BEGINNING READERS PROGRAM

For over thirty-five years, The Carroll School has focused on the needs of students with language-based learning differences. Throughout its history, the School has worked to provide both the most up-to-date educational resources for its students and an environment in which its students can recover the self-confidence lost through failure in mainstream classrooms. When Carroll was founded, diagnosticians were unwilling to identify a child as dyslexic until the child was at least two years behind her/his peers. This meant that the School’s requirement of a diagnosis of language-based learning difference implied that its students would have experienced academic failure, and Carroll would have to respond to that issue as well. Over the years, research demonstrated that the age of diagnosis could be lowered significantly.

Recent research has shown that children who will have difficulty with reading in third grade can be identified in kindergarten with remarkable accuracy. Moreover, the indicators of potential difficulty include such criteria as poor phonemic awareness, difficulty with rapid automatic naming of colors, letters, or numbers, and underdeveloped oral vocabulary. Along with the fact that reaching a child in kindergarten means that remediation can begin before any sense of academic failure has had a chance to develop, recent research suggests that early intervention can actually prevent reading difficulties.

What is needed to achieve these results is a curriculum which includes direct instruction and practice to develop phonemic awareness, letter/sound associations, sound segmenting and blending. At Carroll we are experts in this kind of intervention. We now provide that expertise to even younger children so that we can extend the benefits of early intervention to children who are at risk for academic failure. We believe that this will enable them to begin their educational experiences with the same sense of success that their peers enjoy.

Program Leadership

Sarah Wilkins is the Director of the Beginning Readers Program. Sarah taught language and was a tutor at The Carroll School from 1981-1984. She then taught grades 1-4 for six years at the Jemicy School, a school for students with language-based learning disabilities in Baltimore, Maryland. Sarah has also been a Learning Skills Specialist at Proctor Academy in Andover, New Hampshire. She has a B.S. in Special Education from Wheelock College and is certified in Moderate Special Needs and in grades K-8. Sarah received her Orton-Gillingham training at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Curriculum

The Beginning Readers Program focuses on the development of basic skills in language arts and mathematics. The language arts portion of the curriculum focuses on developing phonemic awareness and word attack skills. Oral language instruction is included in the daily curricula and is co-taught with one of Carroll’s Speech and Language specialists. A primary goal of the language arts curriculum is to encourage students to take pleasure in using language in all its varieties. To this end, an “Immersion in Literature” class is included every day, based on a book read aloud. Activities are derived from the book being read and include creative projects such as retelling of the story, puppet shows, dramatization, character portrayals, and more. Skill development in the areas of vocabulary, comprehension, and recall is the priority in this class.

Two-on-one tutoring is another language component that is included in a student’s day. This is an excellent model for young children. Working with a peer allows children to see that there are other children who have the same things to learn. By grouping children with similar skill sets and needs, tutoring time fosters a sense of camaraderie, fun, and teamwork.

The math portion of the curriculum focuses on teaching students the basic building blocks of numeracy such as counting, place value, and writing numbers. Depending on the skill level of the children enrolled, topics including time, money, shapes, and sequences are also covered. The curriculum will be very “hands on,” a vital component in teaching young children.

The core elements of language and mathematics are supplemented by exposure to art, woodworking, music, drama, and physical education programs.

In art and woodworking, fine motor skills are fostered through drawing, painting, crafts, and working in the woodshop. Additionally, basic concepts such as measurement, color, size, and shape are taught through these classes. Moreover, visual-spatial skills are developed as children learn to attend to likeness and differences in shape, size, color, position, and space. Lastly, children learn responsibility, safety, and respect for materials-lessons that not only translate to the classroom, but to “real life.”

Carroll’s music curriculum not only gives children a creative outlet for expression, but it also helps children learn to discriminate between different sounds (phonemic awareness) and pitches. They learn to identify rhymes (critical to the development of phonemic and phonological awareness). Additionally, music helps children understand rhythm, which is needed to learn skills such as counting, patterning, and gross motor coordination.

Drama provides children countless social, emotional, and academic opportunities that translate directly to the classroom. Here they learn the responsibility of working as a group. They improve coordination, movement and build on math concepts (counting, one-to-one correspondence and patterning). Specially designed activities also develop spatial perception and directionality, which are necessary in reading and writing.

Participation in physical education classes offers children at Carroll far more than a much needed break from the rigors of learning how to read, as they develop sports-related skills and have the opportunity to learn the value of teamwork. Our curriculum aims to foster these sports related experiences, while working toward mastery of more difficult concepts and skills that are best learned and practiced in a highly structured, supportive setting.

The Carroll School Beginning Readers Program features:

• Small classes
• Carroll School-trained teachers
• Daily Orton-Gillingham instruction
• Consultation/team-teaching with our lower school Speech & Language pathologist to enhance oral language development
• Consultation with an Occupational Therapist to improve fine and gross motor skills
• Immersion in Literature - vocabulary and comprehension skills
• The World We Live In - thematic exploration of Science and Social Studies
• Mathematics - focusing on hands-on learning
• Art, Gym, Music, Drama, Bounders - daily work in cooperation, play, adventure, and skill development.

During the program year, we assist the parents of these students in deciding whether or not their child should continue in the Beginning Readers Program, reenter his or her school as a first or second grader, or whether he or she is a candidate for admission to The Carroll School remedial program.

The Beginning Readers Program admits only private-pay students.
Massachusetts cities and towns do not fund students enrolled in the Beginning Readers Program.