Parent Reviews of Easyread
Our most recent reviews:
THANK YOU!
I am very happy with the system. Mercedes is eager to read now and taking out books with less pictures. She reads more fluently than before! Thank you for getting her confidence back! THANK YOU!
– A
I just wanted to say Thank You !!!!
I just wanted to say Thank You !!!! for all your support over the course we under took and to let you know that M wants to stop her lessons. School is winding down and the summer is fast approaching, She wants to do several activities this summer and wants to read different books from the library. I’m not sure how to go about ending the lessons. She has improved so much, it amazes
me how much she’s learned.
Please let me know what I need to do to cancel easy read. (she did recieve the helicopter yesterday, but hasn’t opened it yet)
Thank You once again!!!!
J
He has progressed so well with this program…
He has progressed so well with this program, and his confidence has bloomed. Thank you for all of your continued support and messages. I have always read them, he thinks it is neat that “you” care about how he is doing. It is not just Mama seeing what is going on, he is accountable to “you” as well. It really has taken the pressure off of me in pushing.
Thanks again,
J
Farewell and thank you…
We would like to finish with Easyread now. The program has been great and now Chelsea is ready to move onto normal books, and she now has some glasses to help resolve her tracking problems too.
Easyread has improved her spelling and reading greatly and has bought her up to her year level. So it is time to say farewell to the program and THANK YOU to you for the progress she has made.
– J
This would not have been possible without Easyread!
Just wanted to share some great news with our EasyRead team. Today in class, the teacher asked if anyone would like to volunteer to read aloud. Boldly, D. raised his hand. He selected a book and, although softly and quietly, read to his class! I was so excited to hear this news today.
Thank you EasyRead Team for helping us. This would not have been possible without your help.
– T
All in all very impressed…
Things seem to be going well. Jackson seems to be starting to transfer his decoding skills to other reading – in fact he has been moved up a reading level at school this week – which he seemed very excited by.
All in all I am very impressed with the Easyread System.
– N
Delighted…
Dear David,
I am delighted to get to level 4 finally. I can’t wait to get the remote control helicopter. I think my reading is getting better.
-Agent K
Update on Agent Joseph
Just to update you on how Joseph is getting on, he’s still doing OK with the lessons although we did miss a couple of days at the weekend as we were really busy (enjoying the sunshine!). I have noticed a difference in the fluency of his reading and he has a much more advanced book from school (by ‘advanced’ I mean that there are chapters and about 5/6 lines of writing on each page. His current book has 60 pages which is a first and he doesn’t seem fazed by this either.)
– V
Case Study: Artistic, lack of fluency, low comprehension
Closing the literacy gap: how artistic Alice’s reading went from stop to go, go, go!
The Problem
Alice loved stories. From a very young age, mum and daughter started the routine of sitting down together each evening to devour a bedtime story. Katherine, Alice’s mother, was delighted to see how hungry she was to be read to, learn new things, and engage her vibrant imagination in tales of magic and adventure.
However, reading on her own was something Alice never wanted to do. In fact, she hated it.
This contradiction really started to confuse and worry Katherine when Alice was 7 years old, because it was getting steadily worse. Alice also became intensely frustrated with any homework that involved reading, and pretty soon all homework became torturous. The whole family dreaded it.
From what Katherine could tell, Alice’s reading was incredibly stilted. She would re-read lines over and over, lack any kind of fluency and finish a page with a very thinly veiled understanding of what she had just been reading. Not to mention tears and tantrums.
Spelling meanwhile, seemed to have come to a complete standstill.
So Katherine set to work looking for a solution. At first they came across the Toe by Toe system, and decided to give it a go. The phonetic approach seemed helpful in theory. But pretty soon it became known to them as “death by Toe by Toe”! The dull as dishwater approach left creative-minded Alice feeling utterly unmotivated.
