Take Flight: A Comprehensive Intervention for Students with Dyslexia is a curriculum written by the staff of the Luke Waites Center for Dyslexia and Learning Disorders of Scottish Rite for Children (SRC). Take Flight builds on the success of the three previous dyslexia intervention programs developed by the staff of SRC: Alphabetic Phonics, the Dyslexia Training Program and TSRH Literacy Program. The curriculum was designed for use by academic language therapists with children 7 years and older who have developmental dyslexia. It was developed to enable students with dyslexia to achieve and maintain better word recognition, reading fluency, reading comprehension and aid in the transition from a therapy setting to “real world” learning. Recent reading intervention studies, including data collected at SRC, were the impetus for writing Take Flight and have contributed to its design. Teaching trials in the SRC Dyslexia Laboratory and trials by therapists in collaborating public schools also influenced curriculum revision.
Take Flight contains the five components of effective reading instruction supported by the National Reading Panel research meta-analysis and mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act:
• Phonemic awareness in Take Flight includes a systematic exploration of the articulation of phonemes and is fully integrated within decoding and spelling instruction.
• All phoneme-grapheme correspondence rules are introduced over a shorter time than previous SRC programs, allowing time for practice toward accuracy and automaticity in the application of phonic skills and for more guided reading practice with controlled and regular text. Also, there is an expanded use of etymology in teaching word analysis strategies.
• Vocabulary is expanded and enriched by developing morphological knowledge, word relationships, figurative language, syntax and semantics by direct instruction and in the context of reading.
• Fluency instruction incorporates guided and timed repeated reading of decodable words, phrases and connected text. Incentives, concrete measures of progress and daily home practice are also important elements of fluency training.
• A combination of techniques is used for instruction in reading comprehension, including comprehension monitoring, question generation, story structure, summarizing and inferencing. Students also learn how to utilize graphic and semantic organizers when reading narrative and expository texts.
Each of the five components is presented in the seven books of Take Flight.
Take Flight is designed for small group instruction (four-six students) for a minimum of 45 minutes per day, five days each week. Alternatively, the lessons can be taught for 60 minutes each day for four days a week. Take Flight includes 132 lessons for a total of 230 hours of direct instruction.
In the first 35 lessons (Books 1 and 2) of Take Flight, two new grapheme-phoneme rules are introduced each day. This program directly integrates grapheme introduction, phonemic awareness and spelling. Students apply their phonics knowledge reading single words and sentences that combine each lesson’s new rules with previously learned material. Each lesson has additional opportunity for practice of the new phoneme during direct phonemic awareness and spelling exercises.
The lesson cycle takes on a new look with Book 3. On alternating days, the lessons continue new grapheme-phoneme introductions with additional practice of all learned decoding rules. The alternative lessons provide the opportunity to practice previous learning through timed, repeated practice to improve reading fluency. These lessons also include comprehension strategy instruction and 20 minutes of oral reading of connected text that provides necessary practice for newly learned strategies.
With Take Flight, students will learn all 44 phonemes of the English language, 96 grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules and 87 affixes. The students will also learn spelling rules for base words and derivatives. Practice opportunities are also provided that are designed to improve oral reading fluency. Finally, Take Flight introduces comprehension and vocabulary building strategies for both narrative and expository text in the context of oral reading exercises, preparing students for successful, independent reading.

Pricing Structure: Each teacher needs to set up an account (see How to Set Up an Account). The price sheet clearly states all materials and cost to set up a classroom to teach Take Flight (see Take Flight Price Sheet).