GROUP-CENTERED PREVENTION
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Evidence-Based Programs Will Not Give Evidence-Based Results Unless You Follow the Program as It Was Written

10/27/2017

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People often ask me, what is the key to your reading programs’ success?  Quite simply, the program succeeds by using vowel clustering and a group-centered prevention format.  

If you sit children down in a group, or even a circle of chairs, and then let the children take turns picking a book, or if you stop the action to explain the program’s rules to the whole group, you are not conducting a group-centered prevention program.

Why?  What possible difference does it make if I have the children sit in a group and wait while one of their group members has a turn to read a book?  Actually, just by putting everyone into a large group and taking turns, you have destroyed the group-centered approach.  You have converted a group-centered program into a direct instruction program. 

Classroom teaching often uses direct instruction—one teacher directly interacting with a group of children.  Yes, it is fun to sit and talk with children, but just talking will not teach a child to read.  The children who we work with at my reading clinic are struggling, or in some cases, failing in the public-school classroom.  The methods that teachers use in the classroom have not worked with these children.  We have eleven-year old’s who come to us still reading at the pre-kindergarten (pre-K) level. 
 
Suppose, for example, that you are teaching in the group-centered Reading Orienteering Club, where children rotate in and out of small groups. If you went back to direct instruction classroom techniques, you would no longer be using the Reading Orienteering Club curriculum as it was written.  If you want to the program to succeed, you would need to drop traditional teaching methods and use group-centered methods. 
 
Research shows (Erchul, 2013; Kazdin, 2008; Kratochwill, 2007; Langley et al., 2010; McHugh & Barlow, 2010; Riggs et al., 2010) that whenever you use an evidence-based research program, you must use the program as it was written and intended.  Every time you make a change (no matter how small it seems), you are no longer using the program that you purchased.  Instead, you are using YOUR version of the program, which may or may not succeed.  At my reading clinic, we work with children in small groups.  If you change the group-centered structure or stop using vowel clustering, you will not succeed as we have:


  • A student who failed for nine straight years in public school is now reading.
  • A student diagnosed with ADHD and failing in reading moved up two grade levels in one year.
  • A student diagnosed with dyslexia and whose parents tried everything, including expensive private one-on-one tutoring, learned to read, and moved up to beginning chapter books in one year.
  • Six children who entered the program reading at the (pre-K) level ended the year reading at the 2nd grade reading level.  Only one child in the group was a first grader.
  • One student started at the pre-K level and ended the year reading at the third-grade level, while a second grader started the year reading below first grade and ended at the fourth-grade level.
  • In 2016, one student moved up four grade levels in reading, four students moved up three grade levels in reading, and eight students moved up two grade levels in reading. 
  • In 2017, we scored high again, as 2 students moved up four grade levels in reading, 3 students moved up three grade levels in reading, and 6 students moved up two grade levels in reading. 

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Good Handwriting Helps Children Learn to Read

10/21/2017

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Today, I’d like to answer a question from a parent at my Reading Orienteering Club after-school program.  This is our program’s ninth year, and it has been very successful.  Yet, this question frequently arises.
 
Parent:  “Why do you spend so much time insisting that the children write their words on manuscript paper?  The school says handwriting doesn’t matter.  I sent my child to you for help in reading.”
 
Handwriting and reading are connected.  If the brain cannot recognize the words that a child writes, the brain is not going to learn those words.  Sally Shaywitz, M. D. (2003), a specialist in working with dyslexic children, says that handwriting is one of the critical steps in “rewiring the brain.” Many neuropsychologists believe that children who struggle to learn to read can indeed be taught to read, but we must “rewire” or as I say “retrain” the brain.  Therefore, improving a child’s handwriting is one of the first steps in helping a child learn to read.  It is not enough to just be able to sing the alphabet song.  The child must be able to identify and say the name of each alphabet letter.  Then, the child must be able to write the letters correctly.  The child must also be able to give the sound or sounds for each letter.  In some cases, letters have only one sound. However, most letters, especially the vowels, have several sounds.  As children learn to write and shape their letters correctly, they are training their brains to recognize and identify that letter when they see it in a story or a word.  So, the first step in learning to read is to learn to identify and write the alphabet letters correctly.  The next step is to learn the letter sounds.
 
 
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    Elaine Clanton Harpine, Ph.D.

    Elaine is a program designer with many years of experience helping at-risk children learn to read. She earned a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology (Counseling) from the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

    if you teach a child to read, you can change the world.

    Copyright 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 Elaine Clanton Harpine 

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