It was during a routine Google search that Katherine then came across Easyread. After just a few minutes on the website, she really felt that this system would fit the bill for her daughter – scientifically informed, built on experience and credible. She had a clear sense that a lot of thought and planning had gone into the whole setup, which was reassuring and counter to other systems she had found.
The Solution
From the very first lesson Alice was head over heels. And so was Mum! The value of being able to call the team any time and discuss concerns and strategies was incredibly helpful. The Easyread Support team knew what she was talking about, and offered confident practical advice. No longer did Alice’s reading conundrum seem strange and baffling; Katherine now understood why her child had experienced these problems and what she needed to do to change that.
As the weeks went by, Alice’s decoding ability was coming on nicely, and she looked forward to her lessons and prizes. Easyread was part of the furniture! But something was then unearthed that Katherine had NEVER considered as being a potential issue for her daughter: eye-tracking weakness.
The team recommended a set of simple physical exercises, and Alice’s reaction made it clear that this was an issue for her. All this time she had been struggling to move her eyes from one word to the next. No wonder reading had her clenching her fists in frustration!
It was a revelation. Ten days later, following a good dose of determination (and some Sylvanian Families bribery), Alice was back on track.
Having a background in medical science, Katherine found David Morgan’s research, findings and general philosophy on helping children learn to read, revolutionary. Learning more about the auditory processing system and how the brain performs the complex act of reading was incredibly useful in allowing the mum of three to help her daughter effectively. Since completing this program, Katherine has used her newly acquired understanding of the value of decoding to help steer her younger child down the correct reading pathway.
Of course Katherine knew that generating positive psychology was going to be important in helping her daughter to learn. And yet, the Easyread team took this method to a whole new level…and boy did it work! To start with, the verbal encouragement and physical reward system was a real driving force for Alice. As time went on and she became more capable, the initial rewards became less of a requirement. From an emotional perspective, this was something Katherine was incredibly happy to see. Alice was now comfortable in her own skin, trusting in her ability to read.
The Result
Alice can now read aloud fluently and with expression. She has excelled in the reading programme the school have been using, having accelerated like a rocket through the various levels. So much so that she recently qualified for a school trip to a book festival!
She enjoys nothing more than sitting in her room reading independently. Her spelling is also steadily improving. Since completing Easyread Accelerator, they have begun working Alice through the Spellmagic booster materials as well, which she is enjoying enormously.
Before beginning Easyread in 2011, Alice was between 1.5 and 2 years behind with her reading and writing. In her other subjects such as Maths and Science, she was at least 2 years above the average. Now, her reading has come so far that she is comfortably average for her age. And what’s more, Katherine knows that this is far from the end of the story!
So what is Mum’s final word on Easyread?
“I cannot thank you enough David, and all your staff, for setting up such an incredibly helpful and effective system. I have recommended this to several people since, including teachers. To my mind there is a distinct lack of awareness, along with endless queues for educational psychologists. But this system really empowered us within our home to make a huge difference to our daughter’s life. Now pass me the hankies (and champagne)!!”
—-
Laura O’Sullivan has enjoyed watching Ailsa shine, in her role as a System Coach for Easyread, an online phonics course specially developed for children with highly visual learning styles, dyslexia, auditory processing problems and more. www.easyreadsystem.com
We really think your system is great…
Catherine’s reading is coming along nicely, still slow progress but it is progress! We really think your system is great. A few weeks ago Catherine asked me if she could start going to bed with a notebook and pencil so that as she reads in bed, she can write the words she can’t read for me to show her in the morning. And she now (without prompting) likes trying to read posters etc when we’re out and about. Thanks a million!
– S
It was good to talk with the Easyread staff…
Easyread has helped Daniel sound out words. Its also helped increase his confidence with reading. The eye tracker picked up that he has vision problems and so today he is going to see an Optometrist recommended by Easyread.
Also it was good to talk with the Easyread staff about Auditory Processing Disorder and other barriers to progress with reading.
– L
You have helped us understand so much…
We just can’t thank you all at Easyread enough. Henry really struggles at times and you have helped both Henry and us understand so much more. We are finding school can be most unhelpful at times, even though they know there are problems. So again, thank you so much.
