TAKE FLIGHT

– Take Flight is a two to three-year Structured Literacy curriculum based on Orton-Gillingham Methodology.

– It is designed by the staff of Luke Waites Center for Dyslexia and Learning disorders at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children(TSRHC) in Dallas, Texas.

– Take Flight is designed for individuals with dyslexia ages 7 and older. For individuals younger than 7 years of age, Pre-Flight is the curriculum used for intervention.

– Academic Language Therapy instruction is explicit (reading writing and spelling are taught directly), structured (follows step by step procedures for introducing and reviewing concepts) and systematic, and cumulative (introduction of concepts follow a logical sequence)

– Instruction is delivered by a Certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT).

– Reading, spelling, and writing are taught simultaneously in an organized and systematic way.

– Therapy is individualized to meet the unique needs of the individual.

– The intervention is based on the Structured Multisensory Language Approach and is taught using all modalities (visual, auditory, kinesthetic-tactile)

– Take Flight lessons to contain the Five Components of Effective Reading Instruction identified by research from the National Reading Panel.

– Take Flight is a comprehensive Tier III intervention for students with dyslexia.

Take Flight findings:

– Significant growth in all areas of reading skill

– Students maintain the benefits of instruction and word reading skills and continue to improve in reading comprehension

– Effective when used in schools by teachers with advanced training in treating learning disorders

– Students with the lowest reading skills acquire the strongest gains from taking Flight instruction.

Texas Scottish Rite Hospital For Children(TSRHC)

What does a daily Take Flight lesson include:

Alphabets:

Daily lesson begins with the identification of the letters of the alphabet. It is an important early literacy skill and the foundation for developing reading, spelling and writing skills. Alphabet study and practice lead to the development of dictionary skills and thesaurus skills.

Reading Decks:

This is a reinforcement activity to identify and instantly name each grapheme and translate it into speech sounds.

Phonics:

Students learn 96 grapheme-phoneme correspondences.

Multisensory Introduction:

Letters, letter clusters, and concepts are introduced for reading, writing, and spelling through six multisensory linkages.

Handwriting Practice:

Cursive writing is used throughout the program. Emphasis is on naming the letter before writing.

Reading Practice:

Coding strategies are used to develop accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. Students learn the most reliable patterns used to decode words. Using coding involves students kinesthetically and serves as a visual cue to read equivocal sounds which can be read more than one way

Instant Words:

Students practice reading the most frequently used words in the English language based on the research of Edward Fry.

RAP

Repeated Automatic Practice of letter names, sounds and uses in words is practiced to build fluency skills.

Instant Spelling Deck

Reinforcement activity to translate each speech sound instantly into the letter that most often represents it.

Phonemic awareness:

Explicit procedures are established to teach the relationship between speech sound production and spelling-sound patterns

Multisensory Spelling:

Students practice the application of sound-symbol relationships learned through phonemic awareness activities and the instant spelling deck practice.

Vocabulary:

Students learn 87 affixes with an emphasis on English morphology, which includes a study of Latin roots and Greek combining forms.

Automaticity and Fluency:

Fluency practice begins with students reading at the most basic word level, then moves to phrases and sentences. Rate and prosody are developed by having students follow a repeated reading schedule that introduces word patterns in isolation, then phrases, and finally in stories.

Connected Text and Listening:

High interest text is read by students and teacher to increase listening and comprehension skills.

Reading comprehension:

The ultimate goal of reading is comprehension. Narrative and expository texts are used to teach critical skills such as grammar, vocabulary, story structure, reasoning, critical thinking, inferencing, summarizing, listening, and comprehension monitoring.

Written and Verbal Expression:

Students are engaged in lessons that begin with the development of receptive and expressive oral language skills and progress to written expression.

History of Language:

To understand the layers of English language it is important to understand the origin of the English language and how it influences reading and spelling rules.

Review:

The lesson concludes with an activity to review the day’s new learning and previously taught concepts.