Robbie's charts of progress in Reading Passages were shown in the Chart Share. This is a report of the kinds of exercises Robbie was completing in four 45 minute periods each day from October to April. From April to June, one FAD period was exchanged for a period of Let's Read at Ben Bronz. Both the FAD and Let's Read program were tutorials. This year, Robbie is attending regular classes in the Lower School of the Academy, which include three periods of reading (Lets' Read at Ben Bronz, Comprehension, and Social Studies.)

Click here for a full explanation of FAD.

Robbies' activities during each period were dictated by the Computer Menu, which changed from day to day to ensure that each skill was massaged through every learning channel. His first challenge was to learn the Consonant sounds and 'production name' (p popper, t tapper, etc.) Level 1 introduces 5 sounds, and each level thereafter adds two or three more. This chart shows Robbie's fast progress in saying the sounds and production names while looking at the Array. Parallel one-minute exercises included Hear/Say, Hear/Point/Say, See Mouth/Say, See/Say the Sounds in Random Order (SAFMEDS), Think/do with Mouth, and Assemble a Consonant Array puzzle.

Once Robbie reached Level 7 in Consonants, he began to work on learning to identify and discriminate the 25 vowel sounds. This is a more difficult task, since the sounds are close to one-another, and there is not a single letter to represent each sound. Like the consonants, Robbie also practiced one-minute timings in Hear/Say, Hear/Point/Say, See/Say Random, and Assembling the Vowel Array puzzle.

Tracking is the most challenging exercise in FAD. Robbie uses colored blocks to represent the sounds, listens to a 'word', then lays out the blocks to represent the sounds. Each word in the list changes one sound, and Robbie says each word, then discriminates the sound changes and moves the blocks accordingly. This exercise is introduced in the first FAD lesson, and is a part of every FAD session.

To test progress, Robbie attempts to do the same exercise quickly, passing from Level to Level by making 12 correct changes in one minute. The higher levels of Tracking involve nonsense words with five or more sounds, with insertions, additions, internal switches, and difficult sound combinations. The break at Level 30 was occasioned by Easter and a Research Week.

The one minute reading exercises were also regular parts of each session. Other one-minute exercises were introduced as Robbie's skills increased. These included reading the vowels embedded in cvc words (peet, pit, pet, pat, pout, etc.) Hear/Write spelling sounds from CVC words, Dot and Break (a strategy for breaking words into readable parts), and See/Say Signs to Sounds (reading words with the same vowel sound in several spellings).

We use two timing exercises to help us determine when a student is ready to leave FAD. The first is the student's progress in one minute timings in Reading Passages. As Robbie's charts indicate, he is already decoding fluently above grade level. The second indicator is a five minute timing that we call Dot Break Flex. The student tackles a passage from graded sight word materials such as the Jamestown Reader series. The passage is at least two grades above the student's remedial reading level. He reads the material aloud, and the listener points to any word he mispronounces, at which time the student corrects the word. If he cannot decode the word, he prints it on scrap paper, then dot-and-breaks (dots under the vowels, breaks before the next consonant or between the next two consonants), then attempts to pronounce the word. The listener helps by suggesting where he should 'flex' by changing the sound of a letter to another possible sound. Passing criterion is 200 words in 5 minutes. As Robbie demonstrated in this chart, he handled the advanced material with an average of one learning opportunity per minute.