Get R.E.A.L!

by Miriam Heider

What does R.E.A.L. stand for? R. is read, E. is educate, A. is and, finally L. is listen. This represents what will happen in the R.E.A.L. room everyday. We will provide one-on-one reading instruction for all of our students that are in need of it. This instruction will be taught primarily from volunteers. Our method of instruction is the Carbo reading method. To find out more about the Carbo reading method you can go to http://www.nrsi.com/. Basically, it is a slow, purposeful reading focused on sight words and repetition. This improves not only fluency, but comprehension as well. We will be using pages of sight words and leveled stories with this method. It is a very volunteer friendly system that will require only one hour of training. After that one hour of training we feel the volunteer will be ready to effectively instruct a child! This lesson plan has been almost a year in the making and we have seen significant improvements in reading scores just in one semester.

These last three weeks have been spent assessing the student’s reading levels and introducing them to the R.E.A.L. room. We will have our first volunteer begin instruction on Monday! For the most part, the kids are excited. When I bring them into the R.E.A.L. room for the first time I can tell they are wondering what they are doing there. However, when I explain what will happen, they smile and ask more questions. The one-on-one aspect is very important. It will also teach the kids how to build relationships and work through conflict. Reading instruction can be very hard and slow-going, but I trust the kids are up to the challenge. I’m very excited to see how God will work in this part of the ILC!