A class could be divided into three groups, which could alternate learning centers, approximately 15-20 minutes apiece:

1. Direct Teacher Instruction, typically a Frontline Phonics lesson, several samples of which are included later in this section.
2. Worksheet(s), corresponding with the FP lesson and individual re-reading of mastered FP books. Para-educators or volunteers could also provide some 1-on-1 reading during this time.
3. Computer Lab with Reading Master CD or DVD or Doman CD. It would be valuable to schedule a second Computer Lab session later in the day if it is a full-day program.

Other reading-related activities should also be scheduled. These include:

• Alphabet Music Time, where all students sing FP’s Alphabet Song at least once a day while the teacher displays flash cards or PowerPoint-based flash cards with each letter. This song includes the names and sounds of every letter of the alphabet. – 10 minutes.
• Story Time using the Reading Master or Frontline Phonics books displayed on PowerPoint. With many of the books, key words are previewed before the story, and students are challenged to look for the featured words while the teacher tells the story. If the books do not identify key words, you may want to do so on your own. – 15 minutes. This activity could be repeated in a full-day schedule.
• 1-on-1 Reading: Once children are able to read one of FP’s prebooks, students should ideally be provided 10-20 minutes of 1-on-1 reading time in the classroom each week (preferably two 10-minute sessions). Each teacher will have to figure out how to fit this time into the classroom schedule, perhaps using para-educators, volunteers or older students.
  
• Whole Word Memorization Game, including preview words learned during Story Time. Customized word strips posted around the room, each written with three-inch-high block letters, can also be reviewed during this time. The customized word strips should identify things around the school and home – the students’ world. They may include: desk, white board, light, coats, shoes, chair, door, playground, parts of the human body (posted near large "student of the week" photo [alternating]), Mommy, Daddy, sister, brother, student names (also posted with student of the week photo), etc. Reading Master recommends scheduling three different times per day to review selected Whole Words – 5 minutes per session/15 minutes per day. This can be handled just like a game, with very positive input but never any negatives. Just a lot of fun. You can also turn the customized word strips and some photos into your own classroom story books, also to be read at Story Time. These may be among the first books the children learn to read – and the most relevant and popular. We can help you with this project by creating some customizable stories on our PowerPoint CD, into which you can import your own photos. Then you can either project the story from your computer or print it out for the children to read.
• Rest Time or Art Time Music/Video, during which time either the FP music CD or an RM DVD or video (with classical music background) are turned on for passive learning. No separate time is required beyond that already scheduled for these other activities, but powerful passive learning will still take place. This time might also be a good opportunity for students to take turns reading with the teacher, an aide or a volunteer one on one.
• 'Homework' Assignments: All parents should be encouraged to read with their children 20 minutes a day from birth. This provides modeling, motivation and development of brain patterns vital for children to succeed in reading. Until their children can read, of course, the parents do the reading. Gradually the children should take over the reading chores. This routine should continue until children’s reading skills are very well established. But even after that, this can be a special time for parent and child to share. Recognizing that not all parents will quickly accept this challenge, our Pilot Project provides alternatives and ongoing reminders that can get more parents involved than ever before. We recommend you send something home every day to keep encouraging and enabling parents to fulfill of their role. But you don’t have to send just books. You can also send a video or DVD for children to watch with parents, or a computer CD-ROM to install on the home computer. If you check out one item per day per child, this will keep both parents and students thinking about the parents’ role – even if they don’t have time to do it every night. The No. 1 correlation with successful schools in America is parental involvement. Have a prize for those students who complete homework at least four times during the week (including weekends). The prize doesn't have to be very expensive for young children. The small letter figurines that come with the FP curriculum have proven far more motivational, for example, than any of the teachers ever thought they would be.

Utilizing the Read To Succeed Curriculum in this fashion with 3- to 6-year-olds should have 99% of the children reading at second-grade level before they enter first grade, and they can have an enjoyable learning experience at the same time. With this fast-paced, multi-sensory curriculum, children will learn because they want to learn – because they enjoy learning. Let children learn at their own pace. Don’t force young children. Have fun with them. Every teacher participating in the Pilot Project so far says this curriculum really motivates kids to learn.

