Road to Reading: A Program for Preventing & Remediating Reading Difficulties [With CDROM]: A Program for Preventing and Remediating Reading Difficulties (Vital Statistics)

Excerpted from the Introduction of Road to Reading: A Program for Preventing and Remediating Reading Difficulties, by Benita A. Blachman, Ph.D., & Darlene Tangel, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2008 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Two consensus panels (Snow et al., 1998; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000) provided a much needed blueprint for early reading practices proven to reduce the number of students who experience diffi culty learning to read. The practices include, among others, instruction in phonological awareness, the alphabetic principle, and accurate and fluent word recognition, as well as frequent opportunities for text-based reading with corrective feedback to build motivation and comprehension strategies.

Road to Reading embraces these practices and provides a framework for providing both early intervention to prevent reading difficulties and remedial instruction for students who are struggling to learn to read

Goals of the Program

An important objective of this program is to help develop accurate and fluent word identification. The emphasis is on explicit, systematic, research–based instruction to help students understand the alphabetic principle (i.e., how individual letters and letter combinations represent spoken language sounds). The word recognition skills introduced provide the essential foundation and support for good reading comprehension.

Accurate and fluent word identification can be developed, in part, by learning the six basic syllable patterns. This program provides an overview of the structure of the English language by introducing the six syllable patterns and the most common phonetic elements. The six syllable patterns include the following:

• Closed syllables (as in hat and flag)



• Final "e" syllables (as in lake and slide)



• Open syllables (as in he and the first syllable of silent)



• Vowel team syllables (as in train, leaf, and clown)



• Vowel + r syllables (as in car, horn, and perch)



• Consonant + le (as in simple and tumble)

All of the syllable patterns will be learned as the students progress through the six levels of the program. These patterns will be practiced by the students when they read decodable texts and also reinforced as they read a wide variety of trade books and books representing various genres

The goal in teaching these patterns is for students to begin to read appropriate grade level texts fluently and with good comprehension as early as possible.

Is This a Complete Reading Program?

Although this is not a complete classroom reading program, it can be used in conjunction with any reading series. For example, although the program includes specifi c high frequency words (Fry & Kress, 2006), one could substitute high frequency words from any basal series or list. In addition, decodable books from any series can be substituted for the decodable books on our book charts. Likewise, basal anthologies and leveled books could be substituted for the trade books on our trade book list.

We have woven vocabulary throughout this program by highlighting words and encouraging teachers to use daily opportunities to extend vocabulary. We do not, however, include specific instructions for teaching vocabulary. Because teachers will be selecting books from various sources, choices about which vocabulary words to teach should be based on the needs of the students and the books the students are reading.

The program includes frequent opportunities to read and reread both narrative and expository text with corrective feedback to develop fluency, build comprehension strategies, and foster reading for information and pleasure. Although we encourage teachers to help students self–monitor text for understanding and to focus students' attention on meaning of text from their earliest reading experiences, we do not provide directions for the teacher regarding how to teach comprehension strategies. (For more specific information on how to provide early comprehension instruction, see, e.g., NICHD, 2000; Snow et al., 1998; and Stahl, 2004.)

Who Is This Program For?

This five–step research– based program has been used with groups of varying sizes in a variety of settings, such as general education classrooms, remedial reading programs, resource rooms, and one–to–one tutoring. If you are using this program during the English language arts block, the lessons should take about 30–40 minutes. We recommend that the group size not exceed six students.

This program has also been used with small groups of three to six students and with individual students (one–to–one) who are not meeting grade level benchmarks in their classroom reading program or on statewide assessments. These students have been taught by general education teachers, reading teachers, and special education teachers both in and out of the general classroom setting. In a recently reported tutoring study using this program (Blachman et al., 2004), lessons were expanded to 50 minutes to provide more sustained and intensive instruction for second–and third–grade struggling readers. This program can also be adapted for use with older students by adding more multisyllabic words at each level and by including age–appropriate trade books.

This program has proven to be flexible in a variety of settings and will allow the teacher to provide scientifically–based reading instruction to all students.

Pacing

A critical factor in the success of a young child learning to read is proper pacing of instruction. There are many pacing decisions (e.g., how many times a word needs to be reviewed, how many times a book needs to be reread to develop fluency) that only you will be able to make as you get to know your students. Teachers have often asked how long it takes to complete this program. There is not one right answer to this question. The speed with which students complete the program will depend on their initial skill level, their rate of learning, and whether this program is being used for early intervention with students in first grade in a general education classroom or as a remedial program with somewhat older students (Grades 2–4) who have already experienced difficulty learning to read.

As you use this program, you will become more skilled at knowing when your students are ready to move on and when they need more practice. If you have questions about your students' readiness to move on, adjust your lesson plan for the next day and include some of the more challenging material as a diagnostic tool to help you make your decision.

Progress Monitoring

Regular progress monitoring is a critically important component of instruction. The notes that you make on your daily lesson plans, as well as the more formal assessments used by your district, will help you evaluate the success of each student in your group on an ongoing basis. To help you get started with progress monitoring, we have created a brief assessment for each level. These assessments can be found on the accompanying CD–ROM .

Getting Ready to Use the Program

The Six Levels

The best way to get started is to familiarize yourself with the six levels of the program. Each level includes the following: A...