Even though the school year was winding down, our Easyread secret agents were working just as hard to get to their reading breakthrough moment!
Please join us in congratulating our Breakthrough Readers of June, and read about their journeys from reading struggles, to reading success.
Emily
In a time before Easyread, Emily had a hard time decoding words, frequently guessing at those that were unknown to her. A word that was read seemingly well on one page, provided a puzzling challenge on the next.
Emily’s spelling appeared to be OK, it was more her reading her mum was concerned about. Her mum suspected that she may be dyslexic.
At lesson 100, Emily’s mum let us know how she was getting on:
“Emily is doing great. I can see the difference in her reading. Her fluency is much better as well as her decoding. She still struggles with some of her vowel sounds, but it is getting better.”
We’re so pleased with all the progress Emily has made to date, and we are confident that the different vowel sounds and combinations will become much more familiar with the more accurate reading Emily now does. Way to go Emily!
Ava
Although Ava appeared to get on well with the traditional phonics and blending techniques, her mum still noticed that she would often guess at words in a bid to read with speed. Small, common words were often substituted for others, and Ava found it difficult to read a word right to the end – regularly skipping to the next word without noticing the “ing”, the “ed” etc.
Consequently, Ava would often miss out words in spelling, and was known to mix up letter combinations, writing “ro” instead of “or”.
At around lesson 90, Ava reached level 7 in our Reading Assessor, which is an amazing achievement as it has our longest and most irregular words – they’re words that some adults would struggle with too! A sure fire sign that Ava’s decoding skills have come a long way. She’s also gone from Level 1 to Level 7 in our Spelling Assessor since March. And Ava’s eye-tracking difficulties have improved, helping boost that reading speed up.
We’re so proud of you Ava!
Nathen
22 year-old Nathen had tried a lot of interventions post-dyslexia diagnosis: many reading programmes and a tutor for a year to help bring his reading level to fifth grade level.
But he still hated to read. And spelling just wasn’t coming easily for Nathen.
Nathen has been completing the lessons more independently recently, after sitting with his mum for the first phase of the programme. So we were delighted by the evident progress Kathy saw as she completed a lesson with Nathen recently.
“I just have to take this moment to report in… only because I myself have been out of commission in regard to working with Nathen of late. But today, I finally had a chance to witness the lesson… and my…. what an improvement. He read the words flawlessly, and sooooo much more quickly. Wow, I am dumbfounded. It IS working!!! Praise the Lord!!!
He read from the book shelf “The beautiful Daughter Marian” in a flash… no pictures even!!!
Incredible.
Thank you Thank you Thank you. You have renewed my hope!!!!
Ever so grateful, MOM Kathy (lesson 59)”
It’s been a long time coming, and we’re so happy that reading is starting to fall into place for you Nathen. Congratulations!
Olivia
6 year-old Olivia appeared to get on well with reading sight words as they appeared on flash cards. But faced with them in a book setting, and it was a different matter altogether. Olivia would often guess what the next word would be, rather than looking at the word itself. So her mum knew that there was a problem there.
After working on her blending and eye-tracking, we were really pleased with the progress detailed here by Olivia’s mum at lesson 99:
“We have seen an improvement in her reading. Not a major step change but a gradual improvement since we started. She is starting to catch up to her classmates and progress at a faster rate.
The main thing is now she actually wants to read and can enjoy picking up a book and reading it. We’ve also noticed that there is a lot less guessing of words. She is trying the word out rather than guessing what the word could be.”
Well done Olivia!
Will
9 year-old Will was reading at/slightly above grade level before Easyread. But his mum still sensed that he wasn’t reading to his true potential.
He loved to read familiar texts so that it was easier to memorise the words. Further to this, Will would often guess at harder, longer words based on the first couple of familiar letters, rather than figure the word out by decoding. He would also skip over some words too. As a result, Will would resist reading aloud.
Will could spell phonetically, but this just wasn’t translating to spelling with accuracy. He could get the words right for a spelling test one week, but would then struggle to remember them for follow-up tests.
At lesson 77, Will read pretty flawlessly for me during a Skype lesson! And with such fluency, it was really great to hear. Will is also starting to picture the Trainertext characters above words outside the programme, which will make decoding previously unseen words much easier.
Will is currently working on our recommended eye-tracking exercises, just to help any residing guessing or skipping over small words.
Keep up the great work Will!
If you feel like your child has reached the point of reading take-off and we haven’t included them this month, then do let us know, so we can send their badge out to them for this month. And do let us know if you’re having any worries around this stage too – we’re here to help every child achieve their breakthrough.
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This month, we chose Briggs as our Breakthrough Reader of June.
From feelings of low confidence around his reading, to reading with such fluency and expression during a Skype lesson, Briggs has come a long way in the space of 90 lessons.
Briggs
8 year-old Briggs was familiar with a phonics-based approach to reading as part of his homeschool programme. He got on well with the phonographs when presented in flash card form, and could easily sound out longer words.
But the decoding never really transformed into fluent reading of whole words. Short, simple words seemed much harder than the longer ones. And Briggs would often begin at the end of a word, before moving back to the beginning. And words that had been read well on one page – it was like he was seeing them for the very first time on the next.
Briggs would excel on all his oral spelling tests, and he had excellent comprehension. But his mum was still concerned about the fact that his reading didn’t seem to be improving. Rather, it had plateaued over the last year. And this had naturally given way to a lack of confidence and desire to read.
I was delighted to hear Briggs read during a recent Skype lesson. He read our version of Robin Hood with such expression, such confidence, and just got all the tricky names with ease! Testimony to always rereading any tricky phrases where he’s had to decode a word. Briggs is also reading more outside the programme, which is a huge breakthrough in itself.
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Congratulations to all of our amazing secret agents, wherever you are in the programme. And a big well done to all those who have completed the course too! We’re so proud of you.
Maddie and all the team