Five Essential Components of Effective Reading Instruction:
Phonemic Awareness: the ability to hear, count, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken language.
Phonics: the understanding that there is a predictable relationship between phonemes (sounds in spoken language) and graphemes (letters which represent sounds in the written language.
Vocabulary: development of stored information about the meanings and pronunciation of words.
Fluency: the ability to read text accurately, quickly, and with prosody. Improving fluency requires monitored, repeated oral reading practice with a partner providing modeling, feedback and assistance.
Comprehension: the ability to derive meaning from the written word or text. A reader who reads with comprehension is able to self-monitor her/his understanding of the text and has a variety of strategies to gain meaning from different kinds of text.
The Augustine Lesson:
Is prescriptive for the needs of the individual student.
Focuses on decoding and encoding skills.
Lasts 45-50 minutes.
Is based on a multi-sensory model which uses audio, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic activities to address the five essential components of effective reading instruction.
Uses materials from Wilson® Reading System.
Includes games and manipulatives.
Embraces the love of literature with read-aloud time as the tutor models fluency and oral reading with understanding.
Our tutors learn to practice Augustine CPR:
C: compassion, caring
P: perseverance, patience
R: resources, rewards
Augustine tutors become mentors, advocates as well as tutors for their children. Working one-on-one with a child who is significantly behind in reading, a tutor often sees his/her strengths and weaknesses in a different way and is able to give insight into how he/she learns best. Teachers and tutors often communicate about a child’s needs and progress.
