The From Sound to Print programme by Peter Tucker About the title The first book in the English language was printed in 1477 when William Caxton invented a printing press that printed English. At that time the language went from sound to print hence the title of the programme. With the development of printed English, problems with learning to read and spell inevitably followed which this programme is designed to help with. About the author After graduating from University and Teachers' College the author worked for a number of years as a training and education officer for large organizations in Australia and New Zealand. He then took up a career in teaching low achieving secondary school students. A motor vehicle accident left him with the same reading difficulties experienced by his students, a situation that prompted him to develop this programme. Peter lives in Christchurch. Here he has successfully trialled and taught his programme at Linwood College, Elmwood Normal School, Kirkwood Intermediate School, small groups of University students and individuals with severe dyslexia. His programme has attracted considerable interest from educationalists, parents and media in his home city and elsewhere. Why the dyslexia emphasis? A phonemically based programme proved to be very effective for the low achieving pupils mentioned above during the author's extensive pre-accident teaching experience.   At the time the disabilities of such pupils were collectively treated as needing special needs classroom placement. There were no official programmes available for them and their disabilities have only recently been officially recognized as dyslexia by the Department of Education.   After his recovery and following the the dyslexia recognition the author continued to develop his phonemically based programme (as described above) with the added insight of his accident experience.   This work was recognized in a submission to a government Select Committee Inquiry into teaching reading and spelling in New Zealand and a four year trail at a high decile Primary School. ( See Select Committee Inquiry and Comments from Elmwood tabs)   Further to the very successful Elmwood work and with the encouragement of Professor Hornby of Canterbury University the author was involved in a successful trail of the programme with a severely deslexic 10 year old boy for a year in 2006. (See Sally Rossiter tab) Following this success and at the suggestion of Professor Hornby, Kirkwood Intermediate School commissioned a research project on the programme in 2007 with the author involving seven of its pupils with dyslexic and/or reading deficits. Professor Hornby who was on the Board of Trustees of the school at the time and supervised both trials. The Kirkwood project had a very positive outcome particularly for the boys in the project. There is public concern that boys are failing to respond to current reading/spelling strategies and this result indicates a positive direction for them. On the basis of both trials the author realized that his phonemic programme had relevance for dyslexic pupils. Also at the same time the dyslexia problem was causing community concern as this Press item indicates:- “Dyslexia is both widespread and a potential root cause of serious social issues. One in ten New Zealanders has dyslexia including 70,000 school children. Oct 24th 2008, the Christchurch Press”.   A graphical summary of the Kirkwood research project results with comments from Professor Hornby and the author.   Spelling graph   A period of 10 weeks for the boys and 9 weeks for the girls at the rate of 1 hour a day four days a week. The boys are on the left and girls on the right. Each group was independently tested by the classroom teachers. The same applies to the reading graph.   Reading graph Comments from Professor Hornby about these results. "The objective of the project was to establish whether the Sound to Print programme made 'a difference' to the educational skills and outcome of both groups with quite severe disabilities for whom no professional help was available. The answer from these results was clearly in the affirmative. The boys made a significant improvement with their spelling and reading, with one boy producing an excellent result." (See Kirkwood research project tab. for a full description of the project.) The author’s comments about these results. The boys’ results confirm what I have known throughout my extensive teaching career, which is that pupils who have been diagnosed as dyslexic or with reading/spelling deficits respond particularly well to an integrated phonemic approach.   Such an approach has been lacking in our education system for two or three decade - a situation that is now changing.   The majority of the dyslexic pupils I have taught have been boys and I suspect that the numbers referred to in the above Press item would have the same majority.   The dyslexic girls that I taught had better writings skills and were more proficient readers at a very basic level than the boys. However beyond the basic reading level they had the same spelling and word attack deficits as the boys.   As a result because of the historical lack of a programme to address their disabilities boys have been educationally disadvantaged to such an extent that the quality of life for generations of males has been stunted. The social consequences of this neglect is reflected in the negative male behaviour frequently reported in the Press. i.e. Boys racers etc. What is different about this programme? This programme is designed for teachers to use as a classroom resource and consists of a series of short stories in books 2 and 3.   Book 2 outlines each of the principles of the programmes in the form of 17 short stories. The stories start at a very basic level and gradually become more challenging.   Each story has an added word find and classroom written exercises using the principles of the programme.   Book 3 puts into practice the principles outlined in book 2 in a series of 19 stories.   These are stories of general interest including social studies and historical content with classroom exercises that follow the pattern of book 2 at a more challenging level. (See book and stories tab.)   The books are accompanied by a teachers’ guide book 1 which describes how to teach the programme and provides answers where they are needed.   The classroom resource is also designed as a general learning to read and spell facility. While this programme is based on its relevance to dyslexia the stories have an application for all pupils with reading/spelling deficits.   They are also relevant as a general learning to read and spell facility for all pupils. (See programme description tab.)   Books 1, 2 and 3 form a trilogy for individual use for parentswishing to help their children at home.   The recommended classroom ratio is one book 1 to ten book 2 and 3. This allows small group work with a teacher's guide.