Reading Horizons Donates $11,000 in Literacy Materials to English Skills Learning Center in SLC

Oct. 12, 2010 - PRLog -- On September 18th, Reading Horizons donated $11,000 in literacy materials, including software and manuals, to the English Skills Learning Center in Salt Lake City. The literacy materials were donated in order to help the English Skills Learning Center better reach its goal to “bring promise of integration, security and empowerment to adult immigrants and refugees.”

In addition to donating the software and manuals to the English Skills Learning Center, Reading Horizons ESL (English as a Second Language) Specialist Heidi Hyte provided training for the organization’s volunteers in order to provide them with strategies for teaching reading to pre-literate students, beginning readers, and intermediate students. The training was arranged when Program Manager Rachel Blackmer attended a training for Reading Horizons and saw the impact the program could have on the lives of her students. She immediately set up a training session for her volunteers.

With Reading Horizons materials being used in the English Skills Learning Center, many English learners will be able to improve their reading skills. Blackmer expressed her appreciation for the donation and the new partnership by saying: “We at the ESL Center are very excited about our new partnership with Reading Horizons. It has been a joy to work with Heidi Hyte, ESL director, to learn more about (the) Reading Horizons program and to make the materials and information available to all of our volunteers. When I attended the Reading Horizons training, I was very impressed by the sequence and methods of teaching literacy. I know that it will be beneficial to our students who are struggling with learning literacy right now, especially our students who never learned to read or write in their native language. Reading Horizons curriculum will be easy for tutors to implement and follow, and we have already had a great response from our tutors about the benefits of using it in their classes.”

To further help English Language Learners, Reading Horizons recently released a free version of its software’s Pronunciation Tool on its Web site to help English learners master the sounds of the English language. The tool can be accessed by visiting the following webpage: http://info.readinghorizons.com/pronunciation-tool/

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Founded in 1984, Reading Horizons has spent the last two decades developing and perfecting computer software for elementary, secondary and adult reading instruction based on the effective Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself (DIP) method.