I had a 2nd grade student that came into my classroom at the beginning of the year '14-'15 and was reading at a beginning 1st grade level. His parents came with me with great concerns and had spent money sending their son to a week long training for dyslexia. The parents met with me giving me the strategies to help him and to discuss his IEP. I spoke to them about Reading Horizons and the brain research associated with dyslexia and reassured them that I would incorporate their strategies, but I would really focus on teaching him Reading Horizons. The student was exposed to RH in 1st grade but it was not the primary instructional strategy that he was receiving. He was placed in Tier 3 and went to an extra pull out for reading class. At the beginning of 2nd grade I explicitly taught him Reading Horizons and did not teach any other reading program. I truly believe that he was getting confused with multi reading strategies being thrown at him. He began to have great success and during his 2nd grade year, he would come to an unfamiliar word and grab a white board and spell out the word and mark and prove it. He then began to read multi-syllable words and had great success at it. I also tutored him in the summer and he got to the point that when he was reading and came to an unknown word, he started to mark it and prove it mentally in his head. He was so excited when he would read the word correctly. At the beginning of 3rd grade, he went through all the beginning of the year tests and tested at a beginning 3rd grade reading level. The reading specialist came to me with tears in her eyes and told me that this young boy had tested out of Tier 3 and would not need that intervention. His parents contacted me and cried because they said they loved listening to their son read. It was not a struggle to get him to read and he enjoyed it.
Grade Level:
Elementary