Child Reviews of Easyread
Case Study: 13-year-old non-reader…
Teen Mark had gone from reading swimmingly to sinking fast in just a few short years. And just when all seemed lost, Easyread became his life raft…
The Problem
Somehow over the course of Primary Year 4, Mark went from hanging in there with his reading to needing learning support on a daily basis. Pretty soon his mother Diana began to see why.
Mark had certainly never been a high flying reader, but he always achieved what he needed to – just about. It was when his classmates started on chapter books however that his grasp of reading began falling further and further behind. What seemed even stranger was the fact that he could read more complicated words totally fine and yet would routinely stumble with a very simple, short word. He had never enjoyed reading, but once the guessing started to escalate a lack of engagement turned into active resistance, particularly with reading aloud in the classroom. Diana was worried.
The one-on-one support continued into secondary school, and yet it was still as if Mark’s progress was still at a standstill. What’s more, by this stage he was very far indeed behind his classmates, and therefore barely able to complete work in class given the emphasis on reading in all subjects. As for spelling, this was a significant difficulty as well. Diana describes it as atrocious.
At 13 years old, Mark was well aware that there was a problem, and yet both mother and son had no idea what to do about it. All they knew was that major standardized testing (GCSEs) were on the horizon, and that was a very worrisome prospect indeed.
The Solution
It was around this time that Diana started doing some research online to try and better understand the perplexing difficulties Mark was experiencing. Easyread was amongst the gamut of reading interventions she came across, and something about it caught her eye. The explanation of the 8 Causes of Reading Difficulty for one thing seemed concise, logical and well-informed. When she went on to read about the 10 years’ worth of evidence-based and scientific research behind what was being said, she felt even more encouraged. So she read on…
The hands-on involvement they invited from the parent, the emphasis on easy learning and fun, and the fact that each lesson was restricted to 10 minutes, all fitted perfectly from a practical point of view. There was no way she was going to be able to force her headstrong teenage son to do anything he didn’t want to do, and she really felt as if he would come to this of his own free will! After having a go on the trial lesson Diane was pleased to be proven right; Mark really liked the setup just as much as she did. And so they signed up without delay.
It wasn’t long before Diana and Mark started to think of Easyread as a kind of godsend. The easy-going approach of the whole system and the principles of the Guided Phonetic Reading methodology which underpinned it, made learning seem totally implicit. She could also see how the system was subtly introducing more complex language as the months went by, and was thrilled to see Mark decode rather than sight-memorise words for the first time in his life.
Diana always knew that the support team could be reached and certainly made use of their advice, for instance with regards to the eye-tracking exercises they suggested, which helped him tremendously. But equally they were left alone to complete their daily lesson in their own home, which gave them a feeling of independence.
The Result
After just a few days Mark’s reading started to improve. After a couple of months, he was reading confidently in front of the class – something he never would have done before. Now at 15, having finished the program he is a capable and eager reader who enjoys reading for pleasure. He no longer needs to be taken out of his lessons for learning support either. In fact, he has been bumped up 3 reading levels. As for his spelling, he is embarking on his first GCSE year with average spelling for his age — something which seemed inconceivable a year ago.
Most important of all for Diana is the fact that by becoming more able to read and write her son has started to enjoy English, enjoy his lessons and even enjoys his homework! He is model pupil in fact! The future looks bright for Mark.
Scoring high in science!
Agent O did dictate a message for you but I would just like to let you know that he did a science test last week and scored 22/30. He was so proud that he came 4th in his class but the best bit was that he told me that he read it all himself! How fantastic is that! He certainly wouldn’t have done that prior to Easyread.
Many thanks for all your help and support; it is as always much appreciated.
Case Study: Reading plateau, blending difficulties, guessing
Not being able to read forced lively Logan to go inside his shell. Mum was stumbling in the dark too with knowing how to help. But Easyread allowed them to see a light at the end of the tunnel…
The Problem
Despite being a late talker, Logan had always been a confident and chatty boy at school and at home. So when at parent’s evening his teacher described him as an intensely quiet child who was afraid to speak out in class, mum Lyndsey could only assume they weren’t talking about her son!
Lyndsey knew that learning to read had been casting a shadow over Logan, but she had no idea it had been affecting his self-esteem so profoundly. The previous year there were no troubles as far as reading was concerned. Yet suddenly from age 7 onwards, it was like he simply couldn’t do any more than he already was. He was stuck on a reading plateau. While his classmates were starting to read chapter books, Logan couldn’t even blend sounds together to form simple words.
