I'd like to tell you a story
about a boy named Sven.
He was in the fifth grade, autistic,
and he couldn't read a single word.
Not "it," "me," "the" - nothing.
His teachers told his family that he may never learn to read.
With my simple reading program, I taught Sven to read.
My story begins when my daughter was in the first grade.
She was a challenged reader.
At that time, I didn't know about challenged readers.
"Everyone can read, right?"
Wrong.
According to the U.S. Department of Education,
last year, 19% of high school students in America
graduated unable to read above a third grade level,
which is considered functionally illiterate.
That's nearly 1 in 5 students,
or half a million new graduates,
each year.
How can anyone graduate high school not knowing how to read?
Teachers are doing everything they can to help these kids,
but the traditional way of teaching reading
does not work for many students.
According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy,
"In America, 85% of juvenile delinquents and 70% of prison inmates
are functionally illiterate."
Illiteracy is the number one predictor of future criminal activity.
There is a solution, and this is how it came about.
In my 20's, I went to Japan to teach English.
I needed to learn Japanese, and I was told to learn to read first.
I discovered that the Japanese have developed a system called hiragana,
which makes reading so easy, I learned in a week.
I didn't know the meaning of the characters at first.
The point is that I could sound out and correctly pronounce Japanese.
Ten years later, when my daughter's reading challenge opened my eyes,
I decided to take what I learned in Japan and adapt it to English.
With the help of a reading specialist, I wrote down all the sounds of English.
Then, I analyzed our alphabet.
I discovered that of our 26 letters,
12 make only one sound,
but these other 14 letters make multiple sounds.
The "A" makes four sounds, the "C" makes three.
The "O" makes eight different sounds!
I believe this is why English is so difficult.
Let's take "C" as an example.
The three sounds of "C"
are in "cat,"
"face" and "ocean."
I was also surprised to discover
that these 17 letters are sometimes silent,
meaning they do not make a sound
in many words.
Think for a moment about these four examples:
there is no "B" sound in the word "doubt,"
no "G" sound in the word "sign,"
no "S" in "island,"
and no "W" in "who."
The program I developed is called "nardagani."
I found a way to expose all the sounds of the 14 letters.
Underneath the letters is one of these symbols.
These symbols let the reader know what sound to make.
They also guide students in learning to sound out words.
I'm going to teach you two of these symbols.
First, everyone's favorite symbol.
The square is your lips, the line is your finger,
and the sound it makes is "shhhh."
The "shhhh" sound can be made five different ways.
With one "S" in "sugar,"
two "S"s in "mission,"
and "S-H" in "sheep,"
a "T" in "vacation"
and a "C" in "social."
The triangle symbol lets the reader know the "ooo" sound is needed.
The "ooo" sound can be made four different ways,
with one "O" in "move,"
two "O"s in "school,"
an "E" in "flew" and a "U" in "super."
How about those silent letters?
They're underlined and easy to see.
Here is an example of our symbols in action.
Notice the three different sounds of "U."
We hum a tune for you.
Dr. Jeffrey Wilhelm,
distinguished professor of English education
at Boise State University
and a nationally recognized literacy expert,
conducted a small scale teacher research study
with our program.
He concludes that it works
because it reduces the cognitive overload
that is typically experienced by those learning to read English.
We have conducted several pilot programs in detention facilities,
which were highly successful.
Nardagani has been approved by the Idaho State Department of Education
for use in Idaho schools.
Using nardagani, Sven, in 5th grade,
learned to read with our symbols in eight one-hour lessons.
(Applause)
He was elated to be able to read books coded with our symbols.
(Video) Sven: It was pretty hard,
but when I started to work with them,
it is now easy.
I'm going on safari.
(Laughter)
I see zebras graze on safari.
Wow!
I see animals all around me
on safari.
(Applause)
I did it!
Narda Pitkethly: You did do it!
(On stage) So Sven learned to read our coded books
in eight one-hour lessons.
Several months later,
he no longer needed the symbols.
Last year, in high school,
Sven became a proud member of the National Honor Society of America.
(Applause)
Sven says,
"I once thought reading was impossible;
now I know all things are possible."
Thank you.
(Applause)