Below is a review of the three curricula interweaved in our Read To Succeed Curriculum.

Frontline Phonics should be the primary curriculum for 4- to 7-year-olds. For 3-year-olds it should be a supplementary curriculum, emphasizing the Alphabet Song and other music, letter flashcards, and typically just one lesson a week, repeated several times. The instructions below are aimed at classes with 4- to 7-year-olds.

Frontline Phonics comes with a detailed but easy-to-follow teacher’s manual to help the teacher effectively deliver a 15-minute lesson each day. Teachers are urged to follow the lesson plans closely. They have been developed by working professional teachers at the Learning Dynamics Preschool over a 15-year period and have been found to be very effective. Those teachers who opt to significantly alter the lesson plans have never accomplished the level of learning accomplished at Learning Dynamics, where 100% of their 250 4-year-olds learn to read each year.

The Frontline Phonics curriculum approach is in accordance with the six implications in teaching a child to read taken from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) research findings and condensed in the report A Synthesis of Research on Reading from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Bonita Green PhD., University of Oregon, 1997),

Frontline Phonics lessons are administered in 15-minute sessions focused on a single concept (letter-sound relationship). The materials are elemental in nature, incorporating colorful cartoon characters, nursery rhyme-like stories, large traceable letters and playful songs that appeal to ages 3 to 7 — roughly preschool to second grade. Since the attention span of this age group is minimal and oftentimes motivated through play, Frontline Phonics methodology is effective in holding the attention of beginning readers and makes reading instruction feel similar to play time. Frontline materials focus on just one letter-sound relationship per lesson (one phoneme) that is introduced directly through verbal and audible repetition, sing-along songs, games, cartoon characters, and coloring worksheets that appeal to ages 3-7. Some teachers have also incorporated such visual aids as "letter puppets" or stuffed animals that start with the letter of the day.

Frontline Phonics incorporates several Phonemic Awareness (PA) activities to incorporate different styles of learning and hold the attention of beginning readers. For example, Frontline’s first lesson focuses entirely on the letter "m." During this lesson, students are introduced to a character called Morty Mouse through a short story. This story helps reinforce the phoneme through a visual character representation and a story that emphasizes the /mmmm/ sound.

Morty Munching Mouse loves to munch.

After children hear the story, they complete lesson worksheets that teach Phonemic Awareness (PA) using word-to-word matching, sound/phoneme isolation, and odd word out methods. Since PA is learned and does not develop naturally (Cunningham 1990), the sooner PA is taught and made age-appropriate or fun for children, the sooner children will become confident with reading.

There is also a specific song for each letter in the alphabet. Children listen to the song of the phoneme they are working on. The lyrics are simple and repetitive so the children can sing along. This provides auditory stimulus as well as a way for children to remember the sound in a sing-song, rhyming fashion. Students listen to the song twice during each lesson. They sing the "m" lyrics while the teacher points to words and pictures provided in the Lesson Manual that go along with the lyrics in the song.

Once the worksheets and phonemic awareness activities have been completed by the students, the teacher reinforces the individual phoneme again as a final check.

"What letter is this? What does it say? Can you tell me a word that starts with the sound of "mmmm"? Good! Now you may keep Morty Mouse. He will help you remember what "m" says." The teacher then gives the child (or children) a figurine of Morty Mouse. Some teacher have glued a magnetic strip on the back of the various figurines so children can put them on their refrigerator or a metal door at home.

According the NICHD research synthesis, "The order of the introduction of sound-spelling relationships should be planned to allow reading material composed of meaningful words and stories as soon as possible. For example, if the first three sound-spelling relationships the children learn are a, b, and c, the only real word the children could read would be ‘cab’. However, if the first three sound-spelling relationships were m,a,s, the children could read am, Sam, mass, ma’am."

Frontline Phonics begins with these same letters to ensure children will feel the success of reading early. The letters m, a, p, s, and t are introduced first to give children the ability to make the most words possible as quickly as possible. The following chart represents the letter order taught in Frontline Phonics (going down Column 1, then Column 2, 3 and 4, in that order.

