Home About Us Media Kit Subscriptions Links Forum
APPEARED IN


View All Articles

Download PDF

DIRECTORIES:

Job Opportunities

Tutors

Workshops

Events

Sections:

Books

Camps & Sports

Careers

Children’s Corner

Collected Features

Colleges

Cover Stories

Distance Learning

Editorials

Medical Update

Metro Beat

Movies & Theater

Museums

Music, Art & Dance

Special Education

Spotlight On Schools

Teachers of the Month

Technology

Archives:

1995-2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

DECEMBER 2004

Product Review:
Reading Horizons
By Mitchell Levine

If you ever take the time to pore through adult literacy statistics, you'll find a number of highly disquieting items of interest: according to the Department of Labor, about 50 percent of unemployed individuals in the United States are functionally illiterate. In New York City specifically, according to the National Center for Literacy, the mean level of literacy assessment is .246, which means almost 30 percent of adults here do not have sufficient reading ability to master a college curriculum.

Even worse, a parent's literacy is the single most effective predictor variable to determine a child's likelihood of growing up in poverty. In fact, the National Assessment of Education Progress tells us, a child with functionally illiterate parents is twice as likely to be illiterate themselves than their peers. Historically, particularly in this technological age, civilizations with high rates of literacy even win wars more often than their less literate peers; it's a key factor in a civilization's success overall.

As imperative as the fight to create reading competency would appear to be, it's not a battle easily won. Sadly, the odds of successfully improving an adult's written decoding skills using conventional instructional methods aren't good: studies cited by the Literacy Volunteers of America indicate that 35 to 40 hours of tutoring are required to raise a typical adult's reading level one grade.

Fortunately, there's a new tool available for the adult literacy student, Reading Horizon's Discover Phonics for Yourself program. Through direct instruction, which can be supplemented with a computer component, logical sequencing and multi-sensory techniques, it accomplishes the primary goal of phonics instruction: learning to recognize words rapidly and automatically. By the end of the course, adult functional illiterates are reading 85 percent of commonly used English words. Simultaneously, they also learn spelling, vocabulary, grammar, handwriting, listening and thinking skills.

The new online software provides not only extensive tutorials, but an easy to administer online reading assessment to measure success via a number of important variables. According to pilot programs conducted in both the Peel Adult Learning Center in Ontario, Canada, and the California Board of Corrections, adults were quickly able to master not only the basics, but as the director of the Peel Center explained: “The Reading Horizons program filled in the gaps that adult learners often have, in a controlled sequential manner (including)Émarked improvement in reading comprehensionÉword attack skills and fluency automatically.”

Any adult with either functional illiteracy or struggles with ESL should immediately log on to the company's site at www.readinghorizons.com, where more information for programs for both primary students in grades K-6 or adult learners and secondary students can be found.#
COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE

Name:

Email:
Show email
City:
State:

 


 

 

Education Update, Inc.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of the publisher. © 2005.