Volume 7, Issue 3 Winter 2006
For teachers of Reading Horizons or Discover Intensive Phonics, understanding the Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself method sequence—and how to implement it with students—is imperative. To help you, Reading Horizons has completely overhauled the pervious Online Tutorial and replaced it with a new Online Workshop!
In the workshop, Linda Eversole, national trainer, fully explains the method with live motion video and interactive practice and response. It is customized for teachers working with older students and teachers working with younger students. The online nature of the workshop allows ultimate flexibility with your busy schedule.
This can be utilized as a refresher course for those who have already been through a live workshop, or it can act as a lower-cost alternative to someone learning this method for the first time. Either way, your institution will benefit from this convenient training alternative.
Currently, this workshop is free for one year with a software purchase. Current subscribers to the Online Tutorial will be given access to the Online Workshop for the duration of their subscription. Visit phonicstraining.com for more information, or contact your account manager for details to take advantage of this new and exciting tool.
Suggestions from ESL users and educators nationwide have resulted in a new release of Reading Horizons. Reading Horizons wants to offer a software program simple in structure and highly effective in results for struggling readers, whether they be native English speakers or English as a Second Language learners.
You already know Reading Horizons has offered a Spanish translation of its effective software; now we offer additional language translations, including Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and Haitian Creole. As before, students have the convenience of a translation button that can be clicked on, as necessary, when they need a translation for a specific section.
In addition, the translation of the practice words in the Mastery, Drill, and Practice (MDP) area, with graphical representation and contextual examples of the words and definitions, is incorporated.
More languages, such as Russian, Korean, Cantonese, and others, will be added in the future. If your school has a particular language need, please contact your account manager.
The MDP module of Reading Horizons has also been expanded to include category specific words ESL students need. Students will be able to practice their phonetic skills with words relating to school, travel, hospitality, medicine, and business.
Besides the phonics practices, students also may receive the Word Study features of word definition, contextual examples, and graphical representations.
Do you have any suggestions? Please let us know! Contact your account manager to learn how to get these new features.
Providing more language translations and learning modules like the English for Special Purposes databases is important to Reading Horizons' mission of reducing the length of time it takes to master the English language. Research shows ESL learners can quickly become competent users of English when they understand its structure and phonology. Reading Horizons provides critical phonics tools, taught in context with meaning.
By Heidi Hyte
While engaged in a silent reading task, a student in my ESL class raised his hand and asked, "Teacher, what does 'f-i-a-n-c-e' mean?", spelling out the letters because he was unable to pronounce it. He had encountered this unknown word in his reading. And, rather than guessing the meaning from context and moving on, a reading strategy I had so often engrained in my students with the intent of helping them develop autonomous learning habits, he wanted his prediction confirmed right then and there. "Fiancé?" I replied inquisitively, in preparation to move into an eloquent but simple explanation and definition of this French word adopted into the lexicon of the English language. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "Fiancé? Never mind. I know what it is now," and he looked back to the text on his desk and continued his silent reading, satisfied. He needed only to know how the word was pronounced—specifically, how it sounded—in order to attach meaning to this unfamiliar looking—but familiar sounding—word.
I realized at that moment the importance of providing my ESL students explicit instruction in phonemic awareness in context of other kinds of reading strategies I had so often neglected: bottom-up strategies. Bottom-up strategies incorporate the lower-level processes that teach students to construct meaning from the most basic units of language, including letters, letter clusters, and words. Essentially, the bottom-up approach maintains that students make meaning of a text by building on a foundation of analyzing the smallest units of meaning. As I self-reflected on my own teaching, I realized I was quite effective at teaching top-down strategies, which included helping my students generate meaning by employing background knowledge, expectations, assumptions, and questions and engaging my students in pre-reading strategies, such as previewing the text, predicting, and activating background knowledge. But what was I doing to help my ESL students learn the bottom-up strategies they needed to become fluent readers?
