Teaching and learning the English spelling code has never been easier.
RFL Pilot Program:
A full set of our Complex Code Curriculum, six weeks of teacher training, and guidance for the school year.
Parents and teachers of students in the second, third, fourth grade and beyond - would you like to be part of our pilot program? You’ll receive the prototype version of my innovative curriculum, and guidance and support for using it. The curriculum set provides for an entire school year’s worth of literacy instruction, and my 6-week online training will give you the knowledge you need to teach the world’s hardest written code. In addition, I’ll continue to provide you with support as needed to ensure student success.
Along the way, I’ll be gaining valuable insight as you give me your feedback. That’s why I’m offering this package for a low introductory rate. I created and tested this curriculum with hundreds of students since 2017. You’ll be helping me test it outside the bounds of my classroom. I need to learn how to instruct parents and teachers, so that my videos and manuals are point on. You’ll become valuable members of our Reading For Life family, and your children will become skillful readers, writers, and spellers this year.
The curriculum is based on sets of word cards. The English language has been broken down and carefully curated - each set contains up to 88 words on 1”X4” cards. When they read and sort one word at a time, students feel they are “discovering the code” themselves. Discovery learning eliminates the need for direct instruction, and empowers young learners. After reading and sorting a set of word cards, students proceed to do word work with them. The variety of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs (and other parts of speech) give valuable decoding practice, and build student vocabulary.
Our worksheets employ the power of 10 classic activities: Read and Sort, Hear and Write, Sentence Writing, Fill in the Blanks, Word Search, Word Drawing, Write and Draw, Graphic Story Writing, Definitions, and Synonyms. The worksheets make varied practice fun and interesting. They’re easy to adapt to different abilities and learning styles. Our curriculum comes with paper copies as well as pdf versions, allowing teachers and parents to print on an as-needed basis.
The teacher’s manual thoroughly describes the worksheet activities, making it easy to teach kids how to do them. Once learned, children can independently study all the word card sets, enough for a school year’s worth of study. Each week they use the worksheets for practice, learning all the patterns in the English spelling code through varied practice. Teachers and students follow the included sequence of instruction, and keep track of progress with the included checklists.
Minimal planning and instruction is needed on the part of the teacher. Simply follow the steps in the teacher’s manual, and provide students with support as they discover the code. While you’re doing that, I’m providing support to you - by giving you access to me for questions through May.
The online training will help teachers and parents teach the English Spelling Code, effectively and systematically. I’ll schedule six Wednesdays 4:00-5:30, as a time that is doable for people with a traditional work schedule. Starting soon (dates to be announced shortly!), we’ll meet on Zoom and address every aspect of using the curriculum to meet literacy goals.
Week 1: How to Teach English Literacy
You’ll learn the basics of teaching our complex code effectively - with a linguistic approach to literacy instruction. We’ll discuss common pitfalls of teaching our complex code, and how to avoid them.
Week 2: The Nature of the English Alphabet Code
We’ll explore the phonological nature of the code, and why phonemic awareness is the most important predictor of success with it. I’m going to break down the learning objectives, knowledge, and skills taught at each level of the curriculum. I’ll teach you about the levels of complexity we present to kids at each stage.
Week 3: How Children Learn Best
Children are concrete thinkers. They’re active, imaginative, and inquisitive. They learn best when allowed to explore and discover, moving their bodies and talking with peers. When we understand children, we can engage them so that our teaching is effective.
After week 3, each participant will receive the full set of learning materials and begin using them with their students.
Week 4: The Reading Skills
Phonemic awareness underlies all the skills which unlock our phonological code. These include blending, segmenting, and phoneme manipulation. I’ll go over them systematically, explaining how they play a part in reading and writing activities. I’m going to post an assessment you can use to detect deficits in these skills areas. Then I’m going to show you tons of activities for strengthening these skills.
Week 5: The Curriculum
How to use the curriculum, including the word card sets, and the 10 discreet lessons. We’ll talk about the two sides of literacy: reading and writing. We’ll discuss the types of memory associated with each. We’ll address error corrections, and proper strategies for writing that helps eliminate errors. We’ll go through each word work activity, and talk about the learning objectives associated with each one.
Week 6: Adapting the Curriculum
Students come in a breathtaking variety of learning styles, abilities, and interests! I’ll show you all the ways to adapt assignments to meet their differing needs. In addition, I’ll talk about how teachers can weave in other valuable language arts lessons, like parts of speech, and writing conventions.
Throughout the course of six weeks, I’ll assign homework to encourage further reflection. There will be pdf’s and videos, as well as materials and book recommendations. Once you receive the full curriculum set, most of your homework will be to simply conduct the lessons with your child/student. I’ll receive your feedback and answer questions about the lessons in the next class. (This is the part I’m extremely excited about!) Your feedback will help to make the next iteration of the RFL Curriculum extremely powerful - and I’ll be forever grateful.
It all starts with an assessment of your child, in person or online. I’ll determine if your child is a) ready for this pilot program, which is our Complex Code curriculum, or b) our Basic Code curriculum (available soon).
Fill out our Pilot Program interest form if you’d like to schedule an assessment and orientation. (This assessment is free, with no obligation.) Then we’ll know if the Complex Code curriculum is right for you and your student. If not, no worries, there are 3 more levels of curriculum that are nearly complete and ready for release. We really look forward to connecting with you, and guiding you and your student(s) in the very near future!
Yours Truly, Ms. Deva Deveaux