Frontline Phonics teaches these highly regular sound-spelling relationships systematically for maximum success. Going from sound-spelling relationships to actually sounding out words, however, can be difficult for some students and will just "click" for others. According to research, direct instruction in blending (sounding out words) is necessary before students will acquire the generalized skill.

So as soon as children have learned two or three sound-spelling correspondences, Frontline Phonics begins teaching students how to "blend" the sounds into words. Children are shown how to move sequentially from left to right through spellings as they "sound out," or say the sound for each spelling. Children are only required to practice blending words composed of the sound-spelling relationships the children have already learned.

1. Read with each child twice a week — 8 to 12 minutes per session.
   1. Pass off current book.
   2. Introduce new book — send home to practice.
   3. If child can’t pass off a book after three times, pass it off and move on. If the child can’t read the next book, backtrack and slow down. Spend more time reviewing letters and blending of words.
2. Keep careful records of which books are read by each student. Send notes home to parents to update them on student progress and to encourage active participation.
3. If child is not ready to read after learning the first 8 letters, use their individual time to review the letters. Continue teaching the letters and sounds. Every few lessons, present the blending concept again and try the first book again. Children will read when they are ready, especially after a foundation has been established.
4. You will notice that there are three sets of reading books available in Frontline Phonics I for the students to pass off: Blue, Orange, and Red. The Blue Readers focus on simple blends and short vowels. The Orange books focus on the short vowel sounds and can be read in conjunction with the Blue Readers. After Blue Book 1 and 2 have been passed off, you may introduce Orange Book 1 and 2, and so on, during individual reading time. The Red books focus on long vowel sounds, vowel combinations and the two-vowel rule.

1. Back-to-School Night/Head Start Orientation, etc.
   1. Explain the program.
   2. Show parts of the video so they understand what we’re doing in the classroom.
   3. Show materials used. Play the music.
   4. Ask for parents' help at home and as classroom volunteers.
      1. Tell parents that when a letter pop-out character piece is sent home, ask the child what letter it is and what sound it makes.
      2. Show parents how we blend letters into sounds so they can help with this concept at home.
      3. When a child brings a book home, read it five times and return it.

1. DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills 6^th Edition) Kindergarten Benchmark tests will be used to assess the progress of each student in the classroom. These tests are given to students individually. They are a series of 2-4 one-minute drills that test Initial Sound Fluency, Letter Naming Fluency, Phoneme Segmentation Fluency, and Nonsense Word Fluency. These tests are extremely easy to administer and include teacher scripting.
2. Optional: Test each child on letters and sounds on Review Day until they have learned the entire alphabet. (They will be reading books at the same time.)
3. Optional: Keep track of books being read and when they are passed off. (Making a chart and using colored pencils/pens that correspond with the colors of the books helps, but should be used for personal use only, not for the whole classroom to see and compare results.)

Reading Master should be considered the primary curriculum for 2- and 3-year-olds, but supplementary for 4- to 7-year-olds. However, the actual classroom time scheduled for the Reading Master curriculum should be about the same for all children -- maybe even more for the older students who have a longer attention span and better motor skills with which to use the computerized version of the curriculum. Teacher instruction, however, for 4- to 7-year-olds should emphasize Frontline Phonics.

For the first three months of the year, we recommend that you concentrate your Reading Master efforts on the FlashBooks (non-fiction) and corresponding FlashBook Readers (fiction), along with the same green-covered books on the CD-Rom, beginning with the "flash to me" mode. These teach many new vocabulary words and concentrate on cultivating general encyclopedic knowledge. These books stimulate the intellectual curiosity of the children as you help build associations, establish a broad conceptual framework, and literally grow the neural networks in their brains. While you are concentrating on this part of the Reading Master curriculum, you will be teaching the children the letter names and sounds, and the basic phonic concepts, through the Frontline Phonics lessons.

The 400 most-used sight words, plus the 70 spellings of the 44 basic sounds in the English language are all taught in the Sounds FlashBooks and reinforced with the corresponding Sounds Readers (typically two fiction books to reinforce each Sound FlashBook). These concepts – while simpler for us adults -- are more abstract to children and are best added later when the students have already been exposed to three months of Frontline Phonics lessons and some common sight words. Then the students will be more ready to associate letters with the sounds. These books also cover the multiple sounds of each letter and letter combination – concepts that could be confusing if introduced at the start of the year when the Frontline Phonic curriculum is focusing on the most common consonant sounds and the soft vowel sounds.

