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Fast Track to Reading: Accelerated Learning for EFL and ESOL Students

Fast Track to Reading is an accelerated reading programme designed for adult learners of English who are not readily able to read the Roman alphabet. It can be used for students who cannot read at all and for students who cannot cope with reading at speed. It is designed for adult learners of English who already have a concept of reading: those who can read and write in a linear phonetic language such as Arabic or Farsi, and those who are conversant with pictographic languages such as Mandarin or Cantonese. However, it can also be used with students who have yet to gain a concept of reading.

Fast Track to Reading can be used before starting a course where reading is an integral element, or as a reading element in parallel with a simple starter-level course. In mixed ability classes where only some students are unfamiliar with the English alphabet, the programme can be used for self-study outside class.

Fast Track To Reading: Student Book, Unit 8

Key Features

• Designed to facilitate decoding of Roman script
• For students who are learning to read in English and for students who cannot cope with reading at speed
• Accelerates learning in a programmed manner
• Can be used in parallel with a simple starter-level English course
• Contains global reading to enhance relevance and motivation
• Audio CD for further self-study or homework
• Comprehensive teaching notes
• Introduction in four different languages: Arabic, Farsi, Mandarin and Urdu

Contents include:

• short vowels and consonants,
• two letter representing one sound,
• long vowels,
• consonant clusters,
• vowel + consonant + vowel,
• the names of the letters,
• long vowels and their relation to consonants,
• alternative vowel sounds for the same spelling,
• silent letters

Below is a modified version of the introduction to Fast Track in Reading Teachers Book

What is it?

It is an accelerated reading programme, designed for adult learners of English who have difficulties in reading the Roman alphabet.

It can be used for students who cannot read at all and for students who cannot cope with reading at speed. It will be useful for any student who can read, but cannot read as fast as they would like to.

Who is it for?

It has been designed as a decoding or code-cracking programme.

1) Literate students of linear languages

Adult learners of English who can read and write in another linear phonetic language (Arabic, Farsi and languages with Cyrillic script) have already mastered the concept of a linear system where symbols represent sounds. They need to crack the code of a written language which uses different symbols in a different direction. This can be done swiftly in a programmed manner. A global reading element is added, as well as a pictorial element to make the material feel relevant and interesting for adults.

It can be used to speed up and enhance existing reading skills.

2) Literate students of pictographic languages

Adult learners who are conversant with pictographic languages such as Mandarin or Cantonese already have a concept of reading. They will almost certainly have some idea of phonetic representation as well, and will be familiar with Western numbers. They need more work than students of linear languages. The inclusion of a global reading element, designed to familiarize them with the shape (rather than the phonetic build-up) of the most frequent words will help them.

3) Illiterate students

This group will take longer, because the concept of reading also needs to be acquired, though the problem of interference from their own language is lessened.

The programme has even been used with illiterate students from Roman alphabet cultures as well, and the later parts will help native speaker dyslexics.

It is definitely not suitable for teaching initial reading skills to young children.

How is it integrated with other materials?

1) Groups of students who are totally unfamiliar with the English alphabet can use it as a pre-course before starting a course where reading is an integral element of the course, i.e., 99 per cent of current textbooks. It has been found that students give full energy and attention to the decoding in the programme, but the concentration is intense and 10–15 minutes is the maximum attention span. We suggest starting a lesson with 10–15 minutes reading, going on to oral work with no written element (Coffee? Yes, please. Tea? No, thanks, etc.) then calm them down with ten minutes writing practice, starting off with straight pattern practice. We’d then review the reading at speed for the last five minutes. Using this method, we could teach students to read effectively enough to join an ordinary beginner class in 40 x 50-minute lessons.

2) It can be used as a reading element in parallel with a simple starter level course. Again it would start and end a normal lesson. These students will be exposed to unprogrammed reading at the same time from the Course Book, but as the early words they encounter are so often irregular in spelling (or rather follow less frequent rules), the two courses should be kept strictly separate.

3) Where there are some students unfamiliar with the English alphabet mixed in a class with others who are familiar with the English alphabet, this programme can be used for self-study outside class with the accompanying audio material. Its use should be demonstrated to them.

4) It can be used as a supplementary remedial element where students have supposedly ‘learned’ the English alphabet but have problems with slow reading. They would be advised to move very quickly through the easier early units.

Method

The basic method will seem strange or even blasphemous at first.

When you teach children to read, you assume that they already know what a dog, cat, hen, pen, etc. are, recognizing both the sound and the picture. The new element is the written word. Where efforts to teach adults at speed will break down is carrying over the assumption that they will also need to understand pin, pot and pen in order to decode the word. As a result, the teacher ends up trying to teach them a foreign language and a reading and writing system simultaneously. The result is massive overload.

In fact, adults get great satisfaction from learning to decode the sound/letter relationship at speed, and you can largely sacrifice meaning and focus on decoding.

You can then use low frequency words. You can use nonsense words if necessary (sat/set/seat/sit/sot/sut) though we avoided doing it in print. You also use words they may already know like Ali, Arab, Iraq, Basra, or whatever. As travellers to countries with different reading and writing systems will attest, you can gain pleasure from simply looking at a sign and working outco-ca co-la in an unfamiliar code.

