1. How will you decide what level a student will work at especially if there is no knowledge of his/her reading level?

The program begins with an assessment (using Jerry John’s Reading Inventory) to determine what level students are at and is repeated at the end as well to see progress.  A phonemic awareness test (PAT) is also administered to determine blending, segmenting, and auditory processing abilities which are worked on during the 3-week course.

2. Why do you think this program works?

Literacy Links is effective due to the sequential nature of how skills are taught, the intensity (ideally 30 hours of instruction over 3 weeks), the controlled vocabulary, daily reading practice, and the active and engaging way that it is taught.  One mom whose two children have gone through this program shared; "What I like about the program is it’s concise and seems to make more sense to my kids. Other programs don’t make the concepts as clear and seem to take longer for the child to master the skills."

3. What level of training do you have to give this particular program?

I am a BC registered teacher and in addition to working with children with ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, anxiety disorder, sensory processing disorder, and other learning challenges over the past 25 years, I took specialty training to present the Literacy Links program and have been implementing the program for over 5 years.

4. What happens if a student isn't progressing at the end of the program?  

It is recommended that a student spends the 3 - 4 weeks following the program reading controlled vocabulary readers or graphic novels daily to focus on identifying and applying the concepts taught.  When feeling confident they can move on to read whatever they like as the practice of daily reading will only continue to help the learner progress. A mini-workshop of the last 10 lessons can be taught again several months later to help solidify all the concepts if needed.

5. Does the program include reading and writing or just reading?

It is mainly a reading program but spelling is also focused on.  

6.  Is there an online link to learn more about the program's effectiveness?

You won’t find any info online yet about the Literacy Links program as Headwater Learning Solutions (the group overseeing Literacy Links), is in the process of re-vamping their website.

When my mentor and trainer of the program (a learning assistance teacher for 40 years) began using the Literacy Links program she was excited with the 95% success rate in students’ ability to read that she was experiencing while using the Literacy Links program as opposed to other programs.