Reading Research Supports Explicit, Systematic, and Intensive Phonics Instruction for Both Children and Adolescents.
Findings from the National Reading Panel, in accordance with the No Child Left Behind Act, show overwhelming evidence that explicit, systematic phonics is necessary for reading success. Systematic phonics instruction teaches a planned sequence of phonics elements rather than highlighting elements as they happen to appear in a text.
Research findings from the Institute of Education Reform and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development have shown the importance of:
The following overview demonstrates how the National Reading Panel's instructional recommendations have been incorporated into the scope and sequence of Discover Intensive Phonics/Reading Horizons products.
Current research indicates phonemic awareness is the strongest predictor of reading success, even at the high school level. Training in phoneme identification, manipulation, and substitution is essential for early grades and is indispensable in deterring dyslexic tendencies. The basic fundamentals employed can easily be applied to older students.
Phonemic awareness, not intelligence, best predicts reading success.
Our products provide detailed lesson plans and assessment materials for teaching and assessing a student’s ability to identify initial, medial, and final sounds; rhyme; individual sounds within words; number of syllables in words; and number of words within sentences. Additional activities address manipulation and substitution of phonemes.
Discover Intensive Phonics/Reading Horizons teach students letter/sound associations through multi-sensory, direct instruction and highly interactive student participation. A unique marking system is employed in the program, helping students examine and scrutinize the internal structure of words and identify their likely and unlikely patterns.
Students receive systematic instruction in identifying blends, the 42 Sounds of the Alphabet, and the phonetic patterns used to form English words. They are simultaneously immersed in language development, sentence structure, spelling, and handwriting skills. As students move through this logical sequence of information, each step provides constant, positive reinforcement of previously learned skills. As Sally Shaywitz, member of the National Reading Panel, wrote in her book Overcoming Dyslexia, "Letters linked to phonemes are no longer meaningless marks on paper, but like Cinderella, have been transformed into something truly spectacular - language! Decoded into phonemes, words are processed automatically by the language system. The reading code is deciphered!" (Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003, p. 51)
Neuroscientists are learning more about how this fluency is developed. Fluent reading is established after the individual reads the word at least four times, using accurate phonologic processing (slow, accurate sounding out). Fluency is built word by word and is entirely dependent on repeated, accurate sounding out of the specific word. Fluency is not established by "memorizing" what words look like but rather by developing correct neural-phonologic models of the word. We now know fluency is not the apparent visual recognition of an entire word but rather the retrieval of the exact neural model created by proper repeated phonologic processing.
Our products teach accurate phonologic processing and then offer repetition and guided practice. Early in the course, the program takes great care to develop fluency. This is accomplished through the use of the slide: a blending process in which students are taught to pronounce words smoothly, left to right. In Reading Horizons v5, we have added a library of over 225 leveled reading passages that are used to further develop fluency. The students are given the option for word study, repeated practice, and guided reading within those passages. That, coupled with the repeated practice of phonological processing, is the key to fluency.
A knowledge of word meaning helps with decoding and also improves reading comprehension. Therefore, Reading Horizons incorporates vocabulary development immediately following the introduction of the first letter set. As new words are introduced, students simultaneously learn each word’s meaning and usage.
Reading Horizons v5 contains a vocabulary tool that may be accessed at any time and contains vocabulary relating to the skills that are being learned by the student. Students are able to hear words pronounced, defined, and used in sentences. There are illustrations for words where applicable, and they are able to phonetically decode each word as well as pronounce and record it in order to compare their pronunciation with the narrator's. This database of over 10,000 words is available as a resource for students to search for words to help with building their vocabulary and to improve their reading comprehension.
Comprehension is accomplished only when the student has moved past the word level and has a strong vocabulary. If decoding is not an automatic process, comprehension will suffer. Reading Horizons addresses comprehension in several ways: first, the systematic, explicit, multi-sensory phonics instruction helps create neural pathways to make the decoding process automatic; second, every word is used in a context sentence, and vocabulary is built throughout the program; and finally, the library component offers comprehension questions, which assess necessary comprehension skills and guided practice to ensure proper application of comprehension strategies.
