Lexia Phonics Reading Quick Phonics Assessment Teachers Start Price USD 49.99 Current Price USD 49.99 Time Left - Bid Count 1 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Thursday, October 09, 2008 End Time Thursday, October 16, 2008 Location Kennesaw, Georgia See more about 'Lexia Phonics Reading Quick Phonics Assessment Teachers' Description This auction is for a one Lexia Phonics Reading Quik Phonics Assessment Teachers Resource, Great for your children. This Item is brand new and in package. Bid now before you miss this great opportunity to get this great item for cheap. Dont miss out on this great deal! Ages: 4-Adult Retails for 297.00 Get it Cheap on Ebay! Lexia Phonics Based Reading w/ cd rom   LEXIA PHONICS BASED READING is a computer based supplemental reading program designed to help all learners master basic reading skills. Through independent practice, students build speed and accuracy in the application of phonics skills. The program develops critical phonological reading skills to foster automatic word recognition while monitoring for meaning. The activities promote comprehension skills through the application of phonological strategies to single words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and stories and emphasize listening skills and following directions. Students using Lexia Phonics Based Reading work independently through 5 levels of reading skill development using the computer. As a supplement to a strong literacy curriculum, this program also provides a simple way for teachers to incorporate differentiated instruction for all learners in their classroom by utilizing Lexia to provide individualized practice on specific skills. The same automatic branching used in all Lexia Reading programs ensures that students master the basic skills as they progress through Phonics Based Reading. How Does Phonics Based Reading Work? Students work independently on the level and activity of their choice. The program automatically branches from one activity to the next, based on the student’s performance. If the student has difficulty with an activity, the program shifts to an easier activity, designed to build the needed skills. If a student does well with an activity, the program moves on to a more advanced activity. All the activities were developed by well-known reading specialists and special educators. The program is based on their understanding of what truly works for students, as well as on current theories of reading acquisition. In addition, the activities are colorful and intriguing, with formats and graphics that interest and motivate students and make practice enjoyable. However, the screens are kept simple, without extraneous motion or sounds that could distract students from learning. Added benefits of using Lexia Phonics Based Reading 1. Engaging activities keep students focused and enthusiastic 2. Automatic branching provides appropriate practice for individual students Directions for using the activities are available in English and Spanish Workstations Requirements Operating Systems Memory Hard Disk Space Windows 98, 2000, XP(SP2) Macintosh OS 9.2.2 Macintosh OS X (10.2 1-10.4) 256 MB 200 MB per Lexia Program • Student machines require sound capability and speakers or headphones. • 16 MB VRAM or better onboard video required for Lexia Cross-Trainer products. • Mac 400 MHz G4 processor (or better) or Windows 1 GHz Pentium III processor (or better) required for Lexia Cross-Trainer. • Not supported: Citrix and other thin client installations and virtual machines. Server Requirements Operating Systems Memory Hard Disk Space Windows 2000, Win 2000/2003 Server (Service Pack 2) Macintosh OS X (10.2-10.4) OS X Server (10.2-10.4) 1024 MB at least 100 MB Novell Novell users must use a dedicated Windows or Mac machine for their network server that meets the server requirements above. Note: Data Server requires a static IP address and open port. Lexia products prior to version 5 are not supported on Windows Vista or Mac OS 10.5.           Extra Info below: Strenghts: • The built-in "branching" system of scaffolding in the Lexia program automatically adjusts the material presented to a student based on the correctness or incorrectness of his responses. Variations in timing of response factors, error analysis, and/or hints (such as highlighting correct choices or providing the alphabet on the screen in an alphabetizing task) are given to assist the student as needed, and are withdrawn when success is attained. • Clean, clear, simplified graphics are engaging for children without being confusing or distracting. • The progression of skills within each level, exercise, and unit is clearly specified in the teacher’s guide, allowing the teacher broad choices in selection of exercises for students. However, the program can be structured by the teacher so that children have options in choosing the activities in which they wish to engage. • Individual and class records are readily available to teachers in an easy-to-understand format. What is Lexia Phonics Based Reading? Lexia Phonics Based Reading is a supplementary software program designed to meet the instructional needs of K-3 students in the areas of phonics, and basic understanding of words and phrases. It is recommended that it be used in conjunction with other materials in an integrated language arts program that develops vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. Lexia’s primary focus is on phonemic decoding and automatic word recognition. The program has four levels: three practice levels of increasing difficulty and one level for practicing the alphabet and alphabetical order of words. Each level is comprised of five activities and a bonus activity that activates as a reward when exercises are completed successfully. Although the teacher specifies the level for each student, the student is free to choose