About The Program
A Visual Phonics Learn To Read Program For Children With Dyslexia
And Other Reading Related Difficulties
The Reading Switch is a five level, visual phonics learn to read program which steps the learner through the core building blocks of learning to read.
Our innovative visual phonics program effectively bridges the learning gap for children with both diagnosed and undiagnosed reading difficulties.
Each level contains easy to follow instructions and learning guides, Word Decoding Exercises and level appropriate Readers.
Understanding the strengths and weaknesses that underpin dyslexic thinking, has enabled us to build a system that effectively bridges the learning gap, enabling consistent layering and progression of reading skills.
We have re-imagined the way children with dyslexia learn to read with phonics, so that it plays to the strengths associated with this thinking and learning style whilst supporting the inherent weaknesses.
The Reading Switch taps into the power of the visual memory through the use of our intuitive visual phonics system. The program is carefully sequenced and purposely presented to harness dyslexic strengths such as big picture thinking, visual memory and pattern detection skills.
The Reading Switch puts the learner on the path towards reading fluency.
The program is suitable for all primary school aged children who fall below the expected reading standard for their year level.
Gaps in learning may begin to appear when a child reaches Year 2 (although difficulties may be evident toward the end of Year 1). The earlier difficulties in reading are detected and acted upon, the better it is for the young learner’s well-being and academic progress however there are still some children who have silently fallen below expected reading levels.
Prior to commencing the program, children must be already familiar with the letters of the alphabet, able to identify each letter by sight, and have knowledge of the most common sound each letter can make.
Learning at your child’s own pace
We understand that learning takes time and can differ from child to child especially when reading difficulties are involved. The Reading Switch enables your child to move through the system at their own pace.
Five levels of structured learning
Each level walks the parent and their child through the core building blocks of learning to read in a systematic and explicit way. Each level of learning is underpinned by a child’s prior knowledge acquired through the use of our visual phonics program. This ensures a scaffolded approach to building and reinforcing solid phonics based reading skills.
Each Level is broken down into lessons.
The Reading Switch Program consists of 95 sequential lessons across five levels of learning.
Word Decoding Exercises
Each lesson has been carefully formulated with words grouped together with the same vowel sound to create enough exposure to letter sound
patterns to enable more efficient processing to occur in the long term memory. This simple yet highly effective method occurs with light repetition over a series of days.
This process gives the learner the opportunity to practice and reinforce a single vowel sound whilst giving them the challenge of using their reading skills to decode words within that vowel sound family.
Visual Phonics System
The Reading Switch method helps children with learning difficulties process and retrieve phonological information faster and in a way that is less taxing on their working memory. With the aid of our visual phonics system to tap into the visual memory, children are able to make the connection between letters and sounds more rapidly making the learn to read process a lot easier. By using this method, key learning outcomes can be reached during short learning sessions before mental fatigue is reached.
Short Daily Sessions
We recognise that most children tend to have short attention spans and for children with learning difficulties the window for learning is often shortened due to processing difficulties and cognitive overload and fatigue. It is for these reasons that we have devised a reading program that is short in length, calculated to provide the most effective learning outcomes.
Word decoding sessions take no longer than 5 minutes to complete. As your child becomes more familiar with the visual phonics system, not only will their reading abilities increase, they will also be able to work through the exercises at a faster and more efficient rate. The learner only needs to work through the Word Decoding Exercise words once per session.
It is recommended that sessions be held twice daily – once in the morning and once in the afternoon if possible to achieve the most effective learning outcomes.
- Improved letter sound knowledge
- Knowledge that there’s a predictable relationship between phonemes and graphemes.
- The ability to associate letter combinations with sounds and blending them into words.
- Understand that a letter can represent more than one sound.
- Differentiate between short and long vowels.
- Read words with short vowels, common long vowels, complex vowels, consonant digraphs, consonant blends, silent letters
- Read words with single and double syllables
- Improvements in orthographic processing
- Transition from single word decoding to reading sentences and stories
- Improvements in reading ability