NOTE: The original published version uses the phonemic alphabet, which has been replaced here so as to make it readable on all screens.

In earlier versions, we introduced reading with only lower-case letters then at a certain point introduced capitals. However, we now need to introduce capitals simultaneously because many more adults are using a computer keyboard nowadays. However, the teacher will use the sound a (as in cat)  rather than A (as in cake) to describe the letters, whether they are in lower case or capitals.

At a later point (Unit 28), the teacher will need to teach the names of the letters as used for spelling out loud. This is obvious to any primary teacher, but in the USA particularly, there has been a persistent tendency to name the letters A (as in  ache) B (as in bee) C (as in sea) rather than a (as in cat) b (b) c (k) It is difficult to say the consonants with a minimal semi-vowel sound, but teachers should persist in minimizing this. You need to get as close to b , k rather than b /bu/ c /ku/ as you can. It is virtually impossible to eliminate any schwa sound   though.

Phonetics are vital in the teacher’s index. We have considered their use in the units, but when students are struggling to cope with 26 letters, experience has proven it foolish to expose them to 44 phonetic symbols. Teachers who are not fluent with phonetics will find that their gradual introduction in the index will not cause them problems. As only one or two sounds are introduced at a time, the reference chart supplied in the Teacher’s Book will enable the teacher to become familiar with the phonetics.

Does it recognize global reading?

The debate in teaching reading to children is split between believers in synthetic phonics at one extreme and believers in global reading or whole-word reading at the other. For many years, the whole-word approach was dominant in British English education. Supporters believe that children read more quickly if they look at the whole shape of a word rather than its phonetic components. In recent years, this approach has been mixed with the systematic teaching of synthetic phonics. Even the most extreme supporters of synthetic phonics will agree that the most common words are read globally, as a word shape. This is how readers of pictographic languages operate in any case. Native speaker readers don’t spell out the most frequent words (the, you, do, so, does, their, for, out, etc.) but read them as a whole, like a Chinese character. A number of these most frequent words are irregular, or more accurately, they follow minor spelling rules rather than major ones.

This aspect of reading is combined with synthetic phonics by using realia – signs, notices and logos. After the first few units, the most frequent words are constantly recycled in a variety of fonts: printed, handwritten, print script and all capitals. A variety of fonts is vital so that students recognize letters in different forms.

This is a font recognition exercise:

Practice activities aid instant recognition of  whole word shapes.

There are many Listening activities, with a focus on aural discrimination of the traditional “ship / sheep” kind:

How is it organized?

The programme begins with numbers. Though very few, if any, learners will be unfamiliar with English number shapes, it is necessary for them to learn the English words for numbers at an operational level. It’s how material is identified for practice and on the audio component. We do not write out the numbers as words.

It then progresses to one sound – one letter combinations, beginning with the base sounds of isolated letters. This takes us to Unit 13 (k, ck) and Unit 14, where qu appears.

Next come the more common regular and irregular representations of sounds and groups of sounds. This includes work on vowels and diphthongs, and particular attention to consonant clusters which present special difficulties to the non-Roman alphabet language groups.

Work on vowels for a few units is alternated with work on consonants.

Word frequency is subservient to phonic clarity in selecting the example words. However, the more frequent words are highlighted as key words. While weak forms (such as were) are important in teaching speaking and listening, in this programme we assume that words will be pronounced in the strong form  where two possibilities exist.

Some words will be of very low frequency – remember you’re teaching sound-letter correspondence, not meaning. Towards the end, some of the consonant clusters themselves will be of low frequency, but students need to be able to understand and work with the combinations, like –ngle, str– and so on. In the practice section, from Unit 30 on, sight reading is stressed by having words that have not appeared in the presentation but which follow the same form.

Does it teach meaning?

Broadly, no. In testing the material, two versions were used. One had pictures for some of the words (pen, pan, pin). The other didn’t. The version where meaning was attached via pictures in the early stages was not as effective. Once meaning was attached to some of the letter combinations, students stopped focussing on decoding and wanted to know what all the words meant. It is difficult to avoid showing meaning with some early words like penbut once you begin you will end up explaining pan, pin, pat, pet, pot … The programme will slow down and most importantly, student focus will shift from logical decoding to meaning.

To make it appealing, a few words have been illustrated in each unit. Importantly, this gives students a few mental images to tie to the new graphemes (e.g., Unit 9, bus,bed, sunset).

Each unit shows a “logo word” for memory. Note that the unit identifiers are capital letter keyboard versions of the letters.

After the first few units, words are highlighted in signs, and international words and logos are shown, so that meaning is tied to some of these words.

Later words are shown in blocks and groups, e.g., computer screens, mobile phone displays and diagrams so that students can pick out individual words.

Can I change the sequence of units?

The sequencing is as broadly logical as possible, but in many cases it’s an arbitary choice of in which order to present particular graphemes. Each unit revises only sounds which have already been presented in combination with new sounds, so the effect, as in any synthetic phonics programme, is cumulative. Therefore, unless students are using it only for rapid revision, the material will work best when used in sequence.

Instructional language

All instructional language is for the teacher only, and appears in a separate column.

Flashcards

A complete set of flashcards, covering every word in the book is on a CD-Rom at the back of the Teachers’ Edition.