Ben Lostinthemoves, a fourth grader, transfers to your school or classroom from another school or district.  Your school is the third school he has been in this year. His reading teacher looks at his records and sees Ben has been retained twice already and is failing in reading again this year.  She observes him in class.  He seems withdrawn and uninterested in reading.  He fails most reading assignments he is given.  A reading specialist on your campus assesses his phonemic decoding skills using the Fishing With Phonics pre-test.  The student can only identify about 33% of the phonemes in isolation and can only read about 40% of the words.  Fishing With Phonics is the perfect program for him.  Along with several other failing students who have been phonemically tested, he begins a 30 minute intensive daily remedial and accelerated reading course provided by the reading specialist on campus.

Scenario #2
Misty Inclusion transfers to your school in the fourth grade.  She is in special education and was in an inclusion program in another school or district.  There are no phonics objectives on her transfer IEP.  She had low passing grades at her other school in reading but the regular education teacher in your school notices she is failing most of her assignments. A special needs teacher assesses her using the Fishing With Phonics pre-test.  Misty knows about 40% of her 60 phonemes in isolation but can only read about 25% of the words on the test.  Misty cannot read even 50% of the one syllable words on the pretest.  Misty has been contextually reading and has a fairly good sight vocabulary but very limited phonetic skills.  Misty failed her state tests last year. Like Ben, Misty will begin an intensive 30 minute daily phonetic remediation and acceleration course using Fishing With Phonics provided by the special needs teacher.

Scenario #3
Justin Needofalittlehelp has been at your school since kindergarten and is now in the fourth grade.  He has average intellectual skills.  He has professional parents and a good oral vocabulary.  While in first and second grade, his family was going through serious marital and family problems.  Justin had a hard time focusing in class and was diagnosed with ADHD.  In third grade the family situation was stabilized and Justin received medical help for ADHD.  He became a focused and a happy student but he could barely pass his reading classes.  Six week scores averaged 68% to 73%.  Reading was a real struggle for him.  You test him yourself using the Fishing With Phonics pretest and see he knows about half of his phonetic skills.  He knows some phonics but has huge gaps because of lost instruction and his inability to focus in the first and second grades.  At the end of the day there is a 15 minute period of time before Justin’s bus comes.  You begin working with him one-on-one using the Fishing With Phonics program.  Since he already has a good vocabulary, most of the short time is spent on decoding.  Every six weeks, as Justin learns to systematically decode, you see his reading grade improving.  He finishes the year with an 80% average in reading and he passes his state reading exam with flying colors.