What do you mean when you say the Right Track Reading Lessons material is presented in a ‘kid-friendly’ or ‘student-friendly’ manner?

This means all the explanations and activities in the lessons were not just tested on children and students but actually developed based on what worked with these students. This program evolved out the author’s experiences working with students. The author used these experiences along with her “mom” expertise and insight to adapt materials to make them not only effective but understandable and enjoyable. This program was developed from the bottom up. Elements of the program instruction were specifically created to effectively helping children learn.  Several elements contribute to the ‘student friendly’ approach.

• The program maintains the K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple & Straightforward) approach. All skills are directly taught to the child in a straightforward manner. Unnecessary elements such as complex lists of rules, coding schemes and involved program procedures are avoided.  The direct instruction focuses on the precise skill the student needs to acquire and eliminates ‘extra’ steps.  Not only does this make it easier for the child to learn, this makes the reading instruction more effective and efficient. The author believes the student should spend their time learning essential reading skills, not learning a program. If the instructional program is too complex, the student is squanders time and mental energy learning unnecessary elements and intricate program procedures.

• Program instruction was specifically designed to help the child or student learn. By working with children, the author observed common difficulties and developed solutions to these frequent problems. When a student struggled, she made changes in her instruction to help the child learn. By maintaining the principle of “How can I teach this so he or she can learn” the author developed highly effective instruction techniques. For example, she came up with a technique to help a child avoid or overcome the common letter confusion with b,d, and p. 

• Explanations and instructions are given to the child in a clear and understandable manner.  The program avoids potentially confusing technical terminology that is meaningless to most students. The program uses understandable terms and clear explanations in all instruction such as “please write the buddy letters (or partner letters for older students) ‘sh’ while you say the /sh/ sound” instead of potentially confusing language such as “please encode the proper consonant digraph for the phoneme /sh/”. The clear instruction and understandable terms help the student learn.

• The lessons include a mix of activities to keep student interested and engaged.  The lessons move from one activity to the next. The lessons move from sound introduction, to sound writing, to sound practice, to word making, and then to reading practice.

• The activities are enjoyable. Students especially enjoy the word making and sound changing games with the ‘sound tiles’. The program uses a mix of ‘fun games’ to help younger children learn their sounds. For example, the ‘sound memory’, ‘stack the sound’, ‘fishing for sounds’ are all fun ways to help young children practice the direct printed letter=sound relationship.

Although the presentation is student friendly and students enjoy the activities, the author has found the strongest motivator is simply success. This is especially apparent in the students who struggle with their reading. Nothing motivates a student more than going from “I can’t read” to realizing “Not only can I do this, but I’m good at this”. The program teaches the student what he needs to know so he can succeed. This true success provides the necessary motivation and encouragement that causes the students to look forward to their ‘reading lessons’.