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The Need
Frequently whole classes of
students are well below grade level in reading comprehension achievement.
Students who are behind in reading ability fall ever further behind as they
advance to higher grade levels. It is not uncommon to find junior and senior
high school students who are reading at late elementary grade levels. These
students would be benefited if they could be brought closer to the proper grade
level achievement rapidly.
The Problem
Many middle school, and more
high school language arts teachers were certified to teach English, but were not
prepared to teach reading. Even if some teachers are certified to teach reading
at the upper grade levels, teaching reading changes the focus and outcome of the
normal middle and high school English curriculum. Students who are far behind in
reading skills cannot be taught the intended curriculum content for their grade
level without experiencing high levels of frustration, boredom, and failure. The
imposition of high stakes testing, pressure from state assessments, and lockstep
curriculum content with mandatory pacing charts further exacerbates the problem.
The Result
In many schools more than half of the students who expected to graduate this year will not do so. In New
York City 40% of the high schools graduated fewer than half of the senior class.
The Detroit Public Schools experience a 58% dropout rate. Other states report
low numbers of minority students who are able to pass the state competency
tests. In the developer’s own high school he has observed incoming freshman
classes of nearly a thousand students, only to see less than 300 students
graduate four years later. Even the provision of schools within a school, ninth
grade success academies, charter schools, Edison Schools, and private school
options fail to solve the massive problems we face. The current emphasis of
federal help to support effective reading teaching for the first three grades,
leaving no child behind, will undoubtedly fail in a large measure because
research consistently shows that in succeeding years students experience the
Matthew Effect: students who read well continue to do better, but those who do
not fall further behind. As students continue to advance to higher grades, their
reading achievement falls ever further behind. Administrators and teachers are
blamed for failing schools, and failing schools are reconstituted,
redistributing rather than solving the problem.
The Solution
The problem is severe, yet
the solution is simple. Results documented by the author in his own classes show
that students who use The Language Enrichment Program on average gain two
years in reading comprehension in a single semester. Students range individually
from one to five years reading growth. In a typical class, up to 80% of the
students show measurable improvement using any standardized reading
comprehension test. The author’s first classroom trial of this program involved
seventh grade students placed in the class because they were three or four years
below grade level in reading. After using the program, the top eight (of
thirty-nine) students tested as many years above their grade level as they had
been behind. The most efficient, direct
solution to any student’s need to improve reading achievement is to use this
content-focused, classroom-tested program that works with learners of all grades
and ages, children (above age 8) through adult.
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