SoundReadingSolutions

Semi-finalists announced for $200,000 business competition prize

immithaca@gmail.com (Internet Marketing Magicians) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:35:00 +0000

Sound Reading Solutions Sound Reading Solutions is one of the semi-finalists announced for $200,000 business competition prize.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/semi-finalists_announced_for_2.html

How Can We Motivate Today’s Readers? By Bruce Howlett

noreply@blogger.com (Sound Reading Solutions) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:47:00 +0000

As strong readers read, they enhance their reading skills. As they read more their enjoyment increases. They may choose to go on Facebook or play with their Xbox over reading, but that is natural. On the other hand, struggling readers rarely find reading pleasurable and often develop a sophisticated set of avoidance behaviors. While strong readers become better readers, struggling readers make minimal gains in reading and rarely develop a love of books. It’s no wonder that over a third of adult females and half of adult males rarely read for pleasure.

Traditional reading instruction is geared towards students who have average to excellent reading skills. Strong readers have very different motivational needs than those of struggling readers. Strong readers need some freedom from mandated reading, because they are intrinsically motivated to read. However, this is not to say that parents and teachers shouldn’t nudge solid readers to improve their reading choices and challenges because, Captain Underpants or Twilight may not win over students who would rather be playing with their Xbox or watching Gossip Girl.

What about struggling readers? Struggling readers need to develop a strong self-concept as a reader, so they should be free to pick their own reading material and allowed to focus on one genre or series of books. I didn’t start reading until third grade and rarely read anything longer than a picture-laden National Geographic article into my teens. My biggest recollection of reading was that it took too much attention and was anything but enjoyable. I rarely read books as a young adult, and when I did, I got very little out of it. I remember reading 1984 and being confused about the message. I could never keep all the characters straight in Michener’s Hawaii. In college, I had to read textbooks twice before I could pass a test.

The reason that people struggle with reading is because decoding printed words into meaningful spoken words is a very complex cognitive process. If you want to experience just how un-fun reading words is; read the following sentence from a biochemistry paper:

We have produced a monoclonal antibody against myelin basic protein that reacts with astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and Schwann cells. This antibody was generated by fusion of mouse myeloma cells with spleen cells from BALB/c mice immunized with delipidated white matter from adult rat corpus callosum. The antibody was characterized via solid-phase radioimmunoassay, immunoblot of SDS-PAGE, and by indirect immunofluorescence staining of monolayer cultures.

Having fun? How much effort did that take? Could you read material like this for 15 minutes?

Today neuroscientists offer brain scans of struggling readers that show us that even the slightest struggle with decoding or fluency takes all the fun out of reading. A struggling reader’s brain works three times as hard as a solid reader, and as the brain sucks in energy like a sponge, fatigue sets in after only ten or fifteen minutes of reading.

Even if someone is a good word reader, they still have one more major hurdle to overcome before they are going to enjoy reading – fluency. Researchers have found that an overwhelming number of unmotivated readers can’t read fluently for more than a few minutes. More than anything, fluency is the key to reading enjoyment. When reading is enjoyable, motivation becomes much less of an issue.

To summarize, students who struggle to read words accurately and with ease find reading anything but pleasurable. They don’t feel that they are successful readers. The most interesting research I’ve read recently says that children rarely learn from their mistakes and need an almost constant feeling of success to learn. Success is a huge factor in motivation. Even a few small mistakes can stifle learning while, a series of small successes and reading help leads to increased learning. The things we enjoy doing, from reading to talking, we do with high degrees of success. We avoid activities that provide us with even a little negative feedback. Therefore, word reading and fluency must become automatic in order for it to be an enjoyable activity.

At Sound Reading, we make sure that our students are overcoming the two biggest roadblocks to reading motivation – word reading accuracy and fluency. Our reading software for kids and adults often seems too easy, and it is! We want our students to feel successful and self-motivated. I know that this is why I do a lot more reading now than when I was a struggling reader.

