READING HORIZONS v5 (English Language Learner Application)

READING HORIZONS v5 (English Language Learner Application) Reviewed by

SONCA VO CEANN MYERS Northern Arizona University PRODUCT AT A GLANCE Product Type: Explicit instruction to develop increased reading comprehension and fluency Language(s): English for L1 Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Haitian-Creole Level: Low intermediate to advanced Activities: pre-reading exercises (vocabulary); post-reading exercises (comprehension); pronunciation exercises asking students to decode words using the unique marking phonics system; exercises to practice high-frequency words including rapid word recognition activities and noticing new words in context Media Format: Online and CD-Rom Operating System(s): Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 Mac OS X v10.4 or later Hardware Requirements: PC- 800 MHz processor; Mac- 800 MHz processor –or– Intel Core Duo 1.33GHz processor; RAM 256 MB; 4.5GB disk space; sound card, microphone, headphones or speakers Printed Documentation: Teacher’s kit available for purchase Price: 1-6 licenses: $999.00/license; 7-14 licenses: $899.00/license; 15-24 licenses: $749.00/license; 25+ licenses: $649.00/license; unlimited site license: $17,495.00

CALICO Journal, 29(2), p-p 389-397.

© 2012 CALICO Journal

389

CALICO Journal, 29(2)

Software Review

GENERAL DESCRIPTION Reading Horizons v5 is a research-based software program designed for independent use by struggling readers to help them improve their literacy skills. Reading Horizons uses the Discover Intensive Phonics approach to teaching reading, which is aimed at teaching students how to decode and recognize words rapidly and automatically. The lessons cover five main areas of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics instruction, fluency instruction, vocabulary instruction, and comprehension instruction. Reading Horizons consists of four main components: lessons, vocabulary, library, and pronunciation proficiency tools. 1. The lesson component includes six chapters with a test at the end of each chapter. There are a total of 81 interactive lessons that focus on developing students’ decoding skills for one-syllable and multi-syllabic English words. 2. The vocabulary development component includes over 10,000 words with their definitions and usage in context. Each word is shown visually and can be translated into students’ native languages such as Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Haitian-Creole. Students are able to practice pronouncing the word, record their pronunciation, and then compare their pronunciation with the narrator’s. 3. The library component provides over 225 reading passages with 15 different genres. Reading passages are arranged by topics and color-coded levels: Gold passages (most difficult), Silver passages (moderately difficult), and Bronze passages (least difficult). This section allows students to select materials that interest them to improve their reading fluency and comprehension. The pre-, during-, and post-reading framework is used throughout the section. 4. The pronunciation proficiency tool allows students to listen to individual sounds while watching an animation showing how to pronounce the sounds. A recording button is also provided to enable students to record their pronunciation and compare it with the narrator’s. These four components will encourage both teachers and students to develop a thorough command of lexical decoding, vocabulary development, reading comprehension, and pronunciation tools. According to Wahl “the design of the program enables teachers to strengthen their understanding of the underlying phonetic structure of our language. Instruction is explicit, systematic, and builds cumulatively, progressing from simple skills to more complex” (2005, p. 3). Reading Horizons provides two volumes of teacher manuals with lesson plans, activities, and teacher aids and one student workbook with worksheets and activities. The program also has online support for home users, schools, and institutions. Students and teachers can call, use live chat or the FAQ section if they want to look for help in technical issues, software, general errors, and student account access. EVALUATION Technological Features There are two versions for Reading Horizons v5: an online version and a CD-ROM version. The program provides users with both detailed online and printed user manuals. Adobe Acrobat is needed to view the online manual. The CD-ROM and the site are very reliable. There are no delays in operation, no crashes, and no stalls. Overall, the program loads and runs smoothly. The screen is user-friendly and easily navigated. The homepage (see Figure 1) leads to an overview of all the components of the program. The layouts are not busy with words; the formats do not require scrolling. It is very easy for users to notice the exit button (to the

390


SonCa Vo and CeAnn Myers

homepage) as a main navigation tool. Users will find the information they are seeking easily by using this navigation tool. Users can know how many activities they have completed, how well they have done on the activities, tests, and decoding exercises, as well as how many difficult/easy reading passages they have practiced. With this function, the program enables users to easily track their progress. Each section also gives the number of available activities and the number of completed activities. Completed activities are yellow color-coded while unfinished activities do not have a color. This is very helpful because it helps users to know how many items they have not practiced yet. The program makes effective use of sound, graphics, video, and animated illustrations that provide learners with explanations of how to pronounce individual phonemes and their application in words. The program provides an online dictionary that gives learners definitions of new words and their use in context. Learners are also able to record their voice and compare their voice with the narrator’s. Figure 1 Reading Horizons v5 Homepage

Activities (Procedure) Students using Reading Horizons will have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of well-designed activities created to enhance students’ reading abilities. Through this array of instructional activities designed to engage students’ linguistic and language skills, this software provides a strong reading foundation. The activities, based in second language acquisition theory, will provide users with a broad knowledge of English lexis, spelling, pronuncia-

