English is an unusual (some would say frustrating) language in that there are only five or six vowel letters in our alphabet but twenty (that’s right twenty!) vowel sounds that we use to communicate. It is therefore not surprising that students learning to read and write English will have most difficulty mastering vowels – especially those students struggling to acquire effective literacy skills.

Crack The Code can be used to teach any child of any age (starting at 5 – 6 years of age) to read and write but is especially effective for students who struggle to learn and apply phonic skills to reading and writing (about 25 – 40 per cent of all children). The younger the child when you start, the better the literacy outcomes are likely to be.

No! I have found that the key skill young struggling students lack is not so much poor letter-sound knowledge but poor segmenting ability. Until a child can segment an oral word into its component sounds the teaching of letter-sounds is meaningless to that child anyway (as that child is totally unaware that words are composed of sounds). Therefore a better approach is to teach letter-sounds in conjunction with segmenting ability (both of which are achieved through Crack the Code).

Parents can use Crack The Code if they are able to follow the instructions and do the lessons with their child. Be warned that sometimes a parent will have the same “phonic” difficulties as their child (many literacy difficulties have been inherited from one or both parents) and so may have difficulty doing the lessons at home with their child.

Yes! Although Crack The Code was not written for Year Levels in schools, you can use the following end of year “minimum benchmarks” as a rough guide if implementing Crack The Code as part of a whole school literacy program:

Prep: Lesson 10 by the end of the year.

Year 1: Lesson 20 by the end of the year.

Year 2: Lesson 30 by the end of the year.

Year 3: Lesson 40 by the end of the year.

Year 4: Lesson 47 by the end of the year. 

Year 5: Lesson 51 by the end of the year.

Year 6: Lesson 55 by the end of the year.

I must stress that this is a rough guide only and that as with any program you must always take individual student differences into account and ideally teach each student from where he/she is up to in the Crack The Code program. Irrespective of age or year level, all students must start at the beginning of Crack The Code for it to be effective.

Prevention is always better than cure. The program can be adapted to use with a whole class and indeed throughout the whole school. In one school I work at, the techniques and skills in the pages of this program are introduced in each Prep classroom (5-6 year olds) and continued throughout primary school until Year 7. Any students still having difficulty learning and applying the techniques of the program are withdrawn and given focused one-on-one intervention but still using the same skills and techniques of the program (Prep children are given one-on-one intervention too!) Parents of struggling children are also trained to use, teach and practise the skills and techniques of the program at home with their children – especially during the first two years of school. It is a model that works extremely well and the literacy results of all students throughout this particular primary school are very impressive and speak for themselves.