The Seven Golden Rules of Easyread

The 7 Golden Rules of Easyread

Nail these seven golden rules and you really have no worries. Whenever a child is behind expectation on the course, we find that one of these rules is being ignored:

1) Daily Short Lessons

We find that no more than 15 minutes and at least 5 sessions per week is the optimum way to get good progress. If you do more each day, attention drops. If you do fewer than five sessions, momentum is lost.

2) Affirming and Helping Constantly!

This can be a tricky routine to develop, but we find it essential. Everything that your child gets right should be affirmed in a constant, quiet background noise of “…yes, that is it, good, well done, yes, yup, good…” running all the time. That is positive in itself, but also allows you to slide into “hang on, we need to check that one again” when there is a mistake, without that being the first time your voice is heard in the last minute or so. It prevents your voice being a trigger for stress.

3) Strong Focus on Decoding Practice

The lessons are all about helping your child develop the subconscious skill of decoding words automatically. So your child needs to understand that every guess or sight-read word will slow down that development and lead to more lessons being needed.

4) Rereading Every Phrase Until Fluent

In Phases 2 and 3, we need your child to reread each phrase of 4-5 words until it is fluent, BEFORE moving on to the next phrase. While it feels like extra work, it is important that your child understands that this little routine will double how quickly the decoding becomes automatic and effortless for your child .

5) Reading the Text, Not Just Images

Obviously we are here to learn to read text. If your child is only reading the images, that will slow progress a lot. The way to see this happening is if long words with simple sounds (like bought, should and beauty) are read as easily as short words.

6) Dealing With Any Eye Tracking Difficulty

Some children have some convergence and eye tracking difficulty. If that is not fixed, small print will always be challenging for them to see clearly and therefore for them to read. Usually it can be fixed with the exercises we suggest. If not, a visit to a specialist will be needed.

7) The Little Voice Can Be Heard in Phase 3

In the middle and later stages of the course, it is important that your child can hear a little voice in your child’s head when reading silently. If that is not absolutely clearly there, we need to help your child develop it with some exercises. Otherwise you will probably see lowered levels of comprehension.