This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
King-Devick partners with educational company on reading program
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will distribute King-Devick Technologies’ Reading Acceleration Program to students in grades 1 through 4 beginning with the 2017 school year.
King-Devick stated in a press release that the program teaches the physical act of reading to help “raise reading scores and narrow the achievement gap.”
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) will market, sell and distribute the King-Devick Reading Acceleration Program (K-D RAP) to schools around the U.S., and K-D specialists will provide educators with training and support.
K-D explained in the press release that the RAP is an “in-school, web-based system that allows students to practice accurate and efficient eye movements that often are not fully developed when students learn to read. The student’s task is to read aloud dynamically presented single-digit number targets quickly while speed settings are adjusted and increased with ongoing practice.”
“Bringing greater awareness to the public of the important role that vision plays in child development is fundamental to health,” Lori L. Grover, OD, PhD, K-D vice president for health policy, told Primary Care Optometry News. “Educators are often the first to identify early learning challenges with their young students, and the visual system is often the reason for struggles in the classroom.
“K-D RAP is an objective, evidence-based program that involves the dynamic process of moving the eyes from left to right, just like reading,” Grover continued. “It’s a fun challenge for the child that also demonstrates to parents and teachers the importance of accurate and efficient eye movements when learning to read, and subsequently when reading to learn throughout the child’s life.”
Grover said the American Optometric Association’s pediatric clinical practice guidelines and the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine Report, Making Eye Health a Population Health Imperative, highlight the need for awareness and understanding of the major role of vision at all ages.
“An opportunity to positively impact the upstream development of children on such a large scale in the earliest phases doesn’t come along often,” Grover said, “and it’s exciting to share this awareness and objective with a global learning leader like Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.”
A study reported in the Journal of Child Neurology in January showed that students who completed the K-D RAP increased from the 26th to 40th national percentile rank in reading fluence and from the 40th to the 56th percentile rank in reading comprehension. – by Nancy Hemphill, ELS, FAAO
Reference:
Dodick D, et al. J Child Neurol. 2017;32(1):104-111;doi: 10.1177/0883073816668704.