391


Software Review

tion, morphology, and reading strategies. The program focuses primarily on reading, but also includes opportunities for some listening and speaking practice. As previously mentioned, Reading Horizons can be divided into four components: lessons, vocabulary development, library, and pronunciation proficiency tools. Activities are included in each of the components and are designed to provide learners with practice that complements each area. While activities found throughout the lesson component are varied and differ depending upon the lesson, the majority of lessons contain a skill check, skill summary, skill instruction, and some form of production or review. Consistent practice opportunities are provided, but are modified to best match the individual lesson topic. Some examples of activities that can be found in this area are explicit instruction on topics such as letter groups, phonetic skills, and decoding (see Figure 2). To practice these topics users are asked to utilize their new skills with individual words, sentences, and, eventually, longer passages. Explicit directions help users to notice when and how to put their new skills into practice. According to Schmidt “the noticing hypothesis states that what learners notice in input is what becomes intake for learning” (1995, p. 20). The emphasis on noticing and practicing new skills provides students with the knowledge to apply these principles. Figure 2 Reading Horizons v5 Lesson Component

Vocabulary development is a major feature of this software and is critical for enhancing reading fluency. While vocabulary instruction is the primary focus of this component, activities that promote vocabulary improvement can be found throughout the program. The program has divided the most common words used in the English language into thirteen lists, which are a fundamental part of each chapter in the lesson component. Activities that can be found within the most common word lessons are pronunciation instruction and practice, activities that promote listening and choosing words, spelling practice and instruction, using and noticing new words in context, as well as a variety of rapid recognition exercises. According to Grabe and Stoller (2011) recognizing words quickly and efficiently is crucial for developing reading fluency. Vocabulary development is also a major focus of the library

392



component of this program. As part of the pre-reading activities, users are prompted to learn and use new vocabulary to activate schemata. Users practice decoding skills within the vocabulary development component of the software, which provides them with word and phonetic recognition practice. In addition to these decoding activities, the software also provides the definition of each word (complete with an audio, text, and graphic definition) as well as uses the word in a sentence. This attention to vocabulary development will give users the necessary skills to improve their reading fluency. Activities included in the library component are centered on reading. As previously discussed, the library holds many diverse reading texts. Students are provided with pre-, during-, and post-reading activities that are designed to prepare students for the vocabulary in the passage, give users practice reading, and assess users on their ability to comprehend the text. The program provides a feature in which students can view previously learned content within any of the library reading passages. Simply by choosing the lesson, appropriate examples are bold within the text (see Figure 3). In addition, users are encouraged to further develop their fluency by completing re-reading and timed reading activities. Figure 3 Reading Horizons v5 Reading Passage

393


Software Review

Users of the pronunciation proficiency tools will participate in self-motivated behaviors to improve their pronunciation of individual segmentals. No explicit activities are provided as a part of this component, and it seems to be more supplementary. Teacher Fit (Approach) As mentioned in the general description section, Reading Horizons is a research-based program that is designed to equip learners with necessary skills to become good readers in English. The program is developed around the Discover Intensive Phonics reading method (Wahl, 2005) that teaches students reading skills through a decoding process. This process helps students decode and recognize words rapidly and automatically so that they will become fluent readers in English. Competency-based language instruction is employed in this program. Teachers use the Administration System to group students according to their current level, such as Emerging, Basic, Accelerated, or Custom (see Figure 4). In order to master the material, students will need to work on the lessons based on their level and only be able to move on to the next level after they finish all the lessons in their current level. The goal of the program is to equip learners with the ability to recognize individual sounds in words, to know how to pronounce a sound and then a word, to expand vocabulary knowledge, and to develop learners’ reading fluency and reading comprehension (Reading Horizons v5 Research Rationale). Figure 4 Reading Horizons v5 Administration System

In a program with an ultimate focus on developing reading skills, vocabulary acquisition is an important instructional objective. Learners are provided with words chosen based on their usefulness (high-frequency word lists) and importance (necessity for comprehension of the reading passages). However, one drawback of this program is that students are not given any exposure to multi-word units such as collocates, compound nouns, phrasal verbs, lexical chunks, and idioms as described by Zimmerman (2009), which occur frequently in authentic language use. Reading Horizons teaches reading skills and strategies through asking learners to preview a reading passage by looking at the pictures and studying challenge words and passage terms

