Reading
Reading is not merely a subject area, it is the rite of passage into the rest of the curriculum. We can prepare the preschooler and kindergartner for the reading instruction they will encounter in the first grade. For the second or third grader who has not learned to read well, we can provide an effective bridge back to the appropriate reading instruction. We can also provide effective recovery for the student who has received years of remedial reading and is still functionally illiterate.
The key to preparation, remediation, and recovery in reading is diagnosis:
- What is the first grade teacher expecting from the students? We will prepare the students to meet those expectations. The preparation may take the form of developing reading readiness skills or other underlying concepts. If vision or auditory processing is a concern, the student will be introduced to pre-IPP exercises.
- Why has the second or third-grade student not connected with the reading instruction? We will find the reason and remedy the problem. Each possibility for lack of success is unique. One of the problems that presents itself with frequency is that bright students who have had an amazing vocabulary before school and in Grade One, are suddenly having difficulty reading in Grade Three or Four when sentence structure becomes more complicated and words more abstract. SOI assessment can detect the underlying problems and produce a solution.
- Why have years of standard remedial reading not been effective for the older student? We will look for the impediments and correct them.
LOCAN – a special reading program for figural learners
When a student is a predominantly figural learner, he/she may not learn to read by traditional methods. LOCAN is a Figural method for reading, where picture-characters (or glyphs) stand for meanings. The key to glyph reading is this: One picture-character = one meaning.
All people first learn to read by associating a sign or symbol with a meaning. Children first learn to read logos, trademarks, road signs, etc. It is the natural way to learn to read. LOCAN extends this natural experience into the English language.
Who needs LOCAN?
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LOCAN Kinder
All children in the concrete stage of development, pre-schoolers, most kindergarteners, and many first graders, all who are figurally dominant. Their first reading experience should be LOCAN – it is appropriate to their stage of development.
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LOCAN
Most students who have not learned to read by the third grade (Probably figurally-dominant), are often labelled as “learning disabled” or “dyslexic” because they cannot read. They need to be re-introduced to reading through LOCAN – it is the most effective way of getting them back into mainstream learning.
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LOCAN Complete
Adolescents and adults who have been exposed to reading instruction but have not learned to read, have probably been exposed to years of remedial reading instruction. This group is, typically, very difficult to reach with conventional reading instruction. They have seen too much of it, and having failed for years, they are very indifferent or are actively hostile to conventional reading instruction. The first task is to convince them that they can read. LOCAN provides that bridge, then they can be approached with traditional reading instruction.
In summary, all students who are preliterate or non-literate can benefit from LOCAN.
Reading Prep I and Reading Prep II
ReadingPrep isn’t just another program to teach reading. There are many excellent programs to teach reading, but even the best of them fail to some degree with some students, and completely with many students. (The National Assessment of Reading reports that more than one-half of all fourth grade students are not competent readers.)
How can ReadingPrep help students learn to read?
All reading programs make assumptions about the skills, abilities, and concepts that students bring to the learning situation. For the most part, these assumptions are unexamined in the standard teaching programs.
When the assumptions are not met – when the student cannot satisfy these assumptions –failure is very likely. And, from the teacher’s point of view, the failure is mysterious because, since the assumptions are not explicit, the causes of failure are not identified.
ReadingPrep identifies these assumptions, tests them, and trains the underlying skills, abilities, and the concepts that are lacking.
What assumptions do reading programs make?
The assumptions fall into three categories: basic skills, basic cognitive abilities, and core concepts.
What are the basic skills presupposed by reading programs?
- Visual acuity: the visual skill to discriminate
- Visual processing: the visual skills to track and focus dynamically
- Visual stamina; the skill to sustain visual processing
- Visual sequencing: the skill of processing from left to right
- Auditory acuity: the skill to make auditory discriminations
- Auditory processing: the skills to track and attend dynamically
- Auditory stamina: the skill to sustain auditory processing
- Eye-hand coordination: the skill of making and monitoring hand movements
What are the basic cognitive abilities presupposed by reading programs?
- Visual closure: the ability to see the whole by looking at the parts
- Visual discrimination: the ability to see visual differences
- Visual memory: the ability to recall visual material (figural, symbolic, and semantic)
- Auditory memory: the ability to recall auditory material (figural, symbolic, and semantic)
- Conceptual sequencing: understanding progressions (figural, symbolic and semantic)
- Conceptual classification: understanding belonging-ness
- Conceptual discrimination: understanding conceptual differences
- Conceptual transformations: the ability to identify the process of change
- Semantic relations: the ability to use relational concepts (figural, symbolic, semantic)
- Semantic Systems: the ability to process extended semantic material (visual and auditory)
What are the core concepts presupposed by reading programs?
Basic discrimination of “same and different”
Basic colours: red, blue, yellow, orange, purple, green
Basic shapes: square, circle, triangle, diamond
Basic place relations; in, on, over, under, off, out, behind, around, between
Basic pronouns; I, me, my, he, his, him, she, her, you, your
Basic structure of written language
Relative discrimination similarity
Spatial and temporal sequences: first, second…last
Comparatives: good, better, best; bad, worse, worst, etc.
Linguistic tenses: present, past, and future
Basic quantity: size, weight, distance
ReadingPrep I
This set concentrates on the most basic perceptual skills, cognitive abilities and early learning concepts. The computer programs are all narrated for the non-reader. The student workbook concentrates on small-motor skills and the use of the cognitive abilities learned in the computer programs.
The Instructor’s Manual contains a step-by-step plan for both the computer exercises and the Modules Workbook.
ReadingPrep II
This set concentrates on the skills, abilities, and concepts that are used in beginning reading. After completion of this set, the student will be ready to begin reading instruction.
See what our clients have to say about our programs.
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