I had been taught the importance of top-down strategies in my teaching methodology classes as a graduate student, and I had even studied language learning strategies quite extensively during that time. But why did I not learn how to teach bottom-up strategies as well? Were they important to my potential ESL/EFL students? Since I was not taught how to teach bottom-up strategies in college, should I assume that teaching only top-down strategies was sufficient in helping ESL/EFL students achieve the goals of reading comprehension and fluency?
By doing a little informal research on the topic, I learned that English language learners do need explicit instruction in low-level strategies that native English-speaking readers use to read most efficiently (Birch, 29). In fact, "ESL and EFL learners need to acquire the knowledge base of English phonemes so that their aural discrimination of sounds can proceed effortlessly, quickly, and unconsciously" (Birch, 53). ESL/EFL learners who have phonemic awareness are better readers because they are able to connect sounds with symbols and attach meaning to sounds, a process which is sometimes easier than attaching meaning to printed text. Furthermore, if readers can associate the sounds of words when learning the meaning of new vocabulary, they are able to remember the new words better.
While I acknowledge that explicit instruction in top-down strategies is crucial, the embedding of bottom-up, decoding strategy instruction is an important supplementary aspect to second and foreign language reading instruction, even though the teaching of these decoding skills is often neglected. David Eskey asserts that second language reading literature promotes a "top-down bias (that) produce(s) a somewhat distorted picture of the true range of problems second language readers face" (95). He also issues the caution that "even educated guessing at meaning is not a substitute for accurate decoding" (97).
Although I had the best intentions to help my ESL students guess the meaning of unknown words from context to promote autonomy through top-down strategy use, I learned two salient lessons from my student's silent reading experience regarding reading-strategy instruction. First, I learned that sometimes ESL/EFL students know the sounds of words, but they do not have the skills to accurately decode them. Second, I learned that developing fluency in ESL and EFL readers requires more than just top-down strategy training, even though it is top-down strategy instruction that teacher-training courses and second and foreign language instruction courses tend to emphasize. Very simply put, however, it is essential to keep in mind that sometimes top-down strategies just aren't enough.
Birch, B. M., (2002). English L2 Reading: Getting to the Bottom. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Eskey, D. (1993). "Holding in the bottom: An Interactive Approach to the Language Problems of Second Language Readers." In P. Carrell, J. Devine, & D. Eskey (eds.), Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading (pp. 93-100). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
By Joan Parrish
As a Discover Intensive Phonics trainer, I am most commonly asked the following questions: "My reading program already has a phonics component, but it is not sufficient. How do I use Discover Intensive Phonics with my current reading program? Is there a guide to let me know when to teach a particular phonic skill and how much time to spend teaching it?" Before I answer these questions, let me give you some information regarding the principle behind basal reading programs.
School districts throughout the United States are required to create language arts state standards to follow federal government language/art guidelines. Many school districts will use a reading curriculum developed by educational publishing companies, often referred to as a "basal" reading series, to meet the state language art requirements. This series contains teacher guides outlining daily lesson plans for a language arts curriculum (phonics, vocabulary, spelling, reading, grammar, and creative writing) with a multitude of student materials, including classroom copies of books for children to read (decodable readers or selected literature), individual workbooks, letter cards, and other various teaching materials. Most of these basal reading series maintain they are researched based. However, a common complaint from many teachers concerning the majority of the basal reading series is their phonemic and phonics approach for instruction is either lacking in intent or is not systematic and thoroughly sequenced in its instruction. Most often, the specific phonic skills taught in the reading series lessons are somewhat related to specific vocabulary or the common sounds used in certain words within the selected story and are seldom sequential in instruction. Since teaching reading is such a complex process, the best way to assure high quality reading instruction is to have experienced teachers utilize their reading program and teach the phonic skills supplementing with a strong explicit, systematic, and sequenced phonics program.
This is where Discover Intensive Phonics works so effectively as a phonics supplement. Reading research show students improve their reading skills through explicit, sequenced, and systematic phonics instruction combined with a reading program. The Discover Intensive Phonics program emphasizes these specific phonic strategies and teaches them through visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile methods. The Discover Intensive Phonics program can be a supplement to any reading series or program by providing a complete and systematic foundation of phonic skills for effective decoding strategies and spelling (using the specific marking system of sounds) and can improve fluency and comprehension for stories in a basal series or literature in a guided reading program.
