Teach your child to read the way your great-great grandmother taught hers.
Easier ... less stress.
I'm Lisa Randolph Diop, founder of HelpRead and creator of the Read-With-Me Rhymes Series.
During COVID, parents helping with schoolwork discovered their children couldn’t read.* Methods to teach reading had changed over the years without sufficient scrutiny.
The result? As much as 68% of fourth-graders can't read their textbooks.** Kids who can't read proficiently by fourth grade are likely to drop out of school.
And now experts are questioning the new curriculum that's supposed to fix everything.*** So the crisis may continue.
But what if when school starts, your child can already read?
I have a roadmap that makes the process clear and simple ... a 14-piece set designed for busy parents. No phonics flash cards. No tedious memorizing for your young child to do.
Sounds like a dream, right? But toddlers learn to read this way every day.
Whenever my mother's brother visited the house my folks rented from our church for $75 a month (yes, I'm probably older than you), he'd grab the sports page and hand it over to me.
He had discovered I could read it to him. I was two years old at the time.
Decades later, after the pandemic, I read about children midway through primary school crying while confessing to their parents they couldn't read. Just heartbreaking. And I thought:
"Why not help them learn to read the way Mom taught me? Why not use video to replicate how she used to point to the words as she read to me?
"Most of all, why not use my voice like she used hers to keep me glued to the pages?
"That was what made me want to know the magic code. Those scribbly things that told her what to say. The words."
Sometimes the simplest actions yield the greatest progress.
The Read-With-Me Rhymes Series
This learning tool is rooted in how my mom enabled me to read the entire 22-volume World Book Encyclopedia by age 4. And to read from our family's set of Great Books by age 5 ... bits of Freud and William James, several Shakespeare plays and more.
Recently, I read the statistic that 40% of children learn to read by being read to ... and without phonics.****
For me, this rings true. I grew up with cousins, playmates and other neighborhood kids who could read at ages 3, 4 and 5. Six-year-olds who started first-grade as readers. By the end, there was nobody I knew of who couldn't read at all ... though there were a couple of guys who stumbled a bit.
Some had parents who went to college ... nurses, government workers, teachers, school officials.
Some were working class like my own parents ... a maid and a warehouseman.
Others were living in rough-and-tumble circumstances, craving books as an escape. (Think Oprah.)
Did we have the distraction of video games back then? Heck, some of us didn't even have a TV at home. Possibly we were more motivated to read than today's children because it was cheap entertainment.
Thankfully, kids still enjoy a good story read aloud ...
... and that can be motivation enough to get them reading early. Ever been to "Storytime" at your local bookstore or library? Then you know it's true.
Thank goodness, since with our underfunded public education systems, the schools truly can't do it all.
HelpRead is here to help. Because when a child becomes an early reader, there's less need to worry about them performing at their grade level. Typically, they'll be working beyond it. Among its many benefits, early reading stimulates interest and skills in the arts, mathematics, the sciences ... and more. It also fosters better behavior and greater maturity. Increases E.Q. as well as I.Q.
Learn more about a method to help a child read ... or an adult ... that's tried and true, and easy on children and busy caregivers.
Volume 1 is a package of 14 items in all. See the list here. Included is an 18-page guide on how to use it effectively.
Volumes 2 and 3 also contain the user's guide, each one an 11-piece set.
You can also download, for free, "40 Ways to Boost Your Child’s IQ from the Womb through Kindergarten." Includes a bonus report, "35 Brain-Boosting Foods for Prenatal Moms, Infants and Kids."
Two free gifts in one. Learn more about the Read-With-Me Rhymes Series and receive your complimentary reports now.
References:
*Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
**"Since Pandemic's Start, 42 States See Rise in Fourth-Graders Below Reading Proficiency https://www.aecf.org/blog/fourth-grade-reading-proficiency-2022
***"The New ‘Science of Reading Movement, Explained” https://www.vox.com; "Proof Points: Controversies Within the Science of Reading” https://hechingerreport.org
****“Cut the Politics: Phonics is the Best Way to Teach Reading” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/11/phonics-schools-students-read-learn/
FREEBIES FOR YOU AND YOURS TO ENJOY:
Rhymes Taylored to Help Kids Read
Bake ‘Em Off (Holiday Cookies)
There’s a New Year Coming
Rake ‘Em Up
Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles
I Am Never Ever Ever Gonna Hate the Weather
Kids Read-Along: The Owl and the Pussycat
Kids Read-Along: Cats and Dogs in Love