Re: Read 180

Posted by Stephanie on 12/14/07

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Read 180 is likened to a whole language program. The reason
why is becuase one of its main features is that it heavily
emphasizes the use of context cues to determine meaning
instead of a systematic explicit approach to decoding
(structured language, which is the opposite of whole
language).

It is important to determine how well a student is decoding
before relying on a program such as READ 180 to address the
needs of the student.

The student should first have gone through testing to
completely determine what are the basic skills processing
problems. They need to be tested on their ability to decode
accurately at a 90% of greater level, they need to decode
with automaticity, they need to be able to decode sentences
and paragraphs (connected text) fluently before using a
whole language program.

This is especially important for teenagers with reading
problems because we see a lot of gaps in their basic
processing skills.

For example I have seen a student know a trigraph but not
know the basic and most often used digraphs. These gaps have
to be addressed from the most simple (single letter
decoding) to the most difficult (paragraph decoding). They
also need to be taught to the level of automaticity at the
single word level.

What I mean by sentence and paragraph decoding is this -
Often students may be able to decode single words in a list.
This is different from having to decode a succession of
words such as in a sentence where they not only have to
decode the individual words but they also have to allot
cognitive resources to the meaning of the sentence as a
whole.

If single word level decoding is not automatic, cogntive
resources that would be used to think about the meaning of
the sentence are stolen away in order to deal with the
mechanics of decoding.

In other words, decoding single words, whose meaning is not
connected with the other words on a list is not as difficult
as decoding words in sentences. To attempt to analogize
this, it is similar to trying to translate a sign written in
a foreign language. While you might be able to figure out
individual words, unless you have mastered the ability to
decode those words automatically, it makes it much more
difficult to read the sign fluently.

On 1/26/06, cwick wrote:
> I am researching the reading program READ 180. If any one
> has used it, Iwould appreciate your insight. Thanks, Cindy

Posts on this thread, including this one

• Read 180, 1/26/06, by cwick.
• Re: Read 180, 12/14/07, by Stephanie.