The pictures are discrete on the page, that is, appearing without backgrounds. By so doing the child is not distracted from the subject. The labels are accurate. i.e. "Persian," "Siamese"; not just "cat." The reason for the precise labeling is that the children can just as easily learn the correct names as the "simplified" names. RM has bound the "flash cards" into books so that complete sets stay together. They will also be included together on our PowerPoint CD.

• When you present the information use it for discussion. Maybe you could compare the long fur of the Persian cat with the short fur of another cat. Maybe you could bring a cat to school to help the children stay interested – and to help them identify what kind of cat it might be. Maybe you could compare the Siamese’s bright sapphire blue eyes with your own brown eyes.
• Wherever possible try to relate the information back to the children’s own experiences. You will find the information when presented this way will be more readily assimilated by your children.
• Do not stay too long with one book. Move on to new material regularly but do come back occasionally to review what has been learned. By doing this, you will be helping to transfer the information into long-term memory.

A child can assimilate the detail in the image very quickly. Try holding up a picture of the Sun for yourself and see how many seconds it takes before you become bored. We recommend showing each image for approximately 1-2 seconds only. This way the lesson remains interesting and stimulating. Finally, try to avoid testing your students, or the sessions may become an ordeal. When ready, your students may spontaneously say what the picture is. Until that happens, just keep showing the pictures. Obviously there are many other subjects that you may wish to present to your children. The books in the Reading Master curriculum are just a starting point. They provide 80 images across eight different subjects of general knowledge and show a methodology for teaching that has had proven results. Try to let your students dictate other subjects that are of specific interest to them, and start creating your own flashbooks. Reading Master may even want to buy them from you!

All eight RM flashbooks are on your CD-Rom. In "flash-to-me" mode, the FlashBook animated images will run through by themselves at the optimum learning rate. Young children not yet capable of using a mouse may be set up to view these images.

Once again, you may wish to play through the Cats FlashBook and then follow it with its companion reader, Fluffy the Show Cat. Follow this with Rainforest Birds and the Michael and the Rainforest reader. Follow this with Horses and the I Can Really Ride reader. Follow this with New Zealand Birds and the I Love Berries reader. To do this entails switching between "flash to me" and "read to me" modes. In "read-to-me" mode, the books are read with the text changing to blue as the words are being said. Animations and sound bring the books to life. In "let-me-play" mode, there are many links from stories back into the FlashBooks. In this mode the FlashBooks act as encyclopedias. For example, click on the words "gorillas" or "zebra" in the Safari Sounds Reader and you will be taken to the gorilla and zebra pages respectively in the African Animals Flashbook, where you can find out more interesting information about these animals. It is then easy to return back into the Safari Sounds Reader by first clicking on the middle button at the bottom of the page and then the little cover of the last book you were in that pops up (or one of the previous two book covers that pop up above it).

FlashBooks while overtly increasing the general knowledge of your children, will also covertly prepare their brains for early reading.

The four FlashBook Readers are Fluffy the Show Cat, Michael and the Rainforest, I Can Really Ride, I Love Berries. Just think of them as storybooks. However, Fluffy the Show Cat expands upon information in the Cats FlashBook. Michael in the Rainforest expands upon information in the Rainforest Birds FlashBook. I Can Really Ride expands upon information in the Horses FlashBook. And I Love Berries expands upon the New Zealand Birds FlashBook.

FlashBook Readers create another level of information that builds upon the information already given in the FlashBooks. It is being provided in such a way that children can relate it to their own real-life experiences. Let’s use Fluffy the Show Cat as an example. Fluffy the Show Cat starts off "This is Fluffy. Fluffy is a Tabby Persian." In the Cats FlashBook the first cat depicted is a Persian cat. The text states "Persian cats come in many different colors," and the picture shows a Cream Persian. So in Fluffy the Show Cat all we have done is show one of the other colors that Persian cats can be. Further on in the book, three other colors of Persian cat are then shown in the same precise, and uncluttered or discrete way that the Cream Persian is portrayed in the FlashBook.

