ELSB is a language-rich literacy curriculum for students with moderate to severe developmental disabilities, including autism.

The Early Learning Skills Builder program incorporates systematic instruction to teach both print and phonemic awareness. ELSB is a multi-year program with seven distinct levels and ongoing assessments so students progress at their own pace.

Four years of ongoing research through the University of North Carolina at Charlotte have shown ELSB to be a highly effective literacy program and more effective than a sight word only program. ELSB is based upon the principles of systematic and direct instruction. It incorporates scripted lessons, least-prompt strategies, teachable objectives, built-in lesson repetition, and ongoing assessments. The seven ELSB levels include five structured lessons each. All students begin at Level 1. If a student struggles here, go back and administer Level A. Instruction is one-on-one or in small groups. Teach lessons daily in two 30-minute sessions. On the completion of each level, formal assessments are given. ELSB includes everything you need to implement a multi-year literacy curriculum.

Dr. Diane Browder, principal author, directed an analysis of 128 studies on teaching reading to students with cognitive disabilities, which indicated the effectiveness of using systematic instruction techniques to teach sight words. ELSB research is through Project RAISE and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Four years of the ongoing five year research project are completed. Sixty students from the Charlotte Mecklenburg School System with moderate to severe disabilities receive daily instruction in the ELSB curricula. These students are being compared with a control group using a sight-word only approach. ELSB students have earned significantly higher scores on the pre/post test for the ELSB curriculum as well as the Nonverbal Literacy Assessment and receptive language measures.

Data from the first 3 years of classroom research show that the ELSB group had higher gain scores (posttest minus pretest) than the control group on all four dependent variables. Accordingly, the Institute of Education Sciences (funding agency) approved the discontinuation of the Edmark control group in 2008. Students continued to make significant progress in years 4-5.

Components

• Implementation Guide
• 6 Teacher’s Manuals
• 6 Student Material Books
• 6 Student Assessment Books
• Moe the Frog Puppet
• All About Moe Stories
• Communication Overlays
• DVD for staff training
• CDs with printable PDFs and other reproducible resources
• Sight Word Flashcards
• Magnetic Board with Stars
• 2 Storage Boxes

CLICK HERE to view our press release announcing the official endorsement of ELSB by CASE, the Council of Administrators of Special Education.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, including a detailed product description, PDF documents, videos of ELSB in action, and testimonials, CLICK HERE to view the FEATURED PRODUCT page.

Item No. EL-S10 Early Literacy Skills Builder

See also the ELSB Software to use in conjunction with the print version or as a stand-alone reading curriculum.

See also the Early Literacy Communication Package — a GoTalk 4+ and the Early Literacy Communication Overlays book featuring 50 tear out pages of overlays to compliment the ELSB program.

Alignments to State Standards are available for ELSB. CLICK HERE to download pdf files of state standards.