Tracking the Reading Progress Over 2 and 3 Year Periods After Completing the Children Learning Reading Program
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On our website here, You've probably seen various videos of young children reading, and you've probably seen some older videos showing my children Raine and Ethan reading words and sentences made up from colorful foam letters at age 2.
Side Note: I get asked quite often about where to get the colorful foam letters, if you're interested, have a look at Amazon.com, and they have lots of options to choose from.
While the initial reading progress results from completing our reading program (usually takes around 12 weeks), are spectacular, what's truly amazing is the incredible reading skills growth LONG AFTER completing our reading program (we teach using a combination of phonemic awareness development along with synthetic phonics training). Have a look at the videos below showing long term progress aftering completing the Children Learning Reading program.
Before I contiue, I have one very interesting study to share with you, that demonstrates the amazing benefits long after completing an initial training period using synthetic phonics - copied from a passage in our reading program Stage 1 book.
"Scottish Executive Education Department published the study results of a 7 year study investigating the effects of teaching synthetic phonics compared to analytic phonics. This study involved 300 children who were taught 20 minutes per day for 16 weeks, using either synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, or a analytic phonics plus phonological awareness program. At the end of the teaching programs, the study found that children who were taught using synthetic phonics were reading around 7 months ahead of the other two analytic phonics groups, and their spelling was 8 to 9 months ahead of the other groups. The synthetic phonics group also read irregular words better than the other groups, and was the only group that could read unfamiliar words by analogy. This study followed the students progress from Primary 1 to the end of Primary 7. At the end of the 7 year study, the children were reading 3.5 years ahead of their chronological age, and an interesting finding of this study found that:
"Word reading was significantly above chronological age throughout the study, but was further ahead of age in Primary 7 than in all previous years. Thus the effects of the initial training programme in Primary 1 were not only maintained until Primary 7, but increased year after year."[6]The benefits of phonics instructions early on is clear, and more importantly, the benefits are additive, increasing year after year. This study found that the gains made in reading increased 6 fold from primary 1 to primary 7, going from 7 months ahead (in primary 1) to 3.5 years ahead after 7 years. Indeed, the effects and benefits of synthetic phonics instruction is enormous."
The above is scientific evidence of the benefits of teaching using synthetic phonics. From my experience, I've discovered that the combination of teaching using synthetic phonics PLUS phonemic awareness produces even better results, and can be used even for very young children - children as young as 2 years old.
Don't get me wrong... my reading program isn't just for little toddlers. It can teach anyone at any age to read (even adults). Most of my students are between the ages of 4 to 7 years old. The only major difference is that older students can complete my program much faster compared to younger students.
The study above provides solid scientific evidence, and I have plenty of anecdotal evidence as well - my children and my students. By the time Raine was 5 years 11 months old, her reading age was 13, and she was reading at a grade 7 level. Ethan is currently 4 years 10 months old, and his reading age is 11, and he reads at a grade 4 level.
Want further proof? Please goto our website here, scroll down a bit and have a look at Success Story #3, which showcases 2 younger students I've taught, and you can see their progress at the completion of my reading program, and then again their amazing progress 5 months later in videos their mom sent me.
Teaching a young child to read does not have to be like pulling teeth. There really is a simple and effective way to accomplish that goal. With our teaching methods of combining phonemic awareness development along with synthetic phonics training, you will have all the tools and support you need to successfully help your child become a fast and fluent reader.