On another page in Fluffy the Show Cat, four of the other cats from the Cats FlashBook appear in the context of a cat show. Use this opportunity for your students to identify these cats from their own knowledge.

You will also find reference to the meanings of different cat tail motions and positions in this book. "She settles back to sleep. Her tail swishes angrily," and "I like this judge, thinks Fluffy. Fluffy’s tail begins to rise." These FlashBook Readers, have a very high educational content but remain enjoyable bedtime stories. Key words are repeated in the books. For example Fluffy is written 21 times, tail and judge 8 times, etc. This repetition makes it easier for the beginner reader. Elsewhere in the curriculum words like "judge" are presented again, but this time to illustrate the sound of the ‘dge’ combination of letters.

FlashBook Readers may be introduced and used at any time. It is useful, however, to follow each FlashBook with its companion FlashBook Reader. This way the information learned in the FlashBook can be seen applied in a true-to-life story. It is fun to introduce a subject with a FlashBook, follow it up with a FlashBook Reader, and then follow this up with a field trip or in-class activity, such as bringing a cat to school. (First ask parents about allergies and, if necessary, keep the cat away from students who might have an allergic reaction, and remove it from the classroom quickly if necessary.)

In the CD-Rom these Readers are useful for interspersing between the FlashBooks in "read to me" mode as described previously. These books are also good on "read-to-me" mode when first setting up a youngster on the computer. In "read-to-me" the pages turn automatically so no mouse skills are necessary.

There are five Sounds FlashBooks - Sounds 1,2,3,4 and 5. These teach the 44 sounds in the English language.

• There are 70 basic ways of spelling these 44 sounds. Each spelling is called a phonogram.
• The five Reading Master Sounds FlashBooks present each of these 70 phonograms with an image. (The image is as much to help the teacher to say the sound properly as it is for the child - it is not o,w, as in cow - but the sound ow in cow, and the sound ow in rainbow that needs to be said out loud to the children while looking at ow.) The Reading Master curriculum does not actually teach the letter names, per se – rather the phonograms. Emphasize the sound rather than the "spelling" of the phonogram.
• Being able to recognise the sound units of words is an important part of learning to read. Once combinations of letters like ch and sh and ow, can be recognised as sound blends then words can be easily broken down into sound units and sounded out.
• This is not to say that once a child has acquired a knowledge of these phonograms that these will be all that is required to read. Children still need to take in the total picture. This includes gleaning clues from the pictures, the sentence structure and from the meaning of the story itself, as well as from the individual sound units of the word.
• The pages of the Sounds FlashBooks have been deliberately left uncluttered. For each sound there is one word and image to link and associate with that particular sound. This way, the images are large and bold and can be easily assimilated by the child. Other words using the sounds are provided in the Sounds Reader books.
• The sound or phonogram is always presented on the right hand page by itself. This is what is being learned. The pictures and information on the left hand page are there to make sure the parent is pronouncing the phonogram correctly and using an image to link the phonogram to visual information that is already stored in the young learners mind. This is why Reading Master only uses images that are accurate representations of things that a child could actually encounter in the real world.
• Because each Sounds Flashbook is supported by two specific readers, it is not as important to strictly grade the phonograms in order of their adult imagined complexity. The power of association is a greater learning aid than strict gradations of phonograms. However we have, as always tried to maximize the value of both forms of presentation.

As with the FlashBooks, these books also have an instruction page at the beginning. Use this as your guide. Start with Sounds FlashBook 1. Just go through each page pointing to each phonogram in turn and saying, "bu as in bubble," "du as in duck," "e as in egg, ee as in egret, " through to the end. To begin with, you may wish to leave out some of the sounds for ed. Maybe just say "ed as in sprouted, " and go on to "ha as in hat."

It is important that your children are given the correct sound or sounds for each phonogram correctly from the beginning. Before using these books with your students, familiarize yourself with the sounds in them. Avoid saying the name of the letter, it is not the letter bee, but "bu as in bubble." If you are unsure of the sound, say the word it is used in and listen for the sound. If still unsure, use the CD-Rom or video as your tutor.

