A Parent's Guide

What is Take Flight, really?

You've heard the name from a therapist, a school, or another parent. Here's what the Take Flight program actually is, where it came from, and how it's structured — explained plainly, so you can make an informed decision for your child.

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The Short Answer

Take Flight is a two-year, structured reading curriculum written by dyslexia specialists at Scottish Rite for Children in Dallas. It was built specifically for children with dyslexia, ages 7 and up, and it's taught in small groups by a certified therapist — not a classroom teacher or general tutor. Every lesson follows the same proven method: hear it, say it, see it, write it.

Where It Came From

Not a trend. Fifty years of clinical research.

Take Flight didn't appear overnight, and it wasn't built by a curriculum publisher. It grew out of decades of hospital-based research into how the dyslexic brain learns to read.

The story starts with Dr. Samuel Orton, a neuropsychiatrist, and Anna Gillingham, an educator and psychologist, whose early-1900s research into language-based learning differences became known as the Orton-Gillingham approach.

Their work became the foundation of a language lab at Scottish Rite for Children in Dallas, running from 1965 to 1975. Out of that lab came three successive intervention programs, each refined by clinical results. Take Flight is the most current version of that lineage — written by the staff of Scottish Rite's Center for Dyslexia and used by certified therapists nationwide, including at ClearPath.

The Lineage

Alphabetic Phonics — the original Scottish Rite program
Dyslexia Training Program — refined structure and pacing
TSRH Literacy Program — expanded comprehension focus
Take Flight — the current curriculum, combining all prior research with the National Reading Panel's five components of reading

The Method

Why it works when other approaches haven't.

Take Flight follows the Orton-Gillingham approach, which means every lesson is built on four principles rather than one teaching style.

Multisensory

See, say, write, feel

Your child sees a letter, says its sound, writes the pattern, and traces its formation — engaging four learning pathways at once instead of relying on sight alone.

Structured

Nothing is implied

Spelling rules, syllable types, and language patterns are taught directly and explicitly — never assumed or left for a child to figure out independently.

Sequential

One skill at a time

Lessons build in a fixed order, from simple to complex. A skill is mastered before the next one is introduced, so no gaps get carried forward.

Diagnostic

Adjusted in real time

The therapist continuously checks what's landing and what isn't, adjusting pace and review on the spot rather than following a fixed script regardless of progress.

The Structure

A two-year flight path, not a quick fix.

Take Flight is delivered as 132 sequenced lessons across two years. Here's how the altitude — the complexity of what's being taught — climbs over that time.

132

sequenced lessons

grapheme-phoneme rules

morphology units

years, start to finish

Each milestone above represents a shift in emphasis, not a hard stop — skills from earlier stages continue to be reinforced throughout, per Take Flight's cumulative design.

GROUP SIZE

2–6 students per group, matched by skill level

FREQUENCY

45+ minutes per day, five days a week

AGE RANGE

Designed for ages 7 and up with diagnosed dyslexia

DELIVERED BY

A Certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT) only

Who's Teaching It

It matters who's in the room.

Take Flight is not designed to be self-taught or delivered by a general reading tutor. Its research base assumes instruction from a Certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT) — a specialist trained specifically in diagnosing and treating dyslexia, not just teaching reading.

That's the credential ClearPath Dyslexia's founder, Kat Ferrufino, M.Ed. CALT, holds.

Common Questions

What parents usually ask next.

No. Tutoring typically reinforces what's already being taught in the classroom. Take Flight is a clinical intervention — it teaches reading through an entirely different route, built around how a dyslexic brain processes language, and it's delivered by a therapist trained specifically in that diagnosis.

Take Flight was designed for students already identified with dyslexia, so a diagnosis or evaluation is typically the starting point. If your child hasn't been formally evaluated yet, that's a good first conversation to have with a therapist.

Take Flight is designed to run alongside school, not instead of it. Many families use it to fill a specific gap — the explicit, structured phonics and language instruction that a general classroom often can't provide at the pace a dyslexic learner needs.

Yes. Scottish Rite has published outcome data following students through the program, including a study tracking 113 students across seven graduating groups — showing measurable gains in decoding, fluency, and comprehension, with many students entering the average reading range by completion.

Each session moves through a fixed rhythm — reviewing previous sounds and patterns, introducing one new concept, guided reading and spelling practice, and short comprehension work — always multisensory, so your child is hearing, saying, seeing, and writing in the same lesson.