Structured Literacy Programmes

Read Write Spell programmesare series of structured workbooks accompanied by literacy games. They are designed to improve students' reading, spelling, handwriting and grammar.

They are suitable for students who have fallen behind in acquiring literacy skills.

These programmes are . multi-sensory - The senses of hearing, seeing, movement and speech are involved. . cumulative - Every lesson reinforces and builds on the previous lessons. . phonics based - Improved awareness of the sounds in words and of the sound-symbol relationship is fostered. (Research shows that poor readers need to improve in this area.) . adapted for use on a one-to-one basis with an assistant or teacher or parent (All instructions are incorporated in the workbooks and games.) . presented in a suitable format for ease of photocopying to produce workbooks for other family members. (They should be copied 2- to 2- sided and stapled.) They can lternatively be supplied as ready stapled workbooks.

These programmes are suitable for . Children who are at least six years and 6 months old who have fallen behind in the acquisition of literacy skills . Teenagers whose reading and / or spelling ages are one year or more below their chronological age

There are currently programmes suitable for children and young people whose reading and spelling ages range from 6 years to 9 years. More programmes are in preparation.

The programme chosen is determined by the student`s reading and spelling ability, and not by chronological age. Parents who subscribe can receive free reading and spelling tests and scoring information on request.

The appropriate series of workbooks and games will be send on receipt of information about the student's reading and spelling ability.

Most students require 50 to 70 minutes to complete a workbook and about 5 minutes to play the game. A workbook can be completed in one session or several.

Each lesson reinforces literacy learning from the previous lessons and also introduces new literacy learning. All lessons include a wide range of multi-sensory activities and finish with a literacy game.

The number of lessons that a pupil requires varies from pupil to pupil. The programme may be discontinued at any time. Many students will discontinue Read Write Spell lessons when their reading and spelling ages have risen to approximately their chronological age.

Pupil record cards and Certificates of Achievement are supplied with all programmes.

These programmes are NOT suitable for students with VERY low intelligence.

These programmes have been devised and produced by Mrs. Dorothy Greenald, BA, AKC, PGDipSpLD, AMBDA. They have been used successfully with a wide variety of students to raise literacy levels significantly.

DOROTHY GREENALD is a qualified teacher with a Diploma in Specific Learning Difficulties She has taught many children and teenagers and helped them to improve both their literacy skills and their self-confidence.

Notes for assistants, teachers and parents

Self esteem

It will be very important for you to build up mutual respect and trust between yourself and the student. Many students have had poor educational experiences and it may take some time to raise their self confidence and self esteem. It cannot be emphasised enough that you must offer frequent praise for tasks, even small ones, well done. It will also be advisable to start on a one to one basis and continue in this way for as long as possible. Remember to complete record cards at the end of each lesson and to give a Certificate of Achievement after 10 lessons. Let the student know you are pleased with the work done.

Learning styles

This programme is designed to accommodate the varying needs of individual students. Students' learning styles vary. Some are visual learners. Others are kinaesthetic learners. Multi-sensory teaching uses as many pathways to the brain as possible, including hearing, seeing, speech and touch.

Reinforcing prior learning

Many students need considerable reinforcement of prior learning, using multi-sensory techniques, to enable them to transfer knowledge from their short-term memory into their long-term memory. For this reason, each workbook has an early section for speedily reinforcing reading of previously encountered letters and groups of letters. After many practices, some are discontinued. The student or tutor may tick the boxes when the student has said the pure sound. This section is followed by the "Student's saying and writing pages" to reinforce spelling of previously encountered speech sounds. These pages are placed opposite "Check pages", where small letters in brackets represent the PURE SOUND that both tutor and student say. These are omitted where the sound is obvious. Multiple letters on the same rectangle occur where more than one way of spelling a particular sound has been introduced and practised in word level and sentence level work in earlier lessons.

Please follow the instructions carefully. This section, as well as others, is also useful for developing a "continuous cursive" style of handwriting.

Introducing new phonic knowledge in a structured way.

