HEALDSBURG, Calif./EWORLDWIRE/March 3, 2006 --- Despite the common perception that reading is the most important skill learned in school and the gateway to knowledge, research shows that more than twenty-five percent of middle school and high school students read below grade level and cannot read core textbooks such as science and history.To be successful readers, students must decode difficult words, read fluently and implement strategies for understanding textbooks. Middle and high school students who already are behind four or five years in reading require accelerated reading intervention to succeed.
Teacher and researcher Matthew Glavach, Ph.D., who spent years working with adolescent struggling readers, developed a new reading program to short-circuit reading intervention and directly connect students to core textbooks, by reviewing middle school and high school core textbooks to determine reading requirements and then organizing a reading program to address them.
Reading, spelling, and vocabulary words used in the program were taken directly from core textbooks.
One of Glavach's prior research projects included working with Donny and Marie Osmond. This collaboration provided the inspiration to use music components to enhance his
new reading program. The reading program that resulted from Glavach's research, Core Reading, uses components of music such as rhyme and rhythm, and includes reading intervention strategies such as phonics, fluency and core vocabulary. The program's new approach of organizing multisyllable words into rhyming patterns helps students read complex words in core textbooks and short-circuits the reading intervention process.
Dr. Glavach’s promising research currently appears in Academic Leadership, an online journal, at www.academicleadership.org and at his Web site www.strugglingreaders.com.
Background
Twenty-five years ago, the Osmonds and Matthew Glavach, Ph.D. combined efforts to produce a revolutionary reading program combining music composed by the Osmonds and the reading program and song lyrics written by Glavach. The twenty-four songs and lessons were recorded by Donny and Marie Osmond, entitled Reading with Donny and Marie. The programs were recorded in the Osmond studios in Salt Lake City.
Innovative Program
Intrigued by the possibilities, Glavach researched music and found specific components made it easier for learners to read - rhyme and rhythm - and he used these in a program to help struggling adolescent readers through the difficult environment of multisyllable and increasing technical words. In five years of teaching the program, the approach of organizing words based on identical word patterns is effective at short-circuiting the reading intervention process.
(Top)