the activity (and hence the degree of difficulty) he wants to practice that day. Recommended instructional time with Lexia is 20-30 minutes daily, 3-5 days/week. Level I activities consist of different activities reinforcing consonant-vowel-consonant patterns and decoding. Level II progresses to word attack strategies for recognizing short vowel words with blends, digraphs, and long vowel (silent –e) words. The activity of greatest difficulty at this level requires students to read cloze sentences and select a c-v-c-e word to complete the sentence; therefore, beginning comprehension skills are required as well. Level I concepts are also reviewed here. In Level III, activities were developed to reinforce decoding of words with vowel combinations and vowel-r combinations, as well as to review concepts presented in Level II. The Alpha level, devoted to the alphabet and alphabetical order of words, has two activities from which the student can choose, as opposed to the five that are found in each of the other three levels. The teacher’s guide presents a detailed scope and sequence for the progression of skills in each activity and level. In addition, there is an index of words following each consonant/vowel pattern listed by level, so that the teacher has a resource of familiar words to use in other activities with his or her students. The activities at each level are presented on a screen that has a black background, and include colorful graphics that are quite simple and basic in comparison with many software programs. The auditory messages are spoken with a very clear voice that distinctly enunciates the sounds of letters and words. The graphics, though unelaborated, are pleasing and engaging and facilitate a focus on the activity and the student’s task at hand. A typical Level I task is for the student to click the correct short vowel sound to complete a c-v-c word before a rolling ball falls through a gap in a bridge. The exercises begin by contrasting two vowels (a and i) and progress to exercises containing all five vowels. Scaffolding is provided as needed. At Level II, an activity that reinforces the silent "e" delivers feedback in the form of a basketball game. The computer presents the consonants in what will be either a c-v-c or silent –e word, pronounces the desired word, and the student fills in the vowels, deciding whether or not the word requires a silent –e. If he is correct, he scores points for his team on the basketball scoreboard. Exercises begin with simple c-v-c or c-v-c-e words and progress to more complex words with consonant blends and digraphs. In one activity in Level III, the student is presented with a target word and an array of consonants, vowels, and blends. The computer asks the child to "change stung to stunt", for example, and the student makes the appropriate substitutions from the array to create the new word. Again, scaffolding is provided if a student has difficulty. There is a recursive branching system built into the Lexia software that directs a student, without his being aware of it, to the needed level of activity difficulty. If a student commits a given number of errors, the program automatically provides support of some kind in the child’s next engagement of that activity. As fewer errors are made, scaffolding is removed and the child completes the activity without it, and progresses to the next level of difficulty. This is done without overt messages to the student, so that the student continues without discouragement. Both a Quick Reading Test (5-8 minutes administration) and a Lexia Comprehensive Reading Test are available from Lexia, but are purchased separately from the Phonics Based Reading program. They are useful for learning in more detail specific areas of need of the students who will be using the Lexia program. Is Lexia Phonics Based Reading aligned with Reading First? Lexia is not designed to be a comprehensive reading program. The focus of the Lexia Phonics Based Reading Program that is reviewed here is on phonics, and increasing automatic word recognition of decodable words, with the likelihood of impacting reading fluency. Each of its more than 200 activities is directed toward this goal. The program does not specifically address the area of vocabulary and has minimal phonological awareness and comprehension elements. Its phonological elements form a bridge from Lexia’s Early Reading program, and its comprehension elements begin forming a bridge to Lexia’s S.O.S. (Strategies for Older Students) program, neither of which are a part of this review. Lexia emphasizes that it is a program for student practice of previously taught concepts, not for initial instruction of concepts to students. In addition, it is designed for all students learning to read, not just as an intensive intervention program for struggling readers. Because of these factors, its activities in phonics are organized in such a way that are logical and progress in difficulty, but would not necessarily be the organization of choice for instruction in remedial reading. For example, all of the short vowel sounds are presented in one game (though not all at one time). Children match the vowel sound with its corresponding letter and representative picture. For a reader having difficulty acquiring sound/symbol correlations, it would not be recommended that all short vowels be presented together. Another example is found in the game "Super Change" at Level 3. In this game, adjoining boxes contain either single letters or blends. The student is instructed, through the computer’s voice message, to "change rent to rest." The –nt appears in a single box, and is to be replaced by –st in that box. Children who are still developing phonemic awareness skills might find it confusing to receive the message in this game that the ‘n’ and ‘t’ together make one sound, when in their instruction they