Fortunately, this sentiment was embraced by Lexonik creator Katy Parkinson while attempting to support underachieving students in Teesside over a period of 12 years. Developed from scratch by former teacher Katy, Lexonik is the award-winning teaching programme which, after only six hours, raises reading ages by an average of 27 months (as confirmed by Northumbria University) and has a significant impact on the engagement, achievement and life chances of learners of all ability.
In September 1999 Katy began an initial enlightening period of action research, trialling techniques and resources to improve reading ability, before focusing her efforts on developing an effective way to teach Secondary students the decoding aspect of reading. This led to the acknowledgement of the huge void in understanding of students of all ability, as well as of the words being used throughout school on a daily basis. Katy realised that students needed to be able to read for meaning, and that reading for meaning must start with vocabulary knowledge. Without this, she concluded that the teaching of higher order-reading skills simply doesn’t work.
Some serious active research and data collection followed. The conclusion, following the KS3 SATs data at the end of the year, showed that reading gains achieved by students attending the six-hour programme had transferred through to national tests. Research continued for three consecutive years, and results were replicated. Katy then founded Sound Training.
Many more students have since benefited from Lexonik: there are now over 50,000 sets of individual student data from a range of UK, US and UAE schools, proving that this unique combination of activities accelerates learning consistently for learners of all ability. Over 500 school leaders have now implemented Lexonik in their schools, with more coming on board weekly.
One school, Hugh Christie Technology College in Kent, have been seeing the impact since 2012. Headteacher Jon Barker described his decision to introduce Lexonik as ‘twofold’. His aim was to “improve reading ages to allow better access to and success in the wider curriculum, and to help disadvantaged students gain a better understanding of vocabulary, so the attainment gap was closed. It works!”
Teachers and students never cease to be amazed by what can be achieved. Jennie Hick, vice principal at Mounts Bay Academy in Cornwall, comments: “We've been blown away by Lexonik! The scores the pupils have been achieving are amazing, and there is a buzz around the school. Other members of staff are starting to take notice, and it's being recognised in other lessons. We absolutely love the Lexonik programme by Sound Training, and will definitely be renewing.”
Read some amazing case studies and comments from students and teachers on www.lexonik.co.uk, or get in touch on [email protected] / (+44) 01642 42 42 98 to find out more. If you are ready to try something revolutionary, we’d love to hear from you.
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