thanks a lot for giving me the happiest birthday – I love easyread!
– Lewis

The first thing is that James is reading and his rapid progress took off when he got into Easyread. He has now been told that he is reading to the level of a 10 – 11-year-old despite being 7. So the system has certainly worked for James.
º The way the course works in short snippets each day has proven to be sucessful. It is just long enough without being tedious over a 6-month term.
º James just loved the incentives; not just the prizes (which he thought were fantastic), but also the certificates too. James has had me laminate all his certificates to keep them safe forever.
º Unfortunately, the i-shuffle has never worked properly. I have never been able to download to it via Apple. Since commencing Easyread, James has really got into listening to story-cds and particularly loves some of the Roald Dahl stories and he was hoping that I could download these, but it doesn’t work.
º The first and second stages of Easyread were good for James, although he did think the nursery-rhyme themes were a bit young for him in stage 2.
º The pictures are a brilliant idea. He felt such a sense of achievement each day when he could recall the pictures from the previous day.
º The Eggy game and the tracking exercises have also been really good for James’ eye development.
º Unfortunately, he did not enjoy the other stories at all, such as the Seal story and Ungar, and we hit a real low at that point. James really did not want to do Easyread at all. I did not put any pressure on him as I felt this would be self-defeating, but we were in danger of James not completing the course. I used a few prizes to bribe him into persevering in the end. Fortunately, I found the “How to Train Your Dragon” books just prior to the film being released earlier in the year and this replaced Easyread largely during this time, although of course he missed the de-coding pictures which have been a huge help throughout.
º Also, James felt that there was a very long period without any prizes during this time from Easyread and he got fed up.
º When James was put onto the Riddles section, it all changed completely. You will see that he logged on each day and he loved doing the sessions. He said that he wished that the stories stages didn’t exist but were replaced instead with the riddles and jokes. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to create them all!
º The spy theme has also proven to be successful. He wasn’t sure what to think at first, but one of his teachers told me that James had told her all about Easyread and the fact that he is a spy on a mission, so it clearly made an impact with him.
º David, the look on James’ face this morning was a joy to see and his sense of achievement at finishing the entire Easyread course sent him out on Cloud 9 this morning. Thank you very much indeed.

Kindest regards,

Pennie

Ariaana is doing well with her Easyread daily lessons. Yesterday she said she likes them. She manages to get through all parts of them with near perfect scores each day. I am amazed at how she quickly she can decode the “icon only” Three LIttle Pigs stories. Her progress has been noted at school by her remedial reading teacher. I am still holding my breath for her to reach out to read a chapter book from start to finish. Thanks for all of your support.

I would certainly recommend the program to others but also tell them that I found it something that I had to supervise the whole time, not something my child would do properly on his own. He did play the games on his own. Of course this is well worth it if you want a child that can read.

Thanks again. It is a great service you offer and you have always been available to answer my questions.

Nicole

It is really great. Lara was lying in bed reading out loud to herself last night. She told me easy read has taught her the sounds which her reading support teacher at her old school hasnt been able to help (they were using thrass).

Katherine has just completed lesson 20 and she is flying! She read the text quickly, sounding out all the words and NO guessing. The game ‘Spotter’ she was clearly using the Easyread characters and decoded them in record time. I AM SO PLEASED. Just a note though she has thoroughly enjoyed all the games apart from ‘Letter Quest’ which she did yesterday. It seemed slow and she was bored by the end of the game – although she had to finish it! I have not had to ask her more than once to do her lesson and it normally is the other way round with Katherine asking me. Looking forward to the next lesson with my happy ( sometimes impatient) Daughter, thank you. Joanne

Ryan’s reading has improved noticeably. In May his reading age was 7 years and 2 months, 20 months behind his actual age. I have just reassessed him for his end of year assessment and his reading age is now 8 years and 7 months, 9 months behind his actual age. So in 6 months he has caught up by 11 months.

He is not sounding out every word as the more familiar ones – the, in, as, at, he recognizes even in picture format only. But I try to make sure he sounds out the others. Now when he is confronted with a word he doesn’t know he will attack it by sounding out first rather than just giving up like he used to.

– Jenny

 We are very impressed with the system.  Alex is doing very well. He is consistently sounding out words in EasyRead and hard words in normal print as well.

Many thanks
Claire

I have completed my Gold level!
I am really happy that I have got this far and I liked the course and loved most of the Games!
but there were some I was not keen on like MUSHROOM PICKER!

From Emily

In one word, your system is awesome – Mohammed

We are happy to say Thomas is reading very well now and no longer is requiring tutoring externally from school. We were extremely pleased with your system but as he has progressed so well and he is kept very busy with school work we feel he does not need to continue to participate in this program. We feel the system was a wonderful help in both his ability to read and also in boosting his confidence.
Thanks again Sam

Easyread has been the only system that Joe has responded to.  By the end of his reception year he was totally demoralised, desparate to learn to read and could not grasp any aspect of reading.  He knew some of the basic phoenics.  He is now reading via the charcters and is able to read very basic words in his school books.  His confidence has returned but he does find it hard work.

He loves the games and the characters.  We are both strugling on some of the sounds but otherwise Joe is able to sound out the words and with small words blend them together.

The support has been good both via the phone and messages.  Through them I feel confident in helping Joe through the course despite his difficulties.

Everything seems to be going well thanks.  We’ve been a bit sporadic with lessons over last fortnight or do due to various activities away but essentially she is managing fine.  No guessing and is applying her ‘Easyread’ skills to ordinary books and words in the real world alot now. – Thanks to your system its really helping enourmously.  Thank you.

