Reading Milestones

Reading Milestones is the most popular reading program of its kind. This successful alternative, language-controlled program is designed to take readers to approximately a fourth grade reading level. It is especially effective for students with hearing impairments and language delays and is also widely used with others who have special language and reading needs, including individuals with learning disabilities, developmental disabilities, and English Language Learners (ELL). These students are aided by reading materials designed to match their language levels and which progress in steps small enough to ensure continued success in reading. Success from the beginning of the learning-to-read experience motivates students to read and to continue learning. Reading Milestones accommodates the needs of such learners and has been developed to maximize their opportunities for success.

 

The following features help ensure that students from many different populations can begin their reading experiences successfully:

 

The Reading Milestones program incorporates the five essential components recommended by the National Reading Panel (NRP, 2000):

 

This Fourth Edition of Reading Milestones includes instructional and reinforcement tasks that focus on developing phonemic awareness and phonics in a language context in the Workbook activities, the Spelling program, and the Teacher’s Guide.

 

The NRP reported that repeated oral reading with feedback and guidance and well-developed word recognition skills lead to improvements in reading fluency. Repeated reading, although not necessarily oral, is a part of almost every lesson plan in the Teacher’s Guide. Extensive work on developing automaticity of vocabulary and sight words is presented in the Reading Milestones materials to develop fluency.

 

Extensive work on the development of vocabulary concepts is part of every reading unit. Experiential activities and schema-based strategies are strongly recommended for the development of concepts in young beginning readers.

 

Text comprehension receives major emphasis in the Reading Milestones program with activities reinforcing research-based comprehension strategies such as prediction, question–answer relationships, monitoring, and summarizing.

 

Many students with hearing impairments and other special language needs experience a significant gap between their language base and the materials they are given to read. Reading Milestones was designed and constructed to minimize this gap by beginning with the simplest possible language to ensure initial success in reading and by increasing language acquisition (vocabulary, syntax, figurative language). Students work in very small steps, accompanied by constant reinforcement, to ensure continuing success.

 

Vocabulary, language structures, and comprehension skills are introduced in small and constantly reinforced increments. The vocabulary was drawn from several high frequency word lists (including the Dolch Basic Sight Word List). All the essential comprehension skills-literal, inferential, evaluative, and critical reading skills-are introduced and practiced in the Workbook Activities. Chunking (the separation of phrases by several spaces) is used in the first three levels to aid in processing units larger than single words. Reading Milestones begins at the most basic language level. The program introduces vocabulary, syntax, and idiomatic language in very small steps and reinforces this learning before introducing new materials.

 

The instructional design used in Reading Milestones provides educators with sufficient information to make the reading series a self-contained program. Detailed, step-by-step instructions for teaching each story are provided in an easy-to-use format.