His teachers agreed that something extra needed to be done, and Logan started to get additional small group reading support each week. He also started needing help with maths, something which he had always been good at before. Lyndsey soon realized this was because he couldn’t actually read the questions to be able to solve the maths problems. This knock-on effect was only the beginning, and pretty soon nearly all of Logan’s learning was being impacted. By the end of his third year of school, Logan was still unable to blend many words except for some simple 3 letter CVC words and there was a huge amount of guessing going on. What’s more, since this was yielding more failure than success his confidence was taking a bashing every time he picked up a book. He hated writing anything down as well because he was so afraid he wouldn’t be able to do it. So at almost 8 years old he was yet to write a sentence by himself.
Being an avid reader, Lyndsey was desperate to pass on the gift of reading for pleasure to her children. So her first instinct with Logan was to help him to appreciate the imaginative, joyous and freeing nature of reading. The family visited their local library regularly and often went to see children’s theatre based on much-loved books. Lyndsey was meticulous in helping with homework too, and when she saw his general uptake at school was suffering, she tried to find fun ways of going over concepts. Throughout all this, Logan was a willing participant and a hard worker with great determination. And yet he just didn’t seem to be able to retain information from one day to the next.
As a next step they tried making more practical changes. When Logan complained that he couldn’t hear at school because it was too loud, they requested that he be seated at the front of the classroom and also had a hearing test done. The test revealed his hearing to be fine, and seemingly no matter where he sat, his uptake was the same. Specialist teachers at the school began consulting on Logan’s behalf and even pushed to have him assessed by a speech therapist. But since he had already had a successful round of speech therapy in pre-school this was a dead-end. Next, Lyndsey requested that the school carry out a dyslexia screening, however it took several months to even get the ball rolling, and in the meantime Logan’s confidence was plummeting fast.
By this point, just doing the same thing over and over in a different way was really getting to both mother and son. So Lyndsey looked online for a different angle that they could try together at home. She soon came across Easyread, and when she read about the typical problems that kids using the system had overcome, it made perfect sense to her. She was particularly interested in the idea that guessing of words could become a habit, and that the brain needed to be rewired in order to encourage decoding instead. What a light bulb moment!
So they tried the trial lesson. Logan loved the fact that it was on the computer and he got to play games, so he was keen to sign up right away! By this point Lyndsey had done a lot of research into a wide range of interventions, and Easyread was by far the best suited. For one thing it sounded like the website was describing her son, but most importantly for the first time in a long time Lyndsey felt as if she had found something that might really help. They signed up the very next day.
The Solution
At just 15 minutes a lesson, Lyndsey and Logan found Easyread to be blissfully quick and simple to do. It wasn’t time consuming, which was an important practical consideration for mum and it was also easy for Logan to accomplish as well as being fun, which was important from a motivational perspective. Knowing he was working towards receiving prizes was an excellent incentive for him, and as such he happily did a lesson every day, even during the summer holidays!
Pretty soon, Lyndsey could see how the mother-son ‘teamwork’ that formed each lesson was having a wider impact on Logan. The fact that they were both in this together every day; being proactive rather than reactive, made him feel safe. It also illustrated to Logan how worthwhile it is to never give up, and that it’s good to ask for help when you need it.
Within weeks Lyndsey’s trust in the Easyread program and the team behind it was absolute. She had hoped to help her son, but she had never expected to receive such profound insights into his struggles! And yet she now realized this was the key to really helping him. Issues such as his eye-tracking weakness were swiftly flagged up and explained, and the simple exercises they were given to work on at home had a significant impact. The team then recommended a Behavioural Optometrist, and so Logan received a comprehensive diagnosis for visual processing issues (that Lyndsey never knew he had).
The Result
In the past year since signing up to Easyread, Logan has gone from wildly guessing at words and reading barely anything from the most basic books at school, to easily reading books that are twice as challenging. What’s more, he is set to move up yet another level soon.
His teachers are nothing short of amazed at the difference in Logan’s reading ability. His support-for-learning teacher even described him at the last parent’s consultation as being “the leading light of her reading group”. Furthermore, when the long awaited dyslexia screening finally happened recently, the school were shocked to discover that the results revealed he was now just three months behind the average reading age. Lyndsey and the teachers were in general agreements that the test would have yielded very different results a year earlier. His class teacher also praised his reading fluency and has commented on his burgeoning confidence in all areas of his learning. No more mister shy guy!
So is the honeymoon period over? Well actually, far from it. Since finishing Easyread Logan has taken part in the local library’s summer reading challenge. It is an annual tradition for the family, but this year for the first time he has actually been able to read the books himself rather than relying on Lyndsey to read them to him. Before bedtime each night, on any given car journey and even when he’s in the bathroom, Logan can most likely be found turning page after page of some great new book!
An added bonus is that his writing has also taken off in the past few months too! The boy who wouldn’t write a sentence last June is now writing pages and pages of wonderfully imaginative stories. The spelling is still mostly phonetic although getting better, and is certainly readable. Essentially he can now communicate in writing when he couldn’t before, and Lyndsey trusts that the rest will follow.