– A
Incredible.
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)
Exceeding expectations
Agent E is confidently reading his sister’s level two phonetic books and is even trying to read level 3 but getting frustrated with himself as he needs help with this and is not the kind of little boy who likes being helped!!! I have of course explained that he will soon get to the stage where he can read with even more ease, he tends to set his personal goals very high, I know this sounds ridiculous talking about a four year old!!! In any case he is enjoying the process, on the one or two occasions where he has not wanted to read I have just had to drop in the Helicopter reward thought and he immediately changes his mind 😉
I am really happy with his progress so far and the program is already exceeding my expectations.
– M (E, age 4)
Utterly Brilliant…
Hi Sarah,
Thought I’d give you an update on how the boys are both doing.
Thomas (10) is now reading in a completely different way than before. It’s quite remarkable & totally astonishing! It’s apparent that he is now looking at each word and decoding them into sounds.
I hadn’t realised it before, but – aided by any available clues – he must have been skimming across the text, half guessing / half sight reading the words. That annoying habit (to me anyway!) of getting the little words wrong has almost totally gone. His spelling is starting to improve too.
Thanks to your prompting, we’ve also picked up on Thomas’ light sensitivity and we’re in the process of sorting out some tinted glasses with the nice optometrist that you recommended. Hopefully, day a school should tire his eyes less when he has them.
Ben (7) didn’t “need” easyread in the same way as his brother, but was keen to join in the fun! (Though, to be honest, we did have a few concerns that he might develop down the same path as Thomas.)
“Need” or not, he has moved up several Oxford Reading Tree levels, and is now above the reading level required by SATS at the end of year 2 (2A).
The teachers have remarked that his concentration has improved substantially over the last couple of months. I place the credit for this on the eye-tracking exercises as well as on the tangential benefits of improved reading.
In both cases, both sets of teachers (they are at different schools – long story) believe that the boys’ recent improvement proves that they were absolutely right not to give them any extra help at school.. Slap-hand-on-head.. now count to ten..
Finally, you might be interested to know that the free-loader on the course (aka mum) has also improved. It’s noticeable that I can read unfamiliar words more confidently. Ha! will you improve my spelling too??
Thank you so very much for solving my sons’ reading issues. Success begets success and as they improve they are becoming more confident and happier at school.
Utterly brilliant – what more can I say?
(Please change the names if you use this as a testimonial.)
Best wishes,
Donna
We are hooked…
Hi Sarah,
We are now on lesson 50 and my son is still hooked – although no longer rising at 6am to do Easyread. His fluency has grown enormously since lesson 15, and so to his confidence. He is now happily re-reading each page twice having initially struggled to make it through once in the time recommended. The most miraculous aspect of your course is that it has transformed his attitude to learning to read. From an insurmountable and torturous journey that he would rather not take, it has become a satisfying daily exercise that brings us both pleasure! We have both been empowered! Thank you. Yesterday, for the first time, he read an early learner book to us unaided and unprompted. The only suggestion I would make in terms of structure is that he is beginning to tire of the Monkey puzzle game.
Many thanks
– A
First time she read by choice…
I just wanted to share with you that the first time tonight Lydia has chosen to read to me before she went to bed. This has never happened before. Yes she got stuck on some words and I think she may have read a few words wrong and probably wasn’t as fluent as she should be at her age but I am so proud of her and hope this is a step in the right direction. It was just so nice to lie back and listen to her read me a story without any tears and tantrums. I feel Lydia has come along way in only a relative small amount of lessons and looking forward to the time when she can read as well as her friends and l know Lydia feels the same.
– J, after only 43 lessons
Easyread should be everywhere…
Our school is ‘ under review’ at the moment( this is a process our schools go through every four years). One aspect of this process involves the reviewer interviewing a panel of students. Agent E was on the panel.
