Any student who is sitting and watching these Reading Movies, even though they think that they are just watching a movie that is entertaining to them

Frequently Asked Questions &
Research Supporting Reading Movies™

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The Proof Is In The Results! Revolutionizing the way children learn to read while encouraging them to read more and read better.

EDUCATOR & READING SPECIALIST

"Any student who is sitting and watching these Reading Movies, even though they think that they are just watching a movie that is entertaining to them, their brains are seeing words, they are comprehending words, they are reading whether they realize that they are or not. Think about it, if they sit down and watch a couple of these movies each week, they are spending ten hours a week reading and of course that’s going to benefit any child. These Reading Movies are absolutely revolutionary, by combining education with entertainment."

Ph.D. OXFORD UNIVERSITY WORLD LEADING AUTHORITY IN READING AND LEARNING SCIENCES

"Reading Movies makes the student read with the fluency that he understands spoken language. This is the power of this program which excites me like no other I have known in over 30 years that I have studied and taught Reading and Language Arts and Sciences. These Reading Movies takes the language as it is spoken and written and integrates it fully into the entertainment. So as the students are enjoying the movie and following along with the spoken words, the written words are right there and become identified in the minds of the students, with the spoken words, and that is the thing that makes for a good reader and for a good reader to become a master reader.”

THE MARTINEZ FAMILY

"I have seen a big change in my daughter’s and even in my life, because no matter what language you speak at home, Reading Movies gives you the skills to read better"

MOTHER & PROFESSIONAL EDUCATOR

"..After they watch these movies they want to read and they want to do it on their own. I have already seen it improve my daughters reading level. As soon as she finished watching 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, she went to the school library and took out the book and read it. This was the first book she took out."

DJ went from a C, D, F average in school, but since we got Reading Movies, DJ has been averaging B’s and sometimes A’s. He surprised even me, because now he just wants to read and read and read.

Chelsee Atkins - EDUCATOR & READING SPECIALIST

"..As a teacher who works with 32 children in a classroom on a daily basis, the only other thing that I have to say about these Reading Movies is directed to both teachers and parents. If you care at all about improving their learning skills, if you care about improving their grades, this is a must have. It is something that will most definitely improve your children’s reading skills and scores, and they will enjoy doing so.

Any student who is sitting and watching these Reading Movies, even though they think that they are just watching a movie that is entertaining to them, their brains are seeing words, they are comprehending words, they are reading whether they realize that they are or not. Think about it, if they sit down and watch a couple of these movies each week, they are spending ten hours a week reading and of course that’s going to benefit any child. These Reading Movies are absolutely revolutionary, by combining education with entertainment."

Annetta Jones - Doctoral Candidate Professional Educator and Reading Specialist

"..When I first put the Reading Movies in, my kids sat down in front of the TV to view it and I was in awe. They became so caught up in the entertaining action of the movie that they did not even realize that they were reading out loud. You really can’t lose with this program."

Joy Esterberg - Language Skills Consultant Baruch College

"..Learning is playing in its best sense and entertainment should be learning. This program is a wonderful marriage between learning and entertainment."

Bill Johnson - Clinical Professor Of Social Studies - Brown University

"..Kids know words and phrases from speaking and they start to associate it with symbols which are what written words are. This program scientifically facilitates their decoding of these symbols and they become fluent readers."

Dr. Ronald Brown - Professor Of Cognitive Psychology - University Of Sunderland

"..With this program I see a world where parents might say, stop hanging around playing, go and watch a movie; you need to improve your reading."

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES FOR READING MOVIES™

Reading Movies is most effective as a supplemental instructional resource to target the learning needs of English language learners, special education students, academic at risk students, as well as mainstream students.

Teachers often express their frustration with obtaining high interest and highly motivating materials for their special needs students. The Children First educational agenda challenges educators to provide “at risk” students with the same high quality teaching strategies and learning activities afforded other students. The goal is to provide ELLS, special education and “at risk” students with an academically rigorous curriculum that will enable them to meet or exceed New York state and city standards. Although a teacher can use Reading Movies the larger classroom setting, Reading Movies is especially effective when employed in small group settings, such as ESL, special education and collaborative groups.

Depending upon the available equipment and technological sophistication of the teacher, Reading Movies can be effectively used in a variety of different configurations: as a shared reading/viewing on a single television monitor; as a guided reading/viewing activity where a group of students interact on their own computer or laptop; as a one-to-one tutorial or individual conferencing where the teacher accesses the students’ comprehension of the story and their recognition of key vocabulary.

Likewise, each of the three film classics (Trojan Horse, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Tales of Gulliver’s Travels) provides students with exposure to timeless quality children’s literature and can be used as a springboard to introduce these books in either their full or abridged versions.

A teacher can introduce the Reading Movies as she would any story or text: stating the title, introducing the author(s), asking the students to predict what the movie (story) might be about from the preview segments they see on the screen.