A few of the phonograms have multiple sounds that may take some practice. For example, the phonogram "I" has three different sounds associated with it: "i as in fig," "i as in ice" and a more unusual one "e as in sewing machine."

If you show the book each day, your child will soon become familiar with the sounds. Later, when your child gains confidence and is sounding out words, use the examples from the Sounds FlashBooks. For example, when help is needed in sounding out "ea" for the word "each" say "ea as in eagle" and "ch as in chinchilla." This will help your child to remember.

The Sounds FlashBooks are graded in that Sounds FlashBook 5 has many more of the complex sounds than any of the previous FlashBooks. The most complex phonogram "ough." has six sounds associated with it, for example. Note:

• Don’t expect your students to memorize the sounds and recite "ow/off/oo/aw/o/u" every time you hold up an "ough" card. This is not the idea.
• Generally speaking, words with "ough" in them will be learned more readily through whole word recognition. Children will just learn the word as a complete word without breaking it down into its parts.
• If you wish, with Sounds FlashBook 5 just use the first "o" sound, "o as in otter," and the first "ou" sound, "ou as in mountain," until these are known, then introduce the others at a later date.

Here are some more tips on how to use the Sounds FlashBooks:

1. Over-emphasize the sounds and let your students repeat them after you. For example: "zzzz" as in zebra, "oi" as in coin or "orrrr" as in orangutan. This will be fun for both of you.
2. If you wish, sing them or say them rhythmically.
3. Play phonic games. For example, phonetic "I Spy" is fun to play in the car. "I spy with my little eye something beginning with bu."
4. Use funny or absurd words for other examples. These are the most memorable. For example, for "buh as in bubble," also try "buh as in bottom," "buh as in bang," "buh as in bounce" and then have the children bounce up and down in their seats.
5. The reason we have given only one word and image per sound is so that the child may create a strong association between the sound and the image. Do come up with other words yourselves.
6. For "ar as in star" cover "st" on "star" and substitute new letters with the children – "car/bar/jar." Use "ar" to start words, such as. "art/arc/arm." Use it in the middle of words like "hard/backyard /start" etc.

Phonics videos 1 and 2 contain all the sounds in English and all the ways of spelling these sounds (phonograms) to reinforce your instruction. As with the other types of Flashbooks, music to assist in preparing the brain for maximum retention accompanies the 70 spellings of the 44 sounds.

In flash mode, the phonograms flash up at the optimum learning rate, followed by the associated picture and whole word. One idea is to select the pictures from FlashBooks and phonograms from Sounds FlashBooks and alternate them. For example, Cats FlashBook followed by Sounds FlashBook 1; followed by Planets FlashBook and Sounds FlashBook 2. A child who watches these images several times a day for a week or so will soon start to absorb them. The Sounds FlashBooks also occur on Read and Play modes. In this mode, both phonogram, picture and whole word appear on the screen together.

To back up the learning from the Sounds FlashBooks, try simple phonetic word building, too. Use magnetic letters or magnetic phonograms. Start with short vowel words such as cat, bed, fig, cot and but. When your students are confident with these, move onto long vowel sounds and "the magic e." "The magic e" changes short vowel sounds into long vowels that sound like their letter names, e.g. cap to cape, bit to bite and cut to cute. Then add doubles, such as ch as in chat and ow as in cow.

There are 10 Sounds Readers in Reading Master -- two for every Sounds Flashbook.

• Ducks and Whales (with Sounds 1)
• Zoo and Rainbow (with Sounds 2)
• Pets and Family (with Sounds 3)
• Safari and Space (with Sounds 4)
• Arctic and Our World (with Sounds 5)

The Sounds Reader books demonstrate the 70 phonograms in use in true-to-life stories. Each phonogram is concentrated in turn, in order to demonstrate its sound. Each phonogram is color-coded for easy recognition. The Sounds Reader books present 10 words before the story begins for whole word recognition. These words are words that are used in the story, and the majority are drawn from a list of the 400 most commonly used words in the English language.