The drawing and listening activities promote improved awareness of the sounds within words. The tracking activities make use of and develop students' visual skills. The writing activities progress from letters to words to sentences. The student is NEVER asked to write a word made up of graphemes not previously practised, and NEVER asked to write a sentence that includes words not in structure with the programme. For example, in Series 7, lesson 17, there are no words that end with suffix -es, since that new teaching point is introduced in lesson 18.

Handwriting

Many teenagers have abandoned the "joined up writing" they once learned, and younger children often have failed to master it. It is worth encouraging a "continuous cursive" style, because every time the pen or pencil is taken off the paper, there is an opportunity for error. A joined style helps spelling. It also reduces the risk of badly sized letters, and capital letters inside words. Students should make use of the "tramlines" provided and use a pencil or erasable pen so that any errors can easily be corrected.

Proof reading

Encourage students to check their own work word for word. This helps to encourage independent learning.

It is important to note that all schools are required to provide appropriate support so that all children have the opportunity to benefit from an inclusive education.

Every teacher is required to make provision for ALL his or her pupils, whether or not they have special educational needs.

The National Curriculum requires that pupils receive adequate help to learn phonic patterns that could or should have been mastered in previous years, but which are not yet secure. Read Write Spell is designed to fill that gap.

In addition to using an appropriate series of Read Write Spell lessons, students also need to learn high frequency words from the National Curriculum lists, for both reading and spelling. They should also read aloud to an adult from reading books which have age-appropriate content and text and layout suited to their reading ability. Wooden or plastic letters (for alphabet work and word building), reinforcement worksheets and "Stile" exercises are also useful.

Activities and games that help students to improve their awareness of the sounds within words should be used as much as possible.

Further Information - Literacy Difficulties

A surprising number of people find it difficult to acquire the literacy skills that are so essential for life in the modern world. There are many possible causes.

Many poor readers are highly intelligent: their cognitive skills far outstrip their ability to read, write and spell. Their reading and writing skills are surprisingly poor by comparison with their ability to engage in intelligent conversation, or to solve problems. If there is a history of reading and spelling difficulties in the family, a child or young person is more likely to experience similar difficulties.

Struggling readers may also be more disorganised than most other students. They may forget instructions/directions, especially when more than one have been given in sequence. They may have difficulty finding the right word/s. The right word may be "on the tip of the tongue". They may have difficulty correctly sequencing the alphabet, numbers, days of the week, months of the year etc. When at school, they may be either (a) withdrawn and lacking in confidence or (b) the class clown. They may be clumsy and prone to accidents (dyspraxic). They may have had a poor sense of rhyme, and did not enjoy nursery rhymes. (A young child may complete "Jack and Jill went up the ..." with the word "slope".) Their self-esteem may be low.

Reading

1. Some poor readers have developed strategies for avoiding attempting to read. Would he/she, for example, prefer to look at the pictures and pretend to read the words?

2. Some tend or tended to confuse words which look similar, e.g. what and want, or they and then.

3. Some struggling readers reverse letters when reading words, for example, by reading "was" for "saw", or "saw" for "was".

4. Some can read long words that have recurred in a story, e.g. "Rumpelstiltskin", at the same time as stumbling over much simpler words. This is because their visual memory is stronger than their ability to decode phonically regular words.

Writing

1. Writing tasks may seem burdensome and the attempt slow and laboured.

2. Some may not use capital and lower-case letters consistently.

3. Some students make syntax errors. For example, writing is not in sentences or sentence construction is poor.

Spelling

1. Many students have spelling difficulties. In some cases spelling attempts are or have been so bizarre that it is extremely difficult to decipher them.

2. They sometimes misspell the same word in different ways within a short space of time.

3. They frequently omit or used to omit letters. If so, they may not have "heard" the sound or realised that it needed a letter or letters to represent it. Some students miss out vowels, and write, for example, "wtr" for water. Another common error is to omit consonants, especially when two are blended together, for example, to write "sed" for send, or "tet" for tent.

4. They may sometimes reverse letters, and write, for example, b for d, n for u, or p for q.

5. They may confuse f, th, and v.

6. They may confuse short vowels, for example, writing i for e, or e for i.

7. They may have great difficulty with the conventions of English spelling and in remembering and using various different spelling patterns for the same sound.

Read Write Spell literacy programmes are designed to address these difficulties.