Have you ever had middle school students who were reading way below their grade level? Not only did they have difficulty comprehending academic text, the books that were at their independent reading level were at least two or three grade levels lower that the grade they were in. And when they wrote, their spelling was way off. Some of these difficulties were because they were English Language Learners but that was not the only reason. Maybe they were in a special education program but maybe they weren’t.
These students had somehow never really acquired phonemic awareness of English. I attribute that to the fact they had to learn to read in their second language instead of their native language and, as a result, they didn’t learn very well. Because the sound system of English was different from what they were familiar with, they experienced difficulty in grasping the phonological concepts of English.
I searched for years for materials that would help adolescent learners improve their reading skills but most of what I found was either not appropriate for older learners because it was too cutesy or it was just not very effective. But one day, I found the solution! I attended a session at an ELL professional conference that was presented by a publisher about their reading program. It was called Reading Horizons and it looked excellent. I acquired the condensed version of the teacher’s manual and started using it with my fourth graders, all of whom were native Spanish speakers who needed intensive reading support. That was at the end of the school year and it wasn't until they were in fifth grade that I was really able to delve into it with the students.
![]() |
Reading Horizons teacher's manual; source: The ESL Nexus |
![]() |
Page from Reading Horizons online workshop; source: The ESL Nexus |
Check out the links below that offer more information about Reading Horizons:
* A series of VIDEOs that explain the methodology of the program
* A WEBINAR (about 25 minutes long) about teaching reading to ELLs; this is the first of two parts; the second part can be accessed here
* For INFO about Reading Horizons materials for ELLs
* For INFO about Reading Horizons materials for K – 12 intervention
And here are a couple of fun links on the Reading Horizons website for teachers and students:
* Take a QUIZ to see how much you know about the phonology and orthography of the English language:
* Play Lemons for Literacy, an online vocabulary GAME that supports people learning to read
If you use or have used Reading Horizons, I'd love to hear about it. Good luck with your reading instruction!