OREM -- Cheryl Lant doesn't teach children at her Orem preschool how to recite the ABC's.
Truth be told, she frowns on the alphabet song made popular throughout the years in kindergarten classes and on such children's television shows as "Sesame Street."Lant, who started the private school Learning Dynamics 16 years ago with her husband, John, employs a much different technique to teach 4-year-old children how to read.
Her program, which the Lants say has a 98 percent success rate, found its roots in phonics, a teaching system that public schools moved away from in the 1980s.
At the time, the family started the educational center for additional income. But the endeavor eventually worked into a real love for researching how to best teach young children.
"We felt strongly that a phonics-based program was critical," says John Lant. "At that time, there was a real shift toward whole language for teaching children to read."
To start the program, which is called "Frontline Phonics," Lant and her corps of 18 teachers only introduce only a handful of consonants and one vowel to the children. With flash cards and songs, the children become familiar with the letters and the sounds they make.
The letters are M, A, P, S and T. From those letters, the children start to form such words as "map" and "sat" and "pat."
Lant then introduces the letters B, H and G to the children.
A book written by Learning Dynamics teachers using only the letters that have been presented is then given to the children.
"When you see the books they seem simple, but it is really complex to make," said the former Utah Young Mother of the Year. "It's tough to write a book only with those letters."
After the children are given the first book, they are taught three new letters a week, building on the letters and sounds already learned, said Lant, who is not a teacher but studied early childhood education at Brigham Young University before rearing nine children.
Over the years, Learning Dynamics has created 23 books, game pieces, flash cards and 34 original songs by local composer Arlen Card that feature the letters of the alphabet.
"We could see where a specific sequence was needed with the letters and sounds in order for the children to progress in their ability to grasp reading concepts," said Lant. "Each book builds on the previous one."
National studies bolster the concept on which her program is based. Research conducted at 14 different centers of the National Institute of Child and Human Development have shown that children should be taught each sound-spelling pattern and need connected, decodable text to practice the sound-spelling patterns they learn.
An obvious literacy enthusiast, Cheryl Lant describes the school's approach as somewhere between the natural discovery and strictly academic styles.
"We believe children need to be children but that they love feeling the excitement of learning and growing. We also believe learning should be fun. Our reading program reflects that philosophy."
From her perspective, children can be ready to read before they are in kindergarten. But such factors as large student-teacher ratios and a lack of standardized teaching methods do not guarantee that a child will learn to read in kindergarten, she says.
Parents seem to believe in her program. Her first year, 48 students signed up for preschool classes. This year, 320 students are learning to read under the guidance of Lant and her teachers, most of whom are certified.
"This was developed from the inside out as we used it with children and found out what was right. Children begin reading much more quickly with this program than with other systems," she said.
Now, the reading program is being made available to parents across the country. They believe parents can use the $199 program for 15 minutes a day, three times a week, to prepare their children for school. An overview of the home program can be found online at (www.frontlinephonics.com).
"Parents are concerned about reading," she said. "And they need to know people are out there working to find answers."