Annabel: Guessing, muddling up small words – now reading fluently and confidently

The Backstory

If I said I was hoping Easyread could deliver on what it promised that would be a huge understatement!

We had a 7 year old daughter who had always enjoyed school, loved learning, devoured stories that were read to her and who was described by the learning professionals as “very bright”. She had a large vocabulary, great comprehension, understood the meaning of words and could apply them in context.

However we were noticing that she wasn’t at a reading level that seemed to match this – she guessed a lot of words and sometimes would read the story so it made perfect sense contextually but the words were not the same as on the page. She muddled small words.

Her spelling was also terrible! And not getting better despite the efforts of teachers and us at home. She had no basis for understanding how to put words together and didn’t really know what they should look like even when she wrote them correctly. She was relying on an image of the word, not the letters and sounds themselves.

The Easyread Experience

So we took the plunge – Easyread was a cost we were prepared to pay, if it worked. And the free trial was a great way in.

The trial was a good start. The support and enthusiasm has been amazing. And everyone is so knowledgeable. The games and graphic approach is good. I would say the novelty wore off a bit after a while, but we persevered because we could see the progress she was making. When we were struggling with motivation there was always an encouraging reaction including a guided lesson (which showed how enthusiastic I should be as the person supporting Annabel).

The Results

Fast forward to the current time and our daughter has made huge leaps forward.  Her reading is now so much more consistent and fluent.  She reads for pleasure – all the time!  Recently she was assessed at school as having a reading age of 9 years 4 months and a comprehension age of 10 years 3 months! (she is now 8 years 4 months).

Her spelling is better, although there is still a way to go with this – Easyread have assured us it will come with time (as opposed to the learning professionals who just say she will never be able to spell and just needs to learn to work around it).

We are extremely pleased that we took a chance with Easyread.  It has been a hard journey at times and motivation and self-belief (our daughter and us!) has suffered along the way, but the support and encouragement of the team has been outstanding.  The codeword incentives worked well for our daughter and for her to get to the end and be rewarded with the helicopter was the final icing on the cake.

Thank you to you all.  We would totally recommend anyone to try Easyread, whatever the starting point.  They are clearly on to something!