Reading Programs for Children and Adults Supported
Recent Study Reviewed by NPR Reinforces the Reading Horizons Teaching Method
January 2010
North Salt Lake, Utah – A recent study conducted by the journal Neuron
has rediscovered the effectiveness and applicability of the Reading Horizons
method for teaching reading.
The Neuron study, as reviewed on NPR, found that when children participate
in intensive-reading programs such as the Discover
Intensive Phonics program from Reading Horizons, their brain structure
is changed. It was found that intensive-reading programs improve the vitality of
information pathways as well as increasing the amount of white matter in the
brain. White matter influences reading and learning because it is the
location of information "highways." By using MRIs on students aged 8-12 who struggled
with reading and comparing the MRI scans to students who had typical reading skills,
they discovered that struggling readers had a poorer quality of white matter in
their brains.
When the students who struggled with reading were placed in intensive-reading programs
over the course of a school year, the quality of their brains' white matter improved.
The researcher, Marcel Just, was amazed to find that “the amount of improvement
in the white matter in an individual was correlated with that individual's improvement
in his reading ability.” In the past, researchers believed most learning
involved only gray matter in the brain, but this study increasingly pushes them
to change the way they view the brain and its processes (NPR, Jon Hamilton, "Reading
Practice Can Strengthen Brain 'Highways'").
Learn in detail how our reading programs for children and
adults work.