[2434] in Zephyr_Bugs
Invitation to Join Reading Pilot Project \
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Reading Success)
Wed Jul 23 04:31:48 2003
Message-Id: <200307230831.h6N8VkKt024941@pacific-carrier-annex.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 08:13:35 GMT
From: "Reading Success"<Guaranteed_To_Read@hotmail.com>
To: zephyr-bugs@mit.edu
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INVITATION TO JOIN READING PILOT PROJECT
The International Education Institute (IEI) is currently overseeing a very successful Reading Enhancement Pilot Project that our Institute hopes to expand. We would like your school district to be involved.
It appears from our first year's results that implementing the test curricula with diverse children from ages 4-6 would enable them to start first grade already reading near the second-grade level.
We also want to expand the research to include related computer-based reading remediation for older students in Grades 1-12.
Currently we are testing the Early Reading Curriculum with over 250 children in 16 pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes (mostly public schools, some private). All participating teachers said the curriculum is better than any they have ever used. That was unanimous - not one exception.
Teachers say their students are months ahead of where they would have been with their previous curriculum.
One private preschool NOT involved in this Pilot Project has nearly 250 pre-kindergartners attending classes 4-6 hours a week. It claims that 100% of its preschoolers learn how to read.
Before we started our Pilot Project, we sent a team to test a random sampling of that preschool's students. We found them reading beyond the mid-first grade level. That's what convinced us to proceed with our Pilot Project involving primarily public school students.
The very best scenario would be to use this curriculum with preschoolers and with kindergartners, which, based on results so far, should mean nearly every student would be reading near the second-grade level before entering first grade.
In this way, we eliminate the need for Reading Remediation before the need arises. It is far less expensive to teach children to read well when they are young than to try to fix their reading problems later.
In fact, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige recently noted that children who are poor readers in third grade "have almost no chance of catching up," according to research.
What hope does exist for older students appears to be with a computer-based, multi-sensory reading curriculum. It is not only "cost-effective," it is just plain "effective." We now have this Grade 1-12 remedial curriculum available as part of this Pilot Project. The curriculum can be made available year-round at home, as well as at school.
By the way, our low-key Early Reading Curriculum is music- and multi-sensory in nature. The children take to it very naturally. We urge teachers NOT to push children. Try to motivate them, yes, but don't do anything that would turn them off from reading. The curriculum includes some fun motivators of its own.
Reading, of course, is the most important skill children need in order to learn all other academic subjects. Without at-grade reading skills, they fall behind in other subjects - even math, since there are more words in math textbooks than there are numbers.
In trying to meet the tough standards set by the No Child Left Behind legislation, the quickest, easiest and, I believe, best place to make major gains is in kindergarten and pre-kindergarten education. But enhanced reading is the key to academic success for all students, K-12.
If you do not have your own pre-kindergarten classes, you may want to work with the local Head Start program. We are willing to include kindergartens without a preschool feeder program.
You may also want to consider a program being demonstrated by the Reading Foundation. It involves a series of Parenting Classes that can effectively motivate and prepare parents to provide literacy training at home. In their first year of operation in a mid-size city of 50,000, the Reading Foundation already has more than 800 parents involved in the program.
Thanks for considering this opportunity, and let me know if you would like more information. Contact me at ReadingProject@netscape.net.
Sincerely,
Ken Harvey, President
International Education Institute
Intl_Ed_Institute@hotmail.com
ReadAndSucceed@hotmail.com
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