top of page
Take Flight 

Take Flight is “A Comprehensive Intervention for Students with Dyslexia is a two-year Orton-Gillingham based curriculum written by the staff of the Luke Waites Center for Dyslexia and Learning Disorders at Scottish Rite for Children (SRC) in Dallas, Texas” (Center for Dyslexia Learning). “Take Flight is a comprehensive, ungraded, structured, and sequential curriculum that utilizes multisensory techniques for basic instruction in reading, writing, and spelling. Task analysis was used to organize and sequence the following:

 

Phonic regularities for reading

Rules for syllable division

Spelling

Other basic linguistic concepts”

(Ibid). 

 

The program includes the following types of instruction:

Direct

Scaffolded

Individualized

Multi-Sensory

Repeated Reading

Phonemic Awareness

Phonics

Vocabulary

Morphology

Comprehension

 

To assess the efficacy of any program we should use a peer-reviewed meta-analysis. However, there exists only one quasi-experimental study on the “Take Flight Program”. It was conducted in 2017 by Flight, Et al. The study included only 12 students. However, it had an extremely long duration of 280 hours, completed over 56 weeks. The study produced very low results. However, it was done on dylexic students in grades 3-5. Phonics studies done on both of these cohorts typically produce lower results. That being said, the study quality was quite low as the groupings were very inequivalent. If we use Cohen's d we get a strong effect size However, the treatment group started out way ahead of the control group. If we use Cohen's average we get a statistically insignificant effect size. For this reason, I excluded this study from my larger meta-analysis on language programs. 

Final Grade: B

Most of the program principles are supported by evidence and one low quality study showed a mean effect size of above .40. 

​

Qualitative Grade: 10/10

 The program includes the following essential types of instruction: direct, scaffolded, individualized, fluency phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, morphology, comprehension. 



Written by Nathaniel Hansford

Last Edited 2022-04-10
 

References:

 

Ring, J., Avrit, K., Black, J., Ring, J. J., Avrit, K. J., & Black, J. L. (2017). Take Flight: the evolution of an Orton Gillingham-based curriculum. Annals of Dyslexia, 67(3), 383–400. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lakeheadu.ca/10.1007/s11881-017-0151-9

bottom of page