How the Stevenson Reading Program Began

In the words of Bill Stevenson, Nancy Richardson Stevenson’s son

Once upon a time, Nancy (Richardson) Stevenson, who had previously taught different subjects in different grades, began working with struggling readers during the summer.  At that time, the term “dyslexia”  was more likely to appear in medical material thain in educational literature.  As Nancy focused on tutoring, she took seminars and read from the works of Alfred Luria, Samuel Orton, Anna Gillingham, Nina Traub, and many others. Even more importantly, she spent decades working with students with many different types of reading and language processing issues.  As she did, Nancy developed her own strategies, and eventually a whole program. 

Nancy was a natural teacher.  If a student could not understand something one way, she could always find another way to teach it effectively. That quality, more than any other, is probably the reason the Stevenson Program is so effective.  Nancy could see through the students’ eyes, see what the students’ could do, and use that to teach what they could not do.

For teachers who have used other methods for dyslexic students, many of the characteristics of the Stevenson program will seem familiar.  Stevenson is, after all, a  phonics-based, structured multisensory language program, of which there are several.  However, Stevenson has an unusual sequence (long vowels before short ones), that helps students with auditory processing issues. More importantly the program uses mnemonics (memory aids) to teach phonics elements.  That mnemonic approach seems to be particularly helpful for students who have chronic difficulty decoding (sounding out words.)  Students confused by English phonics, with its rules and inconsistencies, find Stevenson easily accessible.  

Decoding issues are not the only problems that can plague struggling readers.  Many different elements are required for students to read with full comprehension.  We suggest the reading rope [link with picture here?] as a useful metaphor for the full reading process.  Nancy Stevenson understood the need for multiple skills, so she incorporated vocabulary and syntax instruction during the earliest lessons, and then wove that kind of work, and more, into her program.

We hope this blog and other forums, particularly The Need To Read website, will offer you a fuller understanding of how each element of the program works.  That kind of information can be very helpful, particularly for teachers who work with the most challenged learners. However, how the program works is not as important as that it works, even with highly challenged learners.  And if you need help, The Need To Read will be there for you.