are likely learning that the ‘n’ and ‘t’ represent separate phonemes, and hence would be placed in separate boxes if using Elkonin boxes or finger tapping for instance. Professional development is an important part of the Reading First initiative as are the five emphasized instructional topics. Lexia works in strong association with Massachusetts General Hospital to provide its initial training and ongoing support. The standard professional development is a two hour session that covers an overview of the Lexia system and its research base, models lessons with the actual software, and allows trainees hands-on time with the program. Reports that are created for individual students and classes are generated by the program, and teachers are taught to interpret these reports and to make data-based decisions for further instruction. Ongoing technical support is available for Lexia users and there are full time support staff at Lexia. Research Support for Lexia Phonics Based Reading Lexia has been involved in products for reading skill development since 1984. Lexia Phonics Based Reading has its theoretical roots in the well-known Orton-Gillingham methods that incorporate multisensory learning. A paper presented by David A. Stevens of Harvard University (2000) gave some preliminary insight into the effectiveness of the Lexia Phonics Based Reading Program. The program was presented in an elementary school (grades 2-5) near El Paso, Texas, in conjunction with another software program, Guided Reading (Taylor Associates, www.ta-comm.com). The programs were not used simultaneously. Lexia was implemented initially, and, following its completion, Guided Reading was employed. Students were engaged with the program five days a week for forty minutes a day. Gains were measured based on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). Interestingly, gains were found in both reading and mathematics (presumably because of the reading content of numerous math items on the test). Stevens found as well that there were differential gains based on gender, with girls showing a gain of 13.26 points while boys’ scores increased by 4.57 points on the TAAS. Although the study had a control group of traditionally taught children and an experimental group of students who were taught both by the traditional methods and with the use of the computer software, there were some confounding factors that affected the integrity of the experimental design. First, students were exempt from the test who were not English-language proficient, so the sample group selected was not representative of the total population. Second, the first group of students consisted of fourth graders in 1994 and 1995, while the second group consisted of fourth graders in 1996 and 1997. It is difficult to know whether other related educational factors were constant over the span of these years; it is possible that other intervening factors may have been present during one time period and not the other. Third, results were not tested for statistical significance. The conclusion drawn by the researcher was that "the multiple regression analysis supports the hypothesis that the software based reading intervention improves the students’ reading ability." A study of Lexia’s effectiveness was completed during the 2001-2002 school year that addressed the following research question: Is there a statistically significant difference in the reading comprehension scores between the treatment (Lexia) and control groups? Researchers included the Director of Special Programs for Lexia Learning Systems and the Director of Literacy/Title I programs for Revere Public Schools in Revere, Massachusetts. The study included students at two grade levels, 179 students at grade 1 and 32 third grade students. The students were divided between treatment and control classrooms, which were equivalent on basic reading comprehension skills as measured by the Gates MacGinitie (2002) reading test before implementation of the program. The treatment classes used the Lexia skills software, for 2-4 sessions per week of 20-30 minutes each, over a period of six months. The students in the non-treatment classes participated in activities in their classrooms (the type of activities was not specified in the report) when treatment group classes went to the computer lab. Both types of classes received core reading instruction from the same core curriculum. The Gates MacGinitie Reading Test was used to evaluate student gains. In first grade, although gains favored the treatment group, these gains were not found to be statistically significant. The third grade gains (also measured with the Gates MacGinitie) indicated that the treatment class experienced significantly higher gains in reading comprehension than did the control class. Furthermore, Title I students in the Lexia treatment group closed a 13.1 point gap between their pre-test mean score and the rest of the Lexia treatment group, finishing the year one point behind the rest of the students in the Lexia sample. The control group Title I students initially were 13.6 points below the rest of the control group of the pre-test and finished the year 12.5 points behind the rest of the children in the control population. The research report concludes that based on the data collected "the Lexia software is associated with statistically significant positive differences observed in the treatment group when compared to the gain scores of the control group….These results are particularly important in the context of skills transference. The data demonstrate the generalization of phonics, decoding, and word attack skills to comprehension gains" (p.16). In sum, beginning research findings for Lexia’s effectiveness as a reading program are encouraging. These findings would be strengthened by additional research conducted by third party researchers. Place a Bid!