faq

 We have designed a consulting and training model to teach parents how to help their children in reading. School administrators now have an option to provide effective, supportive and relevant courses to parents for the purpose of improving literacy for students. We provide simple assessment pieces, attendance records, on-going support and scaffolded training to help parents gain confidence and immediately begin to promote change in reading proficiency. Our parent training modules can satisfy Title 1 requirements.

 We believe in the 4 pillars of foundational skills that support reading proficiency. They are: Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Fluency and Vocabulary/ Background Knowledge.  

We systematically and explicitly teach the first two "pillars" through progressively complex levels until the action of reading is automatic. We integrate the second two "pillars" throughout the lessons, building background knowledge, vocabulary and higher level analytical skills. 

Proven research practices and systematic approaches will always guide our instruction. The freedom from a single program offers us flexibility to always make a student's individual needs a priority.

 We base all of our instruction on research in the science of reading.  We don't use sight word practice where students are expected to visually memorize words.  Our definition of a sight word is "any word that is instantly recognized." We use research driven practices that will permanently map words to a student's memory through the use of phonological awareness and phonics training. Our phonics approach is explicit, multi-sensory and systematic.  

We provide and train parents and educators preventative instruction strategies for pre-school - 2nd graders which may avoid widening learning gaps in the later years.  We teach you to prepare young students for the transition to reading-to-learn which is expected in 3rd grade and up.  If a child is taught using the science of reading acquisition early enough, most reading struggles will not develop.

For older students, our systematic assessment and instruction process helps you find and remediate skill gaps leading to automatic decoding and recognition of words. As a result, fluency and reading comprehension improve, as the brain spends less time figuring out words, and the meaning of the text can come to the forefront.

We know reading isn't just about decoding.  To truly read we must comprehend the words that we speak/read.  Our training teaches you to deliver direct instruction in the area of language comprehension.  

 We have studied and researched extensively into the science of reading acquisition, and approaches that work specifically for students with dyslexia.  Some of the researchers who resonate with us are:

David Kilpatrick, PhD (Equipped for Reading Success 2016)

Mark Seidenberg, PhD (Language at the Speed of Sight, 2017) 

Linnea Ehri, PhD (researcher & professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.)  

Sally Shaywitz M.D. (Overcoming Dyslexia, 2005)