exercices			AND WHAT ELSE ?
The software enables the beginner reader, from his very first encounters with written material to develop the different behaviours shown by experimented readers and clearly demonstrated in the analysis of the lexical act.
to work on form
exercices	specific aims	aid for students	parameters
Flash words	Out of context recognition to reinforce the visual familiarity with words ; A word appears on the screen for a short moment, the student must discover it in a list.	No possible aid	Choice of the text from which the words are taken and of the words.
Searching	Fast recognition in a text to develop esploration strategies of a textual structure : the student must discover a given word in a text as quickly as possible.	No possible aid	Choice of text and words to find.
Spelling	Memorization of usual and grammatical spelling : a sentence is displayed on the screen, one of the words blinks, then disappears. The student must retrieve it.	flash aid : very fast appearance of the word to find.	Choice of the text and words to write.
Choosing cues is one of the most important factors intervening in the proces of reading : instead of observing each letter in a word, the eye grabs certain features of its shape and transmits them to the brain which if the words has been memorised beforehand, identifies it. The problem being to grab the good hints for instance : all the students don't, being confused between for example the ship end the shop or the reader and the raider ! Here, the size of the span between two eye fixings plays an important part : it is very small (2-3 letters) when decoding syllabes one by one, or very larg (25 letters even more) for very good readers.
to work on meaning
exercices	specific aims	aid for students	parameters
Cloze test	Anticipation : the student must find a word with the sole help of the preceding sentences. The display of the text stops soon after the "word to find" operation.	Flash-help : very swift appearance of the word to find on request. In case of error, if the word proposed by student contains 80% of the letters of the word to be found, an anagram appears on the screen.	Choice of words to be withdrawn (1 word out of 5...).
Exercice with blanks	Anticipation and deduction : the text is fully on display save the few words to find. To find a word, the student is helped by what comes before (anticipation) and/or what comes after (deduction).	Appearance and disappearance on request of a list including the words to find and several others. The student chooses a word and can propose it only after he has let the list disappear (this compels him to type from memory).	Choice of the size of the words to be withdrawn (ex : words in 6 letters) and possibility to select manually each word.
Sentence to complete	Anticipation and deduction : same principle as that of the exercice with blanks, but on a series of autonomous sentences and not on a text.	No possible help.	Choice of words to be withdrawn according to their length or directly operated by the teacher.
Key-words	Anticipation and deduction : Key-words have been deleted from a text, the student must rediscover them.	No possible help.	Manual word selection.
Reconstitution	Anticipation, student must find a sentence in which letter have been replaced by dots (1 dot per letter).	Flas-help : very quick appearance of whole sentence. Joker : computer sets one word.	Teatcher's choice of sentence.
Word sequences	Anticipation, syntactic knowledge : student must remade a sentence whose words have been mixed up.	No help.	Teacher's choice of sentence.
Sentence sequences	Anticipation : student must recompose a paragraph in which sentences have been mixed up. Exercice more difficult than previous one.	No help.	Teacher's choice of sentence.
Any confirmed reader, after reading these few words : She buys some apples, at the... knows that the following must be a noun, possibly preceded by an adjective. Even before he reads it, he has anticiped its presence, so that the eyes only have to control thanks to an adequate sample of cues. We permanently formulate according to what is to be read from hypothesis on what is to be read following words as on their function in the sentence : after an article, we expect to find a noun, maybe an adjective, but surely not a verb ; in a text refering to the principles os amnesty, you would be very surprised to find the word "garden", and if you find "pardon", you will most probably think of forgiveness rather than a religious procession in Brittany ! It is important to reinforce these reader habits as soon as learning begins, as they constitute an essential element of reading. This is what 7 exercices from ELMO INTERNATIONAL offer you.
to gain confidence
exercices	specific aims	aid for students	parameters
Speed test	Evaluation of students speed reading.	None.	The teacher chooses the text.
Pursuit	Speed increased. Text progressively delated from screen, students must read without being caught ?	None.	The teacher can choose the speed of deleting or ask speed on test. In this case deleting speed will be slightly superior to the one detected on test. Students are forced to reas quicker than usually.
Span	Increase of the lenght of text grasped by eye at a fixing point.	None.	The student reads the text once and points out when he has finished : size and speed flashing of the word sections are automatically adjusted according to the speed of this first readind.
The techniques of acquisition of anticipation and those of visual recognition must give more confidence to students facing writing. Both techniques are complementary and lead to rapid and efficient reading. However students often hesitate to read more quickly : because they are afraid of missing the meaning or simply afraid to rush forward, they slow down their own reading. The results of the speeding test, of the "pursuit", and of the "span" always give students their reading speed so they can note their progress. The "pursuit" tends to show them that the reading speed of the rest can easily be exceeded, the "span" prove that we can at one glance grasp a section of a text wider than one thinks. All is planned for the students to read quicker every time and to practise just like an athlete continuously tries to improve his performance.
AND WHAT ELSE ?