Until recently in New Zealand the teaching of reading has been dominated by a whole language approach. This has focussed on the teaching of complete words in the context of sentences, their natural environment, and has worked for the majority of our children. However, for a significant group of young people, particularly boys, this approach has failed as it lacks the systematic rigour required to furnish them with the skills to decode symbols and gain meaning from print. (Comments by Deputy Principal R. Oswin to the Select Committee inquiry into reading in N.Z Schools)

Consequently these people experience significant reading, recall/spelling and word attack deficits which affect them throughout their lives. They are unable to relate the sounds of words that they know, to print. This programme shows them how to do so. Hence the title.

 

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.

What is different about this programme?

The "From Sound to Print" programme is a systematic phonics programme designed to remedy word attack, reading and spelling deficits (including dyslexia) among pupils of all ages.

It can be used by teachers as a classroom resource and consists of a series of short stories in books 2 and 3.

It is also an excellent aid for parents who wish to help their children to improve their reading, writing and spelling skills.

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 term teacher in this context refers to anybody using the resource including parents. for whom the programme can be used as a very effiective self help reading and spelling resource to help their children at home. It has the added advantage of being able to be used as long as it is needed outside of the school system.

Why the dyslexia emphasis?

A phonemically based programme proved to be very effective for the low achieving pupils mentioned above during the author's 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 Sound to Print programme 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 trial at a high decile Primary School (see Select Committee Tab).

Then in July 2003 a front page article on dyslexia in America came to the attention of the author.

Because there was no official programme for, or little knowledge of, the disability in N.Z., the author was unaware of the relevance of his programme for the disability.

So he contacted Dr. Marshall Raskind the Research Director of the Frosting Center U.S.A. at the time.

Dr. Raskind was mentioned in the article and the author sent him details of the Sound to Print programme stressing that it was phonemically based.

Dr, Raskind was asked if such a programme had relevance for dyslexic pupils.

He replied “Your approach is certainly in line with the current research on dyslexia which indicates that it is a phonologically-based deficit but it requires research”.

Following this comment the author contacted Professor Hornby of Canterbury University of  New Zealand in 2004.

The Professor was speaking at a seminar on dyslexia and the author suggested he and the professor combine in a N.Z. research project on the Sound to Print programme.

The results of this collaboration and a range of other research projects together with historical programme trials are available under the following tabs.

Tab contents:

Tab 1: Home Page

Tab 2: Research.

Contains:

  1. A research project with six self referred dyslexic university students. 1998
    Note: This was not published at the time because the disability was not accepted by the Department of Education and the use of phonics for it was actively discouraged. Also as an outcome of this research a self help manual in two booklets was published in 2003 for teachers as well as Tertiary and Secondary students and is still available.
  2. A four year research project at a high decile Primary School for children with reading and spelling deficits. 2000-2004
  3. A research project with dyslexic pupils at Kirkwood Intermediate School. 2007

Tab 3: Professional Opinions.

Contains:

  1. Comments from Canterbury University and High School teachers. 1994-1997.
  2. Comments from five University Graduate trainee teachers and their Training College Tutor. 1997.
  3. A year long trial of the programme with a severely dyslexic 10 year old boy and the mother’s comments Sally Rossiter on the result. Also a comment from a dyslexic trainee teacher. 2006.
  4. A comment from a teacher about the content of the three booklets and a comment from one of her pupils about how she enjoyed them. 2010

Tab 4: Sound To Print In Action.

Contains:

  1. A sample of the extent of the problems for two 16 year old teenagers for whom the Sound to Print approach was successful. They were tested on a list of words from the Fred J. Schonell essential spelling list of every day words for 12 yr. olds published in New Zealand in 1992.
  2. Some press items outlining the success of the programme for a secondary, a primary school and a severely dyslexic pupil.

Tab 5: Programme Description.

Tab 6: Select Committee Inquiry.

Tab 7: Books and stories.

Contains:

  • A list of the stories in books 2 and 3 and the planned stories in draft form for a book 4.

Tab 8: Story samples.

Contains:

  • Two sample stories from an elementary level to a more challenging level.