394



before they read. This is an example of a pre-reading exercise that uses strategies to motivate students and give them a purpose for reading. These skills and strategies are used in order to enhance students’ self-confidence and ability to communicate with the text effectively (Grabe & Stoller, 2011). Moreover, the program also provides activities aimed at increasing students’ reading fluency and comprehension. For example, re-reading a text for different purposes helps improve both fluency and comprehension. Timed readings, paced readings, and word recognition exercises have also proven to increase reading fluency (Grabe & Stoller, 2011). All these activities will assist students in becoming more fluent, and therefore, more effective and efficient readers. Learner Fit (Design) The Reading Horizons software is intended for use by ESL students aspiring to increase their reading fluency. While the program is primarily designed for individual use, it also provides management features that easily allow for whole-class use. While the content and lessons provided in the software are set, instructors can easily assign students to work on specific chapters or lessons. The program is not intended to be the sole form of instruction and is a great supplement for vocabulary and pronunciation lessons. While the software teaches beginning to advanced phonics skills, it is not appropriate for students with low proficiency English skills as the instructions and reading passages require as least intermediate English proficiency. In addition, students must be at a level to utilize meta-language as this software relies heavily upon linguistic terms. As previously mentioned, the over 225 reading passages located in the library component ensures that users can find content that is interesting and relevant to their lives. Users can individualize their learning with content that covers a variety of subjects and is appropriate for high school as well as adult learners. The program primarily addresses the needs of visual and auditory learning styles as it uses texts, graphics, and recording stimuli. Users are required to broaden their reading strategies and learning styles to include recognizing, recalling, and comprehending information throughout the lessons. Practice opportunities throughout the program ask students to identify and point out the most common words, remember and use the unique marking system to decode word phonics, and answer comprehension questions after reading the provided passages. One potential area for improvement in this software is the comprehension questions. Users are not given access to the text while answering the questions and, therefore, they become more of a memory test than a true test of reading comprehension. Autonomous learners who actively engage in rule-based activities will find this software to be the most useful. The bottom-up approach focuses on teaching specific rules and expects users to use deductive reasoning. Users will receive direct instruction and then instantaneous error correction with both positive and negative feedback. Other learning strategies include the unique marking system that teaches tools for better reading and strategies for accurate pronunciation of individual phonemes, vocabulary learning strategies to comprehend and retain new vocabulary words (with a specific emphasis on the most commonly used words), and strategies for self-monitoring pronunciation.

395


Software Review

SUMMARY Reading Horizons v5 is a thorough software program that seeks to help individual learners improve their literacy skills. Through using explicit instruction to help students develop their phonics, vocabulary, and pronunciation skills, students will acquire a solid reading foundation. The software then uses this reading foundation to teach students reading and vocabulary development strategies as well as provides a well-developed library that focuses on reading comprehension and fluency development. The program effectively employs a bottom-up pedagogical approach where explicit and systematic rules are introduced first, followed by actual practice. The activities are designed to encourage learners to become more effective readers and communicators while achieving necessary reading skills required for long-term learning. Through easy-to-use technology and a variety of interesting and relevant content, Reading Horizons is a software program that students will learn from and enjoy using. SCALED RATING (1 low-5 high) Implementation Possibilities: 4 Pedagogical Features: 4.5 Sociolinguistic Accuracy: 5 Use of Computer Capabilities: 4.5 Ease of Use: 4 Overall Evaluation: 4 Value for Money: 3 PRODUCER DETAILS Reading Horizons v5 – The Foundation for Reading English New Reading Horizons v5 60 N. Cutler Dr., Ste. 10 North Salt Lake, UT 84054 Phone: (800) 333-0054 Fax: (801) 258-7396 www: http://www.readinghorizons.com/v5/ REFERENCES Grabe, W., & Stoller, F. L. (2011). Teaching and researching reading. Harlow, England: Longman. Reading Horizons v5 Research Rationale. (n.d.). Retrieved April 16, 2011, from http://www.readinghorizons.com/community/webinars/files/heidi-v5-research.pdf Schmidt, R. (1995). Consciousness and foreign language learning: A tutorial on the role of attention and awareness. In R. Schmidt (Ed.), Attention and awareness in foreign language teaching and learning (Technical Report No. 9) (pp. 1-64). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Wahl, M. (2005). Discover intensive phonics for yourself (Florida Center for Reading Research). Retrieved from Reading Horizons website: http://www.fcrr.org/FCRRReports/PDF/Discover IntensivePhonics4.pdf Zimmerman, C. B. (2009). Word knowledge: A vocabulary teacher’s handbook. New York: Oxford University Press.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The reviewers would like to thank Dr. Joan Jamieson for her assistance in editing this article.

396



REVIEWER’S BIODATA SonCa Vo was a Fulbright recipient from Vietnam and received an MA-TESL from Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA. She is currently teaching English as a Foreign Language at Danang University of Foreign Languages, the University of Danang, Vietnam. She is interested in curriculum and materials development, second language teaching methods, and assessment. CeAnn Myers received an MA-TESL from Northern Arizona University. She also teaches ESL in the Program in Intensive English. Her interests include content-based instruction, pronunciation, and curriculum development. REVIEWER’S ADDRESS SonCa Vo K46H16/29 Cao Thang Str. Danang City, Vietnam E-mail: [email protected]

397