1. Children read stories at a computer on their own without adult supervision and/or intervention no matter how great their reading deficits (see rationale: link here to rationale page) The books, or chapters from the books, are presented on screen. The student "prepares" a single chapter at the computer on their own. If they encounter unfamiliar words they can press a key for the computer to provide an "auditory clue" to the word by voicing it.
A second read through follows with the computer prompting the student to spell the unfamiliar word/s.

2. After the child has read at the computer, s/he then reads the text from the hard copy to a listening adult. This may be the teacher, an ancillary, volunteer helper or another student from the upper grades.

A recommended follow-up activity is for students to list in a scribbler words with which they had difficulty and have for review or writing.

There is only one thing that makes a good reader and that is’ lots of reading’ There is no alternative Real reading involves only a reader and a text. No third party is involved in the act of reading- a third party distracts from the act of reading. Reading is assimilating the intellectual content of the text. The computer provides auditory support only if the child requests it to do so – it does not simply ‘tell’ the child any unfamiliar words – it merely provides an auditory clue; some residual intellectual effort must come from the child. This is the strength of this approach.

Any intelligent , competent reader, when asked to read an unfamiliar passage aloud to an audience (even an audience of one) will automatically read the passage through BEFORE reading aloud. Very intelligent readers faced with this task would invariable read the passage more than once.. This approach affords poor readers the opportunity to read the passage twice before requiring them to read it aloud to someone.. This gives them the same advantage that a competent reader would take for granted.

Because the child has read the material BEFORE being required to read the passage to a third party, this is invariably a successful and self-esteem restoring experience. Just as nothing destroys self-esteem and self-confidence more surely than daily doses of failure ( as having such students read aloud daily in groups), nothing succeeds like success and nothing restores skills and self-esteem more surely than daily doses of success.