The idea of Mature Reading Instruction (MRI) came from Dr Richard Schutz, Director of the American South West Reading Laboratory. The programme echoes the scrupulous introduction of the Alphabetic Code laid out in SWRL’s hugely successful ‘I See Sam’ books. Dick Schutz’s distinguished team spent five years devising and trialling a ground-breaking reading programme, with a focus on integrating lively storytelling and foundational Synthetic Phonics skills. Piper Books revised and updated Sam the Lion’s adventures in BRI (Beginning Reading Instruction), and the subsequent ARI (Advanced Reading Instruction) tales.
MRI’s eighty-plus stories, plays and poems offer a second chance for teenagers and adults who have fallen through the educational net. The programme has recently been augmented with detailed, easy-to-use Lesson Plans to reflect the multifaceted nature of learning to read after the primary years, with particular emphasis on comprehension, fluency and prosody, basic spelling and grammar.