The approach is unique and is called Hot Reading. The resources CD will have been installed on your computer network and is called The Literacy Suite. This suite contains a number of courses.
1. Identify pupils predicted to achieve Level 3 English or Lower. Pupils likely only to achieve Level 3 will complete a daily session on the Library resource which contains three hundred, graded, voice supported titles, suitable for the Key Stage 2 age group. Pupils likely to achieve Level 2 should instead complete a daily exercise on the Jumpstart programme. A key feature of the completion of these exercises is that they are completed by pupils without direct adult supervision or intervention. Completion of the relevant exercises produces a printed passage which pupils subsequently read to a teacher or teaching assistant. Pupils should never be asked to read to an adult from the computer screen - only from their printouts. Even the most vulnerable readers learn to use the library very quickly.
The technique for using both the Library and Jumpstart programmes is the same. Texts are presented on-screen in soft focus with only the first word emboldened. Touching the spacebar advances word focus. Touching any letter key, causes the currently focused word to be voiced. The use of a headset is essential.
The Library offers titles at six levels of intellectual challenge. These are in no way connected to National Curriculum levels. We recommend that pupils using the library should start with any Level 3 title and thereafter, select their own titles as they would in any conventional library according to their interests. Since the motivational key in reading is the intellectual content of the texts, it is important that pupils should come to choose their own reading materials. Pupils should complete two 'chapters' at each daily session. The child may read his/her prepared texts to the adult either immediately after completing them or at any later convenient time in the day.
There are on average, five chapters in each title so that pupils will complete about two titles per week. We would anticipate each child completing between 20 and 30 titles in the first term of the academic year.
It is also useful that vulnerable readers in Year 5 should complete a series of library sessions. Year 5 children with specific learning difficulties for whom the library sessions would to be too onerous, should instead complete a daily Jumpstart exercise.
Vulnerable Year 4 readers should be introduced to the Jumpstart course and where possible, they should complete one exercise every day. The teacher's aim should be that the children reach a point where they are able to complete the exercise at the computer on their own without adult supervision or intervention. The time for 'teaching' is when the child reads the text from the prinout - never from the computer screen.
For instructions for Term 2 & 3 click here!"
