Great Leaps Reading uses proven instructional tactics with powerful motivators to remediate a variety of reading problems. Efficient in both cost and time expenditure, Great Leaps Reading has been recognized for years as a research-based program which enables students of all ages to make significant strides in reading fluency and reach an independent reading level.  Students with reading problems in all fifty states have responded with significant, measurable gains in their reading and related skills.

         Students work individually with an instructor and the materials for less than ten minutes per day (three days per week minimum).  The materials (one instructor manual and one student notebook) are age appropriate and comprehensive. One purchase will provide the necessary materials for up to three years worth of remedial work for a student. For example, the high school book can take a non-reading high school student to an independent reading status. (Depending on the severity of the reading problem, a one to two year intervention is most often implemented.)

     Schools and tutors should purchase one Great Leaps Reading Package (two binders) per instructor. Parents need to purchase only the Reading Program (one binder) The K-2 manual does not require a student edition, as most of the work for our emergent readers is oral. Supplementary stories for all levels are presently available in the two Great Leaps Stories Collections, one for elementary students and one for all students (elementary to high school). These collections contain the published stories as well as a considerable number of additional stories. The Stories Collections are not necessary to implement Great Leaps – sufficient stories are included in the programs and packages to meet all anticipated needs.

         Great Leaps is divided into three major areas: (1) Phonics: developing and mastering essential sight-sound relationships and/or sound awareness skills; (2) Sight Phrases: mastering high frequency words while developing and improving focusing skills and the ability to “chunk” small pieces of meaning; and (3) Reading Fluency: using age-appropriate stories specifically designed to build reading fluency, reading motivation, and proper intonation. The Stories section now includes an intervention in developing expressive language and reading comprehension (in the Elementary Book), with expressive language development being emphasized in the Middle and High School programs.

            The Phonics takes students from identifying sounds in isolation to being able to sound out cvc, cvcc, and cvce patterns. The section concludes with work in prefixes and suffixes. This enables students to (with contextual clues) decode unknown words with a high degree of success. Great Leaps Phonics is a simplified intervention allowing parents and paraprofessionals to implement an effective phonics intervention without extensive training.

         The Sight Phrases uses phrases to teach high frequency words while significantly increasing focusing skills. Teaching high frequency words in isolation has not worked for most students with reading problems. Though the student learns the word in isolation, the high rate of contextual errors continued. The Great Leaps approach of using sight phrases helps to minimize the age old problems of readers continuously missing words such as: these, them, of, off, from, etc.  Great Leaps was the first major published program to actively use “sight phrases” for the express purpose of sight (high frequency) word generalization. The latest addition now includes substantive work in over 750 of the most commonly used words in conversational English, as well as some common abbreviations and symbols.

         The stories have all been designed and written by Kenneth Campbell to not only significantly increase reading fluency, but also motivate students to continue reading. Point of view, humor, rhyme, and rhythm are all designed to contribute to a powerful fluency-building intervention. With many decisions being imbedded into the materials themselves, the intervention, though very simple to use, gets results often at a higher level than programs involving more expense, time and training.

        As students achieve goals in each area of concern, they advance to a more challenging next step. Each step in Great Leaps has been designed to follow the previous step in a very organized, consecutive manner. Minute distinctions in readability are accounted for in Great Leaps, while other programs tend to lump all of a grade level’s stories together. From our perspective, there is considerable difference between a story at third grade, first month and third grade, ninth month. For the first time in their lives, many students begin experiencing consistent reading success and respond accordingly.

              Great Leaps Reading has been researched and used successfully in schools across the country. Great Leaps has the support of special education and reading specialists in many universities. One of the differences of Great Leaps is that decisions have been built into the materials, allowing parents, volunteers, and classroom assistants (as well as professional staff) to successfully implement current research-based practices. As resources dedicated to remedial interventions continue to dry up, Great Leaps allows parents and small communities to do what society may have chosen to ignore. Great Leaps is research-based and will generate results. If better, more sophisticated interventions arise, which naturally they will, it is the job of educators to take the intervention and make it available to the public. Interventions and philosophies that have proven themselves across the board failures have no room in our schools and homes.

         Great Leaps is not complicated. A typical training session for future practitioners takes about three hours. Most users find the instructions that come with the program adequate to begin implementation without training. Although the appearance and strategies appear simple, Great Leaps has its origins in over thirty years of instructional research and practice from the world of precision assessment and teaching.

            Areas that have implemented the Great Leaps Reading Program (from New York City to Lexington, Kentucky) have shown similar results. At-risk and dysfunctional readers are learning to read - many in a short period of time. (Approximately 25% of the students presently surveyed showed two to five years of oral reading growth in less than six months!) When Great Leaps has been utilized with other programs in a coordinated, highly professional intervention, dyslexic students have shown tremendous growth. Great Leaps has chosen to take aim at specific areas of reading, and do that well. Expressive language activities were added when it was noted that across the country many student comprehension scores were topping out at a third grade level. Analysis showed us that the student expressive language skills were also at about the third grade level. Common sense tells us that students cannot comprehend beyond their ability to speak, so to break down the ‘third grade comprehension wall’, expressive language skills must be vastly improved. Great Leaps responds to this challenge through (with) the incorporation of expressive language activities. These activities serve as a gateway to ((gain access to)) the student’s previous experience, as well as to present and reinforce content related vocabulary. (…or Expressive language activities are designed to provide the opportunity to tap on the student previous experience, as well as to present and reinforce content related vocabulary.)  By strengthening the student’s vocabulary and expressive language skills, Great Leaps hopes to help bring down ‘the third grade wall’.