Our incredible secret agents have made an amazing start to the New Year, fully embracing their reading mission.
Hard worker bees continued to login over the Christmas break, finally achieving their long-awaited and thoroughly deserved helicopter in January at the end of their secret mission training. Congratulations guys! You can read some of their stories over on our case studies page.
As a parent once said, it’s also about celebrating the short-term goals. And as we always say, that real reading take-off moment, where everything just seems to click into place, is expected around the 90 lesson mark. So once again, we celebrate those moments that a parent has been waiting for years and share them with you. This month, we sent our breakthrough badges to the following readers.
William
Before Easyread, William found it more difficult to read simple words than hard words. He sometimes guessed what the word might be based on the first couple of letters in the word.
He sometimes confused the letters “d” and “b”, and found it difficult to blend consonants together, like “cr”, “cl”, pl etc. As a result, William would get angry and frustrated with himself, and us, when he stumbled over a word, making reading an un-enjoyable experience for all the family.
Now, having just surpassed the 90 lesson mark, William’s mum said that his reading is progressing brilliantly and he seems much calmer and more confident in trying to decode words. “We are all extremely happy with his effort and progress.”
Awesome work William!
Elijah
8 year-old Elijah would easily become overwhelmed when met with more than a few words on a page. He knew his letters and sounds and seemed to understand short and long vowel rules, but he had a hard time applying these rules when it came to reading words in succession. Elijah would also appear to read a word fine on one page, yet when it came to the next page, it was as if he’d never seen the word before.
And yet, after 90 days on the Easyread programme, everything had changed for Elijah. He enjoys reading the Animal Riddles book, and loves learning about what different animals can do. He and his mother had also decided to attempt to read some books outside the programme that same week.
The result?
“I am very pleased to say that Elijah is reading his library books with ease!!!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
Congratulations on all you’ve achieved Elijah, you’ve come so far!
Ythan
6 year-old Ythan tended to guess words before enrolling on the programme, and reading certainly didn’t come easy to him. The books he brought home from school were a challenge.
Around lesson 100, Ythan is now decoding words with ease, even long, difficult words! Our recommended eye-tracking exercises have helped make it easier for Ythan to track individual words on a page, and he finds it more comfortable to read our Easyread library books with a blue background.
He’s also reading books for pleasure now, and enjoys learning about all things related to dinosaurs. Way to go Ythan!
Oliver
Oliver had received a diagnosis of mild dyslexia when his grandmother signed up to Easyread. He was about 3 years behind his peers for reading, and phonics didn’t come easy to Oliver.
Oliver could remember longer words, but found the short, common words hard to decipher. Even with a tutor and extra help at school, reading and writing were still a struggle.
At lesson 100, Oliver is still enjoying Easyread and never really complains about doing it. He is loving the Space book in our Easyread library as he is doing a project on it at school. He reads the phrases well and struggles with only one or two words each time. Oliver and his grandmother continue to work on the eye-tracking exercises, so that smaller text becomes easier for Oliver to read.
Oliver’s grandmother also sent us this super cute message that we just have to share with you here.
“Ollie said to me the other night, totally unprompted, “Do you know nanny, I can really say now for the first time that I can read”. It was quite moving because it had been worrying him for so long. Thank you.”
Keep up the great work Oliver!
Katelyn
11 year-old Katelyn found learning to read very difficult. She’d often mix up letter sounds, and guessed at words to get by. As a result, reading fluency suffered.
At lesson 90, Katelyn continues to reread the phrases in the Easyread library books, and understands why she needs to do that in order to keep improving on reading fluency. Her mum says she really noticed a huge leap in her reading with the month they took off over Christmas. “I think she may have needed some time for everything to settle in.”
Amazing news Katelyn!
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.
…
Each month, as you know, we are choosing a breakthrough moment for one of our readers that’s really stood out to us. This month, we’ve chosen Jack as our Breakthrough of the Month.
Jack’s mum had noticed that he had difficulty with common recurring words before joining the programme. He was very good at phonics, but had difficulty in applying rules when it came to seeing the word on paper. Jack would often guess at words, and confused the letters “b” and “d”.
Jack still has a little way to go with his confidence in his reading, and continues to work on his eye-tracking. But we hope this award will give him the confidence to believe that he is now a reader, which was only further proved after seeing how well he was reading one of our difficult non-fiction books on Skype. He also read a Spiderman comic the other day, which is just amazing.
Congratulations Jack! His mum tells us his story here.
Jack
“In order to read, Jack has had to overcome a number of obstacles: visual, auditory processing and memory difficulties. Despite a good knowledge of phonics, reading used to make no sense to him. When confronted with a word that did not follow the phonetic rules he would make a guess based on similar words he already knew. Prior to beginning Easyread, his self-esteem was very low and he would not read at home.
Easyread has provided everything that Jack needs to help him read and spell. The lessons are short and achievable and he loves the games. He learned the characters very quickly as the strong visual images were combined with funny rhymes. The constant praise has given Jack confidence, and the prizes are very motivating.
As soon as we started Easyread, Jack started to read words around him – Morrisons, McDonalds, etc. The constant practise of words like “the” and “of” has meant that he started to read them automatically. He will now confidently attempt words like “atmosphere” and “scientist”, and quite often he will manage to decode them.
The fact that the words are introduced in visual images then repeated with letters the next lesson really helps strengthen his memory and we see this improving all the time. Easyread has made an enormous difference to Jack and to our family.”
And here’s what Jack himself has to say about the programme…
“Hi my name is Jack. I have done 120 lessons of Easyread. This is what I like about Easyread:
1. The games – because they are fun and not boring. My favourite is Spell Drive because you drive around in a car and you can slide on the grass.
Fighter Mission is one of my favourites as well because it is a bit like reading but attacking other spaceships.
2. The reading – it is also really fun because you get to see pictures.
3. I really like the prizes. My favourite so far is the little microscope. I can’t wait until I get the fart machine and the helicopter!
Easyread has made my reading much better now. I have started to read bigger stories at bedtime. My favourite is Spiderman and second is my football annual.”
– Maddie