Research

CLINICALLY-PROVEN

The Lively Letters™ program has been clinically proven to improve reading skills among students with various different types of students through the third party and Reading with TLC™ clinical studies.

Average of 1.5 to 3-year grade level gains in as little as 6-8 weeks, and an average of 4-year gains in older students (Grade 5), in phonemic awareness, phonics, and oral reading skills.

Significant gains for intellectually disabled students, English Language Learners, and students with speech and language disorders.

Significant reductions in special ed referrals and for Tier II & Tier III interventions in multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) such as Response to Intervention (RtI).

See The Results

“The findings from this study suggest that using Lively Letters™, a multi-sensory approach to teaching phonics and phonemic awareness skills has the potential to exert a significant positive influence on the reading development of general education children in the whole classroom setting.”

-The Efficacy of a Supplemental Multisensory Phonemic Awareness Program when Instructed to a Whole Kindergarten Class

EVIDENCE-BASED

Embedding Pictures Into Letters

Using embedded letter pictures is strongly supported by scientific research. Lively Letters™ embeds fun images of characters into letters to make a strong, meaningful connection between the letter shape and its sound (Mastropieri, M. and Scruggs, T. 1991).

Using Mouth And Hand Cues

What makes Lively Letters™ especially unique is that the program teaches students to discover what they are doing with their mouths when making the letter sounds. This oral kinesthetic feature greatly improves both phonological skills and reading skills (Howard, M.P. 1986; Golinkoff, R.M. 1978).

Using Mouth Cues And Embedded Letter Pictures

Using Music For Instruction

Using Mouth Cues And Embedded Letter Pictures

Using Music For Instruction

Using Letters And Letter Sounds In Phonemic Awareness

Our programs feature direct letter-sound instruction and the use of letters in phonemic awareness activities, as research shows that the most effective phonemic awareness interventions include both of these features (Bradley and Bryant 1983, Hohn and Ehri 1983, Blachman et al. 1991, National Reading Panel 2000, Oudeans 2003, Foorman, B. R., Chen, D., Carlson, C., Moats, L., Francis, D. J., &Fletcher, J. M. 2003).

High-Level Phonemic Awareness Sound Manipulation Activities

In alignment with recent research, Lively Letters incorporates sound manipulation, as opposed to just sound blending and sound segmenting. (Kilpatrick, 2015).

Engaging Students With The “Fun” Factor

Lively Letters™ and Sight Words You Can See™ are two programs known for making learning to read fun. Phonics and phonemic awareness programs that engage students with a “fun” factor are more likely to be used consistently by teachers and warrant more study as a promising instructional feature. (Report of the National Reading Panel)

Using The “Body and Coda” Sound Blending Strategy

Blending the initial consonant into the vowel and then blending both into the final consonant, as opposed to using onset-rime) is far more effective in their research study than the use of onset-rime (Murray, Brabham, Villaume, & Veal, 2008).

Research opportunities

We are seeking researchers who are interested in conducting studies on the efficacy of the Reading with TLC™ programs within various settings and with different populations of students. Interested researchers should contact the program authors for support at info@readingwithtlc.com.