• A good time to start using the Sounds Readers is when your students are becoming familiar with the sounds in the Sounds FlashBook. For example, once your child knows most of the sounds in Sounds FlashBook 1, introduce the Ducks and Whales Sound Readers, see if they recognize some of the sounds they have learned.
• If you wish, start showing the 10 words from the front of the books one per day before reading the books.
• In the classroom it may be helpful to make up large whole word Flashcards of the 10 words at the beginning of each book. Start showing these before introducing the story. If you start 10 days prior to reading the story you can show one word several times a day for 10 days. As you read these books out loud to your children, emphasize the highlighted sounds. Run your finger along the words as you say them. The child can now both hear and see the sounds on the page.
• The duck gathered the eggs together guarded them and covered them with down. Sentences like these will become easier to read as the child begins to hear the high concentrations of "g" and "ed" sounds in this paragraph. Talk about gathered, guarded and covered as being "ed’" words before you read the story. Let the children listen for and point these "ed" words out when they occur as you read the story.

As with the Sounds FlashBooks, do not just give these books to your students and expect them to read them. Use the books as tools to teach the sounds of the language. The Sounds Reader books will extend your children’s vocabulary as they use lots of different and unusual words that occur in the books for their sounds. e.g. "eggs glistened like gems" or "between the shimmering shiny sheets of ice, shoals of fish swim."

In the CD-ROM "flash to me mode," 10 whole words from the selected Sounds Reader flash up at optimum learning rate for whole word recognition. The majority of these words have been drawn from the list of the 400 most commonly occurring words in English. Once your students can recognize the first 100 whole words, they will be well on her way to reading. The words are large enough that even a young child can learn them. In "read to me" mode, first the sounds that occur in the story are read out followed by a word from the story using that sound. Then, the story is read. All the sounds as they occur are color coded for easy recognition. In "let me play mode," the first page of the story is read and then the program is available to be explored by clicking on forward and back arrows and the objects and text.

One of Glen Doman's approach to creating "baby geniuses" is to provide them with a little information about a lot of things. Once a person's "conceptual framework" is established, it becomes much easier to flesh out -- even when (or especially when) the individual is very young. But the approach also works for older students.

Developed by Doman's Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, the Doman's Picture Dictionary CD-ROMs make it fun and easy for developing readers to build their spoken and reading vocabulary. Students are shown a series of single words and associated images. Each of Doman's 10 volumes contains 150 colorful images with large-print vocabulary words printed in English, Japanese, French, Spanish or Italian -- and each pronounced by a native speaker with appropriate accent. Students can begin the program with any volume and then move on to any other volume, so one set of 10 can service 10 students at a time.

The set of 10 CD-ROMs cover 1,500 vocabulary words on a wide range of subjects. The topics themselves indicate how students can simultaneously build a conceptual framework for intellectual growth by reviewing these CDs. Subjects include:

Vegetables

Musical instruments

Flowers

Fossils

Gymnastics

Natural phenomena

Dogs

Mammals

Countries

House plants

Sports

Whales

Cats

Birds

Flags

Minerals

Ships

Nature

Nuts

Computers

Time

Clothes

Transportation

Insects

Composers

Reptiles

Moons

Colors

Fish

Constellations

Shells

Butterflies

Statues

Muscles

Jewelry

Dinosaurs

Tools

Planets

Fruit

Skeleton parts

Herbs

Tableware

Interesting places around the world

Chemical elements

Archeological ruins

Mathematical symbols

Works of great artists

Parts of the brain

Brief but repeated review of the CD-ROMs' 1,500 concepts will not only build a student's reading and spoken vocabulary, but will also help a student grow in his ability to comprehend additional ideas and concepts. For bilingual students, it will enhance their vocabulary in both languages if they will review the CD-ROM first in their native language and then in English.

The International Education Institute will provide student assessments with a nationally recognized literacy evaluation test at least twice during each school year – in the fall and again in the spring. IEI will consult with the participating colleges and universities to finalize selection of an appropriate assessment test. One under consideration is the DIBELS test developed at the University of Oregon and administered annually to 450,000 emergent readers. A test of this nature would provide a strong national benchmark with which to compare the progress of the at-risk students involved in this project.

