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Personal experience tells me how difficult it is for a busy teacher to help a child who is failing to learn
to read in mainstream class.

Problems with Reading

Before I went to College I spent two terms teaching in an inner-city junior school in Birmingham.

I soon realised that many of the children had problems with basic skills like reading.

My first teaching post was also in Birmingham, where I struggled to help children with reading difficulties for these reasons:

• Finding the time for the necessary small group, or one-to-one attention that was needed;
• Lack of properly sequenced materials;
• Lack of useful materials for the more able children to study semi-independently;
• Disciplinary problems associated with small group teaching.

Lack of Sequenced Materials

Having found a lot of published material lacked the careful sequencing of the steps needed, I was glad of the opportunity to work in special schools where I started to develop and try out my own materials.

A one-year Advanced Diploma course further helped me to hone these skills.

My work in adult literacy taught me that 'unqualified' people can be shown how to help adults - and children - learn basic skills. This program is written with that belief in mind.

On retirement I started to learn computing skills, and then programming in HTML.

This lends itself to the kind of immediate feedback needed, and this program is the result.

It's a Step-By-Step Program ...

... covering the very earliest stages of phonics - the teaching of letters and sounds, aimed at children who:

• cannot read more than a handful of common words;
• know few, if any, sound values of letters of the alphabet;
• cannot blend the sounds of simple words like 'cat' and 'dog';

It has been planned to:

• introduce a very small amount of reading;
• take very small, and carefully sequenced steps;
• work over the ground very thoroughly.

It introduces pupils to:

• Eight words like 'cat' and 'dog';
• The sounds of the seventeen letters which make up those words;
• Eleven pairs of letters - Chunks - to start building (blending) new words.

Before you start, please:

• Examine each of the six Step by Step
  sets to overview the contents;
• Make sure to read the Helpfiles;
• Get to know the activities.

Who? How 0ften?

I offer this program for use by a teaching assistant, parent, or volunteer working on a one-to-one basis for a short time each day.

Phonics Is Not Enough

The teaching of letters and sounds is a vital component of any program for failing readers.  However, it is not enough.

I think it important to stress that it needs to be accompanied by meaningful aspects of reading such as:

• language experience;
• story method;
• paired reading;

and any other activity which motivates a struggling reader to keep going.

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