Reading Copilot
Instruction in literacy for youths and adults
How does it work?
Reading Copilot is our new reading intervention process. It is based on our experience from working with thousands of struggling readers since 2008.
The central problem with all reading impairment is that the learner struggles to get good practice done. That can be for a number of different reasons, but nobody can crack a skill like reading without practising it in the right way.
Reading Copilot scaffolds the reading practice so that it does get done successfully. The essential element to this is our use of trainertext.
If the learner is unsure how to pronounce a word, the trainertext will guide them through the sounds in the word, so that they can then read it. We have two formats of trainertext, which are suitable for different age ranges of the learners.
By doing this decoding with every unfamiliar word, the lexicon of decodable words steadily grows for the learner and the trainertext is needed less and less.
The Activities
There are two core activities in each Reading Copilot session:
Fake or Real: This is a sequence of words that the learner has to identify as either nonsense or a real word. The activity is adaptive and so the learner soon finds themselves in a strong learning zone. Because Fake or Real is adaptive, it gives a daily measure of the reading ability of the learner.
Bookmaker: Bookmaker reverses the normal reading experience. Each phrase is read to the learner, who then selects the word sequence from a word cloud on the screen. The word cloud includes decoys, which forces the learner to look very carefully at each word before selecting it.
Once they have correctly assembled the phrase, they then read it back. Once a paragraph of phrases has been completed, they then read back the whole paragraph.
The reading materials are designed to be age appropriate.
Unassisted Learning
Both of these activities can be done unaided. That means that the support team resources are not a critical limiting factor.
It also means that the learner can work on this in private, which is often a good thing for the older struggling readers. Often they are very uncomfortable to be working on reading in public, after so many years of struggle.
However, you have a Copilot dashboard where you can see how it is going in each intervention journey. Fake or Real will give you granular information on that. If one of the learners is making slow progress, then you can spend some time with them to sort that out.
Our Background
We have been operating as a literacy research team since 2008.
We have used an intervention process called the Easyread System for that research. You can see the sort of 5-star reviews that our Easyread interventions get on Facebook.
We have worked directly with over 15,000 struggling readers and helped each of them become confident readers. We normally expect to see a strong outcome in a few months.
We have seen struggling readers of all ages and about half of them have been given a diagnosis of dyslexia before coming to us. We find no difference in the progress made by dyslexics when they are given the appropriate support.
Reading Copilot is our new, updated solution, specifically designed for older struggling readers.
Getting Started
To discuss using Reading Copilot, just book in for a chat over Zoom in our diary, at a time that suits you.