- Churches, civic groups and charity organizations that work with disadvantaged populations and struggling learners will find this method of organizing early reading instruction easy to implement, primarily because it doesn’t require extensive training for those who will be guiding the children.
- This program is appropriate for children ages 3-7. An 8- or 9-year-old child who has some dropped stitches in decoding and word identification will also benefit from this program and will move through the lessons quickly, gaining mastery and confidence along the way.
- Children are not taught in groups but work independently or with other students.
- There is no need for elaborate testing or evaluations prior to starting a child in the program.
- Some children will need to spend time with instructors to learn how to isolate beginning sounds of spoken words. Beginning sound isolation is the only skill that is needed to begin independent work with activities that teach the sounds of the alphabet A-Z.
- Some children will need to spend time with instructors to learn how to segment spoken words into individual sounds (phonemes). Phoneme segmentation is the only skill that is needed to begin independent work with the activities that teach children how to decode words.
- Once the instructor teaches a student an activity, the student is free to choose that activity during practice sessions. Independence and freedom of choice are fundamental to the success of this method of early reading mastery. We empower children to teach themselves and to share in the responsibility for their own learning.
- Games are organized in easy-to-identify activity clusters. Each cluster matches a specific skill or set of skills that is required to play those games.
- Children are given self-checking practice sheets which guide them through the sequences of alphabet and decoding activities. They learn to share in the responsibility for their own learning and choose appropriate activities during practice sessions. They learn to track their own progress.
- The instructor’s role is to supervise practice and give assistance to children who may be struggling and to take note of those who are ready to graduate to the next level of challenge.
For more information about starting an Early Reading Mastery Literacy Center contact:
Randall Klein
P.O. Box 10935
Bozeman Montana 59719 USA
+1 800-890-1961
earlyreadingmastery@gmail.com