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Reading at NHSMany of the students who attend The Norman Howard School have difficulty with reading and function well below grade level. The Norman Howard School Reading Department is highly skilled in delivering multi-sensory reading instruction. The reading department’s primary goal is to teach students the decoding, encoding and comprehension skills that will enable them to build academic independence. All students in grades 5-12 receive reading instruction for 50 minutes daily. Wilson reading classes contain from one to three students and reading comprehension classes have no more than six students.
We utilize the Wilson Reading System (WRS) as the primary program to teach basic reading skills and all reading teachers are formally trained in the Wilson Reading System. The WRS is a proven multi-sensory, structured language program designed for students who are decoding below their expected grade level. The program emphasizes decoding/encoding, has a structured scope and sequence, and systematic materials. It has varying levels of vocabulary to meet individual needs as well as a comprehension component that is typically missing from strictly phonics programs. We realize that the Wilson Reading System is not a one size fits all approach and will modify the program based on student profile, performance and need.
Students who have comprehension difficulties are assigned to either a Reading Comprehension group or a Wilson “Bridge” group. Both of these groups are designed to provide students with strategies to use before, during, and after reading to help them successfully interact with text while self-monitoring for understanding. Due to the complex nature of reading comprehension as well as the individual needs of our students, comprehension classes vary from teacher to teacher. Skills including prediction, clarification, questioning, summarization, and visualization are modeled and practiced. The emphasis is on helping students utilize appropriate strategies and skills necessary to becoming independent and lifelong learners.
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