Patent ID: 6869287

Claim:
A method of teaching reading text to a student using audio tape-recorded text, the method being adapted to assist the student in guiding the process of reading, the student being placed in one of a plurality of reading skill levels under the method that are designed to accommodate students with various degrees of reading problems, the method comprising the steps of: (a) teaching the student the concept of excellent reading, wherein excellent reading is defined as an oral reading free of symptoms comprising: (i) omitting a word from the text; (ii) inserting a word in the text; (iii) inserting a nonsense word in the text; (iv) substituting a word in the text for a different word; (v) self-correcting; (vi) re-reading correctly read text; and (vii) unnatural cadence comprising: pauses that occur in places other than the end of a sentence or the end of an independent clause, the vowel sound in a word is elongated during pronunciation, the letter ‘t’ in a word is pronounced /t/ instead of /d/, reading in a monotone, reading in an announcing voice, reading in a sing-song voice, rushing through periods at the end of sentences, and uneven speed during reading; (b) having a student perform a cycle, including: (i) having the student listen to audio tape-recorded text while reading along silently, and (ii) having the student pause the audio tape and silently read the same text on his own; (c) repeating the cycle in steps (b) until the student indicates that he can now excellently read the text; (d) having the student read the text aloud; (e) determining whether the student's oral reading was excellent or not; (f) having the student determine whether his oral reading was excellent or not; (g) if the student's oral reading was excellent and the student says it was, returning to step (b) using different text; (h) recording one occurrence of excellence misjudgment, if: (i) the student's oral reading was not excellent and the student says it was, (ii) the student's oral reading was excellent and the student says it was not, or (iii) the student cannot state if his oral reading was excellent or not; (i) recording one occurrence of cycle confusion indicating that the student did not perform enough cycles to achieve excellent reading, if the student's oral reading was not excellent and the student says it was not; and (i) repeating steps (b) through (i) until: (i) a predetermined number of occurrences of excellence misjudgment is recorded, then teaching the student the concept of excellent reading again using a predefined instruction set, or (ii) a predetermined number of occurrences of cycle confusion is recorded, then teaching the student the concept of performing enough cycles to achieve excellent reading using a predefined instruction set.