Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published May 25, 2007

Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic Second-grade teacher Jeanette Reifenberg of St. Sebastian Catholic School in Dearborn Heights points out sounds on the FAST Reading System's magnetic board. St. Sebastian is the first school in Michigan to train all its reading teachers in the program, which helps students with reading disabilities as well as those without disabilities.

Dearborn Heights — A new kind of reading program adopted at St. Sebastian Catholic School has teachers excited, parents impressed and a principal even getting emotional.

"Catholic schools for the most part cannot afford to have a special education teacher on staff, nor even a special reading teacher," said Sr. Geraldine Kaczynski, FSSJ, principal of St. Sebastian, her eyes tearing up. "So I felt after all these years, 'My goodness, we could be reaching out to the community and helping the children — this actually is an answer to my prayers.'"

What Sr. Kaczynski is talking about is FAST Reading System. The program simultaneously teaches phonics and reading, while engaging students both vocally and with a small magnetic chalk-board-like device. It initially was designed to help children with reading disabilities, but in the past decade has gained a track record of helping all students read beyond their age levels, according to some educators and parents.

St. Sebastian is the first school in Michigan to train all of its reading teachers in the system. The school has employed it in every grade since January, and hopes to spread its benefits to all students in their school, and even beyond.

In action, the program looks like teachers and students playing with refrigerator magnets. The teacher has a white magnetic board for the front of the classroom; students have smaller boards.

On each board are magnets depicting letters and combinations of letters "ch," "oy" and "au," for example.

Each day, students practice sounding out the letters and combinations. Also, they form words by mixing up combinations of letters on their boards.

"What is very beneficial and different is the manipulation of the board and the sounds," said second-grade teacher Jeanette Reifenberg, who also tutors students in higher grades. "The children are physically moving the sounds to make words and changing the sound that they hear that's wrong — and that makes it fun for them."

Another key part of the program is a series of books written by the program's founder, Stephan Tattum, specifically for use with the FAST program.

Already, success stories have circulated about the program.

Fourth-grader Michael Buzanowski reads an adventure book in St. Sebastian's library. Michael's reading improved from significantly below grade level to above-average in just two months with the FAST Reading System, his mother and teachers say. The FAST Reading System… • stands for Foundations of Analysis, Synthesis and Translation. • combines phonics, speech and literature for faster learning. • was developed for students with disabilities, such as dyslexia, but has been effective for students without such disabilities. • was developed by Stephan Tattum, who was program director at Denver Academy in Colorado • For more information on the FAST Reading System, visit www.fastlearningllc.com.

Michelle Buzanowski, a parent of two students at St. Sebastian, saw her son Michael struggle to keep up with reading assignments. A fourth-grader this year, he was testing well below his grade level.

But with two months of tutoring using the FAST program, that's changed.

"I just found out yesterday that he's at a fourth-grade, seventh-month reading level," said Buzanowski, indicating that Michael is reading slightly better than average for a child his age. "I am so excited about it, and he is too."

The program was brought to St. Sebastian by Richard and Kathy Genthe, the owners of a well-known car dealership in Southgate, who have a success story of their own.

Of their six children, who are now grown, three are dyslexic — the youngest, Andrew, is severely so.

During their children's school years, the Genthes traversed the country looking for a school that could teach their son. They wound up at Denver Academy in Colorado — and actually moved there so their son could get a quality education thanks, they say, to Tattum's programs.

Since, Richard, Kathy and even Andrew — now a 22-year-old student at Northwood University in Midland — have worked to promote the FAST system in southeastern Michigan. The Genthes, who live in Ann Arbor and are parishioners at St. Mary Student Chapel there, also have provided funding to schools willing to try the program.

Like Sr. Kaczynski, Kathy gets emotional talking about what the reading program has meant to her son – and what it has meant and can mean to other students in similar situations.

"This means very much to me that these children are not going to hurt in that way," she said, about children not being able to read. "God gives us all different blessings and all different gifts… I never envisioned that the Lord would take me down this path and let me be open to His calling, to be open to people in this way."

St. Sebastian, too, is hoping to be a conduit of the gift of reading for those who struggle. Tattum says Sr. Kaczynski and her teachers have provided the area with the center of a "hub." If testing shows the program is working — as he's seen in other states — then it should spread.

"It's taken hold," Tattum said in a phone interview from his office at the Denver Learning Academy. "I think Detroit is ready to have a systematic phonics program that really will address all the students who are struggling with reading. The exciting part is that St. Sebastian has adopted the whole program."

Other schools in the area, including Cornerstone Schools and Loyola High School in Detroit, have trained teachers in the FAST program. So have a variety of private schools, such as Grosse Pointe Academy, Country Day in Beverly Hills and Cranbrook Kingswood.

Those who back the program say that, once test results prove the students are making progress, more schools are likely to adopt the FAST program and even set up tutoring centers.

In the meantime, there are students such as Michael Buzanowski who don't need convincing.

"It's been raising my grade level," said Michael, who even reluctantly said he'd rather read now than play video games. "(Reading) gets your brain set up and everything. It gets you ready for what the teacher has to ask you about."