It has been a long hard slog for Logan and Lyndsey to get to this point, but both feel it has been well worth it to see the kind of progress he has made in both reading and writing. And I think we can all agree: it’s an incredible story!
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The Easyread System is an online course for struggling readers and spellers who guess when reading, make mistakes on common words, or spell highly phonetically. For more information or do so a questionnaire to figure out why your child struggles, visit www.easyreadsystem.com
Thank you…
I like your lessons and thank-you for helping me read.
– R
I am more confident and I feel happier, thank you…
Easyread has helped me read quicker. I am more confident in class and feel I am now better than some of my peers. I feel happier to pick something up and try and read it. I really liked the games in Easyread particularly Letter Quest, Pin Ball and Fighter Mission. Thank you.
– S
Case Study: Lack of interest in reading, tears, frustration
Hannah was stuck in a reading rut as a self-professed non-reader before Easyread. Nowadays, she can’t get enough!
The Problem
Year 1 was a breeze for Hannah. She could easily devour most of the books in the classroom and the school had no concerns. Fast forward a year and the picture couldn’t have been more different. As far as reading was concerned, Hannah was well and truly stuck in a rut. The school refused to admit there was a problem, but mum Sharon had others ideas…
The decline in Hannah’s ready ability was widespread. In a classroom setting she was heavily dependent on her classmates for help with any task that involved reading questions. She was also increasingly disinterested in reading in, and would struggle to identify even the simplest of words. Despite this, learning and school life in general were very important to Hannah, and so Sharon knew it wasn’t a question of her daughter’s personality driving her attitude. Indifference just wasn’t Hannah’s style.
At home meanwhile, Sharon watched in disbelief as the polarisation between Hannah and her identical twin sister grew and grew, to the point that her sister was actually free reading, whilst Hannah was reading nothing at all. She would sit and stare at books for hours! It was clear that she was knocking on a locked door. Even when Sharon compelled Hannah to read with her, she could manage the first four to five words surprisingly well – and even inject some fluency – but after that the house of cards quickly came tumbling down. Avoidance tactics, sulking, fidgeting and tears were generally what characterized the end of any homework session.
Things got steadily worse, until in Year 3 it had reached the point where Hannah would sadly refer to herself as a ‘non-reader’, when she compared herself with her sister. For Sharon this was heart-breaking. And yet the school kept insisting she would catch up! All Sharon knew was that her daughter’s blackened attitude towards reading would soon reach the point of no return, and she couldn’t bear to watch by and let it happen. Doing more reading was the only suggestion the school made, but that just meant more crying and negativity.
The Solution
One evening Sharon was surfing online looking for information on how to help a struggling reader when she stumbled across Easyread. When she viewed David’s videos and descriptions of the causes of reading difficulty it was like he was describing her daughter! The next morning she showed Hannah the trial lesson, and she absolutely loved it. Never had they felt so positive about the possibility of really helping Hannah, and so there was no hesitation in signing her up then and there.
Hannah loved that when she did Easyread, not only was she succeeding in reading words…but crucially she was also a spy! The related gifts were very motivational for her. The pace of each level was just right, with the increase in complexity being suitably subtle. The games were enjoyable, and the Trainertext characters were fun but simple for her to learn and remember. Sharon was continually amazed whenever Hannah read the words without any text! The support from the team was excellent too, and very encouraging, something which Sharon needed as much as Hannah!
The Result
In the past few weeks Hannah has finished the program. In under a year she has gone from being a self-professed non-reader, to a reader! “I feel I can read 100 books” was one of her latest comments. These were words Sharon never dreamed she would hear Hannah say.
Hannah may still have some difficulty with certain words, but she is much more confident in trying to read something she is stuck on. No more tantrums and brick walls; Sharon will simply prompt her to “just decode it” and she does, with no drama or tears.
Sharon is over the moon! “Easyread has given Hannah so much confidence, not just with reading, but in her belief that she can tackle anything she has a mind to. Thank you so much.”
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Laura O’Sullivan is a Reading Specialist for the Easyread System, an online course for struggling readers. www.easyreadsystem.com
Now I can…
I am proud of myself for reading without sounding out because now I can. Thank you David Morgan.
– A
It has really improved my reading…
I have found this really good and it has really improved my reading. Thank you.
– M
Proud of herself!
H is so pleased and proud of herself for completing the course, as am I and her father. Can’t wait to get this helicopter and take it to the beach for a test flight.
I am sure her reading will continue to improve she has even asked Santa for Diary of a Wimpy kid books collection!
thank you for all your support
Thanks for the helicopter…
dear David, thanks for the helicopter my dad LOVES it! i think easyread has boosted my spelling and reading skils. its made me feel more confident in school so thanks very much
– T
ps just started spell race