Teachers and Students Need the Right Road Map

HLI Offers Comprehensive, Systematic, and Explicit Instruction
Skilled reading and writing require the smooth and automatic interplay of five key components—phoneme awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary knowledge, and text comprehension—all based on language proficiency. HLI professional development thoroughly covers each, providing teachers with a research-based and classroom-tested scope and sequence for kindergarten through Grade 2. 

Contrary to what some may believe, HLI is not “phonics only”!  Good readers do more than lift words from the page, or “decode,” they also understand what the words mean.  Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading—and accordingly, the ultimate goal of HLI’s comprehensive professional development.<

To borrow from mathematics, this Simple View of Reading (Gough) can be expressed as

Reading Comprehension = Decoding Skills x Listening Comprehension

Reading proficiency relies on the product, not the sum, because students must be proficient with both decoding and listening comprehension. Teachers, therefore, must be masters of teaching both skill sets—those that contribute to decoding as well as those that enhance listening comprehension.

HLI professional development is designed to cover all five components of effective reading instruction, delivered over two years: Year 1 for phonemic awareness, phonics instruction and fluency, and Year 2 for vocabulary and text comprehension, including oral language development.   We also include explicit instruction in handwriting, spelling and writing skills.

In addition to providing a solid knowledge base, we offer classroom support, modeling, and coaching, and suggest a wealth of ways to create explicit lessons, engaging activities and centers that work.

See for yourself. Take a look at HLI in action in the classroom: