STEPS - The Learning Staircase.



For many of the learners I have they are involved in the STEPS programme. The most effective approach of this programme is to develop all of the underlying processing and cognitive skills at the same time as teaching the literacy knowledge.

This is done by ensuring that the learner sees and uses the word in a wide variety of contexts. The learner will do a whole series of activities in the order specified to make sure that he/she can:
  • Read the word confidently and without hesitation
  • Recognise the word instantaneously
  • Put the word into context
  • Spell the word
  • Break the word into individual sounds
  • Blend the word together (from sounds or chunks)
  • Define the word
  • Type or write the word
The carefully designed structure means that a non-specialist teacher/teacher-aide or parent can use the program effectively, even if they don’t have an indepth theoretical knowledge of this field.
The graph above shows the accelerated progress made in 20 weeks for these specific learners.  Great results!!

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