The 3-year-olds can be expected to learn all the alphabet letters and sounds by year’s end, at least one whole word per week, three customized classroom reading books, and letter blending sufficient to read at least the first three "pre-books" in the Frontline Phonics series. These students could achieve approximately the same level of literacy as the typical kindergartner.

The 4-year-olds can be expected to learn all the alphabet letters and sounds, two whole words per week, three customized classroom reading books, and letter blending sufficient to read an average of 33 "pre-books" and books. More advanced students can be expected to read up to 20 additional FP books. During Year 1, the average student could approach the mid-first-grade level of literacy. In Year 2, having participated in the program one year already as 3-year-olds, the 4-year-olds should, on average, approach the second-grade level.

There is some controversy over the nature of cognitive growth during children’s early years. One school of thought, led by such researchers at Joseph Chilton Pierce and David Elkind, concludes that the young child's forces and energies are needed for other appropriate developmental steps. When one diverts these to early conceptualization, something suffers, they say. They claim that early readers lose interest by fourth grade.

Other researchers, such as Glen Doman, actively go about creating "baby geniuses," teaching them reading, foreign languages and calculus before most children are entering preschool. They claim they have "never" run into the problems Pierce and Elkind observe. "Every child born has, at the moment of birth, a greater potential intelligence than Leonardo Da Vinci ever used," Doman says. "The brain has infinite capacity. The more you put in, the more it will hold. The human brain grows by use – the way biceps do."

Buckminster Fuller agrees. "All children are born geniuses, and we spend the first six years of their lives de-geniusing them," he says. Doman disciple Grant Ford adds, "From the moment of birth your child is either asleep or learning."

As children learn about tools, transportation, art, sports, science, nature, the human body, geography, etc., the children begin building a conceptual framework, which helps increase their comprehension as they continue to fill in the framework. Without the framework, the information they encounter passes them by as "nonsense." But with the framework, they have someplace to stick most pieces of information. And, at the same time, they are building their reading and spoken vocabulary.

It is clear that young children cannot be pushed into cognitive growth. They have natural curiosity and built-in motivation, but they have to learn what interests them. (Teachers of older students are gradually realizing that this is true for all students.) Tapping into the genius of children is the greatest of all educational challenges.

In our Year 1 Pilot Project, the school that used Reading Master most closely to the way we recommended became as excited about the intellectual stimulation as with the reading skills acquired. Boistfort (WA) Elementary School educators sent 5-6 preschoolers and kindergartners at a time to the library, where Nancy Reber supervised their use of Reading Master’s computerized curriculum. The expansion of vocabulary and the intellectual excitement caused by the program has the educators very pleased. They see the curriculum as much more than a reading program. The curriculum includes lessons on such topics as weather, zoo animals, birds, astronomy, horses and cats – and in all of these subjects, it refuses to speak down to the children. The books include much information that most adults do not know.

"They are definitely learning a lot," says Mrs. Reber. Older students are "in awe" of what the younger students are learning through the program. For example, some overheard the younger children talking about different breeds of horses and how horses are measured in "hands." The younger children were trying to figure out how tall a Shetland pony is, using the hands method. Most children use the computerized system about 15 minutes a day, although some use it a second time during an after-school program. The children are very animated by the program. The educators are considering whether more than 15 minutes should be provided. They do not want the children to get bored by it. But so far there is no sign that would happen with a little additional time on the curriculum.

Kindergarten teacher Kathy Gjelten of Boistfort School said, "I found the songs especially helpful. The children seem to really like them. The children also enjoyed the Reading Master computer CDs. They never got tired of using them." Mrs. Reber, who also provided year-end assessments, not only saw a lot of improvement in reading, but "an increase in their excitement about learning, their increase in self-esteem and computer skills, listening skills, concentration, reasoning skills and adaptability. I believe the Reading Master program, along with the Frontline Phonics, has helped these students become successful."

While poorly developed literacy curricula may well lead to the problems noted by Pierce and Elkind, we are confident this project will demonstrate – as it has in the past -- that young children can learn to read early and well – and that they can grow in intellectual excitement and capacity at the same time.