I am confident that her decoding has improved incredibly over the past 2-3 weeks. She certainly has no trouble with the page without letters. I think she is now decoding more than trying to read the letters alone, I think she is beginning to find it more reliable. She does this strange thing where on the page without letters she sees the ant and presumably her brain is giving her the picture of the letter a which she is then reading as the ape or vice versa. But still on the whole she is really decoding beautifully now.
A lot of the time she is reading without sounding each character out. We are also able to do the lesson comfortably in the set time.
A’s teacher has told me that her reading has improved dramatically, specially blending the sounds into words. I had mentioned about the program when we started a few weeks ago and she said that there is no doubt that his is what is helping her.
We have started reading books again maybe 2/3 times a week and I too can see that her reading is improving.
We tried to do the eye tracking exercises but only got to do perhaps 5/6 times for about 5/6 days (mea culpa!) but I am pretty sure this did help her. I plan do try the 10 days again in the next half term holidays.
As I said before, I am pretty sure that A is benefitting from the psychological boost of realising that she is getting better at reading because she trusts the program. She does say she hates it every day but she says that about most things (6 going on 16!) and i think there is a bit of a love/hate thing going on 😉 We certainly do not have fights at the computer or anything like that, the sessions all go very smoothly and although I have a routine for doing the program I will adapt to her changing moods as applicable.
I have wracked my brains to find a good way of delivering feedback on my experience with Easyread so far. I became dispirited when I tried to find a solution to help my daughter who was struggling with reading at school. Only in year 1 and I could already see that little learning sparkle of enthusiasm die out in her eye. Trying to wrap my head around the difficulties that came from within her and those that came from language itself being illogical, I couldn’t really see a way forward. 6 weeks in and the Easyread program is exceeding my expectations, not only in the progress I am noting with my child’s reading and her approach and confidence but also in realising the depth of thinking and effort and knowledge that has gone into making this program which I suspect to be extraordinary. Any praise I could give would only scratch the surface of how I feel about this program! Once the first few teething weeks are over and that trust takes root between the team and the parent, the child and the parent and the child and the program a successful reading recipe is well underway! You get your money’s worth and some. Thank you Easyread.
— M (A, age 6)