Since the teacher has previewed the film and the supplemental materials, she can present the Reading Movies in a number of ways. One effective strategy is to have the students view a 10-15 minute DVD segment of the movie (up to a particular climax or transition), then stop and discuss the story with the students:

●What is the story about so far?
●Who are the main characters?
●What is the action of the story?
●Where is the conflict in the story?
●What do you think will happen next?

This type of shared viewing is analogous to elements of author study, literature circles or book talks.

At this point, the teacher can direct the students to “re-view” the same segments with particular attention to a specific story line or character. Finally the teacher can direct the students to write a response to literature in their writing journals based upon viewing of the first segment. After the students have seen more segments or the total movie, the teacher can use Venn diagrams and other graphic organizers to gauge student knowledge and comprehension.

Students can take ownership of their own learning by using the interactive features of Reading Movies. The Word Play feature is a “virtual word wall”, where students can stop the film’s action and click onto 32 vocabulary words taken directly from the story. A separate DVD clip then gives the student the pronunciation of the word, its meaning, synonyms, the part of speech and a sample sentence. Based upon the teacher’s ongoing assessment, students can be directed to focus on particular vocabulary.

Each Reading Movie also has a Beginner and Advanced Pop Quiz. This activity can be teacher directed, where the teacher reviews the quiz with the students as a group activity or, a student initiated individual assessment, where the student quizzes himself. The Pop Quiz also has a built in mastery learning component, whereas the student can immediately return to the film segment to review the story again.

ELL Alignment – Reading Movies is specifically aligned with many types of instructional scaffolding techniques effective in enhancing the performance of English language learners in ESL classes:

Modeling - giving students a clear example of what is expected of them e.g. “as you view tales of Gulliver’s Travels, think of characteristics which describe Queen Cara.”

Bridging - activate student’s prior knowledge. ELLS will be able to engage in meaningful classroom discussions since the Reading Movies allow them to initially access the stories through visual and auditory means. These students will have their everyday knowledge valued and authenticated.

Contextualization – Reading Movies takes literacy classics, with their enduring human themes and values and encourages students to make film-to-self, film-to-text, and film-to-world connections. Teachers can present Reading Movies in such a way as to create analogies based on students’ experiences, thus connecting complex ideas closer to the students’ real world experiences. Therefore, despite linguistic limitations, ELLs can fully participate in critical thinking activities so necessary to their academic success.

CLASSROOM TRIAL; of the Reading Movies™ program
AN OVERVIEW AND EVALUATION
By Bertha Cuascut Language Arts Teacher, P.S. 109 Q, New York
Reading Movies is an instructional tool which, when used effectively, and in concert with the teachers overall instructional plan, provides a highly motivating interactive and literacy- connected experience for students who benefit most from a differentiated instructional approach.

It’s a new approach to an age old problem. How do we get them reading?

In searching for the answer to that question I agreed to try the Read A Movie program in my sixth grade classroom.

This program consists of DVD movies with teenage actors. Each DVD has multiple features such as: a movie, vocabulary practice, quizzes, other activities, and more. Our students can identify with the child actors and they also have the advantage of reading the speakers’ words. This activity of reading the speakers’ words creates a subliminal association with the word and its context. As the student reads the words coming out of the actor’s mouth, the configuration of the word is being impressed in the conscious mind making it easier to remember and spell as well. In this activity the actors are actually modeling good reading very much like the teacher reading out loud to the students in the classroom. The watching of the movie can therefore substitute for the read aloud/shared reading component built into America’s Choice ELA block model. The movie has a very effective way of reinforcing vocabulary and certain concepts. The repetition and playing back scenes in quizzes helps the viewer to recall facts and analyze the information and data presented. All in all I have found Read A Movie to be a refreshing, and effective way to bring literature, technology, and visual arts into the classroom.

EVALUATION
The integration of Read A Movie, with our current literature program was a workable plus in my classroom. All of our regular routines were flexible enough to incorporate the movie. The Read a Movie program even provided the students with additional vocabulary practice, intermediate and advanced quizzes, and the motivation to lead easily into new lessons.

In observing my students as they watched the movie, I noticed all of my students applying full concentration to the movie. It struck me that even those students who normally would be fidgety and distracting others were instead paying close attention to what was going on in the movie. This indicated to me that they were all reading words and not just listening to what was going on. My sixth graders were actively involved in all aspects of this DVD, the vocabulary lessons, the movie, the singing, the background information and the quizzes,

Another advantage of using the Read A Movie program was the reinforcement it provided. The information and material that was being covered in the movie TROJAN HORSE is extensive. It took us into realms of Greek Mythology, History, (The Trojan Wars), Geography, Social Studies, Literature, Math and the Arts. After seeing the movie, my students had no problems recalling the facts, explain concepts, and details. On test, projects, and even other work, the student’s exhibited greater comprehension, memorable language, and an increased hunger to learn more about the characters in the story and its subject matter.

As a teacher in the system for ten years, I completely agree with the careful integration of a Read A Movie program into literature based, language art program.