Infusing Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself into your reading curriculum requires teachers to become reasonably familiar with the reading/phonic components they are currently using, which is the scope and sequence in teacher guides, specific language arts elements in a guided reading program, or the state standards required for language arts. Since recent reading research show phonics should be taught explicitly and systematically, HEC recommends teaching the five letter groups and blends in Discover Intensive Phonics order before using the specific reading series due to the unique building of words and marking system. Use the correlating practice pages from Sound Essentials and for additional practice supplement with the reading series practice pages. Once The Five Phonetic Skills have been introduced, use the Discover Intensive Phonics methodology and marking system to "prove" words in conjunction with the reading series to aid in decoding words from selected stories within the basal program. Using the Discover Intensive Phonics Little Books to reinforce phonic skills will provide additional reading practice. After a phonic skill is taught and practiced, make use of the Most Common Words and specific vocabulary from the selected story to enhance readability and comprehension. If a school is using a specific spelling program, use the Discover Intensive Phonics method of marking and proving words to assist students with the spelling word lists. Although it may be difficult, HEC recommends teaching the remainder of the phonic skills in Discover Intensive Phonics order if possible. In a guided reading program, teachers have the freedom to select specific literature to match the Discover Intensive Phonics format of phonics instruction. Since most guided reading programs do not provide a scope and sequence, teachers are required to create their own, using the language arts state standards for reference. HEC has provided Discover Intensive Phonics lesson timelines (K-6) based on the traditional school year for teachers to use when planning phonic lessons. The link is: http://www.readinghorizons.com/community/timeline.aspx. The suggested timeline lessons can be viewed by week or by month.
HEC is currently developing Discover Intensive Phonics implementation guides to the major basal reading series for Kindergarten through 3rd grade. These implementation guides are intended to aid the classroom teacher in developing phonic lessons that are sequential, systematic, and explicit, using the Discover Intensive Phonics methodology with the basal reading series. We have completed Harcourt Trophies Kindergarten - 3rd Grade implementation and would be happy to accommodate other requests. The link for the Harcourt Trophies implementation guide is on the Reading Horizons Web site: http://www.readinghorizons.com/community/implementation/index.aspx
Reading Horizons has partnered with the University of Utah Reading Clinic (UURC) to offer specialized workshops for educators interested in developing more effective school and tutorial phonics instruction. These workshops, titled "Discover Intensive Phonics," focus on decoding the syllabic structure of the English language and how this knowledge can help struggling readers become more successful at identifying, spelling and reading words. The open enrollment workshops, which take place at the UURC's Murray, Utah, location, are fun and engaging and include systematic, hands-on instruction that mimics actual classroom instruction. Discover Intensive Phonics is based on Orton-Gillingham principles of instruction, which were developed specifically for students with severe reading difficulties (e.g. dyslexia) and have been demonstrated to be highly effective in helping students to overcome these apparent roadblocks. Discover Intensive Phonics' unique marking system, word attack skills, and multi-sensory techniques help students recognize basic English syllable patterns when they encounter unfamiliar words in reading and spelling.
In the two-day workshop, an overview of the Discover Intensive Phonics method is presented. The overview starts with basic letter-sound connections and ends with the decoding of multi-syllabic words.
Undergraduate and graduate university credit is available for all UURC workshops and practica. To register for a Discover Intensive Phonics workshop please visit http://www.ed.utah.edu/uurc
For more information, please visit the UURC Web site at http://www.ed.utah.edu/uurc, or call 801-265-3951.
The University of Utah Reading Clinic (UURC) 5282 South 320 West Suite D100 Murray, Utah 84107 Phone: (801) 265-3951 Fax: (801) 265-3620 Email: uurc@ed.utah.edu Web site: http://www.ed.utah.edu/uurc Director: Dr. Kathleen J. Brown