Even though we’ve had a very busy month (thank you again for all of your support during our Virgin Media Business Awards campaign!) we couldn’t forget our Breakthrough Readers of the month!
So please join us in congratulating our secret agents who have been awarded their Breakthrough Badges for April and May, and celebrate the excellent progress they’ve made.
Molly
6 year-old Molly joined the Easyread programme in January of this year. Whilst Molly was fairly confident in her reading, she would still reverse words such as “was”, and she struggled with the letters “b” and “d”. Molly would often reverse numbers in maths too. She also found spelling difficult.
After around 100 lessons on the course, Molly has now finished the programme.
Her mum says that Molly is “doing well in her reading and is much more confident. We [Molly’s parents] feel that Easyread has given her the boost she needed to help with reading, spelling, and even little things like putting finger spaces in her writing at school.
Her teacher said she feels that ‘everything has come together’ for Molly.”
Well done Molly!
Taylor
13 year-old Taylor’s parents had been told by two specialists that he has dyslexia. Taylor struggled with spelling, and his parents had tried various curriculums in their homeschool and had struggled with each one. In standardized testing, Taylor also received low scores for reading comprehension. He still flipped his “b”s and “ds” from time to time.
After around 90 lessons of Easyread, Taylor had his results in from the yearly Standford 10 testing. Taylor saw improved scores in all subjects, which was exciting as his mum said they had been “seeing scores “plateau” over the last couple of years.” Other areas of Taylor’s learning had gone up by 5 grade levels! Taylor is still currently spelling at a 3rd grade level, but we wouldn’t expect to see big changes in spelling at this stage of the course.
Congratulations Taylor and we can’t wait to hear all about the spelling improvements next year!
Greyson
Before 13 year-old Greyson started Easyread, poor spelling was the most noticeable factor that Greyson was struggling with reading and writing. Driving around town, Greyson would also read street signs or store signs incorrectly.
His mum said that when there are one or two words standing alone, it was difficult for him to read. But bizarrely, if he had those words within a context of a sentence, he would most likely read it correctly.
When reading out loud, Greyson was known to skip or get the small “unimportant” words wrong. And yet, his reading comprehension seemed fine.
Greyson had also been diagnosed with mild dyslexia.
But at lesson 90, we received this wonderful message from Greyson’s mum, after receiving the results from their yearly Standford 10 tests: “He improved in every subject and surprisingly, Greyson made a big jump in math scores. I bet Easyread has something to do with that? Greyson got a “below average” score in spelling, but we were expecting that considering where we’re at in the program. However, that score still slightly improved over last year.”
An improvement in accuracy when reading questions, improved eye-tracking and a general confidence boost, will most likely have helped Greyson in his maths scores, I’m sure. Well done Greyson! Again, we can’t wait to hear how well the spelling has progressed in next year’s scores.
Ryan
10 year-old Ryan struggled with focus when he read. Before Easyread, he wanted to go faster with his reading, so he guessed at words and would then get frustrated when his parents had to help him. They had tried conventional phonics programmes, reading easy to read stories, sight words, but nothing seemed to resonate for Ryan. His mum wanted to unlock him to be able to unlock his full potential as she said, “He is very smart, but is so frustrated with reading that it is causing a strain on all learning.”
Ryan realised early on in the course that “the black words on the white page hurt [his] head but if [he did] it with the blue [he] can see the words and read them”, and since then his confidence really rocketed (you can read more about Ryan’s contrast sensitivity here). Around lesson 120, Ryan’s mum told us that “he is really starting to take off with his reading! It is exciting to see!”
It really is exciting to see! Well done Ryan, keep up the great work!
Rose
When Rose began Easyread, her mum told us that her reading was coming on very well, but said that this reading was mostly sight reading rather than sounding out. In her home-school lessons Rose seemed to be managing well with quite complex books. They hadn’t focused on writing too much, so they were looking to improve on that too.
At around lesson 90, we received this message from Rose’s mum:
“Easyread has been really fantastic for Rose (11), increasing her confidence and finally giving her the ability to unlock the mystery of breaking down words that had eluded her for so long. Such a helpful and supportive team too. (We kept that bit in J)”
Congratulations Rose! Such great progress in such a short space of time. Can’t wait to hear how the spelling comes on now.
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. And do let us know if you’re having any worries around this stage too – we’re here to help every child achieve their breakthrough.
…
As you know, every month we are picking a Breakthrough Reader of the month (or months, in this case!) whose journey has stood out for us for one reason or another.
We’ve chosen 11 year-old Kate from Australia as our Breakthrough Reader of the month. You can read all about her story below, and see the photos from her zoo experience day to celebrate!
Kate
Before Easyread, 11 year-old Kate didn’t like to read anything. Her mum had read to her every day for years, and her verbal communication was of a high standard. Similarly, her comprehension was also very high, if the text was read to her.
But when it came to reading for herself, Kate would guess the story from the context of picture books, rather than accurately decoding and reading the words.
Kate had also been tested for dyslexia and Auditory Processing Disorder, but both tests came back negative. The testing did identify Kate as having significant difficulties with hearing and spelling blends. Kate herself also reported she was unable to see the letters in her head when she was trying to spell a word.
Kate is a bright and engaged student, whose teachers reported as writing fabulous creative stories, and was able to structure persuasive text. But Kate still found writing difficult, and was unable to spell simple words. Kate could learn spellings for tests, but she would soon forget them the next day.
Her spelling in her free writing was starting to become less phonetic, so it was increasingly difficult for teachers to understand her work. They were becoming concerned with how she would do in all her subjects next year, if her spelling didn’t improve.
Kate’s confidence was beginning to suffer as the learning gap widened.
On the day she signed up for our free trial, Kate’s mum said “I am really holding a lot of hope that Easyread will be the solution…”
So we were delighted to get this message from her at lesson 89, just ahead of schedule for the 90 lesson breakthrough:
“I am writing to let you know there has been a significant breakthrough in Kate’s reading. At lesson 89 when the story section changed to paragraph reading, Kate surprised herself by reading the whole page uninterrupted!
From this point she has been literally reading everything, from the back of tissue boxes to ingredient lists on food products – everything she can get her hands on. She has started on her first ever chapter book and is engrossed in the story, loving retelling me the progress after every few pages.
It is a marvellous and wonderful thing to see. I am so very grateful for your system. Kate’s confidence is improving daily.”
We love that Kate is now reading everything and everything she can get her hands on. Well done from all the team here!
And here is Kate enjoying her experience day at the zoo:
Handling an echidna
Congratulations to all of our amazing secret agents, and to all those who have completed the course too! We’re so proud of you.
Maddie and all the team