PRESS RELEASE:
Florida Teachers Discuss Failure Free Reading's Exciting Impact on Students "Stuck at FCAT Level I"

For the past two years, hundreds of Northern Florida teachers have been using Failure Free Reading with over a thousand chronically failing FCAT Level I students.

The project was designed to provide these Florida teachers with the opportunity to use Failure Free Reading's non-phonic reading approach with students who have never tested above FCAT Level I in all of their school life.

Many of these students are now 11th and 12th graders who need to pass Florida's statewide FCAT reading test in order to graduate with a regular diploma. Many appear to have been the "treatment resisters" who Dr. Joe Torgesen of Florida State University first described in the early grades as students who "despite participating in a preventive instructional program, fail to acquire word reading skills within the "normal" range. (Torgesen, 2000).

In this case Dr. Torgesen was correct. These "treatment resisters" did exist in the early grades and they didn't disappear. These 2-6% of the Florida school-age population continued to fail in school despite hundreds and hundreds of hours of conventional phonics-based interventions given to them over years and years.

Please listen to the teachers as they discuss the impact this grant has made in the lives of these students:



This video was produced the staff of the Florida Panhandle Area Educational Consortium (PAEC).

As the Florida Panhandle Area Educational Consortium (PAEC) said during this film's production: "This is the most impressive honest, from the heart discussion of five teachers in the Florida panhandle that were fortunate to have been given the chance to use the Failure Free Reading program at their schools this year. None of these teachers were coached or prompted to only respond in the positive. I think it is the best way for viewers to get a honest look at this program."

As you can see, it's never too late to impact those who fall into the instructional cracks. More importantly, we must recognize that we must provide viable alternatives to conventional phonics-based interventions. The research is clear: all programs work but not for all students – phonics included.