heidi has had extensive teaching and training experience abroad. She completed an internship in Taiwan for six months, where she taught EFL to children. She also went to Uganda to conduct teacher trainings and to participate in other humanitarian aid efforts. As a member of the BYU faculty, she was selected to direct a legal English training program on two occasions: first in Guangzhou and then in Beijing, China, where she taught legal English to Chinese judges and prosecutors. She has also conducted teacher training and needs assessments in Taiwan and the South Pacific. In addition, she taught an applied grammar writing course to bachelor’s degree-seeking teachers in American Samoa.

Heidi’s educational, work, and international experiences are helping HEC to expand research into areas of the country and the world where students are learning to read and speak English. Heidi hopes to demonstrate through sound research that Discover Intensive Phonics and Reading Horizons provide ESOL students and teachers with the tools they need to promote fluent reading and enhance the perception and articulation of the sounds of English. The data obtained from this research will play an instrumental role in her mission to improve the HEC Reading Horizons curriculum to even more effectively meet the needs of ESOL learners and struggling readers around the world.

Can Phonics Help Adolescents and Adults to Improve Their Reading?

In considering the role phonics plays in helping adolescents and adults to improve their reading skills, we need to reexamine the goal of explicit, systematic phonics instruction. Properly taught, phonics instruction gives students the knowledge required to analyze and identify just about any word they encounter – even to the point of deciphering and reading words they have never seen before!

Secondary programs aimed at helping students to improve their reading ability frequently focus on fluency and comprehension. Without a doubt, these are necessary components of good reading, but neither fluency nor comprehension can be taught successfully if the underlying phonics foundation is bypassed.

Let’s examine more closely what constitutes fluency: Is it not the ability to read words accurately and effortlessly? The goal of fluency is, in fact, to read so automatically that readers can preserve their cognitive resources for comprehending the material before them. And how does the student derive that degree of automaticity? From that basic phonic knowledge that allows students to rapidly analyze and identify just about any word they encounter! Since fluency is the gateway to comprehension, phonics becomes a major component to successful reading.

If you are of the opinion that fluency is not a problem in middle and high school grades, please consider the findings of a recent study of fluency among high school students in an urban school district (Rasinski, Padak, McKeon, Krug-Wilfong, Friedauer, & Heim, 2005). Well over half of the students assessed could be considered disfluent. More than 10 percent of those assessed read at a rate of fewer than 100 words per minute, which is a rate normally associated with primary grade readers!

The fact that fluency and comprehension are directly related was revealed in a 2004 study (Duke, Pressley, & Hilden) in which it was estimated that 75 to 90 percent of students with comprehension difficulties have reading fluency problems.

The risks associated with poor reading skills are revealed in the number of youth offenders who have reading/learning deficiencies. In a pilot program funded by the Cleveland Foundation, 117 Cleveland youth in the Cuyohoga County Detention Center were screened for learning problems. It was revealed that 75 percent of them had undetected learning disabilities. Local and national studies estimate that 60 to 70 percent of youth offenders have learning deficiencies – many reflected in an inability to read well.

A study in which data was collected from 346 urban high school freshmen identified a profile of the reading skills adolescents have and have not mastered (Hock, Brasseur, Deshler, Catts, & Marquis, 2005). Findings indicated that approximately 57 percent of those adolescent readers had an overall reading skill at or below the 40th percentile and needed intensive, word level interventions in addition to their comprehension intervention. The students in this study scored significantly below expectations in decoding, word recognition, vocabulary, fluency, and reading comprehension on multiple measures of reading skills.

It is often assumed that, by adolescence, readers have acquired adult-like decoding and word recognition skills, but studies such as these indicate many struggling readers lack sufficient fluency in decoding and word recognition and will benefit greatly from an explicit, systematic study of word reading strategies.

Finally, studies show that, for some students, use of the computer seems to breach barriers. Reading Horizons, our interactive computer courseware, systematically teaches the phonetic structure of English and supplies students with the knowledge, information, and multi-sensory practice needed to internalize word attack skills. Reading Horizons is a program developed specifically to help adolescents and adults gain the basic phonemic awareness and phonic skills they need to improve reading, spelling, fluency, and ultimately comprehension!