Kansas University has a long history of developing methods for serving students with Learning Disabilities, especially at the secondary level. The overall approach championed by Don Deshler, Jean Schumaker, and their colleagues has come to be knows as the “Strategy Instruction Model” or “SIM” because it is designed to provide high school (and others, too) with an interlocking set of strategies to employ in learning academic content. According to a press release by Julie Tollefson, the KU Center for Research on Learning is testing ways of extending the SIM so that it can be employed with larger groups of students.
The two programs, Fusion Reading and Xtreme Reading, engage students in motivation and goal-setting activities and build on a solid foundation of reading materials geared toward capturing students’ interest.
Fusion Reading, headed by KU-CRL associate director Mike Hock, is a two-year intensive class offered during a student’s freshman and sophomore years in high school. The program is beginning its third year in two Kansas City, Kan., high schools. Other members of the Fusion Reading team are Irma Brasseur, project coordinator, and Jean Stribling, Kadie Lintner, Caroline Mark, and Kari Wolverton.
Xtreme Reading is similar to Fusion Reading in that it is an intensive reading class, but instruction is compressed into half the time. The year-long course aggressively teaches all of the current SIM reading strategies in slightly modified forms plus several Content Enhancement Routines and a motivation strategy. It is being tested in 17 schools across the country. The Xtreme Reading team consists of KU-CRL director Don Deshler, Hock, KU-CRL associate director Jean Schumaker, Jan Bulgren, and Susan Bulgren.
Link to Ms. Tollefson press release and to the KU Center for Research on Learning.
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