Rebecca

I’d  like to say how happy we are with his progress since starting  
the easyread program. Apart from getting faster and more confident in  
his approach to each lesson, his reading skills seem to have taken a  
significant step forward. He seems to be able to work out unknown  
words more easily, which has led to more fluent reading. Consequently  
between us we are able to get through a much larger amount of text,  
without him getting fed up.

Previous to starting the program his rate of improvement for the  
previous year had been negligible.

Best wishes

Paul

In Stewart’s jotter from his learning support teacher… Stewart is doing fab with his reading – the newly found confidence he has is brilliant. I hope this says it all!
– Mairi

All I can say, is thanks for your support through this. I am so please I found your program and despite the unfortunate classroom situation, Courtney in my opinion has made amazing progress. I now have a child who loves to read to me and throughly enjoys reading in bed to herself before going to sleep. So thanks again to you all.
Helen

Sam is improving so much with his reading, he will now sit and read for 20 mins without complaining and is obviously finding it sooo much easier. He completes his easy read lessons very quickly now and is alittle bored with the games but i try to encourage him to do as much as I can. We are thrilled with his progress so far. Havent had as much succes with the eyetracking exercises but will keep working at it as I think this is an area Sam definitely needs to concentrate on.

am enjoying watching sam discover how easy it is to read!!!

thaks
Philippa

Lewis has picked up the characters pretty well so far, rarely making mistakes in identifying them. He and me still at time have to work out which sound is the correct one for the word or context. When he does a second run on his own he manages well though obvoiusly remembering from the day before helps. He has told me it is helping him at school though he can get confused as school operates differently. His teacher is aware he’s doing easyread and when he told her ,funnily enough another classmate was beside him and said she too was doing easyread which he liked. I’m glad he felt this way as it means he’s got a positive attitude about it in school as well as at home which bodes well for further learning.
Cheers alastair

So far I have been very pleased with Kurtis’ progress.
When he first saw level 2 he did get a bit stressed out about all the reading, but I told him not to panic and just to sound the words out. He now happily decodes all the words with out any trouble.
I’ve noticed even with his reading homework from school he doesn’t mind doing it. we just slowly decode all the words.

– Sharon

Kelci still enjoying her lessons and has more confidence at school. She stood up in assembly in front of the whole school this morning and recited a whole sentence that she had memorized.She memorized it by decoding it on her own,and is very proud of her achievement as are we and her form teacher was stunned! The only thing that is different is that she is doing easyread. A big thankyou from both of us. We are also doing the eye tracking exercise daily.

As we said before his progress has been great. He is more confident in his reading and therefore in all aspects of schoolwork, and has started to enjoy reading as recreation. The course has delivered in every way that you promised it would.
Thankyou.
Jane, Alan and Jamie

My husband and I are definitely noticing an improvement in Matt’s reading. When Matt does the lessons I have noticed that the amount of guessing he does has really reduced. He is sounding the words out more and his frustration level has reduced too.

We have noticed that Matt is trying to read more outside of Easyread for example, reading his math textbook, road signs and messages in video games, etc. We see this as a very big and positive step for Mattew.

I have to admit my husband and I were a bit skeptical about this program at first but we decided that since we didn’t have anything to loose it was worth a try. Our experience has been very positive to date. Matthew is making real progress. I also beleive one of the reasons why Matt is doing so well is that he is able to do the program in the comfort of his home at his own pace in short lessons. Driving somewhere for tutoring and consuming 1.5 hours at a time several times a week is very taxing on a child who is already overwhelmed with trying to keep up with school. Removing that stress has been very positive for Matthew.

Thanks again,
Pam

Alex is progressing really well and has managed to pass two levels at school within the space of 6 months.  He is now one of the top six readers in his class and this is due to his hard work, my input and Easyread for getting him to this stage.  He is now flying through the short lessons and is actually saying “is that it” so this tells me his confidence has grown incredibly.
Lesley

Regarding Jamie’s progress, in short it has been pretty impressive. You remarked quite early in the programme that his transfer from reading in his lessons to reading short items which he saw on TV or in papers and magazines was taking place earlier than expected. Well this has continued, to the extent that some weeks ago he asked us to buy a book which he saw in a shop, and subsequently asked for more books in the series. (Diary of a wimpy kid). Having read a few of these he has gone on to other books and reads more or less anything he see’s. The biggest benefit of course is in his education. Where he had been severely disadvantaged, he is now very much up to speed with his classmates. He has gained in confidence and now has days when he says he has enjoyed being at school. A minor miracle in itself. Easyread has been worth every penny. It has benefited Jamie immeasurably and we can only say thankyou. Your style of teaching and the methods involved have been perfect for him. In the last two or three weeks he has shown a flagging interest but has been willing enough to press on with a little encouragement. His reading still isn’t perfect, but we bear in mind that he is still only a 10 year old. He wants to add something himself so I will now leave him to it. For myself, thankyou.  – Alan
I think Easyread has helped a lot with my reading. I have been reading road signs and been picking book’s up and reading them. I have been reading pretty much anything I see. But the best thing I have done is I saw a book in a shop and liked the look of it so I got it and then all of a sudden I started to read. It is called Diary of a wimpy kid. All thanks to you David and Easyread .

Yours
Sincerely
Jamie

Just an update on how Harry is going.

His teacher has just come back from leave & school holidays. She has 1 month away from the kids. She told me this morning how impressed she is with Harry’s progress over the last month.
She had his group yesterday for reading and said how well he was reading. He was 3 pages ahead of rest of the group & sounding out words he didn’t know to work them out.
I had his group today and could see same. He would even put his hand up to tell kids the words if they were unable to read them.
I can’t put into words how happy and relieved I am that Harry is not only keeping up but, progressing past many of the other kids.A task I thought impossible until he started Easyread!
Cheers,
Cassie