Stevenson Learning Skills | Food For Thought

We are currently creating two new books called The Overlapping Strategy Teacher’s Manual and The Overlapping Strategy Student’s Book. As most of you know, everyone has to start the Stevenson Program from the beginning - one way or the other. The Overlapping Strategy is a way of covering the essential vowel patterns, mnemonic clues and word attack procedures from the Beginning Level of Stevenson fairly quickly, while overlapping that content with the second level of the program, the Basic Blue Level. This strategy allows you to move through the program more quickly than you would if you simply started with the full set of Beginning Green books. However, it is not appropriate for all students. It will work well with most students in the upper elementary grades, or in middle or high school, who have learning problems. It will also work well as a basic phonics skills program with certain early elementary grade students in general education. It would probably not be appropriate for most learning disabled students in the primary grades.

The Overlapping Strategy is an approach many Steven-son teachers have been using for years. However, in the past, they had to use the Beginning Level Spelling Manual to introduce the Beginning clues, and there was an overload of repetitious spelling work. The new manual solves this problem and lays a more balanced foundation for using the Basic Blue materials.

The new Overlapping Manual and Student’s Book will presume that students have already developed certain basic skills. It is assumed that students know letter sounds and shapes, both lower and uppercase (although it also assumes that students might be confused by b and d, so it offers the familiar Stevenson b and d exercises as an option in one of the appendices). The new manual also assumes that students know the simpler punctuation marks like periods and question marks and a few sight words like the and is. However, since even older LD students can have trouble with many simple but essential skills, the manual does not require a great deal of prior skill from the student. Therefore, the new Overlapping books will be useful in a wide range of circumstances. More severely disabled, older students should find enough careful, systematic instruction and enough practice to overcome their problems, and students with less serious issues should be able to move quickly while still building a solid foundation.

The new Overlapping books are meant to be used in conjunction with the Basic Blue Level materials. If you would like a detailed description of the new books and how they correlate to the Basic Blue Level materials, check off the appropriate box on the coupon on the back page of this newsletter. The new books are scheduled to be ready for distribution on August 15, 2007. The item code for The Overlapping Strategy Teacher’s Manual is OVS 101, and the price is $21.95. The code for the student book is OVS 102 and the price is $3.95. If you order these books before August 15, we will back order until that time, then send and bill them when they are ready. If you have any questions, call us toll free at 1-800-343-1211.