Four New Brunswick elementary schools are the beneficiaries of a $72,800 grant to the New Jersey Unit of Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D). The grant, from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will put textbooks on cassettes in the classroom for children who have difficulty reading because of dyslexia and other learning disabilities. Using the same books as other students at their grade level, they will follow the text with their eyes while listening to the material through headphones.
Beginning in September 1999, 120 children in 10 special education classes at Lincoln, McKinley and Redshaw, and at Lincoln Annex 2 Schools, and more than 100 children with reading problems in five regular classrooms at the Lincoln School will participate.
Dyslexic students have difficulty decoding words. They typically read very slowly, frequently stopping and starting. Because this takes so much effort, understanding and remembering what they read becomes even more difficult. Using taped textbooks, the students hear the information while following the printed text and can cover the material faster. Hearing correct pronunciation and intonation provide additional cues for decoding.
The Educational Outreach Program of the New Jersey Unit of RFB&D is providing three hundred recorded texts, 90 specially adapted tape players, and training for teachers whose students will be using the new strategies.
Betty Whalen, administrator of health services for the New Brunswick schools and the school district's project manager for the program, said they were enthusiastic about the project.
"I could really see the benefits of it," Whalen said. "Maybe because I have a touch of dyslexia myself. I reverse numbers. I thought, this way a child can listen, read along and improve his reading skills. It will also help the bilingual child. A child who is able to read better will do better, behave better, have better self-esteem." To track the effectiveness of the program, teachers will write assessments of the students reading abilities at the beginning of the year, again in December, and finally in April.
Working toward the program's success and hoping to spread the word about the Learning Through Listening program, Christine D. Ranaghan, Outreach Director for the New Jersey Unit of RFB&D, urges people to look into the services of RFB&D.
"We have something that works and more people need to know about it. The schools need to know about these services so teachers can expose their students to it in the early grades before they fall behind and the frustration starts," said Ranaghan.