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Great Leaps
Reading
Great
Leaps Reading uses proven instructional tactics with powerful motivators to
remediate a variety of reading problems. Efficient in both cost and time
expenditure, Great Leaps Reading is widely implemented across the country.
Students with reading problems have responded with significant gains.
Students work
individually with an instructor and the materials for less than ten minutes
per day (three days per week minimum). Depending on the severity of the
reading problem, one to two school years is the average length on intervention.
Great Leaps is
divided into three major areas: (1) Phonics: developing and mastering
essential sight-sound relationships and/or sound awareness skills; (2) Sight
Phrases: mastering sight words while developing and improving focusing
skills; and (3) Reading Fluency: using age-appropriate stories
specifically designed to build reading fluency, reading motivation, and proper
intonation.
The Phonics takes
students from identifying sounds in isolation to being able to sound out cvc,
cvcc, and cvce patterns. This enables students to (with contextual clues)
decode unknown words with a high degree of success.
The Sight Phrases
uses phrases to teach sight words while significantly increasing focusing
skills. Teaching high frequency words in isolation has not worked for most
students with reading problems. The Great Leaps approach of using sight
phrases helps to minimize the age old problems of readers continuously missing
words such as these, them, of, off, from, etc. Great Leaps was the
first major published program to actively use “sight phrases” for the express
purpose of sight (high frequency) word generalization.
The stories have
been designed and written by Kenneth Campbell to not only significantly
increase reading fluency, but also motivate students to want to continue
reading. Use of point of view, humor, rhyme, and rhythm all contribute to a
powerful fluency-building intervention.
As students achieve
goals in each area of concern, they advance to a more challenging next step.
For the first time in their lives, many students begin experiencing consistent
reading success.
Great Leaps Reading
has been researched and used successfully in schools across the country. Great
Leaps has the support of special education and reading specialists in many
universities. One of the differences of Great Leaps is that decisions have
been built into the materials, allowing parents, volunteers, and classroom
assistants (as well as professional staff) to successfully implement current
research-based practices.
Although the
appearance and strategies appear simple, Great Leaps has its origins in over
thirty years of instructional research and practice from the world of
precision assessment and teaching.
Areas that have
implemented the Great Leaps Reading Program (from New York City to Seattle)
have shown similar results. At-risk and dysfunctional readers are learning to
read - many in a short period of time. (Approximately 25% of the students
presently surveyed showed two to five years of oral reading growth in less
than six months!)
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