This literacy program for students in grades 1-4 picks up where ""Road to the Code"" leaves off. It includes 6 levels that increase in complexity and targets the following skills: phonological awareness, word identification, oral reading, and dictation.Synopsis - This is a supplementary curriculum that has also been used as the primary reading program for classes in which many students are experiencing reading difficulty. There are six levels to this field-tested and validated program, each increasing in complexity from the one before it: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Within each level there are five steps that each lesson follows: review of sound/symbol associations, practice making words, review of previously learned decodable words and high frequency words, oral reading, and dictation. This is referred to as the ""5-Step Plan."" This program was developed to help children who are struggling with reading in grades 1-4, and takes about 30 to 40 minutes per day. It can be used for Tier I, Tier II, or Tier III kids and in small groups or one-to-one.""Road to Reading Success"" can be used with any core reading program. The words that the authors use were chosen from a review of basal reading programs and from Fry and Kress' ""The Reading Teacher's Book of Lists"", which is a popular teacher resource. On the accompanying CD there are materials needed to implement the lessons, including lesson plans, word cards, and assessment forms.
Benita A. Blachman, Ph.D., is a professor in the Reading and Language Arts Department and Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Learning Disabilities in the School of Education at Syracuse University. She also holds a courtesy appointment in the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department. She has a doctoral degree in educational psychology from the University of Connecticut and is a former special education teacher, reading specialist, and learning disabilities consultant. She has published extensively in the area of early literacy, focusing her research on early intervention to prevent reading failure and on the factors that predict reading achievement. Dr. Blachman is currently directing a project at Syracuse University (in collaboration with researchers at Yale Medical School and the University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center) funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to investigate the influence of intensive reading intervention on patterns of brain activation in young children. Dr. Blachman has served on the professional advisory boards of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, the National Dyslexia Research Foundation, and the Neuhaus Center. Her edited book Foundations of Reading Acquisition and Dyslexia: Implications for Early Intervention was published recently by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Darlene M. Tangel, Ph.D., is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Reading and Language Arts Department at Syracuse University. She has taught graduate courses in learning disabilities and in language disorders at Syracuse University and has been a reading specialist in the Oriskany Public Schools for more than 20 years, where she also serves as the Chair of Special Education and the Chair of Preschool Special Education. Her research interests include early reading acquisition and invented spelling, alternative reading curricula for children at risk for reading failure, and adult literacy. She has developed training materials for the American Federation of Teachers and has extensive experience conducting teacher training workshops. The focus of these workshops is translating research into practical application for classroom use. Her most recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Reading Behavior and Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Drs. Tangel and Blachman were awarded the Dina Feitelson Research Award by the International Reading Association for their research on invented spelling.
