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 stem 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 US Department of Education last
year
nineteen percent of high school students
in America graduated unable to read
above a third grade level which is
considered functionally illiterate
that’s nearly one in five 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
% of juvenile delinquents and % 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 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 letters
make only one sound but these other
letters make multiple sounds that 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 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 Narda Gani
I found a way to expose all the sounds
of the 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 the sound can be made five
different ways with one s in sugar two
S’s in Mission an SH in sheep a T in
vacation and a C in social the triangle
symbol lets the reader know the ooh
sound is needed the sound can be made
four different ways with one o in move
two O’s in school and E in flu 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 Narda Ghani has been approved
by the Idaho State Department of
Education for use in Idaho schools using
Narda Gani stem in fifth grade learn to
read with our symbols in eighth one our
lessons he was elated to be able to read
books coated with our symbols but when I
started to work with them it is now easy
I’m going on Safari
I see see was raised on Safari
Wow I see Elmo’s all wow me
on safari I did so spend 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 Sven
says I once thought reading was
impossible now I know all things are
possible thank you