I was told that when the meeting had concluded and the others had left, E took the reviewer aside and said that she (the reviewer) hadn’t asked about Easyread. E then told her that to improve the school E thought all the children should do Easyread because it had helped her so much!!!
I was amazed and thrilled at how much this has meant to her, particularly after we went through quite a slump with E finding it so hard.
Case Study: Late talker, sight-reader, mild dyslexia
Mum Belinda knew all too well the suffering her dyslexic son was experiencing. But just when they thought they had asked all possible questions, Easyread provided the answer they never expected or dreamed of…
The Problem
Cameron was a late talker, being almost 3 by the time he started articulating full sentences. And yet from day one it was clear that he was a very bright and inquisitive child. He was always active too; he’d walked at nine months old.
At pre-school nursery Cameron was keen and able to learn the alphabet. He then went on to successfully identify all his letters by the time he started reception. Mum Belinda, who had some haunting memories of learning to read as a child, was relieved to see that her son was learning at the desired pace for a typical child of his age.
Towards the end of reception year however, things changed almost inexplicably. Belinda began to notice that Cameron wasn’t managing to memorise any words after more than a day. Also, words like “was” he would spell, read or write as “saw”, and he was unable to distinguish correctly between a “b” and “d” when reading. Before long he was guessing at every word and getting roughly 50% of them wrong.
Cameron was doing well in other subjects such as Mathematics, but as far as reading progress was concerned it was as if he had reached the ceiling and just couldn’t push beyond it. Belinda could tell this was not down to a lack of effort on Cameron’s part either. And what’s more, she knew exactly how he felt, because she had experienced exactly the same thing!
Cameron and Belinda had always read a bedtime story, but pretty soon mum couldn’t help but notice that they were always circling around the same books from the same level. Then midway through year 1, Cameron started to actively hate it, and mum and dad had a real struggle on their hands to even get Cameron to try and read a page of a story he knew extremely well.
Cameron’s was able to read and write, but he was working at a very basic level. He was more than a year behind his classmates, and worst of all he had started to notice, which was now dramatically affecting his self-confidence.
One day Cameron came home from school and with tears in his eyes identified himself as being “rubbish”. From that moment forward Belinda knew they needed to do something. And yet, at a small Prep school, the understanding and funding needed to support the problem simply wasn’t available. The school agreed to lower their expectations for Cameron’s homework, but as the demand grew for more independent work in class, Belinda could do no more than watch on as her son’s self-confidence spiralled out of control.
By the end of Year 2 in July 2012, the Headmistress called Cameron’s parents in for a meeting. She started by saying that she agreed something was very wrong with Cameron’s reading. An exasperated Belinda nodded her head eagerly, and waited for the long-awaited suggestion that they change the method of teaching being used. But that suggestion never came. Instead, she recommended Cameron would benefit from a psychological assessment, which unsurprisingly, confirmed that Cameron was mildly dyslexic. At the time of the assessment, Cameron had a reading level of 3%, 47% below the state school average.
So what now?
The school arranged one to one tuition for Cameron, which didn’t seem to help at all. The build-up to each session was always exactly the same; Cameron would get stressed out, then angry, then upset and therefore totally in the wrong state of mind to achieve anything. It was a vicious circle.
Belinda was pleased that they finally had this diagnosis under their belts, and yet just when they needed a change of direction more than ever before, everything was being approached in exactly the same way. She was also keen that the school not lose sight of the fact that despite his setbacks, her son had clear strengths. For one thing he was incredibly visual, with a fantastic memory for anything he saw such as a film or show. Belinda also observed that he could retain long and difficult words better than he could small high frequency words. So things weren’t all bad, right?
It was the start of the summer holidays in 2012 that Belinda locked herself in the study for a solid three days of online research into dyslexia. As ever with the internet, there was a lot of amazing information, but not much at all in the way of practical assistance.
Somewhere along the way she found herself on the Easyread homepage, and instantly it felt as if there was a clear solution to the difficulties she was seeing with her son. As soon as they tried the trial lesson, both Belinda and Cameron felt such relief. The injection of confidence was instant, and just what Cameron needed. Without delay Belinda signed them up.
