Research has significantly advanced our understanding of dyslexia and the types of instruction that help students become successful readers. Today, organizations such as the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) consistently emphasize the importance of explicit, systematic, and structured literacy instruction.

According to the International Dyslexia Association (2015), students with dyslexia benefit from instruction in phonology, sound-symbol associations, syllable instruction, morphology, syntax, and semantics. These components work together to help students develop accurate word reading, spelling, fluency, and comprehension.

David Kilpatrick (2015) identifies three critical components of successful reading intervention: advanced phonemic awareness, strong phonics and decoding instruction, and opportunities to apply those skills through connected text reading. These principles form the foundation of effective dyslexia intervention and align closely with the instructional design of Really Great Reading's Literacy Suite. These three principles are:
1. Eliminating the phonological awareness deficits and teaching phonemic awareness to an advanced level
2. Teaching and reinforcing phonics skills and phonic decoding
3. Providing opportunities for reading connected text.

The Really Great Reading approach contains critical, evidence-based components of phonics for dyslexia instruction. Our explicit, systematic, engaging, multisensory, and developmentally appropriate programs teach students the key skills they need to become efficient and accurate decoders. These skills lead to their success not only in word identification but also in comprehending what they read.

Many students with dyslexia experience difficulty connecting speech sounds to letters and letter patterns. As a result, foundational skills instruction plays a critical role in reading development. Really Great Reading's Literacy Suite begins by strengthening phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. Students learn to identify, segment, blend, and manipulate sounds within spoken words before connecting those sounds to print.

Instruction then progresses to sound-symbol relationships, decoding, encoding, and fluent reading practice. Through explicit teaching and cumulative review, students develop the skills necessary to read unfamiliar words accurately and efficiently. Diagnostic assessments help educators identify specific areas of need and monitor student progress over time. By understanding where students are experiencing difficulty, instruction can be targeted more effectively and adjusted as students develop new skills.

This emphasis on foundational skills aligns closely with research demonstrating that students with dyslexia benefit from direct instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, and word recognition.

Although not the immediate focus of our instruction, orthography and morphology are naturally enhanced when decoding is taught through our approach. Part of what we are helping students do is digest multisyllabic words by breaking them into six-syllable types. When students see patterns in these decodable chunks, affixes naturally expose themselves.

In the Really Great Reading lessons, prefixes and suffixes are explicitly taught along with their meanings, and when prefixes and suffixes are isolated, base/root words are often naturally exposed and then explored. Our complimentary Webinar Series,Erasing the Misery of Reading and Spelling Multi-syllabic Words, demonstrates explicit, scaffolded teaching of multi-syllabic word decoding with various multisensory techniques, including a manipulative that is easy to access or create for use with students of all ages and grades.

Dyslexia is characterized by effortful and slow reading, lacking fluency (Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2008).

Really Great Reading lessons teach flexibility, strategies, and common patterns rather than having students memorize a list of syllabication rules that are difficult to apply. It is important to understand that we absolutely target students’ true understanding of the underlying substructures of words: syllable types, prefixes, suffixes, base words and root words, and spelling patterns.

Rather than not targeting their memory, we are targeting their conscious understanding of these features, allowing them to recognize these patterns more fluently. It is only when a student has a conscious understanding of these features that he or she can really build up automaticity with decoding. The International Dyslexia Association (2017) states that “it is important for these individuals [students with dyslexia] to be taught by a systematic and explicit method that involves several senses (hearing, seeing, touching) at the same time.”

Throughout our programs, children are actively engaged in learning concepts using their whole bodies. They listen carefully to words and phonemes, move their bodies to help build their phonemic awareness and manipulate objects during phonics instruction. Using multiple pathways into the brain seems to help students learn the concepts faster and retain them better. This allows our programs to move quickly through a robust and rigorous phonics scope and sequence.

We have been refining our approach for the last 10 years, and even teachers with a great deal of experience with other programs are often quick to recognize that our approach is more succinct, efficient and digestible than many other approaches. We know it works well with all students, including dyslexic students.

Our program teaches students to play with the sounds in spoken words and then to analyze and attack those words on paper in developmentally appropriate ways. Countdown, Blast Foundations, HD Word, and Phonics Boost lessons set students on the path to becoming successful decoders and, ultimately, successful and fluent readers.

References

Eide, D. (2011). Uncovering the logic of English: A common-sense approach to reading, spelling, and literacy. Minneapolis: Pedia Learning.
International Dyslexia Association. (2015). Effective reading instruction for students with dyslexia. Retrieved from https://dyslexiaida.org/effective-reading-instruction
International Dyslexia Association. (2017). Dyslexia basics fact sheet. Retrieved from https://dyslexiaida.org/dyslexia-basics
Kilpatrick, D. A. (2015). Essentials of assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Torgesen, J.K. & Hudson, R. (2006). Reading fluency: critical issues for struggling readers. In S.J. Samuels and A. Farstrup {Eds.}, Reading fluency: The forgotten dimension of reading success. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
Shaywitz S. E., & Shaywitz B. A. (2008). Paying attention to reading: The neurobiology of reading and dyslexia. Development and Psychopathology, 20(4), 1329-49.
Spear-Swerling, L. (2016). Instructional considerations for students with dyslexia.