Easyread Phase 4

Lots of parents ask us the strategy they should use once they have finished working through the three phases of our online lessons with their child. Here are some basic tips for that:

1. Choose the right reading materials

Our focus is on building this skill of reading to its maximum. And the key to that is practice.

Now you may have tried making your child practice something, like a musical instrument. Was it fun or easy to do that? I think not!

But there are other activities that your child wants to do for hours, with no pushing at all. Why is that? Yes, we all like to do things we are interested in and that we think are fun.

So we always recommend that you should use that horse to pull the cart of reading practice.

Find written materials that are about whatever those interests are for your child. It can be ANYTHING! My second son got that practice by playing a Pokemon game on his gameboy. It had a surprising amount of text to read in it.

Reading about sport is fine. Reading about Minecraft is fine. Reading about space is fine. Reading about animals is fine. Reading a comic is fine. Reading is reading. It doesn’t have to be fiction or even “good” writing quite yet. We just want to build those 10,000 hours.

2. Keep the text big enough

If your child has had a history of difficulty with eye convergence and tracking, then be sure to keep the text big enough for it to be easy to read.

A Kindle is an easy way to read older material at a large size. I do that myself now, to avoid finding my glasses!

Of course, you do need to find a solution to that problem, if small text is still a challenge. One does want to be able to read text of any size.

Our eye exercise routine normally works in a matter of days. But if not, then we would recommend visiting a developmental or behavioural optometrist. You need more than a standard high street optometrist.

3. Keep phrase rereading (when necessary)

You will know how many times we say “keep rereading”!

If there is ever a phrase in a book with a tricky word in it, then it is always useful to reread the phrase to help the brain lock it in for next time.

4. Maintain a spelling journal

We do not expect a child to be spelling perfectly after a few months on Easyread.  That would be surprising. About 85% correct in free writing is the average.

So you will want to keep working on the words that are still tricky. A spelling journal is the secret to that.

Just pick the simplest three words that are spelled wrong each day and put them in the journal correctly. Then get your child to copy them out three times slowly. Your child should go “yes!” each time a word is correctly written, to celebrate. That will help lock it in for next time. It does feel a bit weird, but it works.

Just keep it to three a day. Long spelling lists are not effective, as you may have seen. And we are not believers in the look-cover-write technique.

5. Write Easyread Reviews

It is a very surprising fact, that writing a nice review about Easyread makes your child’s reading get even better. We have tested it and the data proves it (and has been peer reviewed). We believe it is something to do with the mirror neurones and the resonances between a parent and child.

Only kidding, of course, but you will truly make us happy! The team work hard and do love it when someone writes something nice about that and the results achieved. It also spreads the word to other parents and children who could benefit.

We also like hearing how our graduates are getting on. So do keep in touch. We have already had a national writing champion, so do not limit what you think your child can achieve. We will be cheering you both on!

David and the Easyread Team