READING PROGRAM - REMEDIAL, INTEGRATED, AND INNOVATIVE

An innovative integrated remedial reading program has been developed based on recent research findings. My longitudinal studies have revealed that poor reading compounds itself over the years. The majority of children with reading disabilities currently remain in regular classrooms with varying techniques being used depending upon individual school directives and current educational theory. Despite current remedial techniques, the poorer reader tends to remain so throughout the school years. Innovative techniques must be developed in the hope of altering this pattern. This paper presents one alternative strategy which can be used to upgrade reading skills and break the cycle of reading failure. The Reading Assistance Tutorial Pack (R.A.T. Pack) is a carefully sequenced series of activities that enables the learner to experience the motivating and reinforcing properties of success through all stages of phonetic and reading skills development. It is a systematic, multidisciplinary remedial reading program based on sound behavior, psycholinguistic and cognitive theories of learning-incorporating listening, speaking, seeing, writing, thinking, and comprehension skills. The R.A.T. Pack demands a high percentage of on-task behavior and trains phonological processing strategies. Functional language use is promoted through enjoyable activities involving sentence construction, cloze passages, puzzles, games, and other creative manipulations of the surface features of languages. The program has proven successful in schools, homes, and clinics.