Bruce Howlett

Remember When Reading Was Fun?

info@soundreading.com (Sound Reading) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:25:00 +0000

Many students struggling readers find reading instruction tedious and difficult. They spend more time trying to avoid reading practice than they do actually working through the activities.

We are excited to announce our new Reading Comprehension games that target this exact problem, allowing students to have fun while learning how to read. Bruce Howlett created the games to target the following skills:

phonemic awareness
clear code instruction
word building
decoding

By enabling children to have fun with reading Sound Reading hopes to break down children's frustrations and get them excited about reading.

English Is the Least Phonics Friendly Language

info@soundreading.com (Sound Reading) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:33:00 +0000

English is dramatically more difficult to learn than nearly every other language. With 44 different phonemes and 1,200 different spellings it is no wonder a third of Americans struggle with reading!

Italian and Spanish, on the other hand, have 25 and 28 different phonemes. They only have 29 or 32 different spellings! Compared to these other major languages, English is nearly 50 times more complex. It is amazing we learn to read at all.

With that amount of complexity, students who are struggling with reading can easily be overwhelmed by phonics instruction as they try to memorize all 1,200 spellings and the exceptions to the rules. Struggling readers need to start one step before phonics, learning these different sounds organically instead of by route memorization. The complex nature of the English language makes it the least phonics friendly language.

Join Our Mailing List

info@soundreading.com (Sound Reading) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:19:00 +0000

Heading Home

info@soundreading.com (Sound Reading) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:14:00 +0000

This weekend I am headed back to my hometown for a weekend full of old friends and family. I am sure there will be a few summer BBQs in the backyard and lots of hugs. I even have plans to meet up with a few friends that I have not spoken to in years!

My bags are already packed and ready to go, complete with an entire bag of books. No, I don't plan to read the 13 titles this weekend, although that much free time would be a welcome change. My family and I have a long tradition of swapping our books. We will each bring a dozen or so books to the table, some of our favorites and some classics, and at the end of the weekend we will all leave with new reviews and a new bundle of books.

I find that even if it is a book I had already read years ago, the swap brings with it new reviews and opinions that make a second reading all the more enjoyable. After all, in the past few years my life has changed significantly and different backgrounds and experiences can completely change the way you read a book.

Do you or your family have any traditions similar to ours? Does your community have a book swap program already in place? Let us know!

Amazing Results!

info@soundreading.com (Sound Reading) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:21:00 +0000

As our website continues to evolve, more and more exciting facts about Sound Reading are being posted.

We are so excited every time more data comes back to the office because we love to help children read! All of these reports show that students that were once struggling with reading will be able to catch up to their peers. They will not only be able to finish a chapter book but now they are able to enjoy it! We are excited to share these results with everyone and can promise similar results for your family or school.

We recently added more in depth analysis and results reports under the results tab. You can read more about success in Kindergarten classrooms, with Upper Elementary School students, and with Teens and Adults.

An overview of more of the studies we have performed can be found on the website as well.

10 Resons Fonics Herts My Brane

info@soundreading.com (Sound Reading) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:50:00 +0000

10 Reasons Phonics Hurts My Brain

Weak readers also have weak auditory, speech and language skills. You should teach spoken words first.
Phonemic awareness must be developed before phonics makes sense.
English has a huge number of words that look and sound alike.
Phonics teaches letter sound knowledge that many students are unfamiliar with.
Most English words have the hardest sound buried in the middle of the word.
Auditory vs. Visual Memory - Reading is about 98% auditory, it is more about listening than about letters or printed words.
There is no standard for letter to phoneme translation - br and ch, for example, both have two letters but one has one sound while the other is two. Going from letter to phoneme instead of phoneme to letter is a struggle for many students.
Cognitive capacity - there is only so much space in a studentâ€™s head. Instead of learning rules and exceptions, students should learn patterns.
Phonics teaches students to learn accurately but slowly. Many students struggle with reading comprehension because words fall out of memory too easily.
Transitioning from phonics practice to authentic reading is very difficult.

Coming soon...

info@soundreading.com (Sound Reading) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:46:00 +0000

Thanks for checking out our blog! Keep coming back for more posts about reading, education, and Sound Reading or you can always subscribe to the blog in the right hand menu.

