Davis Learning Strategies has launched its website at http://www.davislearn.com/
This program is a curriculum supplement to build skills that lead to improved reading fluency and comprehension in grades K-3. The site has information on teacher kits for implementation of the program.
What this program does is use some strategies that have been successfully used to help older, dyslexic students develop basic word recognition skills, and modify them for classroom use as a supplement for all students. It is intended to supplement the regular curriculum, and the idea is basically to fill a gap so as to provide support for students before they begin to fall behind, and prevent the need for remediation later on. Experience with this program also shows that it is a valuable language enrichment activity for all students.
This program was piloted in several elementary schools for a period of about 6 years, including follow up of students. There were no special education referrals of students from classrooms with this program, and there was a higher than expected number of gifted education referrals from the same classrooms. A report of this research will be published in the next issue of the journal “Reading Improvement”.