The Solution
In terms of attitude, the turnaround for Cameron was so immediate that Mum and Dad could hardly believe it! Suddenly their son’s perpetually negative feelings towards reading, and in fact all elements of his school life, had disappeared.
The fact that Cameron only did just 15 minutes a day suited his learning style perfectly. He also found it extremely easy to remember the Trainertext characters, but knowing that they could take it at their own pace if they needed to was reassuring. The games drew Cameron in and he didn’t even realise he was learning. The fun was on, and the pressure was most certainly off!
What’s more, Belinda found that she could learn alongside her son. He felt such a surge of confidence every time he needed to correct a mistake that Mum had made! Outside of the lessons, the guidance the team provided in dealing with his eye-tracking and contrast sensitivity helped his general ability to follow text. After years of half-baked explanations, it felt like they had gained so much from just one source: the Easyread website.
The Result
For Belinda, the results were not an amazing “flash in the pan”, however she did see a steady progress turn into an avalanche of successes. After week six on the course, every day Cameron was building up not just confidence, but more than that, something very subtle was going on in the way he now decoded words. Instead of being sealed objects of terror, books became something fun to look at and open. Classwork improved and all his teachers noted progress throughout year 3. In 8 months, Cameron had progressed by an entire year.
And the fun didn’t stop there! Even now Cameron surprises himself at how well he can read.
A few weeks ago, the 8 year old began at a new state school. On his first day, despite being a little nervous, he actually volunteered to write on the blackboard and read out loud in front of the entire class! As far as Belinda is concerned, her son NEVER would have done this before Easyread.
And as for Belinda…“I would recommend this course to anyone, not just dyslexics. I hope Cameron’s results speak for themselves”. They most certainly do!
—–
Laura O’Sullivan is a System Coach for Easyread, an online phonics course that works with kids with dyslexia, auditory processing disorder, highly visual learning styles and more, to provide reading help and spelling help. Easyread’s mission to help a child to read has been running for a decade.
Very pleasing…
Aden is making real progress with his reading now and this is now finally beginning to show in his spelling too. Very pleasing.
– B
Very positive impact on schoolwork
Caleb is still decoding very well, he appears to race through the picture words as quick as he does letter words. He has not lost any interest in completing the lessons and it appears to be having a very positive impact on his reading and writing at school. Caleb has just had a very good parents evening,and although i am not aware of his actual reading level the teacher is really pleased with his progress.
– E
His reading has improved greatly…
Thanks everyone for your support. Christian and I have enjoyed the process. He cannot wait for his helicopter prize! His reading has improved greatly and he is doing much better compared to 214 lessons/10 months ago. Should you wish to contact me at any time about how he is progressing overall please feel free to do so!
Thanks again and we will be recommending Easyread to our friends.
– M
What a fantastic investment for my son's future…
Dear David and team,
Thank you so much for your Easyread course, not to mention the the mentoring, parental assistance and all the encouragement for Cameron. I cannot thank you enough for the amazing transformation in Cameron’s reading ability and confidence. From the first week of lessons we saw progress. For the first time he actually enjoyed reading!
He has so enjoyed the codewords and prizes as these incentives gave him real goals and a sense of achievement for the first time with reading.
It’s also been fun for me and a fantastic investment for my son’s future.
– B
Something has clicked…
Hi – we’ve just completed lesson number 10. Something seems to have clicked with Daniel as he read a whole story fluently and confidently last night which has NEVER happened before. I think it’s the realisation that it can be fun, and that he can do it and feel good about doing it.
– T (Daniel, age 7)
Jumped 6 levels…
Hi Sarah
We will keep working on the eye tracking as it still does need help.Having said that Sam has just jumped 6 reading levels in one go at school so he is really improving!! Yeah!!He even got an award in the assembly for it:-)
– L (Sam, age 6)