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Blending skills . . make learning to sound out words easier. |
Before children begin reading, children must learn about verbal manipulations called blending skills. The teacher says a word like SAIL slowly, a sound at a time. Then the teacher tells the child to say it fast. Another important pre-reading skill is rhyming (not nursery rhymes, but saying words that rhyme with other words). These skills and several others make learning to sound out written words easier. They help teach children that two words that have parts that sound the same, often have the same arrangement of letters.
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"text". . . should be decodable |
The "text" or the stories children read should be "decodable" by the child, which means that the child knows how to identify every word in the story or knows how to figure it out. The child has this skill because every word in the story has been taught in earlier word lists.
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Programs that have a cumulative review are greatly superior. |
The program should have a cumulative review of what has been taught. Programs that teach a skill for one or more lessons and then do not further develop or refer to the skill in the following lessons have no cumulative review. For obvious reasons they do not work well. Programs that have a cumulative review of everything that has been taught are greatly superior.
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Children's ability to read . . increases when children are observed and monitored while they read out loud. |
Although there is great variation in the amount of practice different children need to become good readers, all children benefit greatly from practice in reading aloud in the presence of someone who gives them feedback-telling them words they don't know and encouraging them. Good readers are not created overnight. When children practice oral reading and it is observed and monitored on a regular basis, the children's ability to read more words, and to read them accurately, increases.
ABOUT DIRECT INSTRUCTION
Research on the performance of at-risk children shows that Direct Instruction
is capable of teaching all children-even those who don't often read by the
end of the second grade-before they leave kindergarten.
City Springs Elementary School, in Baltimore for instance, the school that
was once the lowest in a district of 115 elementary schools, is now 5th in
reading performance. City Springs Elementary School, is a full-immersion Direct
Instruction school. Similar results have been observed in elementary schools
in California, Texas, Arkansas, Utah, Chicago, Miami, Detroit, Boston, and
many other cities and counties (such as Broward County, FL) and towns (such
as Gunnison, UT).
An Educator's Guide to Schoolwide Reform
The Direct Instruction approach has been recognized by the American Institute
for Research (AIR) as one of only two approaches for school-wide reform that
has substantial research evidence that documents its effectiveness in elementary
schools..
To see the report by the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development,
National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read, visit their website.
HOW DOES FUNNIX STACK UP WITH WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS?
Funnix scores a 10.
SOUNDS: Funnix teaches sounds for the letters that will compose all the words that children read and teaches them before they appear in words. Funnix teaches all the "phonological" blending skills and rhyming skills that children need.
DECODABLE TEXT: Funnix has text that is 100% decodable, because its stories are composed entirely of words that children have been taught earlier in the program.
The program has a tight structure that is built around cumulative reviews and
the principles that (a) everything that is taught is used in later applications
and (b) every application is composed entirely of things children have been
taught earlier.
AMPLE PRACTICE: Funnix provides
lots and lots of practice in reading out-loud individual words, questions,
and many stories-so it looks like fun, not practice. Funnix
is set up so that parents who are observing and monitoring their children's
performance can respond instantly with encouragement or correct answers.
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