Success Strategy
Our strategies for success are employed across the curriculum.
For most of our students, the development of initial decoding skills is often difficult. Our basic decoding strategy is a unique combination of the Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program (LiPS) and Benchmark approaches.
At the root of our decoding strategy is a strong program of phonological awareness. The LiPS-program is designed to develop kinesthetic awareness of speech sounds and their association with individual letters in order to facilitate decoding and spelling. Here, children are taught to feel and see the differences between speech sounds in addition to hearing them.
The Benchmark Program, which deals primarily with the orthographic sequence, provides the two metacognitive strategies of compare/contrast and context. Benchmark syllabication rules ("chunking") are used for decoding and spelling. In addition, symbol imagery instruction is utilized to enhance rapid reading, spelling, and self-correction.