USE:    Beginning Adult Readers, ESL, Special Education, Family Literacy

COMPUTER:  WIN/ CD-ROM/ MAC/ APPLE/ DOS

GRADE LEVEL:  Pre-primer to 3rd

SPECIFIC SKILLS: Development of perceptual thinking, visual discrimination and memory, left to right directionality, visual tracking, syntax, vocabulary, phrase reading, recall of facts and details, comparison and contrast, analogies, sequencing, skimming and scanning, proofreading techniques, sentence structure, reading fluency and rate, cloze technique, fact and opinion, and inferential comprehension.

DESCRIPTION: CORE Reading and Vocabulary Development focuses on the necessary skills and processes that are essential to reading. There are nine varied activities in a CORE lesson that are sequenced to progress from recognition to recall. The first lesson presents a word list and asks the student to see and say the word. If the speech component is available, some of the words can be clearly pronounced at this point. The second lesson allows for leisure reading. The student reads through a story at his/her own pace. The third lesson called "Phrase Reading" allows the student to set a rate from 1 (25 words per minute) to 10 (250 words per minute). The following lesson is "fill-in" which provides clozure activities that focus on the meaning and spelling of important words from the story. The fifth lesson asks questions at the literal, interpretive, and inferential levels of comprehension. Questions also cover vocabulary meaning, analogies, and sequences, depending on the level of the lesson. After an incorrect answer, the computer displays the story and highlights the section that pertains to the question. "Practice Writing" then goes on to develop memory of details and familiarity with spelling through recognition and copying. An answer sentence line is displayed with the first letter of every word filled in. One or more words require recall, while the other words can be found in the question. The student may refer to the text to locate answers. In the lesson "See, Say, and Spell, " the cloze technique is applied first by asking the student to type one or more missing letters, and then the whole word must be typed in. Finally, a sentence appears with a word missing. Three attempts are allowed and cues are provided before the correct answer is typed in. In "Spelling It Right," a sentence is presented with a word missing, along with three versions of the word beneath the sentence. Erroneous spellings were designed with attention to common errors made by ESL or L.D. students. For example, in some cases, a dyslexic spelling is provided. In the final lesson "Writing," students are asked to recall information. The specific question disappears when the student is ready to type in the answer. The management system records student scores on all lessons and the number of times a student worked on the lesson. Worksheets are provided for each lesson to reinforce specific skills. There are sound effects that are used as a positive reinforcement to the student, but the student may choose to turn them off.

EVALUATION SUMMARY: This program proved to be successful with our adults who were beginning readers. They enjoyed being able to work on their reading, writing, and spelling in just one program. CORE can be used as a developmental program, or as a single lesson for drill, practice, or review. An interesting feature for teachers to note is that in one lesson, dyslexic type errors have been coded to trigger an asterisk on the student menu and on the management system to suggest that the student might be referred for screening. Students liked the audio component that is available in the Windows and MAC versions. CORE has been particularly effective in community literacy programs and in adult programs at state correctional institutions.