Integration of the Read A Movie Program into the
America’s Choice Model
Our objective in this pilot program was to introduce the Edutainment Reading Movies package, and to incorporate its Read A Movie Program within the balance literacy block. To accomplish our goal we combined multiple samples of literature for background and then created a two week interdisciplinary unit. As our pilot movie we used the Trojan Horse. Our unit theme was the Trojan Wars.

One of the highlights offered with this unit is the using of this visual arts media to assist students in learning. All of the lessons in the unit were designed to engage students in an interesting and fun way. This unit also addresses, integrates, and develops instructional strategies that utilize the multiple kinds of learning styles that all students possess.

This thematic unit is designed with the assistance of DVD players and computers to incorporate hi-tech learning, with literature-based, process-oriented instruction under America’s Choice block model. The unit contains lessons for twelve standard based block sessions. Sometimes it becomes necessary to stay another day with a lesson to insure that the students have full opportunity to do well and explore all available resources. Using this visual arts media to assist students in learning new vocabulary is innovative and has held the students attention for longer periods of time. They also learn about different cultures, and develop a greater understanding of the world around them. Viewing this movie on DVD makes it possible to utilize the resources with the movie such as the quiz and vocabulary help. Included in this package you will also find: related literature, articles, work-sheets and sample motivation materials, some lesson plans, pictures, teacher reflections and copies of students work.

The cross curriculum lessons cover the following areas: Reading, English language arts, Social Studies through literature, Art, Math, and Technology.

The following NYS Language Arts Performance Standards apply to this unit of lessons.

STANDARD: E1b, E1c, E1e, E2a, E2b, E2c, E3b, E3d, E4a, E4b, E5a, E5b.

Students will be able to identify the genre, use critical analysis and evaluation, reflection, gain information and understanding, make informed judgments about film, participate in group meetings, literary response and expression, summarize events, deliver presentations, and persuasive writing.

The following is a sample of the current America’s Choice 90 Minute Block FOR Reading and Language Arts, adhered to in this test of the Read A Movie Program.

DAILY ROUTINE - 90 MINUTE BLOCK

Independent Reading (15-20min)
Shared Reading
Work Period

Procedures: (30-40 min)
A mini lesson
Small group reading
Guided reading
Reading/Writing Strategy
Reading/Writing Strategy Conferences
Closing: Student share out what they learned

The ELA block model has three main sections of work for the students.
The Trojan Horse trial block was broken up as follows:

A. Silent reading Each day the students spend 15-20 minutes engaged in reading.
1). Teacher provides books and pamphlets, on legends, plays, copies of tales and other stories that can give students background information on the countries characters.
2). Students are encouraged to bring in personal reading material that is related in some way to this week’s topic.

B. Read Aloud/Shared Reading 10-20 minutes
10-15 minutes read aloud or shared reading (strong readers read to their group and on some days the teacher reads to the entire class)

C. 20-30 minutes group work and meetings (research, reading, composing, editing, conferencing, and rehearsing.

D. 10 minutes sharing out.
Students take out time to reflect on the day’s activities and report to the class their findings and accomplishment.

SAMPLE LESSON PLAN - Lessons provided include:
A. Creating KWL charts to assist in recording what background we bring to the lesson and what more we want to get from a lesson.
B. Word profiles and vocabulary practice.
C. General research and geography lessons on where is Turkey and Greece.
D. What is an emigrant and how do they feel?
E. Lessons on myths, legends, fairytales, and folktales.
F. The comparing and contrasting of stories, characters, and information.
G. The effective use of reflection through journals.
H. Working productively in a group.
I. Using multiple types of graphic organizers.
J. Using word searches, using maps and using movie menus.

Instructional Objective: Students will be able to:

a.) Research and report on Greece and Turkey
b.) Read about and discuss the characters and their roles in both the movie and the book Trojan Horse, incorporating multiple graphic organizers.
c.) Develop and strengthen new vocabulary with the use of technology provided by the DVD.
d.) Sharpen their listening skills by participating in real aloud and shared reading lessons.
e.) Analyze cause and effect as it relates to the events that occurred during the Trojan Wars.
f.) Critique, in the form of a book review or movie review about the Trojan Horse.
g.) Work in small groups.
h.) Re-write a scene and play the roll of one of the characters in the movie.
i.) Evaluate daily work by using a student created check list.
j.) Create travel brochures to both countries highlighting some history, geography, culture, things to see and places to go.
k.) Read about and discuss the characters and their roles in both the movie and the book Trojan Horse, incorporating multiple graphic organizers.
l.) Re-write a scene and play the roll of one of the characters in the movie.

Patented ReadSpeak™ is used under license from Readspeak Inc. US. Patent Nos. 5,741,136,5,938,447,6,062,863 and 6,273,726B1 • Reading Movies™ © 2003 © 2004 SFK Media Corp. • All rights reserved • No unauthorized copying of this site without written authorization from SFK Media Corp