Reading Elephant
Helping children reach their reading potential.
Expert readers decode and make meaning so effortlessly they may be fooled to believe reading is natural. Research in both education and neuroscience show unequivocally that reading is not natural, …
Continue Reading about Systematic Phonics & The Brain Science →
Jackie never predicted she'd be a mom of a struggling reader. She remembers the day she waved goodbye to her sociable, friendly five-year old son, Ashton. It was his first day of Kindergarten. He was …
Continue Reading about Mom of a Struggling Reader – Jackie’s Story →
“There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we believe we left without having lived them, those we spent with a favorite book.” –Marcel Proust Children’s books transport …
Continue Reading about Best Read Aloud Children’s Book – Can I Keep Him? →
Fluency is reading speed, the number of words a child reads correctly per minute. A fluent reader can read quickly, automatically and with expression. WHY IS FLUENCY IMPORTANT? Fluency effects …
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The single most pervasive myth about learning how to read is that a struggling reader will eventually “catch on.” In fact, my most common client is a mid-second grade student who cannot read at all. …
Continue Reading about Learning to Read & Dyslexic Students →
When I get a new student, I immediately assess and start to develop his/her phonemic awareness. As I write about how the student is progressing in phonemic awareness, parents often ask perplexed …
English is a difficult language to learn how to read. Not because it’s more sophisticated than other languages. It’s not. All languages are complex. English is uniquely challenging because it is not …
Do you have a student with attention problems? Sometimes apps are a great way to teach those children how to read. Apps take on the burden of entertainment, while an educator can guide the student …
Kids like to be nestled close to mom, dad or another family member and listen to a good story. When reading a book to your child, you are saying, “I love you! I care about your language development. I …
