Introduction: Program Description
Promoting reading skills among learners is one of the crucial tasks that educators and instructors need to take very seriously. Unless students develop the required reading skills, they will be unable to solve any basic problems that they will have to deal with in literally any domain, including not only workplace issues but also daily life. Herein the significance of reading 180 as a program lies; apart from informing learners on how to read in a manner that will help them gather the necessary information and use it later on properly, it teaches the participants to evolve and educate themselves.
When it comes to defining what makes Read 180 so wonderful, one must mention the fact that the program in question helps not merely teaching people to read but also change their lives significantly. The reason for the statement above is that the program under analysis introduces people to the concept of literacy as an integral part of their life:
Success in READ 180 is far greater than any test result a student will receive. It means that a student’s life trajectory and their family and community’s success is forever changed for the better. Their success goes beyond college graduation and gives them the option to choose a career that allows them to reach their fullest potential. When success is real, everything changes and we have thousands of stories to prove it. With READ 180, everything changes. (Success stories, 2015, par. 1)
Particularly, Read 180 reinforces the process of learning among the target population by helping the participants focus on the very process of learning. As a result, the premises for learners to engage in the process of metacognition are created (Wong & Wong, 2014). According to the existing definition, the phenomenon in question “is referred to like the idea of an individual considering, being aware of and understanding their own mental and learning process” (Pritchard, 2013, p. 315). This is especially important for adults and adolescent students, which the program embraces; by promoting the understanding of how the learning process occurs, Read 180 reinforces the principle of lifelong learning along with the concept of independence in learning among the participants. As a result, the reading program in question sets the stage for their further acquisition of knowledge and their consistent upgrade.
Determining Factors
It should be noted that what Read 180 offers is not new; a large variety of programs aimed at increasing literacy rates among the target population exists and suggests innovative approaches to teach people the basics of reading and the related disciplines. However, what makes Read 180 special is the above-mentioned focus on the further learning process, which the current program has to offer. Particularly, Read 180 facilitates its supporters with the skills that can, later on, be used as the basis for developing other important abilities, including extensive memory skills, the ability to analyze and synthesize, etc.
The above-mentioned property of the educational program under analysis can be deemed as the determining factor for choosing it. While teaching learners a certain basic skill, be it reading, writing, or any other ability, is a comparatively simple task, whereas motivating the students to acquire further knowledge and skills on their own is an outstandingly challenging goal. Therefore, the program that claims to have developed an innovative approach that spurs further progress deserves being considered closer.
In other words, these are the additional options provided in the program that define the choice of educators. Learners need the tools that will help them acquire the necessary information and train reading skills appropriately whereas instructors experience a strong need in the approach that could be flexible enough to cater to the needs of all types of learners. Therefore, the specified program can be viewed as a perfect tool for improving students’ reading skills and promoting knowledge acquisition among them (Scales, 2012).
Desired Outcomes and Implications
Seeing that the focus of Reading 180 is, no surprise, on reading, the desired outcomes that the program provides are quite basic; it is expected that, y the end of the program, the participants will have acquired the skills of reading texts and reproducing them by summarizing the key points, retelling the plots, identifying the main characters and the target audience thereof, etc.
However, a closer look at the program in question will reveal that it, in fact, has a set of other desired outcomes, which are related to not only reading but also the skills related to a consistent learning process. As it has been stressed above, Read 18 is more than merely providing learners with the ability to identify symbols connect them in sentences and understanding the meaning of the text. Apart from the skills identified above, Read 180 also implies that the students should acquire the skills related to an uninhibited process of self-education and promotes self-directed learning among the target audience.
Importance in Industrial Decision-Making
The significance of the program under analysis in the context of industrial decision-making can hardly be overrated. Although the link between reading and the process of identifying the further course of action may seem a bit farfetched, the connection between the two is quite obvious. Since the course under analysis offers its learners the chance to develop the skills of critical analysis and a detailed assessment of the information retrieved before, the program is crucial for improving the staff’s ability to make decisions in the context of a particular industry.
In other words, the course mentioned above teaches people to gather information in a manner as expeditious as possible yet process it very carefully, taking even the tiniest factors into account. As a result, the participants are capable of deriving important lessons from the texts that they have read and the information that they have gathered. Consequently, the decisions that they are going to make will be reasonable, adequate and informed by the data that was retrieved prior to the decision-making process.
In other words, Read 180 enhances the speed of information acquisition and processing, therefore, enabling the participants to see the variety of options that they have and choose the one that seems the most appropriate at the moment and for the specific scenario that is being discussed. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the application of the program will sour the efficacy of the decision-making process in the organization, therefore, raising its annual benefit and improving the communication process among the team members and the managers of the firm in question.
Staff’s Understanding
For the program mentioned above to work in the designated setting, one will have to engage the staff members into the process so that every single employee could understand the weight of the outcomes and, thus strive to complete the program in the best manner possible. The staff’s understanding can be improved by adopting the appropriate leadership strategy, which will help inform the employees about their new roles and responsibilities; thus, the training process can be enhanced significantly.
Seeing that the employees may be unwilling to alter the traditional organizational behavior patterns, the adoption of the transformational leadership approach, which facilitates a fast promotion of changes in a less painstaking way than any other leadership strategy does, seems quite legitimate (Lentz, 2012). Defined as the strategy that aims at changing the staff’s organizational behavior and enhancing their motivation with the help of an emphasis on their personal and professional needs (Shelton, 2012), the specified approach will allow getting the significance of the new program to the staff by putting an emphasis on the benefits that they will receive after its promotion.
Conclusion
Enhancing reading skills is essential to the further success of any individual; however, it is not only the opportunity to improve one’s ability to read fluently and derive essential information from the text as well as transferring it successfully but also the skill of self-directed learning and the further acquisition of information that Read 180 should be credited for. By providing an in-depth understanding of how the reading process occurs and teaching the participants to process information, including both visual and audio types thereof, to obtain essential knowledge, the course in question promotes further learning among students. The latter characteristic feature of the course is the main reason to include it in the set of disciplines.
The program in question, therefore, should be included into the curriculum so that the students could receive instructions regarding both the further acquisition of the necessary reading skills, including the ability to retrieve information from texts, process it and retell, as well as the ability to expand their learning skills to engage in self-directed learning later on.
Reference List
Lentz, K. (2012). Transformational leadership in special education: Leading the IEP team. New York City, New York: R&L Education.
Pritchard, A. (2013). Learning on the net: A practical guide to enhancing learning in primary classrooms. New York City, New York: Routledge.
Scales, P. (2012). Teaching in the lifelong learning sector. Chippenham: McGraw-Hill Education.
Shelton, E. J. (2012). Transformational leadership: Trust, motivation, and engagement. Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publishing.
Success stories. (2015). Web.
Wong, P.-Z., & Wong, B. (2014). Learning about learning disabilities. New York City, New York: Elsevier.