This summer we will have tons of great ideas of games you can play with your kids and ways to keep them excited about reading.

We'll recommend books for all ages and books for the whole family.

If you have any questions or requests please comment on any of the posts!

Happy 4th of July!

info@soundreading.com (Sound Reading) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:50:00 +0000

The 4th of July is always a great opportunity to spend time with your family and take a break from work. A weekend filled with BBQs and family is always refreshing compared to stressful days at work. What a great start to summer!

This weekend I spent hours in the sunshine with a good book in hand. I got lost in the story, imagining myself in the protagonist's shoes instead of on my own back porch. I was startled back to reality when dinner was ready and spent the entire meal eager to get back to the book. In just three days I read all 300 pages and couldn't believe that it was over!

For me, family and a good book are the best ways to relax and take a break. I look forward to every opportunity and hope that you also had the chance to get lost in a good book this weekend.

Lights, Camera, Action!

info@soundreading.com (Sound Reading) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:59:00 +0000

The scene was set, the actors were ready, cameras were rolling.

For eight hours yesterday the Sound Reading team filmed the new online demonstration that will appear on the website in a few weeks. The video explains how the program works and the difference between Sound Reading's program and phonics instruction. It goes through several different activities on the software program and explains what reading skill they target, how this skill is essential to reading success, and how the activities work together to teach students how to read. By the end of the day, everyone on the set had learned something new about the program.

This summer has been full of videos for Sound Reading. In June we filmed another commercial that has now be posted on YouTube and on our website. It is broadcasting local in the Ithaca, New York area. You can see the YouTube version here, or visit the homepage of our website here.

Reading Best Practices

info@soundreading.com (Sound Reading) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:16:00 +0000

Why do so many teachers and tutors claim to use best practices for reading instruction when they neglect the most important methods?
The National Reading Panel reviewed decades of research on reading and determined that struggling readers need a solid foundation, a foundation that extends far deeper than phonics.

Reading comprehension practices that ensure success for struggling readers must include auditory processing (making sense of spoken words) activities so students can connect printed words and meaningful spoken words. Virtually all students who struggle with reading have subtle problems with auditory processing, the leading cause of comprehension difficulties in secondary students.

Many who believe that they are following best practices in reading still neglect phonemic awareness instruction. This is sad, as a few hours working on phonemic awareness is often the fastest route to reading success. Early research showed that phonemic awareness was important for kindergarten and first grade students. Recent research, including the research Sound Reading is based on, shows that it critical for older students. The reason is simple; as words get more complex students require greater phonemic awareness to make sense of them.

Reading comprehension practice doesn’t have to be a protracted battle. There are many strategies that are useful, but only a few that stick. The first is "Stop and Think." The teacher places post-its at critical places in a story. When a student comes to a post-it he stops and thinks. Then he employs the second strategy, he "Turns and Talks" to his reading partner and they have a minute talk about the passage.

The Start of Summer

info@soundreading.com (Sound Reading) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:48:00 +0000

The first day of summer is one of my best memories growing up. Somehow the weather is always clear and sunny, the perfect temperature to spend the day outside doing anything but homework. It is the start of swimming races and neighborhood games of tag - the end of long days in school and hours of homework.

As books and math problems are thrown by the wayside, the basic skills students built up over the past year slowly fade away and come September, it will take weeks to catch back up. Summer reading projects aren't enough to keep kids from falling back. For a student that was already struggling in school, it is even more important to keep them from falling even farther behind.

How do you convince kids to come inside at the end of a sunny day and sit down to do homework when you can barely even get them to help with the dishes for fear they will miss part of the bike race? Parents try everything from bribing children with ice cream and equally appetizing rewards, to punishing students for not doing their summer work.

Here at Sound Reading, we found the perfect balance between work and fun. Our interactive software uses games and challenges to encourage students to learn. Our readers and activity books pair the basic listening and processing skills with actual reading practice. Not only will your child enjoy the Sound Reading program, but by the end of the summer he or she will love to read!