Discover Intensive Phonics, the teaching method used in the Reading Horizons/ESL Phonics program, is ideal for the English language learner. Research has shown that presenting the language in a systematic, sequential manner is the most effective method of language instruction. Robin Schwarz, in her article entitled "Using Phonemic Awareness with ESL Students," referenced why this type of instruction is so important:

"Spoken language is noise which the experienced listener sorts into meaningful chunks. A child spends many years perfecting this sorting. In a similar way, a learner of a new language must sort out the unfamiliar sounds into pieces that make sense: phrases or sentences, words, syllables and even phonemes (the smallest sound segments. More recently, researchers studying native English-speaking students who were having trouble learning a foreign language found that these students have problems similar to those of poor readers and spellers in that they do not perceive and manipulate the sound system and its corresponding written code effectively. In other words, the at-risk foreign language learners also have weak phonological skills. Moreover, the researchers found that when the struggling foreign language students were explicitly taught the phonology of the foreign language, they were able to learn the target language fairly successfully, and also improve their phonological skills."

Research has shown that English Language Learners (ELLs) greatly benefit from using both a top-down approach and a bottom-up approach when dealing with language. All readers approaching language have been shown to benefit from having both strategies to apply to a text. Dr. Neil Anderson, Brigham Young University ELC Coordinator and former President of TESOL, supports this thought, saying, "The best readers in any language are those who use interactive reading, which integrates elements of both bottom-up and top-down reading. In the development of a reading syllabus, it is important to consider the balance that you will give to these processes."

Discover Intensive Phonics teaches the bottom up strategies of decoding, encoding, and pattern recognition. David Eskey, in Interactive approaches to second language reading, states "...The lack of attention to decoding problems has, I think, produced a somewhat distorted picture of the true range of problems second language readers face" (95). This has been a big issue for second language learners and one of the main reasons Discover Intensive Phonics works so well.

How it Works - Learn how the Reading Horizons program provides systematic, sequential and multi-sensory instruction to help ESL students learn English.

Try it out - See what makes Reading Horizons different from other phonics programs by sampling a skill or lesson.