MULTI-SENSORY

Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself is presented to students through a multi-sensory methodology that encompasses the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile modalities. Students actively stand at the chalkboard while a teacher dictates a word or sound -- twice. The student then repeats the word or sound -- twice -- and writes it once on the board. The writing process employs a large motor skill and provides a tactile experience. All of the modalities have been employed to approach each individual learning style. Students need the visual and tactile to secure what they've learned auditorily. The board work not only strengthens their skills but also helps teachers evaluate a student's individual progress because the process offers immediate feedback for easy diagnosis, systematic review, and maintenance. "Reverse Listening Cards", provided with the teacher's kit, reverse the listening process to a reading process. They provide students additional practice and ensure independent growth.

Interactive computer courseware has also been designed to provide a multi-sensory experience. Students experience a human voice audio soundtrack, visual screen displays, and tactile use of the keyboard, mouse, and screen.

Additionally, the Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself reading system utilizes a unique marking system, which allows students to identify vowels, vowel sounds, digraphs, and so forth, within whole words. Marking the words strengthens the visual ability to identify patterns and is always accomplished in a left-to-right sequence. The marking system and decoding process provided in Discover Intensive Phonics provides a working knowledge of likely and unlikely sequences of letters, and provides the ability to easily break words into syllables. In discussing visual cues (marking words), Marilyn Adams states:

"The use of minor visual cues that do not distort the basic shapes
of letters or spelling patterns of words may be quite helpful to
students. Such cues may reduce the trial and error needed
to master complex sound/symbol relations and may make
the initial phases of learning to read easier. These are certainly
worthy of further consideration by researchers and publishers."
(Adams p. 81, 1990)

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